Tag Archive: Pimlico

Owning Pimlico Tube Station

Written on January 17, 2012 by in Comedy, The Lost, Transport

Over a Billion Tube journeys were made last year. Many of these were repeat journeys, people taking the same route to work or study and returning back home each day. Most commuters undertaking such journeys will have at least two stations that they know inside out; their starting station and their destination, and of course they will probably also be intimately acquainted with any interchanges too.

I have just one common start and finishing point. I do use Green Park, Oxford Circus, Holborn, London Bridge  and Temple a lot and I know them all pretty well but Pimlico is my home station and  it’s the only one on the network for which I have developed a sense of ownership.

Pimlico Station

Perhaps, because I only have one station to “look after”, rather than the usual two or more, my sense of ownership, being limited in its potential, has become amplified in its expression. Or perhaps as a lifelong non-driver, motor or pedal cyclist I have transferred some of the emotions others vest in their privately owned vehicles to this one little bit of the public transport system.

I am every bit as keen to use Pimlico station effectively as “The Stig” is to take “Gambon” with aplomb. I take the same pride in my tube-craft as Chris Hoy must take in pedalling or Ali took in his ring craft. Mastery of the network and “ownership” of Pimlico station in particular, is important to me.

One of the manifestations of my mastery and ownership Pimlico Station is the way I use its exits. I aim to always do so, perfectly.

I am confident, that as a regular tube user, you will know that appalling, sinking, feeling that envelops you if find that you need to walk any distance at all along a tube platform, either to exit or to change lines.

I know I am mortified if I find that the carriage door I had chosen to enter does not, at least approximately, align with any desired exit at the destination station. In such circumstances, I will stand stock still at the destination until the platform empties before daring to make my “walk of shame”.

“How could I have been so stupid?” “What will all these people think of me?” Am I to be taken as a visitor or newbie?” “What if a fellow guide saw my faux pas; will I be drummed out of the Association?” These are the kinds of thoughts and emotions that I am sure all regular tube users can identify with.

If I find myself directly opposite the entrance to another platform, even if it is that of line I hadn’t intended using, there is an opportunity to limit the damage.

What I do is walk purposefully towards it, hoping that nobody will guess that this is just a cover for underlying basic ineptitude and catch the next incoming train of whatever hue.

So for example I might have meant to change to the Central Line at Oxford Circus. But if I’ve messed things up then I’ll cover my tracks by going to Baker Street on the Bakerloo instead. Obviously I’ll nip out there and  let any potential observers disperse before resuming my original and intended  journey. Believe me I have never misaligned the Central Line exits twice in row when employing this face-saving strategy!

Feelings of guilt, stupidity and fears of public ridicule are hard enough to “get one’s head around” if the station is one you know pretty well but they are almost unbearable if they involve one of your principal stations, or indeed a station that you own. Then there is really no excuse whatsoever for not getting off the train precisely beside the exit.

Owning  just one station I have set myself particularly exacting standards; to be happy I must be inch perfect.

Now the mere casual user of Pimlico, travelling south on the Victoria line, might be content with entering the train somewhere in the second or third carriage, knowing that this will result in them alighting at Pimlico in the rough vicinity of the exit. (There is an app for iPphones that gives such approximate detail for every possible tube journey.)

For me this is a deplorably slovenly approach to take. With very little additional effort one can act like (and very importantly for one’s self-esteem) be acknowledged by others as, a person who has fully mastered any given station.

I have made it my business to learn that when going south, by using the final door of the second carriage I will be positioned, when the time comes to alight, precisely by the exit nearest to the escalators in Pimlico. (It is the first door in the second to last carriage when travelling north by the way.)

At all other Zone 1 Victoria Line stations I have memorised the location on the platform where this second carriage will come to rest and exactly where this final door will open; a time-saving and kudos boosting tip I am happy to share with you all.

So, as soon as the train pulls into Pimlico station, I prepare to leave the carriage. I never stand up too early as this might give the impression that I am not familiar with the route, nor do I leave it too late and risk looking totally incompetent. The ideal I aim for,  is to stand up and walk at a measured pace towards the target door, arrive just as it opens and without even breaking my stride, leave the train with dignity intact and permit myself a slight, smug, smile.

Next, I am always very careful to ensure that I am noticeably not looking at the exit signs.  I need to walk towards the exit with the confidence of a somnambulistic toilet visitor. Sometimes I ostentatiously read a paper just to emphasise the point to onlookers that I for one really do know where I am going and don’t need to look. At other times I might pointedly feign to inspect a message on my mobile phone for similar effect.

If all goes according to plan I will know that in just 31 paces I will have reached the escalator utilising the most supremely economical of routes and I will be able to hold my head high for another day. Life is good.

I have a friend and colleague who lives in Brixton. Sometimes after an event we will travel back along the Victoria Line together. Her priority is a seat and she does not care for my “little game” as she mockingly calls it. So often we end up sitting but we do so right at the rear of the train. This of course, inevitably involves me leaving the train at Pimlico as far away from the exits as it possible to be.

