SE3 Blackheath Fireworks Display

Hello people,

Tonight I will be heading over to Blackheath to watch the fireworks. Me and Rosie go every year. It’s always a great atmosphere, and lots of fun. Around 100,000 people are expected to attend, but then, large crowds on the heath are nothing new.

The most famous gathering on the heath happened in 1305 when Watt Tyler led a band of Kentish rebels into London to protest against the King Richard II's high taxes.

The Kings representatives arranged to meet with Watt Tyler and his men in Blackheath, hoping to settle their differences over a café latte and some gluten and diary free cake from the farmers market.

Despite enjoying their cake and the organic bread, Watt and his men were unmoved. They marched into London, and went on a murderous rampage, killing anyone associated with the royal government, and destroying the Savoy Palace. The riots were eventually put down and Watt was beheaded, but the famous meeting is still commemorated in Blackheath by Watt Tyler road - which runs alongside the green near the Hare and Billet pub.

I love everything about the Blackheath fireworks display - the colours, the noises, the crowds, the little stalls selling food, the inevitable pub crawl, the fun fair, and it’s completely free. In my opinion, it’s one of the best things about South East London.

But have you ever stopped to ask yourself why there’s a fireworks display in Blackheath every year? And why it’s always held around the 5^th of November? Well to find out I’ve come to the Houses of Parliament to ask a South-East Londoner who knows a lot about this sort of stuff, my Dad.

Dad has been working in the Palace of Westminster as an electrician for years. During that time wandering through the corridors of power with his screw driver and rawl plugs, he’s pretty much learnt everything there is to know about the history of our great country. So I asked him...

Me “Why do we celebrate the 5^th of November every year?”

Dad “Because it’s your cousins' birthday*?”

Me “Is that why Lewisham Council put on a free firework display on Blackheath Common?”

Dad “No, the fireworks in Blackheath are because of a Yorkshireman called Guy Fawkes."

Me “The actor?”

Dad “That’s Guy Pierce, Guy Fawkes was a Catholic, and an ex-soldier. He had fought in the eighty years war for Catholic Spain against the Protestant Dutch.”

Me “This is going to be long story isn’t it? More than 700 words and my readers will just switch off.”

Dad “I’ll keep it short. Basically he became involved with a small group of English plotters, who planned to assassinate the Protestant King James in 1605.”

Me “Was the plan to shoot him with a firework?”

Dad “No, they decided to kill King James by blowing up the House of Lords after he opened up Parliament. The plotters rented a house next to the House of Lords, and Guy and his mates managed to smuggle the gun powder into the cellar. Guy’s job was to guard the gun powder barrels before the big night."

Me “And did the plan work?”

Dad “No, the palace guards found him in the cellar with 36 barrels of gun powder.”

Me “Ooo, busted. How did he talk his way out of that one?”

Dad “He said he was building a music room for King James, and the barrels were for insulating the walls”

Me “Did it work?”

Dad “No, they knew he was lying. King James already used the cellar as a gym. Guy was sitting on his rowing machine when they caught him. So Guy and his friends were made to confess; and were then executed. And the British people have celebrated the foiling of the gun powder plot ever since, by having parties, making bonfires, and setting off fireworks, ever since.”

Well I can’t say I approve of executing people, or blowing things up, but I do love getting drunk on the heath and writing swear words in the air with sparklers. So I guess at least all that bloodshed wasn’t for nothing.

Blackheath Fireworks Display is tonight at 8pm. I look forward to seeing you there.

*Since writing this I’ve remembered that my cousins Kieran and Sam’s birthday is on the 4^th of November, not the 5^th. Sorry about that, I hate it when people, publish incorrect facts in their blogs.

SE6 The Corbett Estate, Catford

Hello people,

In the early part of the last century, a wealthy man – let’s call him Steve – purchased a small section of South East London from the Abbey of Ghent. The land had two distinguishing features:

1)      a shallow river ran through it, and

2)      it had a large population of wild cats.

Because of this the area became known as ‘Shallow River with lots of cats town.’ Steve loved the location, hated the name. So he paid a consultancy firm to come up with a new one that would be:

1)      shorter,

2)      edgy, and

3)      more likely to attract young professionals to the area.

The name they came up with was Catford, deriving from the Viking word 'ford' meaning shallow-river, and the English word 'cat' meaning cat. Steve loved it, and the name has stuck ever since.

