South Kensington Walk - London's Hub of Art and Culture

Pip, Tally Ho, Joolz Guides here in which I wander around London telling you fascinating facts and today we are taking a little stroll around the museum district of South Kensington. There's a lot more than just museums in South Kensington, it's actually a really interesting area. We're just starting here at the station here, the Metropolitan and District Railway but it was also the Great Northern Piccadilly and Brompton Railway. Anyway that's why down on the station platforms you can see four different platforms all next to each other. Actually one of them has been abandoned so you can just see it's not used but the other one has been built on and you can just see the escalator going down so that they made way for the escalator there. But anyway yeah so that's why they've got four station platforms there. Oh there's a lovely map over here look. Pay attention Simon, we're starting here and we're going to go here, here, here and here and we'll be finishing somewhere around here. Yes sir. So let's go. Look at that, don't get many of those, definitely get points for spotting one of these nice big solid square post boxes. Look at that yeah, Queen Victoria's era and see I like that the fact that you can't take that out unless you have the key to open the door. Anyway points for that. Look at this lovely pub there on the corner of Clareville Grove, another sad sight, a closed pub, probably a hangover from Covid I expect. The Brompton Beer and Wine House, beautiful buildings they've got around here. I mean look at the Royal Society of Sculptors there, it's so lovely. Built in 1886 and speaking of pubs, don't forget Jewel's Guides has another book coming out, Rather Splendid London Pub Walks, well that's the working title at the moment anyway. It's a series of walks in which I wander from one pub to another and talk about all the interesting things in between. Check the links below, you might even be able to pre-order it on there as well. Anyway very highly recommended. But yeah just here along Onslow Gardens, number 69 over here, this is where Mrs Cody lives in A Fish Called Wanda. Have you seen that film? And this is the one where Ken, who's played by Michael Palin, he's in a van up the road, a little yellow van, his mission is to try and kill this Mrs Cody and he's got this violent dog and she's got all these cute little dogs and instead of killing her the dog kills one of the other dogs. It's an ongoing joke in the film Anyway so she comes out of that one and walks up here. Lovely area around here isn't it Simon? I suppose what you'd expect from South Kensington. Might as well discuss this, look at that. RBK, I mean I imagine it's Royal Borough of Kensington, RBK, then on this one it's Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. So I wonder if they merged? Kensington and Chelsea merged but that lamppost was put there before they merged. What do you think? Just my theory, don't write in. Actually do write in if you happen to know, that'll be interesting. I don't feel safe in this neighbourhood, I think we should move along. That's true actually. Lots of opportunities for points down this road. I was talking about these in the Knightsbridge video, coal hole covers with glass on them so they're kind of light refracted through the bottom and look at that lovely bell there. You don't see many of them do you? No, it's amazing that and I'll tell you who lived over here Simon, you just look this little house over here number 22. Bow your head lowly dog, because that is where David Bowie used to live in the 1960s with his girlfriend. So Durham did his first album, that's the one with Uncle Arthur and all that on it. Stop me if I'm getting too Bowie technical here. But anyway, Durham dropped him and then he moved in here with this ballet dancer called Hermione Farnagal who he was totally in love with. So anyone who has his albums, like the Space Oddity album for example, has a song called Letter to Hermione and things like that. Anyway they recorded a bunch of demos in there, like the Space Oddity, the demo was recorded in there with her singing on it and everything. I think it's quite amazing to think you know a penniless singer like him could live in a place like that just shows how times have changed. I don't know if you remember when David Bowie was dying he wore a t-shirt that said Song for Norway on it. People didn't know he was dying at that stage but he appeared in interviews wearing this Song for Norway t-shirt and people are asking what it meant and it was because actually Hermione Farnagal got a job in this ballet and it was called Song for Norway and they had to split up because she decided to go off and get this job and David Bowie was horribly heartbroken as you can tell in a lot of his songs. That's a lovely station, look at that one. I do like, well originally it was called Brompton Gloucester Road. This is from 1868 when they extended the Metropolitan Railway to Hammersmith, this was part of it. So it's a Metropolitan and District Railways Gloucester Road station. Now it's just Gloucester Road station because the whole area is actually not South Kensington, it's called Brompton officially but South Kensington was a name coined by Henry Cole, whom we shall learn more about later but anyway I've always had a lot of love for this station, I think it's very beautiful. But just opposite you see that KFC over there, now I think that is number 79 where John George Haig killed his first victim. Now John George Haig was known as the Acid Bath Murderer and he lured back someone by the name of William McSwan who killed him and then dissolved his body in acid and flushed him down the drain. But worse still, he then befriended the victim's parents and when the parents were asking him, you know, what's happened to our son, do you know him? And