PUBLIC OUTCRY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 37, 14 February 1933, Page 7

PUBLIC OUTCRY

LONDON SUFFERS

A BUILDING INTRUSION

VISTA DESTROYED

What has been called ono of tho finest architectural sites in Europe and ono of the last remaining bits of Nash's London is being destroyed in spite of a prolonged public outcry and strong protests in both Houses of Parliament, where the matter was debated during the last week of tho session. This is Carlton House terrace, overlooking St. James Park at the end of the long avenue that leads to Buckingham Palace through the Admiralty Arch at Trafalgar Square, says a writer in tho "San Francisco Chronicle." Ho. 4, Carlton House terrace has been sold on a ninety-nine-year lease by the Commissioners of Crown Lands to a firm of paint' manufacturers, . Messrs. Pinchin Johnson Company, Ltd., who are putting up a tall, building of Portland stone in the midst of the fine old residences there.' This has been called the worst piece of vandalism in • British history, since it will destroy the character of one of the most leisurely and well planned parts of London, and the projected building will throw the whole vista from the Park and Pall Mall out of scale* The paint manufacturers, when approached by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Major Walter Elliot, under whose department the subdepartment of Crown Lands is placed, refused to entertain his suggestion that the work on their building should be suspended in view of the opposition roused in Parliament and among the public. They insist on "the urgent necessity of completing the building without delay for essential business purposes." BEGINNING OF END. The new offices will have the Admiralty Arch on one side, and Marlborough House, St. James Palace, and Lancaster House leading up to the palace on the other. It will be squarely in the middle of the vista from St. James Park, on, the great processional road that leads to the Victoria Memorial. On the* north, across a strip of garden, are' situated the great historic clubs of London, the Athenaeum, the Carlton, the United Services, the Travellers, and the Reform Clubs, and the idea that their world famous sanctum is to b& invaded by "trade" has ma^de them, hum like beehives with rage. What is worse, the tearing down of No. 4, Carlton House terrace for the construction of an office building is only the beginning of tho end. Sow the inviolate character of the place has been destroyed, the rest of it must be expected to go, bit by bit, as the leases fall in and the present occupiers of the adjacent houses move to parts uncontaminated by trade— that bugbear of the British aristocracy. Major Elliot told the House of Commons that he had without avail used all the influence in his power to stop the work pending Parliamentary consideration of the whole question. Therefore the subject will have to be left until the House reassembles in February. There is a general belief that, "whatever happens in the present case, the Government will guard against a repetition of it by placing the Commissioners of Crown Lands under a .Cabinet Minister. The appearance of* London is changing steadily, sometimes in the face of public outcry that is occasionally successful. In recent times there has been agitation to save the city churches, whose valuable sites east of TempleBar are; coveted by business interests, the Abbey Sacristy and the planned Charing Cross Bridge, a monstrosity that was only prevented by enormous effort, on the part of the public against B determined Town Council. COVENT GARDEN. The biggest. transformation in L'onidon, however, is planned for the next two years, and is concerned with Covent Garden. The doom of the Opera House is sealed, although its lease has ■been extended from February to July in order that the plans for the next opera season may be carried out. It is expected that the actual work of demolition will not be begun until the autumn. Part of its site will be taken up with tho new roadway, forty feet "wide, running into the new road now being constructed on the site' of the old Tavistock Hotel, whose famous coffee room Dickens and Thackery used to frequent. The famous Piazza of Covent Garden wa3 designed by Inigo Jones, and was in the late seventeenth century one of the show places of the town. For on<je, artists and business menl are agreed on the necessity of rebuilding an historic site, for Covent Garden is impossibly congested. Fruit porters and other pedestrians have to sandwich their way through to Floral street and Longaere sideways, and lorries and Tans remain stationary beside the fruit and flower markets, unable to move for half an hour at a time. St. Paul's Church, whose facade Bernard Shaw took for the setting of the first act of "Pygmalion," will remain untouched. This is the church that Inigo Jones called "the handsomest barn in England." The new Covent Garden is to go up 5n steel and concrete, with wide avenues find a new island site for the market, where Dickens, as he confessed, when he had nothing better to do, used to come and stare at the pineapples. It is fairly certain that there wil be no new Opera House there; the site of the present Opera House is estimated at £250,000, although the actual ground rent, by an arrangement made in the middle of the last century, is only £.150 a year, so that for the last 80 years Covent Garden opera :has been maintained virtually rent free.