Catford is a wonderful place. The people of South East London are so proud of it, that they erected a large fiberglass statue of a cat in the shopping arcade to honour the district. It is no exaggeration to say that the Catford Cat is probably London’s best known monument, after Monument at Monument, and perhaps Nelsons Column.

Like most children, when I was a small child I believed the Catford Cat would come alive at night and have exciting adventures, but these days I’m not so sure. I’ve been sitting on top of the Catford Cat for almost 7 hours now, and the most exciting thing that’s happened so far is when a drunk man staggered out of the Weatherspoons across the road, and fell into a bush.

However, being this high up does give me a good view of the Corbett Estate; which stretches back to Hither Green. The Corbett Estate was developed by Archibald Corbett between 1885-1911. It’s a fine collection of Victorian houses, churches and parks. Archibald Corbett was a Liberal MP for Glasgow who inherited his father’s successful property development business. He bought the land after the completion of Hither Green Train Station, which meant his tenants could easily get into central London. He was able to get the train company to lower their ticket prices by loaning them £3,400 to build a more convenient entrance.

Torringdon Road SE6 in 1910

The original entrance was a thin beam you had to run across while TFL staff fired a water cannon at you. This led to a travellator you had to run up, followed by a zip wire you slid down over a lake filled with piranhas, and then finally onto your platform.

Archie was a committed temperance reformer, and so he banned the sale of alcohol on the estate.  That’s why there are so few pubs in the estate today. However, Catford has never gone in for all that prohibition nonsense. The Goose on the Green – formerly known as the Black Horse and Harrow – has been getting its punters plastered since the 1700’s. Karl Marx is said to have enjoyed a vodka and coke in their when he was living in London, and just across the road is the Catford Constitutional Club which is a great place to  get a pint of real ale, cider of craft beer.

Now I come to think of it I could really do with a pint, so I’m off.

Now how am I supposed to get down from this giant Cat?


http://catfordconstitutionalclub.com/
http://thecorbettsociety.org.uk/

Dulwich Picture Gallery SE21

Hello People,

Last Sunday I visited the Dulwich Picture Gallery SE21 with Rosie, my beautiful wife. Dulwich is also beautiful, and very wealthy. Because of this, I decided to wear a monocle and top hat so as to not stand out too much. The first thing I saw as we walked through the main gate was group of friends sitting outside the Gallery, sipping Prosecco and playing cards. I nodded to them as we walked past, and they stared at me wide eyed and open mouthed. Maybe the top hat was a bit much.

Dulwich Picture Gallery Garden

Rosie visited the Dulwich Picture Gallery when she was 8 years old, and she was so impressed with it that when she returned home, she told her parents that one day she would work in a museum herself. Rosie works for the British Museum now, keeping the mummies entertained when they come alive at night. Or something like that.

Rose told me all about how the old masters had to create their paints from scratch. Using plants and ground up insects to experiment with colours. So I said, “Why didn’t they just buy the paint from B&Q?”

“Because there was no B&Q” she replied.

“Fascinating”

We walked a little further, and I asked, “Rose, how did the Dulwich Picture Gallery come to exist?”  And this is what she told me.

“The story of Dulwich Picture Gallery is one of passion and chance. It begins with a man called Edward Alleyn – Ned to his friends – who lived from 1566-1626. Ned was one of the greatest stage actors who ever lived. He starred in three plays by Phillip Marlow – it’s believed that Marlow created the parts especially for him. When he retired from acting - at the height of his fame in 1598, Queen Elizabeth is said to have requested he return to the stage. If he was alive today he almost certainly would have had a spell as Doctor Who – he was that good. Sadly we will never get to see old Ned tread the boards, although Ben Affleck did portray him in the film ‘Shakespeare in Love.’ So until we have Red Dwarf style hologram technology, that’ll have to do.

Edward Alleyn

Ned became a rich man, and in 1617 he bought Dulwich Manor, and founded what was to become Dulwich College. When he died, he left all his art-work to the college. Over time the collection steadily grew until 1795, when our story takes a bit of a twist.

In 1790 two London Art dealers, Noel Desenfans and Sir Francis Bourgeouis were commissioned by the King of Poland to form a royal collection. Noel and Francis spent the next five years travelling around Europe buying art, and building a collection that any Polish King would be proud of. Sadly for them, before they could flog their fancy pictures, the King abdicated and left them massively out of pocket. To make things worse, Noel and Francis were very particular about who they sold the collection too. They wanted to be certain the art went to the right home, so in the end they decided to keep, and add to it. In 1807 Noel died, and left all the collection to Francis. In 1811 he died and, on the advice of his friend John Kemble (another famous actor), he left the collection to Dulwich College on the condition that the works were to be displayed in a new gallery constructed by his friend, the famous architect, John Soane .

