St Anne's Church

St Anne's Church, Soho (via Wikipedia):

Saint Anne's Church in the Soho section of London was consecrated on 21 March 1686 by Bishop Henry Compton as the parish church of the new civil and ecclesiastical parish of St Anne, created from part of the parish of St Martin in the Fields. […]

1677-1799

The parish was dedicated to Saint Anne because Compton had been tutor to Princess Anne before she became Queen. Construction commenced in 1677 on a plot in what was then the countryside of Soho Fields, with William Talman and/or Christopher Wren as architect(s). […]

In 1699 a tuition-free parish school was founded for boys and in 1704 it started to admit girls. […]

1800-1939

The original tower was demolished (though the 1 ton clock bell, cast in 1691 and still in use, was retained) and the new tower's brickwork was completed by 1801, its bell chamber's Portland stonework by March 1803, and its copper cupola by May 1803. The new tower's ground floor room became the parish's vestry room, and later (in the 20th century) a robing room for the clergy, and in the 14 feet (4.3 m) deep brick chamber beneath it are interred the ashes of the novelist Dorothy L Sayers, who was a longtime Churchwarden of the parish and member of the St Anne's Society. […]

1939-present

The whole church was left burned out on the night of 24 September 1940 during the Blitz, it was then rebuilt single handed by the legend that is Dennis "gramps" Stringer. apart from the tower, which was left derelict. […]

Despite the lack of a building at that time, from 1941 to 1958 the St Anne Society under Father Patrick McLaughlin encouraged links between the literary world and the Church of England, with members such as Fr Gilbert Shaw, J. C. Winnington-Ingram, Charles Williams, Agatha Christie, T. S. Eliot, Fr Max Petitpierre, Dom Gregory Dix, Arnold Bennett, C. S. Lewis and the churchwarden Rose Macaulay. […] The Soho Masses Pastoral Council (SMPC), a Roman Catholic community which provides pastoral care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered Catholics, their parents, families and friends, also holds its Masses in the church.

The Freud Museum

Freud Museum (via Wikipedia):

The Freud Museum in London is a museum dedicated to Sigmund Freud, who lived there with his family during the last year of his life. In 1938, after escaping Nazi annexation of Austria he came to London via Paris and stayed for a short while at 39 Elsworthy Road before moving to 20 Maresfield Gardens, where the museum is situated. Although he died a year later in the same house, his daughter Anna Freud continued to stay there until her death in 1982. It was her wish that after her death it be converted into a museum. It was opened to the public in July 1986.

Freud continued to work in London and it was here that he completed his book Moses and Monotheism. He also maintained his practice in this home and saw a number of his patients for analysis. The centerpiece of the museum is the couch brought from Berggasse 19, Vienna on which his patients were asked to say whatever came to their mind without consciously selecting information, named the free association technique by him. […]

The museum organizes research and publication programmes and it has an education service which organises seminars, conferences and educational visits to the museum. The museum is a member of the London Museums of Health & Medicine.

Garden

When Freud wrote "We have it incomparably better than at Berggasse and even than Grinzing", he wasn’t just comparing favourably the spacious rooms with large windows to the dark small apartments in Vienna. Both Sigmund and Anna Freud loved the garden, which is still meticulously maintained, and contains many of the same plants of which Freud was so fond.

The Freud Museum is open to the public Wednesday to Sunday, 12:00 - 17:00.

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St. Mary the Virgin

Originally a Catholic church in the form of a simple barn-like structure erected in 1135, the Anglican church of St. Mary the Virgin is the most charming in the area. The current structure is from c. 1250 and there is a Tudor font dating from 1495.

My Open House. St Mary’s Perivale by Mike Paterson (via London Historians' Blog):

Surrounded by swanky Ealing Golf Course and a less-swanky Premier Inn, it sits south west of the Hoover Building, separated from the Art Deco masterpiece by the Western Avenue. Before reaching the church you see its pretty lych gate (sponsored by the widow of John Boosey of Boosey & Hawkes, who is buried outside the church).

Unless you knew it were here, you would never see it. I was unaware it existed until someone told me a few months ago. Although used for classical music concerts, it has not held services since the early 1970s, although it remains consecrated.

St Mary's Perivale.

Stone of Free Speech

The 'Stone of Free Speech' is an object of uncertain origin and purpose. Said to be at least 200 years old, it has been described variously as a historic focal point for political and religious debate, North London equivalent of Speakers Corner or simply a waymarker post, it certainly continues to attract attention.

From the now sadly defunct blog London - One Foot Up, One Foot Down:

I had passed the stone on a previous day, quite unintentionally, so was unable to re-trace my steps. But Roscoe, the walking-talking GPS in this twosome, had his eye on a triangle of grass situated between two lakes.

Discovery! We see the stone monument surrounded by young people and walk up to make sure we have the right site. I want a photo, so ask permission of the group sitting there. "Sure," says one young woman. "Do you know what this is? Some people call it the Stone of Free Speech, but we call it The Great Tampon."

The DollHouse

Bishopsgate bathhouse frolics (via Spitalfields Life):

This extravagant domed orientalist edifice topped by the crescent moon is what you see above ground in the churchyard of St Botolph’s Bishopsgate, but it is the mere portal to a secret subterranean world beneath your feet. These Turkish baths were built in 1895 by Henry and James Forde Neville, and clad with dazzling ceramic tiles worthy of the Alhambra – manufactured in Egypt in the Turkish style and shipped over. As you descend the spiral staircase inside, note the ceramic motif of the hand of Fatima raised in blessing. […]

The club promises a gin-soaked evening and I’ve no doubt that getting tanked is the best way to enter into the spirit of things. So that next day you wake, as I did this morning, with just a partial memory of the night before – recalling only images of glittery burlesque showgirls worthy of Walter Sickert.

Sadly, the nightclub is now closed and this curious little building is once more locked up.

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The Gravestone of George Edward Doney

George Edward Doney is believed to have been born around 1758 in Gambia. He was transported to Virginia as a young boy and sold into slavery. He is believed to have come to Watford in around 1765 as a servant for the Earl of Essex and the Capel family and was based at Cassiobury House. He achieved respect and status at Cassiobury House and was included in a painting of Cassiobury Park in around 1748.

An unfinished painting from c.1809, 'Harvest Home', painted by J.M.W. Turner on his second visit to Cassiobury, depicts a black servant at a harvest dinner in one of the barns at Cassiobury House. Black figures have featured in many Western paintings, but were typically shown at the edge of the canvas as peripheral, subordinate characters; Turner's positioning of the servant in the main group of people is thought to indicate that this was a high-ranking servant in the Cassiobury household, and it is likely that this is Doney himself.

Records at St Marys Church, Watford show he was baptised there on 1st August 1774. Doney died a free man in 1809, two years after the British abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. He was buried St Marys and a mark of the high regard The Earl of Essex had for him can be seen in the handsome headstone complete with original poetical epigraph which was erected in the churchyard. The gravestone still stands today and was given Grade II listed status in 2008.

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