Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Undershaw story

In 1885 Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) married Louisa Hawkins, a quiet woman who seemed happy to support her very ambitious doctor-author husband. At that stage, Conan Doyle did not see himself as a full time detective story writer – presumably he wanted to write “respectable” literature like his successful historical novel, Micah Clarke 1889. He returned to short stories and detective novels only because the publishers irresistibly offered him more money and more overseas trips.

In 1889 and 1892 Arthur and Louis were delighted to welcome two children, but the pleasure soon turned to pain. In 1893, while their children were still toddlers, Louisa Conan Doyle was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a disease that was almost inevitably terminal. Another difficulty, although not necessarily a tragedy, was that Conan Doyle’s medical practice was failing dismally.

Undershaw in its garden setting

Conan Doyle had his new house, Undershaw, built in the small Surrey town of Hindhead because of Louise’s TB. It seems very likely that the fresh air, better climate and lack of city filth meant medical practitioners would recommend this beautiful but slightly remote region for the family home. If a TB patient had the energy, brisk country walks were warmly recommended.

Undershaw was built in 1897 to Conan Doyle’s own plan but it was the architect Joseph Henry Ball who created this very large and very handsome home. The red brick, three-storey home had eleven bedrooms, huge dining room, book-lined study, wood-panelled drawing room, billiard room, grand staircase and servants’ quarters. Also on the grounds were a power plant for electricity, stable for six horses, coach house, garage and an outdoor games area. The large south-facing windows were specifically designed to provide a light and cheerful indoor environment.

However he wasn’t in Surrey all the time. The Boer War began in Oct 1899 and by the end of that year, the British military was already suffering major military reverses at the hands of an army of farmers in South Africa. A sudden wave of patriotism impelled Conan Doyle to volunteer for South Africa. When he saw a chance for him to work as a military doctor, he was delighted to pay for his own ticket and for the medical equipment he would need in South Africa.

Conan Doyle’s war in South Africa ended with the capture of the Boer capital of Pretoria, three months later. He then wrote an eye witness report of the war called The Great Boer War, and had the book published when he eventually sailed home to Britain. It became very popular.

Conan Doyle reading in the Undershaw drawing room

This doctor-author-adventurer joined the conservative Unionist party because it was the party that had the policies most sympathetic to Conan Doyle’s views on Empire. He stood for Parliament in the 1900 and the 1906 general elections, choosing an Edinburgh seat because that was really his “home town”. And quite rightly, he focused on the issues that concerned him most - military reforms, national defence and the Empire. Conan Doyle did not get into Parliament, but my question actually concerns Louise and Undershaw. Where did his sick wife and their two small children live while Conan Doyle was in South Africa and in Scotland? If they remained in the Surrey home, did they have medical staff in the house to assist Louise and all the household staff?

Conan Doyle stayed in the Undershaw house until 1907, a year after Louise died. During his 10 year stay, he wrote thirteen Sherlock Holmes stories. This was the home in which the author brought Holmes back from the dead in The Adventure of the Empty House, published in 1903.

But he didn’t sell the four-acre property. From late 1907 until 1921 Conan Doyle rented out the home, hoping his son Kingsley would eventually use it for the next generation of Conan Doyles. Alas Kingsley died so Conan Doyle sold Undershaw, and in 1927 it became an hotel. The hotel finally closed for business in 2004 and the property was sold to a development company, in a dilapidated and tragic condition. Planning permission to demolish Undershaw in order to build a block of flats, and to destroy the gardens, was granted by Waverley Borough Council but was overturned in the High Court in London in May 2012.

Is that the final decision? As the Undershaw Alliance has argued, what more appropriate place could there be for a Conan Doyle Museum and Centre for British and Irish Crime Writing? A renovated Undershaw would affirm its cultural value and Conan Doyle's place in the literary heritage of Great Britain and Ireland. It would be open to the public all year round (incl school visits), with a library, conference facilities, crime writing courses and a writer in residence.

If only!

Heritage architecture

Yea may not be the biggest rural town in Australia, but it is very pretty. 100 km north of Melbourne in the rich and hilly Yarra Valley, Yea (current population 1051) was originally settled in 1837. These first settlers left New South Wales, guided by the explorers William Hovell and Hamilton Hume and their team.

Unlike other towns that grew up after the 1850s gold rush, Yea was desirable because of its great agricultural opportunities. But Muddy Creek Settlement, as it was known, was not even laid out as a proper town until 1855. So the first sale of town lots did not occur until 1856 and a primary school was begun by the Anglican and Presbyterian churches only in 1859.

Purcell's mixed business, now Marmalades. Yea

Eaton S Purcell left County Cork in Ireland in 1861 and first opened a mixed-business shop in Yea in the late 1860s. Purcell's General Store, the family’s second establishment, was built in Yea’s main street in 1887 in the Victorian Free Classical style. Times were good for Yea and for the Purcells - a branch railway line from Seymour reached Yea in 1883 when travel and trading both became easier.

Thanks to the National Trust, we know that the shop was a single-storey brick structure with a wide trussed gable roof, concealed at the front by a rendered and decorated parapet with a raised central pediment. A varnished and mirrored central partition divided the store centrally and an ornate balustrade surrounded a stairway to a large cellar.

Two recessed entrances opened to separate departments, with groceries and hardware on one side, and clothing and textiles on the other side. In fact the Purcells must have handled every product needed by good pioneering families of Yea and district, and even did deliveries by horse and cart to all the farms within 20 ks out of Yea.

