Life Around Brunswick and Mecklenburgh Squares

Brunswick  and Mecklenburgh Squares are two of more than 440 ‘squares’ in London. They lie just east of Russell Square tube station in Bloomsbury, Borough of Camden, enlivened by cinema buffs, university staff and students, shoppers, and museum-goers.

London Squares: Foci of Nature and Leisure in the British Capital
The squares of London are renowned in making the city one of the greenest in the world. Often one city block in size, their variation in historical importance and surrounding ambience make these parks destinations in and of themselves.

Brunswick and Mecklenburgh Squares were established simultaneously between 1796 and 1799 as open spaces about 1 hectare each, adjacent to and for use by the Foundling Hospital, a hospice for abandoned children established by Thomas Coram in 1752. The three successor institutions to the Hospital — Coram’s Fields, Coram charity, and The Foundling Museum — now lie between the two squares, and a memorial statue of Coram stands in front of the Museum.

The squares’ names come from the British monarch at the time, King George III, who was also Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (House of Hanover, Germany), and his wife, Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. One street feeding into Mecklenburgh Square is named ‘Caroline’ after the wife of King George II, Margravine Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach. A known sympathizer for Coram’s cause, she may have prodded her husband to charter the Foundling Hospital — after two decades of fruitless campaigning by Coram.

Brunswick Square: Foundling Museum, University of London, and Renoir Cinema
This public park houses at least five magnificent London plane trees (Platanus hispanica, or P. acerifolia), one given “Great Tree” status. Also known as sycamore trees, they are disliked by many people because they are planted so ubiquitously in the capital, being especially resistant to smog. They also tend to lift up adjacent pedestrian pavements. But they reach majestic heights and spreads and glow in golden colour in autumn.

Camden refurbished Brunswick Square, re-creating the 18th-century ambience. Iron railings which had been taken for raw materials during the Second World War were replaced, and new paths and park furniture were provided together with tree and landscape improvements. Mothers with children in pushchairs gather along with office workers, students and shoppers to eat lunch under the towering plane trees and enjoy these comfortable new facilities.

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The commercial jewel of the neighbourhood is a cinema, formerly called the Renoir but after renovation was renamed Curzon Bloomsbury. It is one of several Curzon art-houses in London, all renowned for their excellent international and avant-garde offerings. The cinema is built into The Brunswick, a shopping mall on the eastern side of Brunswick Square.

Mecklenburgh Square: Goodenough College
This square is a mirror image of Brunswick Square, on the eastern side of Coram’s Fields. Covering two acres, it was laid out as a formal garden between 1810 and 1812 by Samuel Pepys Cockerell and Joseph Kay. It is noted for its New Zealand plantings, and because it retains most of its original features, English Heritage has designated it a Grade II listed garden.

Though established in concert with Brunswick, it has evolved into a private London Square accessible only by key. The grounds contain tennis courts, playground and barbecue area and a wide open space, all enclosed by a thick hedge. Many of these private squares become public during an annual Open Garden Squares Weekend in June organized by the London Parks & Gardens Trust.

Mecklenburgh Square hosts Goodenough College, an independent educational charity for international postgraduates studying in London. Established in 1930, it now has 650 residents. Add that number to International Hall’s 860 students in Brunswick Square, one would expect the Squares to be overrun with students — but no, education has a quiet presence here.

William Goodenough House and London House of Goodenough College stand on the north and south sides of Mecklenburgh Square. London House, designed by Sir Herbert Baker, is a neo-Georgian Grade II Listed Building available for conferences and events; its internal courtyard garden may be visited during Open Garden Squares Weekend.

