REMOVED BY ACT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 659, 11 October 1933, Page 7

REMOVED BY ACT

ADELPHI TO go MORE OF OLD LONDON TO BE REPLACED BY SKYSCRAPER. HISTORIC ASSOCIATIONS. Th'e Adelphi — that bit of oldish ' London into which one may "turn to the right and step haclc 150 years" — -is to disappear as the result of Parliamentary action, says the Christian Science Monitor. * '• The House of C'ommons recently approved a Bill permitting erection of a modern skyscraper, replacing structures linked not only with the finest architectural' traditions of • eighteenth' century England, but steeped in historical and literary associations. For it was through this "mysterious place, with those dark arches," that Charles Dickens wandered as a boy ahd later used as settings for more than one scene in his novels. It was in the Adelphi that David Garrick lived, drawing to his rooms a distinguished company of contemporary actors and including Dr. Johnson and Hannah More among his constant guests. Kipling is helieved to have had quarters in the Adelphi buildings when he was writing- "The Light That Failed." And it is not unlikely that, through his character of Dick Heldar, he described th'at "large room that took up a third of the top storey in the rickety chambers overlooking the Thames." But despite the history which the area of the Adelphi treasures — Henry VIII once owned Durham House on that site; Sir Walter Raleigh' lived there; Peter the Great was a later resident; Benjamin Franklin as agent for the American colonies made his home in the present building- — it is the archite'cture itself in which interest centres. The work of Robert and James Adam, famous Scots architects of the eighteenth century, the Adelphi has stood as a prized example of their contrihution to the Georgian period — i a contrihution refiected not only in European design but in much of the hest colonial architeeture in the United States. It embraces as well one of the earliest examples of community planning For in 1771 the ground sloped sharply down from the busy thoroughfare of the Strand to the sh'ore of the Thames. The -brothers Adam conceived the then original pian of raising the street level to that of the Strand by the construction of a system of immense arched vaults which to this day have remained one of the sights of London. Part of the river was rcclaimed, and the buildings were reared in all the delicate proportion, and with the interior and exterior adaptation of "classic ornament and warm rcstraint" which embodied the hest of the Adam architectural tradition. To-day the Adelphi, named from the joint signature which the Adams affixed to their architectural drawings, has bccome flanked hy modern office buildings. They now dwarf the building which old etchings and watercolours depiet aa virtually commanding the north shore of the Thames. Now Repealed. (But the restriction of 1771, limiting any structure on the foreground of the site to 20 feet, remained. It is this provision which has been repealed by Parliament, together with granting permission to the present owners to alter the streets and add approximately one-third to the area' of their site. Looking out across the Thames Embankment, at the point where Cleopatra's Needle cuts the skyline, Adeplhi Terrace has presented the last remaining spot in the centre of London from which the street commands an unobstructed view of the river. Parliamentary debates over the Bill referred repcatedly to this phase of the Adelphi's value. Definite plans for a modern structure have not heen completed, as these awaited decision upon the enabling legislation. Some proposals involve retaining a "viiew terrace" in the new modern building, which could be reached through a passage-way by' pedestrians.