London Lives

There’s a new shopping centre on New Change, in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral. It’s nicely done, lots of glass and so on, with all the usual retail suspects there. My optician called the Brunswick Centre ‘Frocks and Food’ and he’d probably say the same about New Change.

The one intriguing thing to me is the jagged reflection of St Paul’s in the glass: Wren’s vision making its presence known.

St Paul's Cathedral reflected in the glass

Over the last few weeks I’ve expanded my living room by looking for other spaces in which to write. This has led me to those apparently unsung heroes: libraries. All the boroughs have a number of libraries, with a couple of larger ones in each of them. You used to have to live or work in the relevant borough to get a membership card, but no more! Now you only need a UK address to join any of them.

I have mentioned earlier the lovely reference libraries and writing spaces at Marylebone, Paddington and Westminster Reference Library (all part of City of Westminster Libraries). Now, I have added City of London Libraries to my list of Spaces. I spent some time at the Guildhall Library, which has a brilliant and extensive specialist collection about the history of London and is a great space in which to write: modernity among so much history. Lovely bookshop too; I bought a postcard of Fleet Street from c1905.

Similarly, the Barbican Library has a splendid London collection and a huge range of books covering hundreds of other subjects. The Barbican itself is intriguing (an iconic 1960s living space and arts centre built on the ruins of the bombed area of Cripplegate). You wander along the Moorgate Highwalk  to get to the arts centre and are entering a special concrete space.

The thing that’s struck me about all the different libraries is just how well-used they are. Westminster’s are busy on Sundays with teenagers doing homework and noodling on laptops. The City’s libraries have a broader range of people there at any given time than I had anticipated. So, you might need to wait for that desk or one of the computers. But this is a good thing, right? These are important public spaces that are being well-used by, well, the public. Long live it. It seems the libraries are not such unsung heroes after all.

I plan to investigate the Bishopsgate Institute next. These spaces are important.

Anyway, it’s nearly Easter. The weather is (inevitably) somewhat blustery and rainy. And the libraries are closed for four days now.

Chilly it may still be, but the skies are brightening up and there was some lovely sunshine to be had today at 12°C.

Trinity Square Gardens, EC3

Trinity Square EC3 is opposite the Tower of London and is the location of  Trinity House (designed by Samuel Wyatt, 1796) and the former Port of London Authority. Trinity Square Gardens (1797; restored 2003)  has a beautiful memorial to the 24,000 merchant seamen lost in two word wars “Who have no grave but the sea”. There is a  memorial pavilion to WWI (by Sir Edward Lutyens)  and the memorial garden to WWII (by Sir Edward Maufe).

These are the Names... Trinity Square Gardens

Huge plaques bear the names of the ships and the men, the writing raised from the surface, tactile and alive, running on and on in huge saddening lists. Every so often  there is a poppy or a small wooden cross left by a loved one next to a name. They are stuck on with blu-tac and flutter poignantly in the faltering spring breeze. Some are faded and have slipped down from the name to which they were affixed. The plaques are separated by beautiful relief sculptures on sea-faring themes and the space is simple, calm and reflective. Really beautifully done. Opposite, the Tower looms and the Thames glitters.

There is something startling about the fact that that these gardens and the plush surrounding buildings cross two of London’s boroughs. The plush buildings are in the City of London, while the park itself is in Tower Hamlets. Here are two very contrasting boroughs (and the City really does contrast with everything around it) and you slip softly from one to another.