Fitzrovia and Soho – January 2025

This was a me day

– or rather it was eventually, as I didn’t get up and out as early as I had expected. After looking for Houdini Henry the cat who had escaped at 3am, I had to get up at 8am to fix up the hole in the fencing where he had managed to get out. I then got involved in sundry cleaning jobs, including doing two lots of washing and running the hoover around. And putting clothes away, which is my least favourite domestic task.

I am Super Grandpa.

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So it’s 1pm and I’m at Woking station. Have just missed a train to London – not that that bothers me because there’s another one in three minutes. What really caught my eye was the fact that the train I just missed was only three carriages long, one of which was first class. It is days like this I really wish we lived in a more egalitarian society. First class train carriages really annoy me.

At Waterloo I get the tube to Warren Street and start my day in earnest.

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Fitzroy Square has to be one of the most beautiful places in London for Georgian houses and has the added advantage of being traffic free. There is so much history and so many contrasts in one small place. Virginia Wolfe lived here for four years between 1907 and 1911 and you can see her blue plaque on the south side of the square;

But for some reason George Bernard Shaw only merits a boring black rectangular notice.

Standing here you can turn your head to your left and see the site of the old Post Office tower, which is due to become a hotel. It is a 1960s icon on the landscape of London and will remain so whatever its use. I was born in 1958 and when I was a boy my father took me on a day trip to see the new building in the morning and then on to see St Pauls in the afternoon. I think he thought it would be a good contrast of new and old. Not long afterwards it was featured in the Dr Who four-parter The War Machines; the team couldn’t resist the idea of putting a mad computer bent on global domination in to the new building, which just shows that AI takeover is not a new theme. As schoolboys a group of us made a pilgrimage to see it in the early 1970s using our red bus rovers which gave us unlimited travel on London buses for 25 pence! Fast forward 35 years and I was leading a major IT project for the NHS and at its completion we were, to my great delight, invited for speeches and a buffet lunch in what was now known as BT Tower. And yes, they did turn on the revolving restaurant. I not only got some spectacular photographs, I also got to video going up in the very fast lift that took you up – I think they said it was the fastest in Europe.

If you stare through the office windows – and nearly all the old buildings are now offices – you will inevitably catch the eye of one of the attractive young men and women who seem to make up the local workforce. I suspect that if you ain’t young and cool you can’t work here.

There is an international presence here as well with, by way of example the Iberian consulate – but its flag is a knockoff version of the American flag of stars and stripes. Unfortunately, it could only afford one star which I suppose tells you about the gulf between the two countries …

The Mozambique high commission now occupies what was formally the home of Robert Cecil, third Marquis of Salisbury and a Victorian era Prime Minister.

Fitzroy Square garden is of course a playground of the rich and the privileged. You can look but you can’t touch. There is however – on the private garden fence – a notice which says that occasionally in the summer, on selected days, the garden may be open to the general public between 12:30 pm and 3 pm. It is also available for private hire. I imagine that whether you are just visiting or hiring you do have to doff your cap before entering.

As is inevitably the case in these areas there are a number of blue plaques relating to people you have never heard of. My favourite example of this is a man who doesn’t just merit a blue plaque but gets a whole statue to himself on the corner of Fitzroy Street and Fitzroy Square. General Francesco de Miranda lived in this area between 1802 and 1810. If you look him up on Wikipedia you’ll find that he was a colourful but ultimately unsuccessful character who would probably have pride of place place in a book about failed revolutionaries.

It was sad to see a boarded up pub on the corner of Grafton Way. I love the old tile work but the pub itself closed several years ago. There is an interesting article on it here.

This must qualify as an iconic shot, but I don’t know what goes on in the building that is in the shadow of the actual BT Tower:

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I did walk past an interesting looking pub and decided to have a half pint of something, as eating my home made egg sandwich in Fitzroy Square had given me a thirst.

The Lore of the Land is owned by Guy Ritchie (he of movie fame such as Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The Gentlemen and Sherlock Holmes). In the bar is the ship’s bell from The Mayflower which a certain pub in Rotherhithe of that name would love to get its hands on …

The landlord (whose name escapes me although he did offer it) is a very “London through and through gent” of Greek family background. His proper stomping ground is Soho. We are contemporaries in age and bemoaned the loss of function that occurs with ageing (in particular drinking).

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So it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon and I’m now on the campus of University College London or UCL as it is more commonly known. I have never realised what a magnificent building was at the heart of the campus –

– but my mission today was not architectural. It was rather more Bizarre. I’m looking for the “body” of Jeremy Bentham and after wandering around, getting lost, and stumbling into a campus kitchen I eventually found it.

One thing about wandering around a university area or university campus that lifts the spirits is seeing all the bright young things and their enthusiasm for life. I’m not sure what the balance between study and social life is, but it doesn’t matter – they are the future – and I just hope they have one.

The rest of my walk was purely indulgent, taking in the wonderful buildings and details doing a bit of people spotting (click on these images if you want to enlarge them):

I particularly enjoyed the crazy musical offering of the Hari Krishna mob just off Soho Square.

Finally, as I am getting low on the important beans, I did end up in one of my favourite haunts, namely the Algerian Coffee Stores in Old Compton Street: