Little Gems

[vinteuil]

.

... yesterday a perfect autumn day. We went to the gorgeously-restored Strawberry Hill House, where there is an exhibition 'Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill : Masterpieces from Horace Walpole's Collection' [20 Oct 2018 - 24 Feb 2019]. They have managed to bring together many of the paintings and objects dispersed at the 1842 auction, and painstakingly reassembled them as they would have looked in Walpole's day. The whole place is completely bonkers in the best possible way, and well worth a visit...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV1ql8Tfqcw&feature=youtu.be

.

https://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Hill_House

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Walpole

.

[Serial_Apologist]

.

... yesterday a perfect autumn day. We went to the gorgeously-restored Strawberry Hill House, where there is an exhibition 'Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill : Masterpieces from Horace Walpole's Collection' [20 Oct 2018 - 24 Feb 2019]. They have managed to bring together many of the paintings and objects dispersed at the 1842 auction, and painstakingly reassembled them as they would have looked in Walpole's day. The whole place is completely bonkers in the best possible way, and well worth a visit...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV1ql8Tfqcw&feature=youtu.be

.

https://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Hill_House

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Walpole

.

Indeed, a wonderful place to visit, as mentioned in my #53. Having intended spending only half an hour there as I was to meet up for a concert just down the road, the greatest difficulty I had was in tearing mysedf away from the guides, almost one per room, who had so much of interest to tell one just kept coming up with supplementary questions! I would imagine Strawberry Hill to be a place to return to, as the renovations proceed.

There were no gentlemen on yesterday's walk of two and a half hours' duration through the streets mainly around Camberwell Grove - only myself and six ladies including our very forthright guide! One of the ladies was in a position to provide much additional information, having been born and brought up in the district in the 1950s, and I was reminded of the TV series "The Secret Lives of our Streets", which came up for mention. The biggest surprise for me came in learning that the church of St Giles, just beyond the main shopping area along the Peckham Road, was so-named in its original guise before Giles Gilbert Scott was brought in to re-design the new church after its predecessor burned down. I am always moved whenever these walks attract people of obviously non-British heritage, yesterday's attendees including one of south Asian origin and another from Brazil, who, rather strangely, asked me pointedly, "What attracted you to this walk?" - to which I could only reply, "Well, you being on it"!

[Serial_Apologist]

18th century shops - relics of Deptford, when it was just a village in rural Kent:

Page down this link to the heading, Landmarks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deptford

and click on the pic for enlargement, or on this link to a front view taken by a renovation firm involved in doing up one of the properties:

https://www.ajbuildingslibrary.co.uk/projects/display/id/6517

Not what you might expect to find in central London!