For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

A blinking nuisance (30.04.13)

It’s that time of year when the tourists start migrating to London. Thousands of them descend on the streets forming long conga-lines each one of them intent on following the leader, but unlike native Londoners they tend to stick rigidly to the designated crossing points in the road.

Those crossing points are the fault of the gloriously named Leslie Hore-Belisha (1st Baron Hore-Belisha, of Devonport in the County of Devon) who in 1934 as Transport Minister was appalled by the statistics that in one year 7,343 died and 231,603 were injured on Britain’s roads.

Soon after being appointed to the post he nearly became a statistic as he used a pedestrian crossing. His brush with death came as he was crossing Camden High Street when a sports car shot up – or was that down? It was two-way then – the street narrowly missing the good Baron. This is not different from today’s Camden High Street except nowadays you have a choice in which car to select to hit you, in 1934 probably only two cars an hour drove up the street.

At the time every vehicle was subject to mandatory speed limits except perversely motor cars, so after his Camden High Street incident he introduced the 30mph speed limit in built up areas to all vehicles. Many said that it was the removal of ‘an Englishman’s freedom of the Highway’ but undeterred he also brought in law mandatory driving tests.

His most visible legacy – which actually is the subject of this post – was the pedestrian crossing with their familiar black and white striped poles surmounted by an orange flashing light, nicknamed at the time ‘Belisha Beacons’, the familiar zebra stripes on the road were only introduced on 31st October 1951.

The most famous of these zebra crossings is at Abbey Road made famous by The Beatles which has been given heritage listing ignoring the fact that the crossing has been moved from its original location. Tourists daily risk life and limb being photographed as frustrated drivers push their way across as the tourists stand in the middle having their picture taken.

Nearly 80 years have passed since Belisha’s blinking invention was introduced and apart from a zebra we have had a few pelican crossings, the occasional panda and now at Oxford Circus one straight from Tokyo the Shibuya crossing with its countdown timers.

Most crossings are still the originals with the stream of tourists patiently holding up traffic as they hesitantly negotiate the West End’s roads. You know they are from out of Town as the locals obstinately refuse to cross at the designated points choosing to jay walk instead.

Two years ago a fellow cabbie put out a question. What are London’s worst crossings? Despite the advances in traffic control the top five – as if they were listed heritage sites – remain as Hore-Belisha would recognise.

5th – Abbey Road. I know I’ve already mentioned this one, but what I can’t understand is why people who weren’t even born when that ‘iconic’ shot was taken want to pose on a crossing when Sir Paul McCartney who lives nearby could be walking past with a bemused look on his face. I often see idiots taking their photos on the crossing further north by Abercorn Place.

4th – St Paul’s Churchyard. Everybody around here seems so terribly polite. But with the exaggerated bonhomie there is always a tourist running across at the last minute. The view of St. Paul’s west door is great though.

3rd – Bow/Russell Street. Situated right by the Royal Opera House and a junction where cabs are constantly trying to turn into the main flow of traffic. The tourists seem to queue up here to jaywalk.

2nd – Endell/Bow Street/Long Acre. Within a few hundred yards of our 3rd placed entry. This one is on the turn of the road that’s littered with rickshaws. It is crying out to be converted into one of those new fanged pelican or is that panda crossings?

1st – Great Marlborough Street. Since the ‘dirty dozen’ was closed off most of Soho has just become a car park. Cabbies turn down Berwick Street and right into Great Marlborough Street to miss the nightmare of the Shibuya diagonal crossing at Oxford Circus. You are then confronted with herds of young women who are leaving the perfume department at Liberty’s and others queuing to get in.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Where are the Centre Point fountains? (16.04.13)

There cannot be many post-war buildings which have stoked up as much controversy as Centre Point. Designed by Richard Seifert this brutalist building was completed in 1966 and at 398ft was the second highest in London.

Controversy did not stop at its uncompromising design as the building remained empty long after its completion. Centre Point’s developer, Harry Hyams, sat on a rising asset as its capital appreciation far outweighed the rental income with the added bonus that the un-let office block did not attract rates.

Nestled at the windy base of this building, caused by the downdraft as the wind hits its upper floors, once stood a blue mosaic-lined pool with five triple-tined Y-shaped fountains.

Operators of these fountains had an idiosyncratic approach to when they should be turned on. On hot summer evenings girls waiting for the Astoria to open would sit on the fountain’s parameter wall staring at an empty pool safe in the knowledge they would remain dry. On windy winter nights, aided by the downdraft from 35 storeys above them, hapless pedestrians walking past would get soaked.

Now where these iconic Grade II listed fountains once stood there is what must be the largest hole in Europe with Centre Point teetering on the precipice as engineers construct a new station for Crossrail. When finished in their place will sit two wonky glassey pyramids which the designers describe as crystal sculptural forms.

The Centre Point fountains were the work of German artist Jupp Dermbach-Mayen who built the fountains at his Swiss Cottage studio in 1963. The Twentieth Century Society claim the planned removal of them was symptomatic of a wider problem of post-war art being separated from its architectural context.

Those infamously-sporadic concrete flower fountains will be missed, though . . .

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

The toughest place to be . . . (09.04.13)

I was contacted last year by the BBC inviting me to apply for the new series of ‘toughest place to be’, in which they planned to take a London cabbie out of his (or her) comfort zone and place them in a city where driving could be best described as challenging.

After reading the e-mail my wife and I speculated upon which city the hapless cabbie would find themselves trying to earn a living. We both concluded that one of the most chaotic cities in the world was Mumbai.