Original timber fittings

Many of the original fittings still exist in the shop and are heritage protected, especially the three large polished counters. My favourite features were the timber framed display windows and recessed shop entrances, and the wide timber veranda. I also like the portraits of the original owners (Eaton and Annie Purcell) hanging proudly over the original fire place.

I am not sure when Marmalades Café and Restaurant took over the old Yea shop. But it probably doesn’t matter - the old Purcell's General Store is still of architectural and historical importance, especially relating to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

More recently, artists in the area have moved to country towns to avoid the hustle and bustle of the big cities. However that means they largely flourish (or flounder), depending on work they can sell to tourists. Yea council suggests that a feature of the town is the use of fine historical buildings as the site for fine restaurants - often combining the function of art galleries. At Marmalades, as well, the owners display and sell a number of works from local painters, sculptors, ceramics and printmakers. Above the country breads, jams, chutneys and berry sauces.

Yea townscape, 1910, Museum of Victoria

Saving Australia's Maritime Architecture

The preservation of late 18th and early 19th century lighthouses is urgent for two reasons. Firstly Australia’s maritime history was what connected the New World with the rest of the world. It was the sole source of convicts, free population, finished prod­ucts in one direction and raw materials in the other. Secondly a nation that loses its own architectural past is in danger of losing its way. Australia has already destroyed too many of its precious architectural relics, and needs to protect what is left.

Wilson's Promontory was first sight­ed by Bass and Flinders in 1798, and was named by Gov. Hunter in honour of the trader Thomas Wilson. The promontory marks the southern-most point of mainland Australia, and overlooks the narrow shipping channel in Bass Strait between Tasmania and Victoria. Uniquely, from its 100m cliff on the peninsular, the lighthouse site has almost 360° views of Bass Strait. So it was an ideal location for its task: to protect shipping in Bass Strait.

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Wilson's Promontory and Bass Strait

Although Victoria had no convicts, this Victorian lighthouse was built by convict labourers. Thus, we must assume, the convicts were shipped in from NSW or Tasmania, to complete the project. The Wilson's Promontory Lighthouse (19 ms tall) and keep­ers' cottages were built from 1853 to 1859, using granite that was quarried locally. The works were supervised by the Public Works Department, and contracted to a North Melbourne company. The building costs were shared between the Victorian and NSW governments.

English master mariner and adventurer Captain Thomas Musgrave was one of the first head keepers of the Wilson’s Promontory Lighthouse, moving to the site in 1869. He and later keepers kept the oil lamps burning, recorded weather details and signalled ships. The white light, 119 metres above sea level, was visible for 40ks at sea.
Keeper's cottage granite lighthouse, Wilson's Promontory

There were four keepers' cottages, built out of local granite as the lighthouse was, but with roofs made of corrugated iron. One of the cottages was rebuilt in 1924, and two others rebuilt in 1952 after being destroyed during a bushfire.

The parabolic mirrors were replaced in 1975 by a generator-powered electric lamp array when the light was converted to electricity, which in turn was converted to solar power in 1993. The light-house was then fully automated; staffing & regular maintenance were no longer seen as necessary. Even though the rough sea weather ruins every exposed surface, funding was withdrawn.

2009 is the 150th anniversary of the lighthouse’s opening for business in 1869. The lighthouse and keepers' cottages are located within the Wilson's Promontory National Park, so funding for all repairs and maintenance now comes from a new source. The tower has been completely restored to the original granite finish and the surfaces of the out-buildings are all sparkly white again.

There is no road to the lighthouse. Visitors must hike the 18k walk from the nearest town, Tidal River. The good news is that accommod­ation is now available at a reasonable price, in the buildings clustered around the light-house. Australia was fortunate to protect this amazing part of its maritime history.

I found many excellent blogs on lighthouses (eg The Keeper's Blog, Old Salt Blog, Shed Some Light on Lighthouses Blog, New England Lighthouse Treasures, Montauk Point) but few of them talked about heritage protection, de-manning, funding.

Frank LLoyd Wright and Ennis House

Ennis House is an impressive home in Los Angeles, designed in 1923 by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) for Charles and Mabel Ennis, the owners of a men's clothing chain. Built in 1924, the first thing a viewer notices is that the property is spread over half an acre, along a ridge with awesome views of the Hollywood Hills.

The second thing to notice is the design. The structure is the largest of Wright's Los Angeles-based “textile block designs” i.e using thousands of interlocking, pre-cast and patterned concrete blocks. Concrete was still considered a new material for home construction in the 1920s, so Wright’s materials were certainly cutting edge. But more than that. The detail that immediately stands out is the relief ornamentation on its concrete blocks, inspired by the symmetrical reliefs of ancient Mayan temples.

Ennis House exterior, with amazing views

Wright built four houses with the textile block design – La Miniatura/Millard House, Ennis House, Freeman House and Storer House. But I did not think it was attractive. Even Wright himself said “What about the concrete block? It was the cheapest and ugliest thing in the building world. It lived mostly in the architectural gutter as an imitation of rock-faced stone. Why not see what could be done with that gutter rat? Steel rods cast inside the joints of the blocks themselves and the whole brought into some broad, practical scheme of general treatment, why would it not be fit for a new phase of our modern architecture? It might be permanent, noble beautiful.”