Famous Residents: Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Syed Ahmed Kahn, Dorothy Sayers
These two squares were home to the literary and scholarly set. In Jane Austen’s novel Emma (1816), much is made of the fact that Emma’s sister and husband resided in Brunswick Square, described as “leafy”. An 1882 map of the area (Middlesex 1:10,560) shows solid architecture surrounding three sides of the square, perhaps presenting a façade resembling Bloomsbury Square in a 1787 print. However, no private houses survive on the square due to substantial bombing during World War II, thus, for the 2009 BBC TV series based on Emma, a Georgian house in Fitzroy Square was chosen to represent the Knightley home. The literary heritage continued with Virginia Woolf, resident at 38 Brunswick Square for five or six years from 1911 and at 37 Mecklenburgh Square in 1939-40. E.M. Forster lived at Brunswick Square ca. 1925-1940.

Mecklenburgh Square also housed famous 19th century scholar, historian and social reformer Syed Ahmed Kahn at No. 21 during his studies in London; he returned to India and founded Muslim University in Aligarh in 1875. Hilda Doolittle, American poet and writer, and her novelist husband Richard Aldington were at No. 44. Dorothy Sayers also lived at No. 44 from 1918 to 1921.

More Hanging Gardens, this time in Madrid!

In Madrid near the Prado Museum we saw this enormous hanging wall garden. Given how much biomass one often removes seasonally from one's own horizontal garden, this stuff must weigh a ton. It seemed to be growing in a wall of fiberglass with little pockets for the plants. Irrigating it all must also have been a challenge.

Hanging wall garden on 6-story building, Paseo del Prado, Madrid

Compare with my previous photos of wall gardens in London at:

Edwardian experience in Edgware Road station

Sunday brunch at St Ali

And as for the latter, I had to make a special trip to St Ali just for coffee (great coffee!) a few days after my return from Spain, I missed strong Spanish coffee so much...

Spring has sprung – maybe

It was heart-warming walking through Durham yesterday. Partly cloudy, no wind and 13° (54°F). Doesn't that sound like spring? And flowers were up in at least two well-tended gardens I passed: heather, snowdrops,  crocus, hellebore, primula and primroses. But I always like best the carpets of crocus, like this one under the tree in front of Durham University Library. These are smaller and more slender than the usual round-leaved cup-shaped crocus blooms, and they were open in cloudy weather. See how they are straining towards the east at 11.30am!
Regular crocus don't open unless in bright sunshine.

Crocus vernus photo by JR Crellin
www.floralimages.co.uk
Creative Commons Licence

The ones under the tree looked like the wild form, similar to Crocus vernus (right). They are so much more delicate and subtle than the strong yellows and purples of the domesticates. Apparently there are 80 species of crocus, so you have a wide variety to choose from in naturalizing them in your grass. But then be careful not to cut the grass too soon after they finish flowering. English lawns often have a patch of long grass well into early summer, and you wonder why it wasn't cut until you realize it is a crocus or daffodil bed!

Welcome, oh herald of spring! (as the Dutch say)

My crocus on a sunny day

   

Sunday Brunch at St. ALi (now Workshop Coffee)

STOP PRESS! St. ALi has been renamed Workshop Coffee, due to its new management and independence from the Melbourne shop. Far less lyrical, I think...

Now Redundant: St. ALi. No, your eyes do not deceive. There is a full stop (period) after the 'sint'* and the L is capitalized in ALi – at least on their website it is. These are two clues that it is not English: in fact, it is an offspring of a coffeebar of the same name in South Melbourne, Australia, and the name was chosen to honor the Sufi mystic Ali ibn Umar al-Shadhili.

We heard of it through Aussie friends and immediately went out for Sunday brunch. Crowded! The queue didn't let up until 3pm, though we got a table at 2.35 after waiting 10 minutes or so. It calls itself a coffeebar and cafe, having recently opened in April 2011 and only doing business 7am~6pm seven days a week. Apparently they will be starting a dinner service soon.

The central coffee bar at St. ALi, with tables on two floors,
some available for reservation during weekdays

Already St. ALi has been named a runner-up in the Allegra Coffee Symposium awards (2011) as one of the best independent cafes in Europe, despite its Aussie affiliation. The reviews for the Melbourne branch are increasingly disillusioned, but this one, near the intersection of Clerkenwell Road and St John Street, is really flying: listed high in the Independent "Best British Breakfasts", and called "a great day-time cafe" by TimeOut magazine.