Francis left £2,000 for the building of the gallery and his widow Margaret donated a further £4,000. Although this was a very generous amount, it was not enough for Soane to build the gallery. Soane cut costs where he could, such as making all his students work on the project for free. And what he produced is considered to be one of the finest examples of gallery architecture in Britain. And so Dulwich picture Gallery was born, and it became the first public art gallery in England.”

Dulwich Picture Gallery

When she had finished speaking, I said,

 “Wow, you know a lot about history. And you laid it all out in such a clear way. So Dulwich is the town that gave art to the masses?”

“That’s right.” she replied.

And with that I threw off my top hat. Grabbed the monocle from my eye, and smashed it on the floor*, they were symbols of an elitism in art that I now know no longer exists, and all thanks to Dulwich. With a little help from a few famous actors, architects and art lovers along the way.

“Why did you do that?” Rose asked.

“Symbolism. Come on Rose, let’s get some Prosecco.”

Come visit the Gallery, to see some masterpieces, or learn to draw for yourself.

http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/

*I had to clean up the glass before leaving the gallery.

SE9 Eltham Palace

Hello People,

Today I have come to Eltham Palace SE9. Regular readers may have noticed this is my second palace in as many weeks, but I can’t help it, I just love palaces. In fact I recently dug a small moat and painted the fence outside the front of my flat royal blue, in homage to the palaces of south east London, but that’s enough about ‘The–Grand-Blue-Palace-in-the-Red-Valley’ Flat at number 26B’, back to Eltham.

For such a seemly ordinary town, Eltham has had some real stars; Boy George, Bob Hope, Frankie Howerd, Christian from EastEnders  - all the greats grew up in Eltham. Kate Bush even lived here for a while too. Legend has it that Kate’s classic song, ‘Running up that Hill’ was written about a Friday night in Eltham. One night she was so hungry, she ran from the Tudor Barn Pub all the way up to the McDonalds on the corner of the hill for a Fillet O’ Fish and a Fanta. The rest was music history.

Eltham Palace was given to King Edward II by the Bishop of Durham in 1305 and it remained a royal residence for the next two centuries. One of its most famous royal residents was Henry VIII who grew up in the palace. I can just imagine a young Henry queuing up to buy his pick ‘n’ mix in the Woolworths halfway up the high street on a Saturday afternoon before heading to the old Well Hall Coronet. It must have been an idyllic childhood.

By all accounts Henry was a dashing young prince in his day, but as we all know, he died a hairy fat bloke with syphilis. Sadly Eltham Palace didn’t age much better.  After the 16^th century it slowly fell into decline and then ruin. It remained that way until the 1930s when the new building was constructed on the existing site, incorporating the Great Hall. It was then that the Courtauld family moved in, and everything changed, for the better,

Stephen Courtauld had cleverly made his fortune at a young age by being born into a wealthy family. After serving in WWI and winning a Military Cross, Stephen –  an enthusiastic mountaineer – decided to climb Mont Blanc in the French Alps. It was there that he met Virginia Nee Peirano, the woman he was to marry.

The Courtaulds

On their return from their honeymoon Clubbing in Faliraki, Stephen and Virginia leased Eltham Palace from the crown commissioners in 1936. They gutted it and filled it with the kind of 1930’s glamour that would have made the Great Gatsby’s house look like a Butlin’s chalet.  

The happy couple shared their new home with Jongy – their pet Lemur. Jongy was loved by Stephen and Virginia so much they installed a pole from his Madagascar-themed bedroom down into the kitchen, and they allowed him to roam the house as he pleased. However, Jongy didn’t get on with everyone that visited the palace. In fact he took such a dislike to one guest he caused the delay of the 1930s British Arctic Expedition (which the Courtaulds had sponsored) by severing the wireless operator’s artery.  When he wasn’t trying to kill arctic explorers he was a good pet, and the three of them seemed to have been a very happy family.

Jongy

The 1930s décor and Jongy’s bedroom are still there for you see, as is the beautiful garden and moat. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon and I recommend you go see it while the sun is still shinning.