Architectural Digest (October, 1979) agreed, saying: "The Ennis House is one of the first residences constructed from concrete block. Wright transforms cold industrial concrete to a warm decorative material used as a frame for interior features like windows and fireplaces as well as columns. His 16” modular blocks with intriguing geometric repeats invite tactile exploration. The art glass windows and doors, reminiscent of examples from the earlier prairie period, here achieve greater colour suddenly as they graduate in intensity from darker at the top to lighter at the bottom. The metal work based on Mayan imagery is not of Wright's design, and may have been included at Mr Ennis' request. Yet from the very large iron grill at the main entrance to such minute details as light switches and lock plates, there is a unity of conception and materials that complements the entire structure."

I wonder why the house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, but built and supervised by his son, Lloyd Wright. And I wonder why the early, horizontal Prairie Style was not utilised here. Because California was substantially different, in climate or in taste, from Chicago? Was the Prairie Style too arts and craftsy, and too early C20th for the sophisticated 1920s? It seems that Wright felt typecast as the Prairie house architect so he used the Los Angeles era to broaden his architectural vision.

In any case Mr Ennis was a passionate scholar of Mayan art and architecture, even before he had discussions with the architect.

The house consisted of two buildings, the main house and a smaller staff flat, separated by a paved courtyard. Unlike the vertical orientation of the other three textile block houses, the Ennis House has a long horizontal loggia spine on the northern side connecting public and private rooms to the south.

living room, then steps up to the dining room

In 1940 the house was sold to a new family and then altered by Wright, adding a pool and some rooms. Augustus Brown, who owned the property from 1968 to 1980, was the last private owner of the Ennis house. To ensure its safe keeping, Brown created the Trust for Preservation of Cultural Heritage, now the Ennis House Foundation.

There had been structural problems with the Ennis House since the beginning; the concrete blocks had cracked and the lower sections of the walls had moved. The concrete was a combination of gravel, granite and sand from the site, mixed with water and then hand-cast in aluminium moulds to create the blocks. It took 10 days for each block to dry before it could be stacked into position.Perhaps using decom­posed granite from the site, to colour the textile blocks, introduced impurities to the concrete mix. And combined with Los Angeles’ specific air pollution problems, perhaps this had caused the concrete to moulder.

Nonetheless Wright firmly believed concrete held potential as a material for affordable housing.

More damage occurred due to the 1994 Northridge earthquake and the record rain in 2004-2005. The Ennis House Foundation was very worried about the millions of dollars it would take for the full restoration project.

In 2005 the house was added to the National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of the Most Endangered Historic Places. In 2006 a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant was issued and the restoration work went ahead. The house has since been declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.

dining room

In June 2009 the Ennis House Foundation put the house on the market, with an asking price of USA $15 million. In July 2011, The Ennis House Foundation announced that the sale would ahead, but for only $4.5 million (£2.8 million), as long as the new owner agreed to allow public open days on 12 days of the year. He did.

More recently, Frank Lloyd Wright's La Miniatura/Millard House (1923) in Pasadena has come up for sale. For amazing photos of the patterned concrete blocks inside and out, see the Glamour Drops and Rich of Eve blogs. The Millard House is listed on the USA's National Register of Historic Places.

Bacardi Rum's building resurrected in Havana

With an ever-increasing European demand for sugar came the need for a larger work force and that need was met by bringing slaves from Africa to the Americas. Rum distilleries sprung up in the Caribbean and North America. This rum was then shipped around the Americas and to Africa where it was used to pay for new African slaves, bound for the sugar plantations of the Caribbean. The trade of slaves, molasses and rum was very lucrative.

Bacardi Rum Building, built in 1930 in Havana, as it looked in 2001

Emigrating from Spain to Cuba in 1830, Don Facundo Bacardi and his family worked hard establishing themselves as business owners in Santiago de Cuba. Life must have been brutal, but Cuba had become the largest producer of sugar in the Caribbean. In 1862 the family bought its own rum distillery in Santiago and called it Bacardi. When Don Facundo’s sons took over, the secret rum formula was improved even further. During the 1880s and 1890s Emilio Bacardí (1844–1922) and his family were heroic supporters of Cuban freedom and independence.

By the end of the century Cuba had become very wealthy from exporting sugar, rum, tobacco and bananas, and the tiny island was a ready target for predatory super powers. Hundreds of thousands of Spanish troops outnumbered the much smaller rebel army of locals who therefore had to use guerrilla tactics to save their own homeland. The Spanish military governor of Cuba herded the locals into fortified camps where a quarter of a million Cuban civilians died from starvation and disease.

Spain and USA declared war on each other in Ap 1897. A year later the war ended when the two countries signed the Treaty of Paris; Spain ceded Puerto Rico and other, more distant islands to the USA. But what a nightmare for Cuba. From 1898-1902, and again from 1906–1909, Cuba was occupied by the USA. Under Cuba's new constitution, the USA retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to supervise its finances and foreign relations! Self-government was not restored to Cuba until 1909.

central tower, Mexican free-tailed bat symbol 

During the time of Prohibition (1920 on), Emilio Bacardi and the next generation of the family exacted revenge on the USA government. Cuba had become a popular destination for American tourists and by the 1920s the family was inviting those same tourists to come to Cuba to beat Prohibition at home. These were the boom years for Cuba, when Deco became the symbol of a vibrant future, with its distinctive buildings and colourful, extravagant shapes.

The Bacardi Building is one of Havana’s principal landmarks, standing on the western edge of the city’s historical centre. Its architect, Esteban Rodríguez Castells, originally won the international competition for its construction with a neo-Renaissance proposal. But after visiting the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, he completely reworked his design into the Art Deco style. Located on the Avenida de Belgica/Belgium, the Bacardi building of 1930 is one of Havana’s first sky scrapers (12 storeys high) and remained the highest point in Havana for a long time.

