Tag: Emmeline Pankhurst

As a sign indicated, the Fulham Training Workshops on the Old Brompton Road seem to lie on the very boundary of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham – and if so I was probably standing in Kensington and Chelsea to take this picture from outside West Brompton staion. Hidden behind the building at the time were the two builsings of the huge Earls Court exhibition centre – a site which when I last visited was a large empty expanse with dust clouds blowing around awaiting redevelopment.

A whole block along the south side of Nevern Place, between Earls Court Road and Templeton Place has around 15 doorways each framed by a pair of these spiral columns. As my picture shows, the twists on each side of the door are in opposing directions.

Twisted columns were brought to Rome, probably from Greece in the 4th century by Roman Emperor Constantine the Great for the first St Peter’s Basilica. Legend grew that they came from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, though they were probably made several centuries after that was destroyed, but their use in Byzantine architecture may possibly have been based on the oak tree used for the Ark of the Covenant. ‘Barley sugar’ columns became popular in Baroque architecture thanks to Bernini and were known as Solomonic columns. I’m not sure whether this is the correct term for these, which are made of a series of spiral elements around a central core.

Nevern Place leads into Nevern Square where I photographed this impressive pair of doors.

Brompton Cemetery was one of seven large private cemeteries set up around 1840 when London’s churchyards and existing cemeteries were full to overflowing. This Grade I listed cemetery is now owned by the Crown and managed by the Royal Parks. Among the over 200,000 buried there (and there is space for more) are a number of well-known people – Wikipedia has a long list, though most of them I’ve never heard of.

Back in 1987 people were clearly coming to the grave of Austrian tenor and film actor Richard Tauber (1891-1948) and most of them had probably attended his concerts or had his voice on gramophone records.

Emmeline Pankhurst (1858 – 1928) is remembered by a rather fine memorial by Julian Phelps Allan, a woman sculptor born Eva Dorothy Allan, who changed her name to a more masculine version probably because it was hard for women sculptors to get work and continued to use the title ‘Miss’ and feminine pronouns.

I knew nothing about Benjamin Webster when I took several pictures of his gravestone, although it tells me he was an actor. I find that there have been two well-known actors called . This one was an actor-mnaager and dramatist and was born in Bath so I don’t know why he had Nottingham in his name though it doesn’t appear on the gravestone. It can be a little of a shock to see him still staring out at you with one eye.

Benjamin Nottingham Webster named his son William Shakespeare Webster, and his son was Benjamin Nottingham Webster III who also became an actor, though more normally known as Ben Webster. There is also another actor Ben Webster, still so far as I know living, but for me Ben Webster is a guy with a tenor sax who I spent an unsuccesful afternoon trying to entertain in Manchester many years ago trying to keep him sober enough to play. He got through a bottle of whisky and seemed more or less incapable, but then got up on stage and played so beautifully I cried.

The Colonade around the Great Circle, designed by the cemetery’s architect, Benjamin Baud and based on the piazza in front of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. It was made for people to walk around – and a stroll around the cemetery was popular among well-off Victorians who would hold family picnics in the grounds.

Nowadays it remains a popular place to go, particularly for film crews and photographers – and you may have to wait some time if you want to avoid others in your pictures. According to Wikipedia, “The cemetery has a reputation for being a popular cruising ground for gay men”.

Clicking on any of the pictures above will take you to a larger version in my Flickr album 1987 London Photos from where you can browse forwards or back through the pictures.