Notre Dame

To London a few days ago to hear a talk by a Polish architectural history person about how Notre Dame (the one in Paris) is getting on after the fire of 2019. I had assumed that Dr. Alexandra Gajewski was a Pole, but checking today I find that she (and quite a lot of other people with the same name) has plenty of pages on the Internet, and that she studied Art History, Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology at Münster University, Germany and obtained her PhD at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, on Gothic architecture in northern Burgundy. But all the places where I looked were coy about her date and place of birth!

The day started with knocking off trolley 500, as noticed at reference 3. One celebration down and one to go. And I am pleased to be able to report that the two long dead trees outside Wetherspoons, expensively planted by Civic Trees about three years ago, noticed at reference 4, have now been replanted by the same team. The chap doing the work said that he thought there had been a problem with drains, not unlikely since I think Epsom High Street runs along a spring line, but that just to be on the safe side, the replacements were not quite the same as the ones which died, and should do better. Let's hope that he is right.

From Vauxhall to Rochester Row in good time, so I thought to take a look at the large 19th church there, St. Stephen's of reference 6, happily open for a mother and baby group in one corner of this great barn of a place. Which must have had money at one point to splash out on a good quality piano, as noticed at reference 5.

And while it may have been a great barn of a place, it had some expensive trim and I suspect it of having, at least once, been rather High Church. While I learn today from reference 6 that it was paid for with banking money by a maiden lady, Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts, who was both the daughter of a radical M.P. and the granddaughter of Coutts the banker. Built in what was a slum area on land donated by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey, the place to which I was headed for my talk about Notre Dame. I suppose these days she might have given her money to the RSPB or to a donkey sanctuary.

More trim.

Expensive joinery.

A less expensive corner, complete with repurposed soup bowl from a Chinese restaurant.

A memorial by the porch, (1a) on the diagram at the end of reference 6b. 

To a Dr. William Brown who died in France in 1855 and to his wife Hannah who died in 1878, sometime governess and companion to the founder. Perhaps he was a divine rather than a medical man and perhaps she was companion after she was widowed.

The top of the spire is a modern replica, installed in 1994, polycarbonate on a steel frame. Most of the masonry is Bargate ragstone, while the trim is Morpeth sandstone.

From there into Strutton Ground from where, towards the end of my working career, I used to buy my daily bread - much better small white bloomers than I can now buy in Epsom. While now, what is left of the street market is mostly street food. And what I had once known as a real, old-fashioned baker, having more recently been more a sandwich place, is now a branch of 'Bonne Bouche'. From a glance at reference 7, I don't suppose that their white bloomers are up to much, even supposing them to sell such.

Proper evidence of Peabody activity. Not sure that memory had got it right on the Stonehenge expedition previously noticed at reference 8. Old Pye Street being one of the curiously named streets in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey.

From there into the Abbey, where my talk was to be given in a meeting room somewhere behind the cloisters. Introduced by the Dean himself, who struck me as a rather scholarly sort of chap, not much like the chief executive of big tourist attraction at all. But for me, that is it as it should be: by way of comparison I like the boss of Wisley to be a serious gardener, horticulturalist even, rather than a refugee from the world of travel and tourism. Introduced the talk in glowing terms and then excused himself on the grounds that he had already heard it, this being its second outing of the day.

We learned that the spire and the timber and lead part of the roof had been lost, but most of the inner vault had survived, just losing the central vault over the transept and a couple of others, brought down by the weight of debris from above. The spire was a 19th century replacement, but the rest was old - although not original - rather a 12th century rebuilding, recycling a lot of the materials from what had gone before.

Macron want to do something modern on top of the vaulting, what he called a modern gesture, going so far as to have an architectural competition about what that gesture might be. But the heritage team fought back and eventually carried the day for timber and lead replacement, more or less identical to what had burned - rather than replication using modern materials like steel and concrete - for which there was precedent. The only concession they made was to settle for factory prepared timber, rather than having it hand sawn by costumed sawyers using ancient tools. It seems that supply of suitable carpenters and stonemasons was an issue.