Cubaism (Cuba Tourism) described the building in great detail. The façade was lavishly decorated with red Bavarian granite, inlaid with brass embellishments. The upper floors and the tower, both raised in a pyramid shape, were of the exquisite and bright design that combined blue and dun stripes with bright gold panels. The upper part of the building was faced with glazed terracotta reliefs of geometric patterns, flowers and female nudes by the American artist Maxfield Parrish.

Its sumptuous interior details included blue mirrors; stucco reliefs; brushed and polished brass; mural paintings; mahogany and cedar panelling; stained and etched glass; richly coloured inlaid marble from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Italy, France, Belgium and Hungary. The lamps and other fittings throughout the building were of course in the most modern Art Deco style. The colour of the ceramic flagstones covering the upper floors was bright yellow, referencing the white and gold rums exported by Bacardi.

1930s advertisement for Cuban Bacardi Rum. Note the yellow and the bat.

The building’s central tower was crowned by a three dimensional Bacardi bat, a figure that appeared throughout the building. I presume Bacardi rum featured the Mexican free-tailed bat as its icon because the bats were great pollinators of the sugar cane and because they devoured the insects that damaged sugar cane. In addition, as would be found in any Art Deco building, the decorations included sun-bursts, fans, waves, spirals and geometric patterns, and Art Deco roses, pineapples and other tropical fruit. And there were many other Art Deco objects, both functional and decorative, like lamps, lift doors and iron grills.

The company opened rum production facilities in Mexico in 1931 and Puerto Rico in 1936, as well as the New York based imports company in 1944. After the Cuban revolution, the company moved from Cuba to its Mexico and Puerto Rico factories, and build new facilities and offices in the USA, the Bahamas and Bermuda. Bacardí family members were now reputed to be strongly right wing and anti-Cuba, having close ties to the American right wing and to the CIA.

bar, mezzanine floor

In any case there was no money in the island nation for supporting its architecture, once the USA's obscene and brutal embargo on Cuba started in 1960. There was barely enough money for the 11 million Cubans to have food and medicine. Buildings start to moulder and crumble, including the once beautiful Bacardi edifice.

In 2001 the building was largely restored by an Italian firm to its original condition, including the beautiful marbles and Cuban Art Deco accessories. And then the work was completed in 2003 by the Office of the City Historian of Havana. The building is now the headquarter for representative agencies of tour operators. Visitors can inspect the lower floors and enjoy the bar located on the mezzanine floor, but cannot go up to the top storeys.
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Ground floor entrance, iron grills and marble floor

I have not yet seen the book Havana Deco, written by Alonso, Contreras and Fagiuoli. Published by WW Norton in 2006, the book explains the relationship between Cuban culture and the development of the Deco style there. The book places a heavy emphasis on Edificio Emilio Bacardi's exterior and interior because it serves as a good example of Cuba Deco.

Saving a historical industrial site in Brisbane

We know a lot about the heritage-listed Colonial Sugar Refinery 1893 in New Farm Brisbane, thanks to the State Department of Environment and Resource Management.
 
Founded in Sydney in 1855, the Colonial Sugar Refining Co (CSR) started to dominate the Australian sugar industry in a time of enormous change in the history of sugar; it fuelled the growth of sugar as a new industry in places with suitable growing conditions i.e Queensland. Technological advances in the refining process transformed sugar from a luxury item to a staple food, at least in western countries.

The Refinery and wharf, 2011, Brisbane

Attempts at growing sugar cane had already been made in Queensland prior to statehood, but new government encouragement of the growing of sugar cane in the colony strengthened in the 1860s. Plantations in new areas along the north coast quickly opened up in the 1870s, including in the Maryborough, Bundaberg and Mackay districts.

By 1874, Queensland was exporting sugar to the other Australian colonies. CSR moved north and acquired large tracts of land for sugar growing near Mackay. In total CSR established 3 large mills in Nth Queensland where  Pacific Islanders comprised the majority of the workforce.

By the 1890s, the plantation system was no longer dominant; the industry increasingly required large companies. CSR needed to concentrate more on the value adding end of the market i.e. milling and refining. CSR's Brisbane refinery was the 4th in a chain of refineries that they established in Australia's capital cities; refineries were opened in Sydney (Pyrmont 1878 Australia’s largest), Melbourne (Yarraville c1875), and Adelaide (Glanville 1891).

The original red face bricks

Brisbane was rapidly growing. In 1892 CSR acquired a riverside site of 3.5 hectares on the New Farm peninsular by buying up allotments on a recently sub-divided estate. The location had two major advantages: it enabled access for large ships and was also close to the city's markets. So the wharf (1893), on the river in the front of the main building, became a central part of the plan.

The 1893 complex consisted of the refinery building comprising char house, cistern house, pan house and refined sugar store; raw sugar store; melt house; boiler house; workshop; a two storied building containing offices, laboratory and hessian rooms; and the wharf. Most of the original machinery was made in Scotland. The char house, by the way, was middle step in the sugar refining process, in between the melting stage and the crystallisation stage.

Built during a time of economic depression, the Brisbane refinery was important in demonstrating the company's dominance of both the Queensland and Australian sugar industry for over a century. This was thanks, one assumes, to the Queensland Government's protectionist trade policies in the decade prior to Federation.