So when the programme was televised recently it was no surprise to find London cabbie Mason McQueen travelling to India’s most populous city.

Mason’s most and mentor was Pradeep Sharma who lives in a tiny two-bedroom house earning less than £10 a day driving his cab.

It wasn’t long before Mason finds driving on some of the busiest and most congested streets in the world. Far worse than London’s, in sweltering heat in a vehicle without air conditioning, he managed to carefully avoid the sacred cows, get his passengers on the side when getting lost and did all this with good humour.

But the most touching part of this documentary was the change in Mason’s perception of life. Starting out by complaining about life in London from his Epping home his first reaction upon seeing the slum where Pradeep and his extended family live is one of horror.

Later he is shown other cabbies who have come from the countryside to make a better life for themselves living in squalor 6-8 in a room sending their money home to a family they see only twice a year.

But the life-changing event is seeing a young mother with her children living under a flyover, sleeping on the central reservation of the busy road as they try to scratch a living by selling homemade brushes.

The documentary showed us how bad we may think our job is, and all London cabbies have those moments, others doing the same job have a much harder time.

At the end of the programme, Mason is seen in a cabbies hut trying to raise money to send back to India.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Cracking Ideas (05.04.13)

Reading recently that the Temperate House at Kew Gardens was to close for maintenance my eyes started to glaze over, that was, until I read that the Grade I listed building is the largest Victorian greenhouse in the world and that they were planning to dismantle the structure pane by pane at a cost of £34.3 million and that the restoration project will not be completed until May 2018. Since opening in 1863 walking through this Victorian gem has been enjoyed by countless people over the years. The purposes of other glass projects have been more opaque.

New Crystal Palace: The pod is designed to provide a unique space for visitors to see modern sculptures whilst enjoying distant views of the city. This design by architect WilkinsonEyre at 150m long looks more like Martian invaders have arrived. The curvilinear glazed structure appears to float above the trees and is powered by photovoltaic cells illuminating the spaceship at night. Access to the interior would have been via the world’s longest travelator. More images of the proposal can be seen here.

Old Crystal Palace: After the Great Exhibition of 1851, it was decided to move the Crystal Palace from Hyde Park and proposals were invited to redesign the building. By far the most imaginative idea came from the architect Charles Burton who proposed stacking the iron frame upwards to fifty storeys. This made Burton the first man ever to suggest building a skyscraper, some 30 years before the Americans claimed the accolade. The reconstructed salvage would have been placed where the Albert Memorial, opposite the Royal Albert Hall, currently sits, and was projected to be a thin obelisk 1128ft tall wobbling up into the Victorian sky.

Crystal Span: The 1960s was a decade of change for teenagers not dressing like their parents, men with long hair, and even the word teenager was relatively new. So into this brave new world stepped a group rejoicing in the name ‘The Glass Age Development Committee’. They proposed building a bridge – The Crystal Span – it was to be 970ft long and 127ft wide. Provision for motor vehicles on its lower deck, while above were to be seven levels comprising shops, an extension to the Tate Gallery, a hotel, skating rink all topped off with a roof garden and an open-air theatre; a modern vision of the medieval London Bridge. That all sounds great except for one small design fault, costing an estimated £109 million at today’s prices it was to be built of – err . . . glass. This piece of blue sky thinking was not their only brainwave. Taking their inspiration from the Crystal Palace with its glazed panels (before it burnt down) the committee had wanted to clean up the shambles that was, and still is, Soho. Thankfully this earlier proposal was also abandoned.
Mind you one of their schemes had some merit, they wanted to demolish Staines and build an entire glass city call Motopia.

Ultimate double glazing: Despite being completed in the late 1890s when the Prince of Wales literally opened Tower Bridge this much loved homage to Victorian twee gothic it wasn’t long before certain mid-century efforts to ‘improve it. W.F.C. Holden thought that the bridge would be greatly improved if it were encased in glass and steel. Unsurprisingly, not many people agreed.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Southbank House (02.04.13)

This Building of the Month is Southbank House an industrial building divided up into units.

When England was at its industrial zenith the shores of the Thames now has the busy Albert Embankment running along its edge. One of the potteries’ most famous products appears regularly on the BBC’s Antique Road Show where delighted owners of Doulton salt glazed stoneware pieces designed by George Tinworth or Hannah Barlow are told to their delight the high value of their possessions.

To meet the demand for hygiene by Victorians John Doulton started making pipes and sanitary ware, but by 1860 had diversified into art pottery and by 1878 had built his charming factory in dazzling terracotta.

Tucked behind the London Fire Brigade’s headquarters standing on the corner of Lambeth High Street and Black Prince Road this Victorian gem, renamed Southbank House, is easily overlooked.

At its peak, 370 artists and 2,000 people worked within its walls, employed making these decorative pieces.

The surviving part of the Doulton pottery factory is a single corner block, most ornate at the corner, where the original entrance once was located. To my mind, this is one of the most excellent examples of terracotta work in London.

A round steeple protrudes from the corner of an Italianate tower. Complex designs in red, pink, and orangeish shades of terracotta encrust this corner, with scrolling, dark blue tiles with flower and semi-abstract patterns, and blue half-spheres.

Above the closed-off corner entrance is a sculptured plaque by the aforementioned George Tinworth of potters and traders at work, signed GT.

The side of the building down Black Prince Road is less ornate but high up are gargoyle-type dragons and some sculptured details – pillars and ideal heads in niches.