Another issue was tax. Hidalgo, the controversial mayor noticed in these pages at the end of reference 10, having made a substantial contribution to the rebuild from Parisian funds, also wanted to levy the tax on the reconstruction site, a regular part of the French tax system, for which see reference 9 and ask for construction. This caused a great stink and she had to back down. Now while it might seem silly to tax charitable endeavours, I associated to the UK nonsense of fancy public schools for the rich - places like Eton - being organised as charities and getting all kinds of tax breaks. Or the slightly less nonsensical charging of VAT in the cafeterias and shops which are part of the National Trust world. Hard to get all this right.

But the work on the cathedral cracks on, the building is now secure and the reroofing is about to start, or is perhaps now under way.

All in all an interesting talk, if a little light weight, perhaps with the older, mixed audience (of Abbey lovers) in mind. Not that far removed from what you might get on a golden spade programme on television.

Outside to admire a Korean or Japanese wedding couple, trying a rather silly looking coach for size. I learned that you can drive such a coach backwards, albeit slowly.

Decided to go home via Clapham Junction and the Duchess Belle, previously noticed. Which turned out to be more or less opposite the new Battersea Power Station tube station, from where I thought the Power Station looked rather well - despite what I have thought on various occasions from the train. And hoping that the view you get now is not about to be occupied by another raft of tower blocks.

On the way, a blue flashing light outside the Security Service building, but it turned out to be nothing more exciting than a scooter being pulled over for something or other. Of greater note, one of those very large, jib-stayed mobile cranes on a site near the new US embassy. One supposes on crane erection duties, but it was not convenient to stop and take a look.

The Duchess was tricked out in large numbers of plastic flowers, seemingly the latest thing in interior decoration for pubs, bars and restaurants, with quite a lot of it to be seen in central London. There were also quite a lot of screens for sport and there was quite a lot of noise. And I was firmly told that bacon rolls were a breakfast item and that they had stopped serving breakfasts hours ago.

But I was allowed some cheese flavoured chips. Fresh and entirely eatable, if not in the same league as the poutine from Quebec - the name of which I had forgotten since 2014 and I had to look it up.

All run single handed by a neat waitress, possibly Spanish, who bustled about very efficiently. A girl who knew her business - all men as it happened, some locals, some from neighbouring construction sites.

One of the rivals to the Bullingdons, parked up outside the Grant Road entrance to Clapham Junction. By which time I had paid a visit to Battersea Food & Wine in Falcon Road, stocking up with various odds and ends. For me, a useful shop, where one can always get something a bit out of our usual way.

Stopped off at the Half Way House at Earlsfield for a little something. After which, after eying up a large hoarding advertising Sony computer games, the platform welfare operative explained to me that his wife was into Sony while he was more of an X-box man. To which the best that I could do was explain that my younger son had once been a wow at Mario Cars - a game which I believe has moved on several editions since his days of glory.

The haul from Clapham Junction. Sausage noticed at reference 1. Excellent dates from Palestine. Not sure what the label 'medium' was about, they looked quite large to me. Figs, I think from Cyprus. Softer with a slightly winey taste compared with those we usually buy. Good for special occasion, but perhaps not for regular consumption. Some Turkish Delight, picked out pot-luck from a great variety, but which went down very well. Down BH that is, as I don't much care for it. Some excellent flattish bread: a reliable and rather good variety of our own white bread. It would be very good for fried egg or bacon sandwiches, although we did not get that far on this occasion.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/kosova-suxhuk.html.

Reference 2: http://www.proyectos.cchs.csic.es/womenasmakers/content/alexandra-gajewski.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-500.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/trolley-319.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/piano.html. Page name confusion due to clerical error. Really piano 54.

Reference 6a: http://www.sswsj.org/.

Reference 6b: http://www.sswsj.org/uploads/5/2/6/5/52650525/a_guide_to_the_church_building.pdf. A handy history.

Reference 7: https://www.bonnebouche.co.uk/.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/to-stones.html.

Reference 9a: Overview of the French Tax System - Public Finances Directorate General: Tax Policy Directorate: Bureau A - 2016. 85 reasonably accessible pages of it, plus appendices.

Reference 9b: https://www.impots.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/media/1_metier/5_international/french_tax_system.pdf.

Reference 10: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/belfast.html.