New Farm was already the industrial and warehousing district of Brisbane. But CSR added something new; they successfully lobbied for the building of the Bulimba branch railway (completed 1897). Later development of the area benefited from the availability of both wharfs and rail facilities, and included the woolstores (1909) and the New Farm Power House (1928).

The Refinery’s main building (1893) was a long narrow structure, facing the river. The walls were composed of face bricks laid in English bond, around a combination of timber and cast iron framework. It was four storeys high at the southern end and five storeys at the northern end. Rising above the corrugated iron roof line was a hexagonal shaped tower, originally used for the storage of char.

But nothing stays the same. In 1988, the residence was removed from the site; in 1989 the rail link to the refinery was closed; and CSR totally ceased operations at the New Farm refinery in 1998. The buildings fell into ruination.

Industrial feel to the apartment interiors

Now the exterior of The Refinery has been totally restored; the transformed interior now houses 30 apartments, thus converting a large industrial processing building to a residential use. And saving it. The main 1893 refining building still demonstrates the principal characteristics of a C19th industrial building, including use of fully visible face bricks, restrained embellishment and a narrow, vertical form. Note the char tower with its decorative brackets and finial, the grassed banks, fence, wharf and river. Directly behind the central core is the raw sugar store, flanked by warehouses on the southern side and ancillary buildings.

Internally many modifications have been made, resulting in some alterations to the floor levels, most notably in the char house. The framing in the southern end (refined sugar store and pan house) is timber, whilst that in the northern end (cistern and char house) is of cast iron. The renovated interiors retain this industrial image.

The refinery is now one of the last surviving industrial sites on the inner city reaches of the Brisbane river and one of the last to retain its wharf. So it is important. It had to be saved, and it was!

River frontage

Questions to ask, as a result of this experience:

1. Do important industrial sites deserve heritage protection, like churches and historical homes?

2. If the original industrial architecture was not aesthetically pleasing, can it be tarted up?

3. Should a preservation order cover the industrial building's interiors as well?

4. Do the outbuildings in industrial sites need to be protected? 

The High Line, New York: an urban park in the sky

The High Line was built under an agreement between the New York Central Railroad, New York State and New York City, to elevate dangerous and congesting railroad traffic ABOVE city streets. It was used to transport freight along the Westside waterfront, replacing the street-level tracks at 10th and 11th Aves. Built in 1929 at a cost of $150 million ($2 billion today), it originally stretched from 35th Street to St. John's Park Terminal, now the Holland Tunnel rotary. It mostly ran mid-block, designed to avoid dominating an avenue with an elevated platform. The warehouses and markets in the Meatpacking District were major users of the freight line.

The viaduct was raised off the ground in 1929, to serve the Meat Packing District

Actually The High Line was part of the larger solution, known as the West Side Improvement Project, which was completed in 1934. The West Side Improvement Project, which included the construction of the Henry Hudson Parkway, stretched for 21 ks; it extended from the  Riverdale section of the Bronx at its northern edge... to Spring Street at the south. It eliminated 105 street crossings, added 32 acres to Riverside Park, and brought food and merchandise into the city.

The rise of trucking in the 1950s led to a drop in rail freight on the High Line, and in the 1960s, the southernmost portion was torn down. The final train carried freight down the High Line in 1980. In 1993, more of the viaduct, between Bank and Little West 12th Sts, was demolished.

Although the elevated structure is basically sound, the abandoned 3 ks stretch of railroad viaduct was ugly and overgrown with weeds. Worse, it was accessible only to those who risked life and limb, trespassing on Railroad property. It was mostly forgotten, except by architects, conservationists and neighbours who were mesmerised by its solitude and wild quality.

In 1999 the Giuliani administration signed an agreement joining the property owners’ move to DEMOLISH the rusting and ugly High Line. So a community-based group, Friends of the High Line, immediately got itself established. Locals Robert Hammond and Joshua David created plans to turn the High Line into an elevated park or greenway, similar to an unused rail viaduct in Paris’ 12th arrondissement that became the Promenade Plantée. The Municipal Art Society, American Institute of Architects, the Society for Industrial Archaeology, the New York chapters of the American Planning Association and the American Institute of Architects also urged preservation.

Sunbaking in the greenery, just next to where High Line meanders through Chelsea Market

In 2004, the New York City government committed $50 million to establish the proposed park. A design competition was conducted, attracting 720 entries from 36 countries, and in July 2004 the four finalists’ proposals went on display at the Centre for Architecture on LaGuardia Place in Greenwich Village. The semi finalists included plans for all sorts of facilities - high-flying pools, wetlands, outdoor art projects, bicycle paths and nature trails.

At places where the High Line went through buildings, like the former National Biscuit Company building that is now the Chelsea Market, the decision-makers were open to commercial uses for the High Line. This was presumably to generate income to maintain the project.

In April 2006, Mayor Michael Bloomberg presided over a groundbreaking ceremony, marking the beginning of construction on the High Line project. By early 2007, most of the old rail tracks had been removed, making way for the elevated park.

By mid 2008 a natural oasis was created in an urban city. This southern section included five access stairways and three elevators. A hotel developer built The Standard Hotel,  straddling the High Line at Little West 12th St. The Gansevoort Street terminus at the south end of the High Line was considered for a new museum by a number of organisations.

The new Standard Hotel straddles the old High Line

In June 2011 another ribbon cutting ceremony to open the High Line's second section, from 20th Street to 30th Street, was held. This time the mayor, politicians and dignitaries were all there.

