I bicycled through Canary Wharf earlier in the week and was struck by how different it feels to the City: much more alive, more restaurants, more street life.  The City has been promoting a view that having turned itself into a less successful, ersatz version of Canary Wharf, the big banks are now desperate to move to the City.  If I were a big bank, I would be cautious of this.  It’s propaganda from the City who seem to have the newspapers on their side.  Maybe their proprietors are freemasons too.

I went for an update on the fundraising for the conservation/restoration of St. Anne’s, Limehouse. 

They are planning an exhibition in the autumn on what they call the Hawksmoor Six – the different strategies adopted by the other six Hawksmoor churches and including documentary material on the Hawksmoor Committee established by Wayland Kennet and his wife, Elizabeth Young, in 1960. 

It should be interesting:-

https://www.careforstannes.org/

I have been reading the new brief history of Sezincote which has just been written by Edward Peake, the current owner of the house.

It’s not straightforward:  first bought by John Cockerell, who had had a career in the Indian army, including the defeat of Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam, and returned to England with a half-Indian, half-Portuguese mistress, Estuarta.  He planned to employ his younger brother, Samuel Pepys Cockerell, to enlarge it, but the work was done by their younger brother, Charles, who made a lot of money in trade in India and was obviously happy to flaunt his nabobbery by commissioning a house in the Indian style.

William Dalrymple gave a talk on the Mughals which ended with an interesting answer to a question which I didn’t hear:  the gist of the answer was that the British have not yet learned to be ashamed of what we did in India, not the answer expected by an audience enjoying the opulence of Anglo-Indian remains.

https://www.sezincote.co.uk/

In leaving Sezincote, I am struck by the lushness of the surrounding countryside – the villages west of Stow-on-the-Wold – Longborough, Upper Slaughter, Upper Swell.  Of course, we have had three months of unremitting rain, but it was still a pleasure to be back in the areas of countryside memorialised by Edith Brill in Cotswold Ways:-

A day spent at Sezincote at the Garden Museum’s annual literary festival: a treat to be able to enjoy the mixture of Indian domes and Gloucestershire countryside:-

Something to do the weekend after next:-

https://mailchi.mp/fad8445518f9/exhibition-5th-6th-july-2024-at-edmund-de-waals-studio?e=9dc0f9b85b

A very nice walking tour this morning of the buildings – actually, more than buildings – on the east side of Green Park, which can be glimpsed through the shrubbery along Queen’s Walk (the Queen being Queen Caroline).  Andrew Jones was the perfect guide.

Lancaster House:-

Bridgewater House (Barry):-

And Spencer House:-

https://www.theoldie.co.uk/article/the-queens-neighbours-the-buildings-of-green-park-by-andrew-jones-lucinda-lambton

I started the day at Philip Mould’s gallery in Pall Mall.  I hadn’t seen the portrait of Charles III by Jonathan Yeo, only online.  In the flesh, it’s both much bigger and more convincing than I had anticipated and the red background frames the face convincingly.  Royal portraiture is a tricky genre, but this is a success:-