he said, oh well I think he's tried to avoid joining the army so he's just gone missing because this was in 1944, they were worried about getting called up. So anyway he then called the parents, invited the parents back to his flat here, he put on this famous leather apron and a gas mask, he then killed them, dissolved them in acid as well, flushed them down the drain and then he posed as their son in order to claim the inheritance. It's unbelievable. Anyway they caught him in the end Simon, crime doesn't pay. Yeah let that be a lesson to all of you watching. Fancy KFC son? Look according to their sign, the best tiramisu and coffee in London, let's check, let's check out, I always like it when they've got these places which have different types of tiramisu. There used to be a place in in Rome called Pompey that I remember. Let's just have a look in here. It's kind of unusual to find these different flavours, I thought it was just the normal one. Yeah next week they'll have different flavours. I could probably eat that in about 30 seconds I think. We are here on Cromwell Place just around the corner from South Kensington Station actually and look number seven, yeah Francis Bacon, the famous painter, he lived here in the 1940s. He used to black out the windows and he turned it into a bit of a gambling den and he always used to hang out in Soho and meet all these rough and ready types and he'd bring them back here and they heard he was a painter. You know they didn't know about art or anything because they needed a painter and decorator to redo their houses so they say oh can you can you come paint my house for me. They didn't realise Simon but also Jean Millet, he was a famous Raphaelite, not a bad address. He obviously rented the place or bought the place because other artists had lived there before so it's like it was established as an art studio. There we go Simon, look the Natural History Museum, we're not going to go in and talk about the museum's loads because there's just too much in there. I remember when there used to be a Diplodocus in the entrance hall. I think they've replaced him now, he's now a blue whale in the entrance hall but now he's out here look. Do you say Diplodocus or do you say Diplodocus? Diplodocus. Some people say Diplodocus, I mean honestly. Diplodocus. Diplodocus. All this Simon, look this is all, Jerry did this, Jerry did this during the war. There's a Luftwaffe, you'd have thought they might fix it a little bit. Yeah stick a bit of polyfiller on it. Yeah exactly but now coming up here on the right, this lovely red building is the Henry Cole wing of the Victorian Albert Museum. Now Henry Cole was one of the most influential, important men of Victorian times and we did actually visit this in my recent video all about my mum. It's called My Favourite Walk so if you want to see some of it but I think we should go inside because there's someone very special I want to meet. I love the V&A, it's such a beautiful museum and look over here as I live and breathe it's Alice Macdonald, spelt the same way as my name. We must be related. I'm not sure about that. But you are related to this man. I am definitely related to this man. Henry Cole is my great, great, great, great grandfather. So Henry Cole was the first director and the founder of the V&A. It was known as the South Kensington Museum initially and now it's the V&A and he was also involved in many, many, many, many other things. In fact the whole reason why all of these museums and stuff are here is because Henry Cole convinced Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, to do this huge thing called the Great Exhibition. What sort of year are we talking? 1851 was the Great Exhibition so that was probably when he was in his full steam. Prince Albert was known to say if we need steam get coal. What do you think it was, neck beard? Is that what it is? Yes. A neck beard? It was quite a popular thing of the time where your chin was exposed and you kind of had a beard. Just coming down there all around the edge. A furry kind of attire. This is the guy who sent the first ever Christmas card, is that right? He invented it. He invented the idea of a concept of a mass-produced Christmas card. He was also partially responsible for the creation of the first ever postage stamp, the Penny Black, which completely revolutionised education, writing and literacies because suddenly everyone could write to each other for a cheaper amount of money. Why is it called Exhibition Road then? The Great Exhibition of 1851 was at the top of Exhibition Road in Hyde Park. A third of the country came to visit and the huge amounts of profits that were made went into the creation of this whole area. Right, okay so these didn't exist, all these museums didn't exist yet? Yeah exactly. It was bought by the Royal Commission of 1851 and they still own quite a lot of this ground where Imperial College, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum are. Look at this, look George GR5 1910. Got a lovely gas lamp you see, get points for spotting gas lamps Alice. And look, as my sister was going on about, this one has one, two, three, four, five, six of those, what do you call them? The little kind of, you see the things that light up. So sometimes they only have four, sometimes they have three. All right, anyway let's go this way, look we're just walking into, this is Imperial College here and just around the corner there, after the Skempton building, is something rather nice. How utterly disappointing, it is completely covered in scaffolding. What a disappointment, this is the Queen's Tower. Back in 1886 this was called the Imperial Institute but this is the only part of the Imperial Institute that still survives. There were originally three of these towers which didn't look like that. I'm gonna have to cut to a photograph of this or