The High Line Channel features art films and videos, including historic works, new productions and curated series. During the High Line’s regular operating hours, the Channel can be viewed from the Seating Steps at West 22nd St.

Having a 22-block elevated urban park that connected neighbourhoods and provided a special sense of place… was a unique and transformative public experience. I actually believe it was a radical demonstration of people-power and local planning. What an interesting premise - that an open space can be at the heart of neighbourhood revitalisation.

Can there be further growth in the future? Of course. Someone may be inspired to built a beach on the High Line, or a golf course, or a music bowl. Architect Steven Holl hopes one day to make the High Line part of a green loop, connected to the new Hudson River Park by a series of pedestrian bridges that would soar above the fierce traffic of West Street. The sky is the limit!

The sense of wild plants has been maintained

And High Line has had important financial considerations as well. Like the Promenade Plantée in Paris, High Line has spurred the construction of domestic and commercial buildings in the surrounding area. 8000 construction jobs were created on High Line itself, and many more on other neighbourhood developments. Two million people a year visit the structure, half of them tourists. Needless to say, citizens in other American cities are now looking very carefully at their own rusty, industrial hulks.

"A railway station with a town attached".. in the gold fields.

The town of Maryborough’s history had emerged in the Gold Rush days of 1851-1854 when gold mining was becoming the predominant industry in the region. But it wasn’t until the railway lines were being laid down across the state of Victoria in the late 1860s that travel to rural cities became easy.

When the railway line first arrived in Maryborough, the tender specified a station building that was made from red brick with significant bluestone foundations. The building had to provide a platform for the trains, a flat for the station master, waiting rooms for travellers, offices, a dining room and verandas. So it was to be expected that one of the most significant events for Maryborough was the grand opening of the working railway station in July 1874. Everyone in central Victoria turned up.

But by the 1880s, Parliamentarians were already asking for a new station since extra trains were going to Geelong or were linked to the Ararat and Warrnambool areas. Maryborough may have been a small rural city (pop in 1854 was 25,000; now 8,000), but it was seen as a very important central junction, 165 ks from Melbourne.

Second version of Maryborough Railway Station, completed 1891

The new station was built for four times the budget of the original station. Red bricks came from a nearby kiln; roofing slates were shipped in from England; plate glass for the skylight came from Melbourne. The stucco trimming, I assume, was just for contrast. A goods shed and goods platform were built last of all.

Veranda covered platform on cast-iron columns

This second station was built over the top of the old station and was completed in August 1891. It was HUGE – 25 rooms and a gorgeous clock tower that was added just before WW1 started. I am not sure how to describe the architecture; the station’s own history page says the distinctive roofline and offset tower display the Anglo-Dutch style. Even now the viewer can see the different types of Dutch gables with tall faceted rendered chimneys. On the business side of the station, the very long platform covered by a veranda with a hipped roof stands out. The veranda is partly cantilevered and is supported by cast-iron ribbed columns. Locals were very proud of the fact that their platform was the longest single platform outside the capital city (1010 ms under cover).

Inside, visitors notice the impressive, carved ticket box windows, a very interesting tessellated floor, a lovely timber ceiling and quality iron gates at the entrance.

Novelist Mark Twain visited Maryborough in the 1890s. He wrote "you can put the whole population of Maryborough into it, and give them a sofa apiece, and have room for more. You haven’t fifteen stations in America that are as big, and you probably haven’t five that are half as fine. Why, it’s perfectly elegant". He described Maryborough as 'a railway station with a town attached'. I hope he really did say that - it was very clever. And true.

Cafe and wine centre, opened in the Maryborough Railway Station in 1993

The station is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register, but it could have sunk into quiet oblivion anyhow. Trains still operate regularly from Maryborough to Ballarat (to connect to the Ballarat-Melbourne line). But the line that was opened in 1874 from Maryborough to Castlemaine (to connect with the Bendigo- Melbourne line) is not used by regular traffic any longer. And the Mildura line, that was opened from Ballarat to Maryborough in 1874, was closed in 1993. Rural cities suffered badly as a result.

Fortunately in 1993 a local business sub-leased the southern half of the station from the town council and established an antique emporium, regional wine centre and café, open daily. A $2 million restoration of the station was carried out in 2006-7, making the visitor’s experience both historically and aesthetically pleasing.

Old waiting room with tessellated floor, high timber ceiling and beams, stained glass.

59 Brick Lane Spitalfields: Christian, Jewish, Muslim

By the mid-late C17th, the long street in the East End of London called Brick Lane was being built up from the south. The Huguenots were fleeing religious persecution by the Catholic Church and Catholic government in France. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, tens of thousands of Huguenots sought sanctuary in Britain and brought with them their weaving and silver-making skills.

Traders and weavers lived next to, but not necessarily in Spitalfields. Their late 17th and C18th domestic buildings were well appointed terraced houses, perfect for housing the French weaver families once they became successful; fine city mansions were built around the newly created Spital Square.

substantial  houses, built since 1700

59 Brick Lane, on the corner of Fournier Street, was a plain but quite elegant, rectangular dark brick building with tall arched windows. Even in a heavily built up street like Brick Lane, natural light could flood into the spaces inside.  The building was described as having 2 storeys with a plain band between floors, 6 windows with red brick gauged arches and stone keys, recessed windows, a Palladian window in centre with semi-circular headed windows at sides (1st floor) and 4 segmental headed windows (2 blank in centre) on ground floor.