We were very impressed with the service: quick and compassionate. The food was imaginative and tasty, and the interior of the cafe was fascinating. In the back stands their own coffee bean roaster, so all the coffee you drink there has been roasted on site, hopefully very recently. The wall behind the roaster has been made into a vertical garden, much like the one I reported on for Edgware Road Station.** This one, however, is inside and includes a water moat and water-loving plants such as ferns. Very lush and supposedly pumping out good oxygen for us.

Despite the change of name noted above, the coffee is still spectacular and the food delicious...

* as discussed in my blog on St Bart's.
** see also the hanging garden in Madrid!

Runner beans, are they or are they not?

It's time to think of planting a garden this summer! But what varieties? Above are the "runner beans" planted by my sister in the States. I was there at harvest time and took these pics of the bean pods (left, curved, 5-7 inches in length) with the beans clearly showing, and the black* and white beans that had already been shelled. The beans were productive, but they were not the runner beans I know from England.

English runner beans are long (ca. 10 inches), straight, and bean-less. It's the pods that are eaten: boiled or steamed al dente, the pods are absolutely delicious – one of our most favourite vegetables and available only in the winter after harvest.

Curious about the difference, I first investigated the English runners: I went to Homebase to see what they were selling for planting this spring: runner bean varieties Armstrong, Polestar, Prizewinner, White Lady and Scarlet Emperor. Then I went to the UK Suttons Seeds website and found that their catalog has 41 entries under "runner beans", and most of the pictures look like the English version, whatever the variety.

So why are American runner beans different? What is their variety? All runner beans here and there are of the species Phaseolus coccineus, so the variety is really important. How can the English varieties be bought there? So sad to think that most Americans might not have tasted the most exquisite vegetable of England.

The American Burpee Seed catalog DOES have the runner bean variety Painted Lady in their Heirlooms category, but they market it as an ornamental. If you let the pods mature, it says they have "pinkish-brown streaked beans" – nothing like the blackish and white beans shown above. In the corner of the Suttons Painted Lady marketing picture, you can see a serving suggestion of the cut pods and unformed beans. So Painted Lady must be the best choice for having English runner beans in America. Order from Burpees!

* actually dark lavender with black mottles

The green, green grass of England, and its sheep

Well, it's been a good New Year's holiday: too busy to write. But today, as things wind down and the sun finally comes out, I did some gardening and discovered blooming primroses, forsythia, California poppies, and quince! The bulbs I reported on a month ago are even taller and more populous: crocus, dwarf iris and dwarf daffs are all pushing through the soil. Warm winters are enjoyable, but they won't kill the creepy crawlies that are bound to bug us later in the year.

One of the things that struck me about England upon first arrival was how green it was in January! Back home, at least the grass turns brown in the winter, but here, green fields contrast against bare trees. I knew Ireland was called the Emerald Isle, but I was unprepared for the English greenery, which really lifts the spirits in the dead of winter.


Of course, the reason for the green is that much of the land is pasture for the sheep, so the grass grows luxuriantly. Apparently 2011 was a "bumper year in the sheep industry"says the chairman of the British Wool Marketing Board. But he also says that the higher price of wool has forced manufacturers into blends. It is rather difficult to find clothes of pure new wool, unless one shops at EWM (Edinburgh Woolen Mill) stores. Shopping in the Christmas sales for wool sweaters elsewhere (because EWM has really retrograde designs), I couldn't find a 100% wool sweater. Lots of blends, made in China: what looks like a Fair Isle sweater (jumper) is made of 30% acrylic, 30% cotton, 30% nylon, and 10% wool. According to the chairman above, China has a strong demand for British wool, but look what they do to it in return!

Edwardian experience in Edgware Road station, London

The Edgware Road station of the Bakerloo Line takes one back in time to the early 1900s. It has the iconic facade of several of the London underground stations: arched entryways faced in red tiles, designed by Leslie Green. While Londoners and visitors are well acquainted with these outer facades, I was astonished recently to pay my first visit to Edgware Road station and find that the interior of this one is virtually unchanged from its inception in 1907.

