My interest was pricked by a statement that the beadles of Burlington Arcade wear the uniform of Lord George Cavendish’s regiment, the tenth Hussars, to find out more about Lord George Cavendish, the early nineteenth-century owner of Burlington House.   There is not much information about him online other than the fact that he was a grandson of the third Earl of Burlington (the architect Earl), son of the fourth Duke of Devonshire, and an MP for Knareborough, Derby and Derbyshire from 1775 to 1831 (61 years).   The admirable volumes of the History of Parliament tell me more.   He was educated in Hackney and Trinity College, Cambridge, an unusual combination for the son of a Duke (where in Hackney, I wonder ?).  A member of Brooks’s and a Whig, he lived mainly at Holker in Lancashire and inherited £700,000 from his uncle Henry in 1810 which enabled him to extend Burlington House and build the Arcade.   His politics were said to be abominable and ‘his manners insolent and neglectful’.

I had the pleasure of meeting representatives of Burlington Arcade’s not-so-new owners today (it was sold in 2010).   Not surprisingly, I’m interested in its history, built as it was alongside Burlington House, as well as its future, since it’s such a prominent part of the local neighbourhood.   It opened in 1819, the original shopping arcade and was progenitor of all those grand arcades in Brussels, Paris, Milan and St. Petersburg.   The architect was Samuel Ware, former student of the Royal Academy Schools, who was also responsible for the new main staircase in Burlington House for its then owner, Lord George Cavendish.   Part of the purpose of the arcade was to stop people throwing rubbish, particularly oyster shells, over the garden wall into the courtyard of Burlington House.   The front entrance was added by Professor Beresford Pite, designer of the cathedral in Kampala, in 1931:

Occasionally in the morning I allow my eye to wander down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace.   In writing a recent article about royal patronage for the forthcoming art issue of Vanity Fair, I found to my embarrassment that I couldn’t remember who was the architect of the main façade.   I guessed correctly that it was by Aston Webb, but got it wrong that it was done in the reign of Edward VII.   It was done in 1913, just before the first world war, as a setting for ceremonial duties for George V to replace the much more Germanic, mid-Victorian front by Edward Blore.   People always think of the twentieth-century monarchy as low key, but it doesn’t look low key to me:

After Honor Clerk had done an exhibition on the Sitwells at the NPG, she planned to do an exhibition on the Nicholsons as a family, including Kit, who was Ben’s younger brother.   Now Dulwich Picture Gallery, in conjunction with Kettle’s Yard, have done an exemplary small exhibition, showing how Ben and Winifred Nicholson reacted to one another:  to the same subjects, developing together, living in Cumberland on Hadrian’s Wall (Howard country), painting the same hillside and the same farm;  befriending William Staite Murray and Christopher Wood;  and then moving down to St. Ives where they were very obviously influenced by the naive style of the self-taught Alfred Wallis.   He was better at still lives, she at portraits.   She comes out of it strongly, not least in the move to Paris and abstraction in the early 1930s.   The exhibition demonstrates very clearly that she was at least as important as Barbara Hepworth in the formation of his art.

I’ve always loved the way that the mausoleum for Sir Francis Bourgeois and Noel Desenfans is integrated into, and central to, the experience of their picture gallery, so that one breaks off from looking at Claude and Poussin and steps into the amber gloom of their burial place.   Soane was already a friend of Bourgeois when Bourgeois died in 1811.   They had both been opponents of Benjamin West as President of the Royal Academy and both were ardent freemasons.   So, the design of the picture gallery and mausoleum was a labour of love, making use of Soane’s deep knowledge and love of Roman funerary buildings:

I spent another happy afternoon pottering about Christopher Ondaatje’s amazing collection of Bloomsburiana and other associated literary material which he houses in remotest Devon.   He has made the collection over the last decade, buying books, including many first editions, and then buying portraits which go with the books.   It’s an odd and very satisfying combination of a visual and intellectual feast, including many wonderfully atmospheric photographs, particularly after a good lunch.

Arriving, as I always do, far too early at Paddington Station for a trip to the west country gave me time to admire, as I seldom do except subliminally, the amazing beauty of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s curving roof, which is more visible after recent renovations (by the PPRA no less).   It’s a most elegant cat’s cradle, originally painted in colours chosen by Owen Jones, using the technology of metal to maximum effect.   The curvacaceous ornamental ironwork at the end of the platform is by Gustave Eiffel:

The roof over platforms 9 to 12, which is now the most visible, was added much later in steel in 1916:

But the experience of waiting for the train to Newquay remains as exciting as it must have been in 1854.

I went back to work today, the same day as the Prime Minister.   I know he has been much criticised for taking two holidays, but I have found two holidays very therapeutic.   So, I returned freshly shorn with a spring in my step which lasted at least up until lunchtime.   Our wonderful Head of our Red Collars said that he did not recognise me which was a trifle unnerving.   Was it the light tan or the haircut or simply that he hadn’t seen me for a few weeks ?   Lunch was at the Wolseley which was fuller than the tube train.   Several people have commented that my last blog about being back in London was a trifle gloomy, but today London was at its best.