How was this building used over the centuries?
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today 59 Brick Lane is an elegant mosque

The first community to use 59 Brick Lane were the recently arrived Frenchmen. The Huguenot community built La Neuve Eglise as a Protestant Church in 1743, along with a small school. As these Calvinists worked hard and prospered, some of them could afford to build large and handsome Georgian houses around Brick Lane, with glass-ceilinged workshops in the attics, where they set up their weaving looms. They didn’t forget their religious values either. In 1700, there were nine French churches in Spitalfields, although by the end of two generations of English born Huguenots, the French-speaking community was clearly being assimilated through inter-marriage.

Interior of 59 Brick Lane, when used as a Methodist chapel  (above)

Interior of 59 Brick Lane, when used as a Jewish synagogue (below)

The next group to use 59 Brick Lane were a different people. The London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews used The Jews’ Chapel, as they called the building in 1809, to encourage the physical restoration of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and to encourage the Hebrew Christian Messianic movement. The Society only lasted for one decade in Brick Lane.

John Wesley himself had lived not far away on City Road and preached his first covenant sermon at a chapel, just off Brick Lane. The simplicity and plainness of The Methodist Chapel, as the Wesleyans called it in 1819, would no doubt have suited them well.

When the local silk-weaving trades went into decline, the abandoned properties in this suburb were sublet and in the C19th the East End became a cheap place to live. Waves of impoverished and rather desperate immigrants arrived over the decades, slowly prospered and then moved out of Spitalfields as soon as they could. So as Icons Of England has shown, the building changed a number of times as each community established its own place of worship here.

With the huge influx of Yiddish-speaking Jews from Eastern Europe flooding into the East End in the 1880s and 1890s, our Methodist Chapel was converted into The Spitalfields Great Synagogue in 1897. Brick Lane was the heart of London’s Jewish community and this was the principal synagogue of the area. Plus there were schoolrooms under the roof for children of the masses of impoverished, hard working refugees. From the 1960s, the Jewish community in the East End dwindled, many moving into more salubrious north London. The building eventually closed.

Since 1976 this building, Brick Lane Jamme Masjid, has been one of the largest mosques in London; 4,000 worshippers can fit into the prayer hall. The mosque has particularly served the religious needs of the large Bengali community which arrived after World War Two. The non-structural fittings like pews were removed, the opening in the centre of the gallery was reduced in size, made octagonal and moved eastwards, while retaining the columns on the ground floor supporting the gallery. A partition wall was inserted around the western end of the ground floor, and a qibla was constructed on the ground floor under the SE corner or the gallery. The northern and central vaults were also converted to prayer halls. Rooms adjacent to the prayer halls were adapted for washing.

Once again there is an school for religious instruction here, on the first floor, but this time it is an Islamic school. The former Huguenot chapel and former Great Synagogue in Fournier St and the adjacent former school buildings, now used as ancillary spaces for the mosque, are Grade II listed buildings.

Princelet St Synagogue, behind this Huguenot house

Another of the handsome Georgian houses in Spitalfields that were built by the Huguenots eventually became the Princelet St Synagogue. The front of the building is a former Huguenot house built in 1722, but at the rear was a synagogue, built in 1862. Like the other 38 synagogues in the City and the East End, Princelet St Synagogue lost its Jewish population in the two decades after WW2 ended.

Sandy's Row Synagogue, men on the ground floor, women section in the balcony

Sandy's Row Synagogue is fascinating for two reasons.  Firstly the synagogue was established in 1870 by a society of Dutch Jews, not Russians, Ukranians and Lithuanians. Secondly the synagogue, formerly a French Chapel, is the only extant, functioning synagogue in the East End today.

Two projects based on Spitalfields have recently come to my attention. Firstly a BBC programme called Saving Britain's Past was shown in Dec 2009. It did not ask whether the old Huguenot chapel cum synagogue should now be a mosque - that is beyond dispute. Rather it asked how today’s Bengali families could make the area their own, while not destroying the heritage value of old Spitalfields.

Georgian home in 27 Fournier St, restored by the Spitalfields Trust

Secondly The Spitalfields Trust bought crumbling Regency (1809-15) houses in Whitechapel, selling them on to Londoners who then let the Trust rebuild them observing strict conservation rules. For six years, Homes & Property has followed the story of the horseshoe of homes in a run-down part of East London. In this year’s Georgian Awards, presented by the Duke of Gloucester, the restoration work was highly commended. Plus The Spitalfields Trust project won first prize in Country Life’s national restoration competition.

One renovation stands out in particular. Fournier Street was the last street to be laid out on the Wood-Michell Estate and was originally known as Church St. 27 Fournier Street was built by Peter Bourdon of Spitalfields, who was granted a 98 year lease in 1725, the date that appears on the rainwater head on the front of the building. The weaver Mr Bourdon was believed to have been a prominent member of Spitalfields society. I assume from his surname that Mr Bourdon was a Huguenot. He would be delighted with how 27 Fournier St looks today.

The Tired of London, Tired of Life blog recommends visiting London's Museum of Immigration at 19 Princelet Street. The museum's home page says that 19 Princelet Street is a magical unrestored Huguenot master silk weaver's home, whose shabby frontage conceals a rare surviving synagogue built over its garden. The staff are working to save the building and to create a permanent exhibition documenting the history of the Huguenots, Irish, Jews, Bengalis, Somalis and others who shaped this Spitalfields.