something. It's going to be beautiful, clearly renovating it and it commands spectacular views of London apparently. They wanted to flatten that one as well but John Betjeman, the poet who went to my school, I keep going on about, he saved it, he was very good at saving parts of London. It was built to commemorate the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria. How many years is golden jubilee Alice? I've forgotten but anyway it's a lot of years and they've got 10 bells in there which are all named after her various children and grandchildren. I mean she had enough of them didn't she? She had like so many kids. Anyway look that's a bit of an anti-climax. It really is well and truly hidden. They didn't want to leave it out because I wanted people to come and sort of check it out in case they're watching this video many years later. Fat chance. Have you ever been in here at the Goethe Institute? You can go to lectures, you know see films and learn German and stuff but my favourite thing about it is actually they've got a lovely restaurant around the back with a beautiful terrace. In fact they all have it. They say the lovely Polish restaurant over there that's got it. It's really rather nice and you get a pretty good wiener schnitzel there and sausages. I was looking for somewhere to go recently for a nice lunch and they've got it's really quiet and lovely and you know you're not disturbed you've got this beautiful peaceful view. How pleasant. Fantastic thanks for that. I'll let all my friends know. It's virtually impossible to find a nice secret hidden place anymore in London because everyone who discovers them just blasts it all over TikTok. Anyway now I'm guilty of that as well. No look it always happens. It always happens. Look everything I want to point to is covered up. Look number 12. I mean what a nuisance. This is number 12. I'm completely covered in scaffolding as usual. It's actually a very beautiful little muse. I feel like making a racket. You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. This is where Michael Caine used to live with with with Terence Stamp. Neil before Zod. Neil before Zod. I'm sure he has done. Look can we stand over here please so you can actually see what a beautiful street this actually is. This is a nice lovely muse. Yeah it's not bad. And it just goes to show that in the 1950s penniless actors like Michael Caine and Terence Stamp could live in a place like this. A bit like how we saw with David Bowie. It's weird isn't it how times have changed. And it's a complete shell now I see. Who knows Zod? General Zod from Superman. I'm sure he has done many other much more important roles. Zod. I always wonder though when they renovate properties like that they would come across items or something that would have been from the time that Terence Stamp was there. Exactly. A little bit of graffiti maybe. What kind of a column would you say that is? That's a Corinthian Capitol on top of the column. Very well spotted since we're talking about David Bowie earlier on. It's uh is it Chameleon, Comedian, Corinthian and Caricature Simon? Perfect abode for Julian Mcdonald. Marvellous. Now we're not going to go over there because there are some scary looking people with guns and uh they're usually stationed outside the Iranian embassy. In 1980 do you remember Simon when there was that siege here. It lasted about a week. There was these gunmen broke in and they seized hostages. The balaclavas. Yeah the SAS went in later because they demanded autonomy for a region of Iran called Khuzestan. They killed someone. I think they threw out a diplomat dead but then shots were fired and then on to you live on TV you saw it the SAS all went blasting into the building and out of the 26 hostages I believe 24 of them were unharmed. Look over here you see so we're here uh at Prince's Gate. This is the Prince's Gate, the entrance to Hyde Park and you can tell because it's got the Prince of Wales feathers there and the Prince of Wales feather. So this was the Prince's Gate named after King Edward VII when he was the Prince of Wales I think but uh but yeah it says Ish Din that you can't really read it there properly because it's rubbed off but it says Ish Din and that means I serve in German because it was back in 1346 when the Black Prince he was called. He was the heir apparent of King Edward III so King Edward III's son who was going to be but actually he died before he came to the throne. He defeated Blind King John of Bohemia in the Battle of Crecy in 1346 and it's said that when he went to remove the helmet of the Blind King John it had these ostrich feathers on it and his motto was also Ish Din which is I serve and so the Black Prince stole his motto. I mean he claimed it was as a mark of respect to the dead king who'd fought bravely in battle. I don't know if that's really a mark of respect nicking his helmet and his motto. It's a bit harsh. Anyway I think unless I'm mistaken that now appears on the Black Prince's tomb Ish Din. That's how the story goes anyway. There are many other debates about whether that was really true. Anyway that's where the ostrich feathers come from. Look this is where the great exhibition was the famous Crystal Palace. Back in 1851 they decided to showcase all the wonders of the age especially technological stuff and this is where your great great great great grandfather, I could go father, he helped to set up this thing. He didn't just help set it up he brought the concept the idea to Prince Albert because it was the first ever international exhibition and Henry Cole said we need to do it otherwise someone else is going to pip us to the post. So each person I suppose would have had a stand here or something a little cubicle like in Camden Market where you've got you know your combine harvester that you're showing off or the new toilet George Jennings