On the subsequent  long, grim, hang-dog walks along the entire length of the southbound platform I naturally blush and sometimes I even have trouble holding back a tear or two. Even when the platform is empty there are always the ever present CCTV cameras and a familiar member of staff might notice me and record my ignominy to show to others or maybe even upload it to You-Tube and shame me globally!

On such occasions I attempt to console myself with the words “Grief is the price we pay for love.”  but that doesn’t always work. Still I know that there is a time for pride and a there is a time for self-sacrifice; I try to respond appropriately.

But I shouldn’t end on a glum note. Almost all of the time my journeys are really slick and professional affairs. I would like to think that by making them so, I have won the respect and admiration of both fellow Pimlico travellers and that great station’s staff alike.

There are of course many other aspects to owning and mastering a tube station. It is essential to know the locations of all possible Metro dispensers & Evening Standard issuers for example. And naturally a complete knowledge of all possible exits and what lies beyond is also a pre-requisite of true ownership. I also have made something of a hobby helping lost people and my work at Pimlico Station in this regard is an ongoing project of which I am especially proud.

But for me the concept of ownership also entails an essential element of responsibility, custodianship if you will. So I try to do my bit to help London Underground operate with maximum efficiency and minimal discourtesy. I am far too busy to do this at every station but I do think my regular “vigilante escalator” work at Pimlico has had a lasting impact and has been genuinely valued by those who have noticed it.

Anyway, I’ll write more about the ownership and mastery of Tube stations and about the art and science of helping the lost at a later date.

In the meantime, if you have your own experiences of either tube station ownership or working with the lost, please do share them here. Maybe you own another part of the transport infrastructure, a bus stop or a Boris Bike rack perhaps? If so, it would be fascinating to learn about your work.  If you prefer you can always email me your stories for anonymous inclusion in future posts.

In between writing bits of nonsense, mostly for his own amusement, the author of this blog really is a fully qualified and insured City of Westminster Tour Guide. He runs unique walking tours in London, see tabs for details.

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RHS Sell Lawrence Hall to Westminster School

Written on December 20, 2011 by in Architecture

The Royal Horticultural Society have just sold a 999 year lease on their beautiful Lawrence Hall to Westminster School for £18 million.

RHS Lawrence Hall (Image by kind permission of Peter Sander)

The magnificent Lawrence Hall will be  familiar  to many people even if they have never visited it. The dramatic Art Deco arched interior featured in Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade when Harrison Ford and Sean Connery escape by Zeppelin from “Berlin Airport”, played by Lawrence Hall. The design of hall was partly inspired by airship hangers so this was very appropriate.
Most recently it was used by BBC One who filmed all those acrobats dangling from the vaulted ceiling and unfurling themselves from yards of red material.  Do you remember the little film they used to show between programmes? Here’s a reminder: BBC One Acrobats Ident.

The Lawrence Hall  is the most impressive of the two RHS Halls. It is Grade 2 Listed and the first building in Britain to use vaulted reinforced concrete parabolas. A contemporary critic wrote “Hitherto walls and roofs of a building counted as two distinct items but here the walls and roof are intermingled and the old distinction between them is obliterated… Concrete has been taught to smile”

It was built by architect John Murray Easton who also designed Loughton Underground station.

The reason for the sell-off? Well, the RHS are looking to put together an “investment fund of £27million which will allow us, over the next five years, to become more accessible and relevant to our members and millions of people in the UK, as well as inspiring a worldwide audience of gardeners.” In addition to the £18 million raised by the sale they are now embarking on a programme of fund-raising for the other £9 million.

They say that “Under this agreement we will continue to use the these facilities for our four wonderful London Flower Shows. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for the RHS as Westminster School is the perfect partner and is committed to continuing to protect the heritage of the building.”

You can read the more details of the planned RHS  investment fund here. I have no idea what the school plan to use it for – any info would be gratefully received.

The author of this blog is a fully qualified and insured City of Westminster Tour Guide. He runs unique walking tours in London, including some on Christmas Day, see tabs for details.

 

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Being In Pimlico Library

Written on October 5, 2011 by in Exhibitions, Paintings

The first UK exhibition by German artist Julia Oschatz is currently running inside the former Pimlico library building. Below is Flat Up There combines work in many different media including the Being a creation from Oschatz’s performance work.

 

The library was relocated to a brand new space within Pimlico Academy last year. The empty building, its fixtures, fittings, shelves and furniture have all been incorporated into a body of new artwork.

I was a regular user of the library when it was still in Rampayne Street. The place was always welcoming, warm and friendly. Of course a lot of that had to do with the staff but what struck me on re-entering this library now turned gallery was how much of the positive atmosphere had been generated by the books themselves.

Here is the circulation desk as it looks now. Once the black shelves acted as host and backdrop to myriad coloured spines of reserved items and volumes bound for other branches, now in their austere emptiness the welcome point is rendered bleak and forbidding.

Books no longer furnish these rooms.

