London Letter NEW CITY BUILDINGS REACH THE SKY
(From PETER FABIAN, London Correspondent o! “The Pruf]
LONDON, April 18. In the City of London builders are passing the halfway mark in the restoration of offices destroyed by German bombs during the war. When all the projects completed since the war, under construction, or approved are added together they total 16,843,299 square feet of accommodation, which is equivalent to 55 per cent, of the accommodation destroyed. The City lost about a third of its floor space in the blitz. It is estimated that buildings under construction in the City at present will cost £32,000.000. while those for which planning permission had been given up to the end of last year will cost a further £17,000,000. Included, in these new plans is the provision of space for parking 2560 cars. Since then approval has been given for the building of multistorey garages. In the southern sector of the City, where a broad band of property between St. Paul’s and the Thames was devastated, almost every blitzed site is now being rebuilt or about to be rebuilt. An illustration of the high cost of new development was given last week when the Common Council of the London County Council agreed to purchase a third of an acre of land in Cheapside for over £851,000, to enable Cheapside to be widened to 74 feet. As the scheme involves pulling down some existing buildings, this figure is equivalent to purchasing a bomb site at a price of £2,400,000 an acre. With land at such a high price the developers are now having some success in their campaign against height restrictions, and more tall buildings are being approved. The most contentious scheme has been a 27-storey block proposed for the blitzed Barbican area on land owned by the Merchant Taylors’ Company. The development plan for the area is shortly to be published, and it is expected that this building will be sanctioned. At present threequarters of the “square mile” of the City averages no more than four storeys in height. In the West End plans are now being prepared for a 19-storey hotel, and on the south bank a block of offices is to be. built reaching up to 330 feet—almost the height of St. Paul’s Cathedral. In the Haymarket the new New Zealand House will soar more than -200 feet. A 19-storey block of flats planned in Poplar will make it the highest residential building -in the County of London. Other blocks of flats soon to be erected will not be much lower. In Stepney, three 17storey dwelling “towers” are to be erected, while in Southwark six 18-storey blocks of flats are to be put up by the London County Council. Woolwich proposes four 14-storey blocks. Hitherto the highest residential building in London has been the Queen Anne Mansions, overlooking St. James’s Park. It is only 180 feet high, but at the time it was built Queen Victoria is said to have described the building as “monstrous.” The new insistence upon height and London’s already changed skyline recently prompted the remark that the shares of lift companies should make a good longterm investment. Wren Revived The rededication of the Chapter House of St. Paul’s Cathedral this week ‘ marks the complete restoration of a London building of the famous architect, Sir Christopher Wren, as, he originally designed it. Before its destruction in a fire caused by a German incendiary bomb raid in December, 1940, it had an attic storey which was built in Victorian times. With the restoration, not only the facade has been restored to Wren’s original design from his plans in the Cathedral archives; the oak panelled entrance hall, the Chapter room, the anteroom, and the wide and shallow stepped staircase known as “ye great stairs,” are as Wren planned them. The old Chapter House was built in 1332. In 1530 it was the scene of a notable riot of. the clergy after several had been summoned to hear the assessment against them under Praemunire, for having accepted Cardinal Wolsey’s legatine authority. There was, it is related, a tearing of gowns and crushing of caps. The building was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, and was rebuilt by Wren between 1712 ano 1714. Wren’s salary for a ninemonth period at that time was only £75. A man employed in digging the foundations was paid Is 6d a day, and the 141,500 bricks used in its construction cost only £99 Is. Up to 1940 the building was used by the City Livery Club and as offices, but now the church has rebuilt it for its own use. Search for an Heir The editor of Debrett, Mr C. F. Hankinson, whose search for the heir to the Elphinstone-Dalrymple family title has already been the subject of a television broadcast in New York, is turning again to Scotland in the hope of solving the 25-year-old mystery. It concerns the whereabouts of Hew Drummond and Francis Herbert, grandsons of the first Baronet of Horn and Logie Elphinstone in Aberdeen. The former was reported to be in New York some 25 years ago, but neither the broadcast nor repeated inquiries have produced any evidence to prove this. As Hew Drummond would now be over 100 if still alive, Mr Hankinson is not optimistic about his survival, and he is, therefore, seeking information about the younger grandson, Francis Herbert, who would now be “only” 95. All that is known of Francis Herbert is tha.t he probably lived in Scotland for a time after his father’s return from Bengal last century. If no longlived Scot can furnish information about him or possible descendants, Mr Hankinson fears that he will have to declare this baronetage extinct in his next issue of Debrett. N.Z. Engine on Plinth One of the first petrol motors devised for attaching to a bicycle, which was found in good working order in New Zealand in 1952, is now on display in newly-painted glory on a central plinth at the diamond jubilee exhibition of the Royal Automobile Club. “Two actual brake horsepower” reads a little plate in proud Edwardian lettering. The engine was devised by the late Frederick Simms, one of the most active members of the club in the early days. It was he who persuaded the then Prince of Wales to .have his first ride on a motor-vehicle. Like many “ autorn obil is ts” of those Hays. Simms
was a combination of mechanic inventor, salesman, and demon driver. Soot has Value Soot has become the raw material of a new British industry —the manufacture of germanium which is the heart of the transistor. One London firm of elec, tronic engineers has just produced what is believed to be the world’s largest ingot of g er . manium—a thin bar of this silver metal, only eight inches long, but worth some £650. Much time has been spent by this company perfecting a refining process to produce germanium with an impurity content less than one part in 20,000,000. The achievement has at last put Britain ahead of America in this field of metallurgy. N.Z. For Models “Girls, if you want to make good, go to New Zealand. A lucrative career as a model awaits you there.” This is the advice being given English girls by Miss Donna Butler, a Manchester model, who has just returned to Britain after a year’s stay in Auckland with her husband, Mr Leonard Mordaunt. She toured New Zealand selling English rainwear before opening a model school. “The girls just flocked to it,” she said, “but they only wanted to learn deportment—none of them was interested in modelling. There is enormous scope for English models in New Zealand because of this,” she said.
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Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28264, 30 April 1957, Page 12
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1,288London Letter NEW CITY BUILDINGS REACH THE SKY Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28264, 30 April 1957, Page 12
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