penny toilet that costs one penny to use it and that's why we say spend a penny. And there was over a hundred thousand exhibits in this huge glass structure. Every Victorian came along there was Lewis Carroll, there was Tennyson, Dickens was a fan he visited I think three times and he quite liked the irony that the window taxes brought in the same year that this huge glass construction was kind of being promoted. Were they exempt? Yeah I think so. I hope so. The whole intention was for everyone to be educated. So it wasn't that expensive there were cheap tickets. There were cheap tickets absolutely and landowners and employers would pay for their staff to come and see it because it was just seen as as the thing that you had to go and see. This indicates the one corner of the Crystal Palace. There are other markers plaques. Yeah so if you want to have a little challenge you go dual skies challenges you can find all the markers to indicate just to know exactly how big the place was you have to walk quite a long way that way. The Royal Parks have an augmented reality app. Okay oh hello look look look there look there look there I say and you can see what the great exhibition would have looked like so it went all the way along that hey this isn't bad you think I can walk through the wall hey and we're in look oh there are no exhibits though there are no exhibits it's empty of exhibits so can people put their own exhibits in there I think that's the next step for the Royal Parks they're gonna you should be in this but Simon you maybe you could walk up a little yeah look you're disappearing I can make you disappear and then all the way down that way it went all the way down to the end there massive I'm glad we did that thanks Alice I'm fine that was quite fun I'm not usually a fan of these things it's exciting especially when it's historical though like that it gives you a real sense of scale it only lasted for six months didn't it yep and after that they transported it pane by pane down to Sydenham and named the entire area after this amazing structure you know the football team the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs you must have spoken about before yes I do have a Crystal Palace video yes please watch yes look at these terrific gates Simon wonderful look these are called the Colbrookdale gates because they are they are actually the only remnant really of the great exhibition which still remains here these were originally around the north entrance the north transept the queen's entrance I believe and look if you were like me you got bored to death in history at school by all this stuff about the industrial revolution they went on about Colbrookdale company Shropshire they were the guys who did the first iron bridge in the world so they kind of sparked the industrial revolution there's that famous iron bridge in Shropshire that we all had to learn about at school these all cast in like one piece it's like one piece of iron it wasn't it wasn't done in bits you've got these well they're not mermaids they're mer children yes you've got mer children and these stags here these indicate they're they're kind of a reference to the original use of the area back in days gone by I think it was used for stag hunting and what have you these require some deciphering sometimes you look at these and just think it's a pattern but look there's a v and there's an r so that must be Regina Victoria I would think and that's a backwards r I think that's what that is that's just to make it look nice unless I'm wrong marvellous just across the road from there get points for this wonderful milestone here I don't know I guess Hounslow must have been a very important town back in the old days because a lot of these milestones point to Hounslow tell you how far they are and we are one mile to Hyde Park corner so this is from 1911 this is one of the nice metal ones and it's in front of a statue of Livingstone I presume he's around the corner from Shackleton the great famous explorer and they are outside the Royal Geographical Society but originally it was a private house built for William Lothar MP I think those are probably original those windows there don't you think you probably tell from the rust but yeah it was it wasn't until 1912 that this Member of Parliament he probably thought maybe this is a little bit big for me this house so he sold it to the Royal Geographical Society so they made it their headquarters that building we've just been to the Royal Geographical Society that was that was built in around 1873-ish by the architect's name was Norman Shaw and he also did these big red brick mansions here Albert Hall mansions this came up around the 1880s because back in those days wealthier people were living mostly in nice houses but land was becoming more scarce they started building up these areas and so it became evident that these wealthy people would also have to start living in mansion blocks and stuff like so this was one of the first really posh mansion block of this sort with you know with with staff wearing nice uniforms and I think they had a restaurant and cast iron railings and everything and there's this kind of building opposite it it's supposed to be quite famous well it's famous because Arthur Daly and Terry McCann are seen standing on the steps exactly of Minder yeah that's why this place is famous that's how you know it Julia let's go and reenact the end of Minder over here if you want to would I'm sure they shake hands or something about here don't they or is that over the car or something oh anyway they're just hanging out all right it's just a shot isn't it anyway look opposite here just you see the other most famous thing about this whole area obviously not being the Royal Albert Hall is the Royal College of Music here which uh which is in the Columbo in Dagger of the Mind the episode