And Did Those Feet

This is how weird a society we are - there is a Halloween & Scare Attractions network - and no the Old Operating Theatre will not be joining. The Halloween and Scare Attractions Show

 Or at least is considering demolishing it - but it is already closed. Furore over Geffrye's expansion | Museums Association

▶ BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Anglo-Saxon Portraits, Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians

 If there is one fire-station that should be saved it is the one in Southwark Bridge Road - it is associated with the foundation of the London Fire Brigade and Massey Shaw and James Bradshaw - hero firemen. Boris orders fire authority to press on with Southwark Fire Station closure consultation [30 January 2013]

Internet Archaeology: open access articles-  much of the archive is now free

From Salon 291 - interesting stuff on stately homes: 'Thus our Fellow Pamela Sandbrook (in her paper on ‘“The Servants’ Friend”? Country house servants’ engagement with new technology’) tells the story of Virginia Woolf’s inept attempts to sack her cook. Woolf’s use of modern technology in order to achieve a servant-free life at Monk’s House in Sussex reflects her personal desire for privacy, but in a minor way it also stands for the impact of new technology, which was to make redundant an army of servants: whereas in the early days of technology it was cheaper to use servants than to install modern plumbing, by the 1920s and 1930s, technology had ...

North Southwark/Bermondsey  has a unique collection of industrial buildings of the 18th, 19th and 20th Century.  These need to be preserved as a set - and we must not allow the developers to pick them off one by one.  We need to set up a thoughtful planning process whereby examples of all periods are kept. For example in Bear Gardens there was a series of industrial buildings, most of which have been preserved except  a 1960's concrete building was pulled down - probably because no one thought it had an architectural merit but it was the only one from that period and as such was a great example of modernism. So the stock of industrial buildings needs to be studied as a set and preservation issue determined as a set with a view to preserving not just the quaint old ones but also some of the harsh modern industrial ones. Southwark gains its uniqueness from a diversity of building types and styles and that the atmosphere of the area is ruined if they are a...