I went on a Wren tour organised by Open City, seeing some churches which I should have known, but didn’t, starting with the surviving church tower of St. Dunstan-in-the-East:-

St. Margaret Pattens:-

A detail from the Monument:-

We stopped for coffee at St. Mary Woolnoth:-

St. Michael’s, Paternoster Royal:-

And the tower of St. James Garlickhythe:-

There were more, but I had to peel off.

I have been asked if I am doing any talks about Vanbrugh and the answer is, yes, in particular one for the Georgian Group in late April (https://georgiangroup.org.uk/event-directory/lecture-john-vanbrugh-the-drama-of-architecture/), but also another for the Simonsbath Festival if you happen to be in deepest rural Devon in mid-May (https://www.simonsbathfestival.org.uk/events).

It is is full-on Vanbrugh as I respond to (very helpful) queries from my copy editor. It’s terrible how every time one looks at a text, there are small errors, not helped by word processing introducing its own minor errors, including changes in paragraph indentation and the width of the right-hand margin.

I was going to have to subsidise the costs of obtaining the images by crowd funding, but this is mercifully no longer necessary (mercifully for my friends and readers who I would have asked to contribute).

There was going to be a short, five-minute film asking for money, of which the only survival is an image of me sitting next to Vanbrugh himself (thank you, Adam and Martin):-

You can, of course, instead order the book, out in time for Christmas:-

Another obituary of my nephew Joe.  I knew some of what he did, but certainly not all of it.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2025/02/21/joe-saumarez-smith-bookie-gambler-head-bha-died-obituary/

It was indeed a very memorable event.  Three people speaking from totally different perspectives about St. Anne’s Limehouse.  Hélène Binet who photographed the Hawksmoor churches so beautifully for the Venice Biennale in 2012 – as it turned out at some speed, although one would not guess this from the calm formality of her 4×5 black-and-white compositions.  Owen Hopkins whose book From the Shadows appeared ten years ago and spoke about the alchemy of Hawksmoor: the lime of Limehouse; the coal of the coal tax; the whiteness of the Portland stone.  And Iain Sinclair spoke incredibly memorably of his experience of mowing the grass in the churchyard, the tramps sleeping in the windows, and his sense of the potency and personality of Hawksmoor, the underdog, whose imagination was unleashed by the opportunity to redesign a portion of a new city.

In all the years we’ve driven to Anglesey, we’ve never stopped at Tong, a magical church less than half a mile from Exit 3 of the M54.  In fact, the site of Tong Castle, demolished in 1954, is apparently under the motorway.

The church is remarkable.  Constructed between 1410 and 1430 at the behest of Isabel de Pembrugge who built Tong College in memory of her first husband, Sir Fulke de Pembrugge:-

Inside is a richer array of family Monuments than I remember seeing.

This, starting in the Golden Chapel, is the tomb of Sir Henry and Lady Vernon, Guardian and Treasurer to Arthur, Prince of Wales.  He died in 1515:-

Beyond is the tomb of Sir Thomas Stanley (d.1576) and his wife:-

Beyond them is Sir Richard Vernon and his wife:-

Of course, they’re not very easy to photograph.

It’s a place to go back to.

If you have access to The Times, I recommend my nephew’s obituary:-

https://www.thetimes.com/article/9b5763e1-2c22-41dd-8a2b-614ff647b537?shareToken=b5719e55a322a25a30f712c41a7d9122

On the way out:-

Coming back:-

There is reference in my Comments section to an event this coming Thursday in St. Anne’s, Limehouse. 

If it’s not yet full up, I strongly recommend it as an opportunity to hear Iain Sinclair whose poem Lud Heat published in 1975 inspired Peter Ackroyd’s novel Hawksmoor a decade later and helped feed the cult of Hawksmoor.  He is in conversation with Owen Hopkins, author of From the Shadows: The Architecture and Afterlife of Nicholas Hawksmoor and the photographer, Hélène Binet.  A wonderful line-up.

https://www.careforstannes.org/whats-on

I was luckily able to go to the opening last night of the big exhibition of Leonard McComb’s work at Oriel Môn, just outside Llangefni.

It’s being held at Oriel Môn, because, unbeknownst to me, his mother spent the latter part of her life in Benllech, so Len knew the island well, loved the local landscape and completed two massive drawings of the local rocks which I have not previously seen, although Rock and Sea Anglesey won the Hugh Casson Prize for Drawing in 2005, so was presumably shown in that year’s Summer Exhibition.

What comes across is how visually sensitive he was as an artist, with a slightly visionary undercurrent, and how good he was as a portrait painter.  The NPG have lent both his Self-Portrait, acquired from his estate, and his brilliant portrait of Doris Lessing, a commission.  The Tate have lent Young Woman Holding Duck (1993).

It is the first time his work has been shown in any depth since his death in June 2018.  I don’t think I knew that he had qualified at the Slade as a sculptor having spent a number of years as a graphic artist, going to evening classes at the Manchester School of Art.

His last retrospective was at the Serpentine in 1983.  It’s a good opportunity to see the full range of his work.

This is a portrait of his mother, now in the collection of Manchester Art Gallery:-