I am launching a new venture in September 2021, Artistic Walks that look at London’s artistic and literary connections. I hope this will be the start of an occasional series of face-to-face events over the coming year. I have guided walks for the Oscar Wilde Society and the Victorian Society previously. Please contact me, anne.anderson99@talk21.com, if you would like to arrange a guided walk for your group. Minimum number 10 persons. Cost £15 per person.
Other London Walks:
Artistic Chelsea: from Glebe Place to Cheyne Walk.
Artistic Chelsea: the Embankment and Tite Street
Artistic London: from Sloane Square to Harrods
Join me on this walk which will take us from John Dando Sedding’s magnificent Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street, known as the ‘Cathedral of the Arts and Crafts’ thanks to its rich fittings by Henry Wilson and stained glass by Morris & Co. and Christopher Whall, to Harrod’s Food Hall, an Art Nouveau masterpiece.
On the way we will pass through the heart of Victorian ‘Queen Anne style’ London, the name given to a new style of architecture devised by Richard Norman Shaw and JJ Stevenson. Cadogan Square and Pont Street boast the finest examples. The area is rich in artistic and literary associations. Mortimer Menpes, the godfather of Wilde’s second child Vyvyen, created an extraordinary studio-house, filled with Japanese objets d’art at 25 Cadogan Gardens.
The Cadogan Hotel, which stands on the corner of Pont Street and Sloane Street, absorbed Lillie Langtry’s townhouse. This was also where Oscar Wilde was arrested, in Room 118. As we near the end of the walk, a slight detour to Hans Street takes us past an early project by the famed Arts and Crafts architect C F A Voysey. The walk ends, in of all places, in Harrod’s Food Hall to view the Doulton tiles devised by William James Neatby, surely the finest Art Nouveau ensemble in England.
Please note the houses can only be viewed from the outside. The walk takes approximately an hour and a half.
Anne Anderson 