Kerala India: Christian and Jewish architecture restored

The Jews of Kerala State (on the SW coast of India), who arrived in India some 2,500 years ago, settled in and around Cochin/Kochi as traders. They were attracted to Muziris, which was a thriving port that had trade contacts with the Mediterranean, the Middle East, China and East Africa. By the 18th century, there were 8 synagogues in five different Kerala towns and villages: 3 in Cochin, 2 in Ernakulam and one each in Parur and 2 other towns.

The Kerala Jews lived in safety, but it seems that most opted to emigrate to Israel after the new state was established in 1948. Some 75,000 Indian Jews left their homes, synagogues, schools and cemeteries behind; few families remained to look after the communities’ resources which inevitably began to moulder.

Parur Synagogue, 1615

An American architect, Jay Waronker, recently documented 34 synagogues across India, including 7 that he found in Kerala. Fortunately his work and watercolour versions of the buildings have been published.

Michael Freund noted Kerala State was keen to celebrate its multi-religious heritage. The state cherishes its composite culture and wants the synagogues to be sites where locals and visitors can have memories of the Jewish connection. The state government of Kerala, along with the central government, has put aside a large amount of money to renovate and restore temples, synagogues, churches and mosques. The entire initiative is known as the Muziris Heritage Project.

The first synagogue in Cochin, located in the quarter of Old Cochin known as Jew Town, was destroyed in the Portuguese persecution of the Jews in the 1500s. The second synagogue, built under the protection of the Raja of Cochin along with Dutch support, is the present Paradesi (foreign) Synagogue. The most visible part of the synagogue is the 18th century clock tower, which, along with other parts of the complex, underwent repair work in the late 1990s. This lovely building is decorated with hundreds of 18th century hand-painted porcelain tiles.

Paradesi Synagogue, Cochin

Not far from Kochi, the Paravoor/Parur Synagogue 1615 was built on the ruins of a synagogue that had already stood for 500 years. But a blaze in 1662 could have been set by the Portuguese colonisers since they had laid claim to Kerala and they burned the Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi about the same time. The Kerala Jews never suffered from anti-semitism at the hands of their Indian neighbours, but the Portuguese colonisers did try to institute the Inquisition.

Preservation plans for this Parur site were drawn up by an important Indian conservation firm, the same firm that had been commissioned by the Kerala office of the Indian Department of Archaeology to restore the nearby Synagogue of Chennamangalam. To reach the synagogue, turn from the main street of Parur onto Jews' Street. At the entrance to this street were two tall granite pillars, an indication that the Jews lived in a self-imposed ghetto.

The synagogue architecture must have once been very attractive; there's a colonnaded pathway that leads from the two rooms, at the street entrance, to the main entrance door of the synagogue in the small courtyard beyond. The stairs to the balcony have unusual flat, shaped supports for the railing and the balcony, with its decorated and gilded supporting beams, have already been restored.

But many important elements were removed. And as the synagogue had not been used since the 1970s, even the remaining elements required repair and restoration. On top of the neglect of 30+ years, the monsoonal climate had a harsh impact on the exterior base, windows, roof tiles and external doors.

Parur’s synagogue was built in the traditional style of Kerala. The style combines white-washed polished lime over a soft reddish-brown local stone walls, timber framing, deep eaved roofs covered with terracotta tiles, wooden latticed screens and large shuttered windows. Drawing from the vernacular design of the region, the influences of the Portuguese and Dutch imperialists, Hindu and other religious building practices, the Parur synagogue added its own Jewish liturgical elements, resulting in a distinct approach to synagogue architecture.
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Kadavumbagam synagogue, with Parur's ark and reading desk

Because Kadavumbagam synagogue's original fittings were taken to Moshav Nehalim in Israel in the 1950s, the reconstructed Kadavumbagam synagogue in India had to be furnished with a Torah ark 1892 and bimah desk from the nearby Kerala community of Parur. So it is a bit sad that we can best see the carved and painted teak fittings of Parur synagogue, but only by visiting the Kadavumbagam synagogue. At least they were saved.
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St Francis Church, Kochi, 1503

Let us compare Parur synagogue to local Christian architecture, built in approximately the same era. St Francis CSI Church 1503 in Kochi is the oldest European church in India and has great historical significance as part of European colonisation of the sub-continent. The Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, died in Kochi in 1524 whilst visiting India. His body was, for some long time, buried in this very church.

Most importantly for this article, the casual visitor might not be able to tell the difference between St Francis Church's external architecture and Parur Synagogue's external architecture.

St Thomas Syrian Church, Parur, 1566

Examine St Thomas Jacobite Syrian Church 1566 in North Parur where the mortal remains of the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Jerusalem were entombed. When founded, the new church was consecrated in the name of St Thomas the Apostle; the event was inscribed in old Tamil script, in a granite plaque embedded in the wall near the church’s front door.

St Mary’s Church in Bharananganam was first built in 1004 AD, initially  a small church that may have looked like a local temple. When the Portuguese were in command of the affairs of the Christian communities, they wanted to rebuild churches in Christian style.  Finally in the very early 20th century, St Mary's had become large and Gothic, although still built with local materials. 

St Mary's Bharananganam

Bharananganam may not be the largest town in India, but St Mary's became very important when a local woman died and was eventually canonised. Pilgrims flocked to St Alphonsa's grave in the firm belief that illness could be miraculously cured there. The church was renovated just before Pope John Paul II arrived to honour St Alphonsa in 1986, the first ever papal visit to Kerala and India's first ever female saint.

Kochi, Kerala State, SW India