This section use to house fiction. Empty shelving units are now display boards. Even the shelves themselves have been reused to floor part of the former children’s section upstairs.

Aptly, within another part of the children’s section the artist has created a den, using the library’s furniture and old dump bins. This is just the sort of structure I used to love building as a lad.

Within the den, little seats are arranged cinema style.

On the screen the Being goes about its surreal business. It is a sympathetic character and whilst I am not normally enthused by video or performance  art I found myself compelled to sit on one of the tiny chairs and watch the film, all alone, within this roughly constructed space, just  the wind from fans and distant music to distract me.

PALAGKAS.temporary are the gallery behind the exhibition. Commenting on the underlying themes they say:

This installation by the prolific Oschatz represents a new body of work, comprising video, painting and drawing, and will take shape as a cavernous space of cardboard blockades and variable horizons. Whereas before, our assumed viewpoint was aligned with the traditional aspect of the artist, these new works provide us with aerial shots akin to satellite imagery, which flatten and alienate us from an environment we thought we knew. On the other hand, the simulated activity of her performance brings us closer to the varying forms of humanity. In a world such as this, where fields of vision are playfully negotiated, it is the walls that deceive and the array of screens and pictures hung upon them that offer a glimpse of reality.

Had I read this description before visiting I may not have gone along. But, having now visited the once familiar building  in its current incarnation I can appreciate that the artist’s intentions have been fully realised.

The whole space has become an immersive work of art, thought-provoking, alienating, playful and stimulating on many levels.

If you like this sort of thing it is well worth a look, if you don’t think you will like it, why not try it and you may. Many  locals (some wanting to return books) have been surprised and delighted to find this surprising revision of a familiar community focal point.  The entire experience is completely free.

Sadly the gallery is just a temporary one. All sorts of other uses have been mooted from a Tesco’s to a Police Station. Whatever becomes of the building in the future it will have had at least two notable and interesting inhabitants during its history, the library and Palagkas gallery.

This one-off exhibition will run until the 30th October 2011. It is open Tuesday–Sunday 12–7 pm. The old library is in Rampayne Street, London SW1V 2PU, dead opposite Pimlico Tube.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout London, see tabs for details.

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Less is More in Pimlico

Written on July 15, 2011 by in Architecture

Ask any London buff to name a major work by G.E. Street or G.F Watts and I’ll bet within moments you will get the reply “The Royal Courts of Justice and Postman’s Park“. Yet both men share another major example of their work in central London, but it is one that rarely features in the guidebooks and is visited only very rarely.

The church of St James the Less stands on Vauxhall Bridge Road, just a short distance from Pimlico Tube. This month it will celebrate its 150th anniversary, the publicity surrounding this milestone may help to bring it some well-deserved and much needed attention.

The Grade I listed church was built between 1858-61 as a tribute to Dr James Monk, by his daughters. The land, in what was then one of the poorest areas of Westminster, had been donated by Westminster Abbey.  It was referred to at the time as a ‘lily among weeds’ and also ‘one of the most remarkable and beautiful of modern Gothic churches’.

The architect was George Edmund Street, this was his first church in London and he really went to town on the detailing. The interior is a heady mix of polychromatic brickwork, decorative ironwork, ornate stone carving, stained glass and marble columns all set beneath a painted ceiling. It is like walking into a jewel box. The exterior is treated with the same attention to detail. The distinctive campanile style tower is set with semi-precious stones and even the iron railings are rendered as works of art. More details on the architecture from Victorian Web.

But the most distinctive decoration in the church is this work by artist George Frederick Watts.

The glowing image above chancel arch is often referred to (even by Pevsner) as a wall-painting or as a fresco but in fact it is a mosaic. G.F. Watts did complete the work The Saviour in Glory or The Doom as a mural in 1861, it was his very last mural. However the mural quickly deteriorated and it was replaced with a Venetian glass mosaic to the original design, under Watts’ supervision, in the 1880′s.

If you have not visited the church before the upcoming celebratory weekend might be an ideal opportunity to do so. On Sunday, 31 July 2011, it will be 150 years to the day since the consecration of St James the Less Church in 1861. On Saturday 30th, the church is holding a community fete. There will be a variety of different things going on, including food and drink, musical entertainment and children’s activities. On the Sunday there will be a celebratory service, followed by yet more food, drinks and entertainment.

To get an invitation, email Jane Petrie – jane.petrie@sjtl.org, or phone 020 7630 6282. and she will send you an invitation in the post – so do include your postal address. You can also follow updates on their Facebook page.

If you can’t make the weekend celebration, the church is open to visitors everyday between 9am and 1pm, though you may have to ring the bell at the church office.

The church, whilst still very beautiful, is beginning to show its age. A long backlog of repairs and cleaning work is required to return it to full glory. The total cost of restoration and cleaning is estimated at £438, 000 including £16,000 just to clean and conserve the Watts mosaic. In the grand scheme of things this is not a fortune to spend on a Grade I listed masterpiece, if you would like to get involved in the church’s fund-raising do contact them.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

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