Tile-surround ticket windows of the Edgware Road station,
Bakerloo Line

The ticket windows are surrounded by moulded curved green tiles, complementing the red exterior. Since Green was responsible for the outer appearances of the original stations, and since Russell Square station still retains his geometric tile pattern on the platform walls, I assume the Edgware windows are of his conception as well. The overhanging ticket booth lights follow the curvatures of the windows and give the station an elegance unseen in modernized ticket halls.

Edgware Road station wall, Bakerloo Line, London
(colours saturated for effect)

The Edgware Road station used to be buttressed by a series of shops to the south, but these were destroyed to build the Marylebone Flyover. With nothing on its south side now but an empty space, landscape artists have taken a hand in adding value and decoration to a corner of the urban jungle. The station wall now sports a vertical garden of many different climbing plants, softening the racket of the passing traffic.

One of the reasons traffic is so bad in London (despite the Congestion Charge areas) is that more elevated highways are not allowed. When one visits this corner of Edgware Road and the Marylebone Flyover, sympathy flows for this decision. We will continue to drive gratefully along the city streets, taking two hours sometimes to get out of London, as we remember this corner and that decision.

Bulbs already sprouting in December!

Bulbs* sprouting in December

My spring bulbs are pushing up through the ground! Most are only an inch high, but two daffodil bulbs have leaves 7 and 5 inches high. What will happen to them through the hard winter we are supposed to have?

Caught out by deep snow in the past two years, we finally bought a snow shovel (less back-breaking than using a short coal shovel to do the walks). But we noticed here that few people ever do shovel their walks. Maybe because snow has been so uncommon in the past? Maybe because this is not as a litigious society as America? Maybe because with the NHS, people don't have to worry about Health Insurance paying for broken legs?

The growing bulbs go along with the idea that the global temperature is in a warming trend. Scientifically, this in indisputable, and I'm glad to see that one of the foremost Climate Change skeptics – Richard Muller, Professor of Physics at University of California Berkeley – has redone the analyses of temperature and found that they are indeed correct. So he is not a skeptic anymore but a convert. How many others do we need to follow suit before some action is taken?

Meanwhile, enjoy our see-saw weather!

*The patch of grass in the photo is stuff from the bird feeders strung above: probably rye grass and sunflowers, needing clearing out periodically.

A wildflower mistake in my garden

My summer wildflower garden: too many feverfew

I hardly need to say how popular gardening is among the British. People happily spend all their free time (especially after retirement) toiling away in their allotments to grow veggies, or planning their flowerbeds for the best seasonal sequence. One thing they don't have to do is mow a lot of grass, for few houses have that much land attached. So the American male competition of growing the best lawn is unknown here.

An autumnal indulgence

 
For someone who grew up in an arid climate, the British garden is quite a change. I was once (age 13) given leave by my mother to plant some zinnias – wherever I wanted. I chose a nice shady spot under a pine tree. So much for my self-induction to gardening, in 95°F and 5% humidity, the plants wilted and collapsed. Here it rains so much that a large part of gardening is merely removing unwanted
biomass from shrubs that grow too large and weeds that infiltrate everywhere, and seasonal clean-up tasks.

My attitude this past summer was "let a hundred flowers bloom" – meaning feverfew in my front garden. Volunteer wild flowers, I thought, how nice! Actually, feverfew spreads everywhere and I'm rather sorry because the thousands of seeds dropped when I rooted it all out are going to come back to haunt me next spring. Meanwhile, I made one concession to the autumn season: I bought a container plant of small chrysanthemums, guaranteed to bloom until the first frost. But they have to be watered because even the rain doesn't penetrate the healthy head of leaves and buds.

When I first started gardening in England, I treasured every plant bought as if it were a child (20-year investment). But through years of buying plants and watching them die on me, I treat them now more as I do food: buy, consume, buy more.... I now have mainly perennials outside and house plants that can survive on my feast-or-famine watering schedule: do or die...