featuring on a black man where she's the murderer they actually turn it into the London Wax Museum and they got all these shots of Columbo around London they clearly just popped over for a couple of days got lots of shots of him taking pictures of Buckingham Palace and then the final scene takes place in the Royal College of Music because Madame Tussauds wouldn't let them film so sorry I'm a Columbo fan I can't help that Royal Albert Hall come on tell me about this blooming place uh the Royal Albert Hall or the Coliseum if I like the Coliseum yeah all right after Henry Cole yeah that was a name that was uh kind of going around the London newspapers at the time of its construction as well as the Henry Cole is kind of known as the founder because he'd had the concept when he was on his holiday in Italy that he was told to go on by a doctor because he's working too hard at the South Kensington Museum and then he had the idea for the Nation's Village Hall the first performance here was by the Wandering Minstrel I was for the people who built the hall and for their families and stuff like that although they say that the acoustics weren't very good for quite some years I think it wasn't until like the 1950s or something until they they sorted out the acoustics in there there used to be a joke that it's the only place that you could be certain that any performance you did would be heard at least twice because the echo good acoustics now is it yeah now you'll see in the proms and all of the all of the televised shows that happen in the Royal Albert Hall they have these kind of mushrooms that come down from the ceiling that absorb all of the sound so it's kind of your money's well spent if you come and see something in the Nation's Village Hall as it's known you can still just about see on here it says Lanarkshire steel for the steel works that made the the good or whatever that that is yeah look here yeah Lanarkshire steel something Scotland how about that a bit of Scotland right here in London so this area used to be I mean the actual area was called Brompton wasn't it yeah it was called Brompton but Henry Cole the man himself decided that that name wasn't really going to it didn't really suit this area that was going to be the the hub of art and culture so he decided to name his museum the South Kensington Museum which led to the whole name being created and the whole area being called South Kensington so that's now the Victoria and Albert Museum and this bit some people call it Albertopolis yes but it's also known as Colville Albert definitely was patron and endorsed lots of art and culture and music but there was a kind of anti-royalist movement that kind of nicknamed this area Colville whilst other people were calling it Albertopolis because do you reckon when they built this all the locals are like oh horrible disgusting Royal College of Organists I mean I don't make them like they used to look at that it's beautiful this is the house of Harry Gordon Selfridge in the film no it was an ITV series do you remember that Mr Selfridge it was quite good that I enjoyed that anyway this is where he lives in that TV show isn't it beautiful Lord Napier the Lord of Magdala he's the Magdala it was a title created just for him and I like these statues you get around London people that you wouldn't necessarily know who they are they're usually Victorians who fought campaigns and he fought in the Anglo-Sikh wars the second opium war the Indian rebellion of 1857 I think he was regarded as a great hero back then anyway he did all those campaigns and everything I mean if you ask the average person who that statue is of they wouldn't know and even most taxi drivers if you ask them they just know it as the horse's tail because there's a little taxi rank right there it's hardly even a rank really because it's just for one taxi but they call it the horse's tails I mean they use their CB radios or whatever radios they use these days yeah I'll meet you at the horse's tail meet your horse's tail I'd call it meet you at Benny Hill's house because Benny Hill used to live just down there on the right so how would you feel there Simon if you had run all those campaigns been made a lord you know given this great title and then 100 years goes by you've even got a whole statue to yourself and no one even talks about the statue of Napier they just they don't even talk about you they just talk about the horse you're sitting on horse's tail mate meet you at the horse's tail they don't even care who the bloke is well at least there's something just off Hyde Park gate here that's a beautiful little kind of cul-de-sac there imagine living there would be tremendous there's Reston Place which is um it looks like it's a private kind of dead-end street but it isn't actually you can there is a right of way through the gate at the end here so you can pop through here but look I mean look at this amazing little quiet paradise hidden away and the reason I know that you're allowed to walk through there after you is because it says so on the wall up here Reston Place pedestrian right of way now we've swung back round and we're back on Palace Gate the continuation of Gloucester Road this lovely road with these amazing houses I mean I just think they speak for themselves frankly anyway now look Queensgate news I say it's time for the pump all right nice cheers Simon cheers everybody thanks for watching don't forget to hit the subscribe button if you like the videos and if you want to know more about me you can head over to my website jewelsguides.com where you can even buy my book and keep an eye out for my new book about London pub walks and also check out Alice's website a to z arts.co.uk to find out all about her special school programs where kids can learn all about geography, art, history, Fabergé eggs and of course Henry Cole see you next time