I’ve always liked the buildings of Nicholas Hawksmoor. Even as a kid I remember driving past St Anne’s Limehouse on the road from Essex to central London and thinking it was different to other churches. Hawksmoor, an architect and student of Christopher Wren, designed six churches as part of the ‘Commission for Building Fifty New Churches’ in 1711. Only twelve of these churches were actually built in total and were known as the Queen Anne Churches. I’ve visited all six of the Hawksmoor churches over the last few years and despite being totally agnostic about religious matters they’ve had a real impact on how I look at London.

This post about St. George’s, Bloomsbury, the sixth and final Hawksmoor church, is the first in a series of about Hawksmoor and his architecture.

St. George’s, Bloomsbury was built in 1730 and can be seen in the Hogath engraving Gin Lane (see below).

The tower is the most interesting feature of the church and was based on the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.

The statue on the top is King George I in Roman dress and there are statues of lions and unicorns fighting around the base of the steps.

The church has had an interesting history with events including the funeral of suffragette Emily Davison, and a requiem for the dead of the Abyssinian war which was attened by Emperor Haile Selassie.

The many stained glass windows in the church depict Jesus and the saints. A great time to visit the church is late afternoon when the sun is pouring through the windows.

In recent years the church has been restored by the World Monuments Fund and is bright and clean compared to a few years ago when it was blackened by pollution from Londons’ roads (St Pauls and The Monument have also gone through a cleaning process recently).

Unlike most British places that were bombed in World War II, Essex wasn’t targeted due to being an industrial area or a shipyard. Because the south-east corner of the country sits on the mouth of the Thames it was the likely point in which the Axis forces would try and attack London. It was also where the German bombers dumped any excess munitions after bombing runs to London during the Blitz to save fuel for the flight back across the channel. If you look closely enough you can see remains from the war all over this part of the county.

Gun placements on the beach by Bradwell Power Station.

About a mile away from the beach is a memorial to the airmen who flew out from Bradwell Bay Airfield.

“The first squadron to use the airfield was 418 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force. During the war Bradwell was home to 25 different squadrons flying Boston’s, Mosquitos, Beuafighters, Typhonns, Tempests, Hurricanes, Spitfires, Mustang, Warwick and Walrus aircraft. The Bradwell pubs echoed to the voices of Canadians, Australians and Czechs who all came to know this quiet corner of Essex.”
- Taken from www.dengie.org.uk

Can’t remember exactly where this photo was taken. Somewhere between Canewdon and Rochford I think. There are pillboxes like this scattered all over the Essex countryside.

This memorial in St Clements churchyard, Leigh-on-Sea is for the fishermen who died trying to rescue Allied troops during the evacuation of Dunkirk.

Looking towards the horizon on Shoebury East Beach you can just make out the Maunsell Army Sea Forts. These towers provided anti-aircraft guns placements to help protect the Thames. They’re also featured in the film Slade In Flame!

Here’s a proper photo of the towers taken from www.geograph.org.uk. Also check out www.undergroundkent.co.uk for some great photos of the towers.

The Horniman Museum in South London is way off the usual tourist trail so you can wander round in relative* peace compared to places like The British Museum and The Natural History Museum. It was opened in 1901 by Frederick John Horniman after he began collecting specimens and artefacts from around the World. It’s definately one of the coolest places to go in London as there’s everything from natural history to Haitian voodoo.

* I say relative but there is a music area where the kids get to bang on loads of different instruments from around the World.

www.horniman.ac.uk

Leigh-on-Sea has been around since Domesday times and it’s my hometown. It’s started off as a fishing and boatbuilding town but when the railyway to London was built in 1851 it became a commuter town. These days it’s all bad hair salons, trashy clothes at high prices, gastro-bars and lots of cocaine. If you can ignore all that rubbish, it’s a great place for maritime history with stories about the towns seafarers from the Mayflower to the evacuation of Allied troops at Dunkirk.

A new year, a new blog. It was time for a change and since moving back to London, I’ve started taking more photos again. Same deal as the last blog, photos of London, bits of history plus any other interesting stuff I come across. I’m also going to try and move all the old posts over from the other blog but my wandering brain may prevent this from happening anytime soon. Happy 2008 and all the usual rubbish.

The Cathars were a group of herectics that were based in south-western France during the 12th century. They believed in a form of Gnosticism and duality (that the world was not created by the true God, but a lesser destructive god called the Demiurge). They came at odds with the Catholic Church over their beliefs that life on earth was the true hell and after death came enlightenment (they have been called ‘Western Buddhists’). The Cathars believed that the God worshipped by Roman Catholics was an imposter, and his church was a corrupt abomination infused by the failings of the material realm.

The Albigensian Crusade (1209 - 1229) was a military campaign by the Catholic Church to eliminate the Cathars. The last stand was made in a series of mountain top castles in the Languedoc region of southern France. We visited most of these during the summer and I’ve only got around to sorting out the photos. Here’s a few.

The view from Quéribus, the last Cathar stronghold to fall.

Château de Peyrepertuse

Château de Puivert

Château de Puilaurens

Château d’Aguilar

Château de Puilaurens

The memorial at Montségur commerating the siege in which approximately 220 Cathars were burned to death by Royal Catholic French troops.