There is a literary slant in this posting, as the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (‘1984’) is connected in six London degrees to Sherlock Holmes.
‘1984’
I think we’re more or less agreed that everything in ‘1984’ is horrible, including and especially the dystopian vision that is the capital of Airstrip One: London. The four ministries from which all state power emanates are – if you can remember – giant pyramids. Well, the London of 1948, 1984 and today has no pyramids. But amongst all the architectural repression in ‘1984’, one building from London’s past survives and is projected into this awful futscape (‘future landscape’, I made that one up). The church of St Martin in the Fields has been converted into Airstrip One’s museum for propaganda displays.
The Church of St Martin in the Fields
The present church was built by James Gibb between 1722-4, replacing the earlier church of 1543; but the site had long been occupied by previous churches and chapels. Records go as far back as the early 1100’s, although recent archaeological finds, during the church refurbishment, suggests probable Romano-British and then Anglo-Saxon settlement and burial.
Burials continued through The Plague and into the Victorian vaults. Many famous Londoners are laid to rest here including Nell Gwynne d1687 (orange seller, actress, royal mistress), William Hogarth d1764 (artist) and Jack Shepherd d1724 (roguish and much loved, but ultimately failed, thief hanged at Tyburn).
Where is the church of St Martin in the Fields? Facing Trafalgar Square of course.
St Martin in the Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, London
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square commemorates The Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. This great naval battle destroyed Napoleon Bonaparte’s French battle fleet, ending much of his overseas imperial ambitions.
The site of the square up to 1830 had been the home of the King’s Mews, where from the late 1200’s the royal hawks and falcons were kept. The Mews later became the royal stables and so set the pattern for London mews’ being the areas where the wealthy kept their horses stabled.
Commander of the British fleet at Trafalgar was Admiral Horatio Nelson and it is Nelson’s Column (with a seventeen foot statue of Nelson atop) that dominates the Square.
Viscount Horatio Nelson (1758-1805)
Nelson was a national hero long before Trafalgar. He’d lost his right eye in action off Corsica in 1794 and his right arm at Santa Cruz in 1797. The four relief panels around the base of Nelson’s Column (all cast from captured French cannon) celebrate four of his victories: Cape St Vincent, Copenhagen, the Nile and Trafalgar.
At Trafalgar Nelson was shot in the heat of battle and died during the closing moments. But he’d led a full and pretty colourful life. He and his mistress, Lady Emma Hamilton, famously shared a home together at 3 Savile Row.
3 Savile Row
Savile Row is now world famous as the home of traditional English bespoke tailoring. But when it was laid out in the 1730’s it was a fashionable Mayfair residential street. Indeed, residents could not get any more fashionable than Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton.
Commerce and tailoring gradually crept in from the mid 1800’s and eventually in 1968 a company called Apple Corp moved it’s offices into 3 Savile Row. The owners of Apple Corp were a well known British pop group called The Beatles. They famously played a ‘roof gig’ here on 30th January 1969. It was deemed too loud and put a stop to by the police (I guess that today we’d say The Beatles had created ‘noise pollution’).
The Beatles
The Beatles connections to London are numerous and many – arguably a book all in its own right. For now, let’s simply connect them to The Royal Albert Hall. There are two connections actually. The first is on 18th April 1963 when they appeared as part of a BBC Light Programme called Swingin Sound ’63. They performed two songs, ‘From Me To You’ and ‘Twist & Shout’. Paul met girlfriend Jane Asher here, allegedly.
The second connection concerns a declaration of how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall (from the song ‘A Day In The Life’). Apparently the answer is 308.
The Royal Albert Hall
Officially opened in 1869 and named in honour of Queen Victoria’s late husband, Prince Albert. There are enough statistics to hand about this venue to fill the Albert Hall, never mind the holes. Let this one bit of information suffice. The Hall’s notorious echo was discovered as early as its opening ceremony, when the ‘Amen’ of the Bishop of London’s prayer reverberated around the Hall. Subsequently, the famous saying had it that it was the only place where a British composer could be sure of hearing his work twice.
One week after the death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) an event took place at the Albert Hall, which he had arranged himself (before he died). As well as being a world famous writer Conan Doyle was known to be a keen spiritualist. The event itself, attended by thousands, was intended to witness nothing less than the resurrection of Conan Doyle himself. An empty chair on the stage held a reservation card for one Sherlock Holmes. Speeches and tributes were made, hymns sung. Neither Conan Doyle or Sherlock Holmes made an appearance.
The London Explorer welcomes reader’s suggestions for more ‘Six Degrees…’.
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