Courtauld: first campaign

Just about a week ago, following up one of the items noticed at reference 1, I made my first attempt on the Courtauld Institute.

The record

A bright, cold morning, but not so cold that I was tempted by quite a smart pair of gloves lying on a bench in the bus station part of Station Approach. Not even to the extent of trying them on.

Onto the train to Waterloo, on this occasion being moved to move away from the snap, crackle and pop of someone eating something from a plastic bag immediately behind me.

A quick hop to Wellington Street in the Strand, so avoiding the awkward possibilities involved in crossing over Waterloo Roundabout to Stamford Street, possibilities which I notice from time to time, for example at reference 2. A Wellington Street which morphs into Bow Street which still contains the Marquess of Anglesey (of reference 3), at which I sometimes used, more than forty years ago, to take a very decent helping of bread and cheese - Cheddar or Camembert - for my lunch. Been rather gentrified since I knew the place.

Into Somerset House where the courtyard fountain was looking well, but where a lot of the building was in the hands of contractors. I eventually found my way to a side door which admitted me to what was left of the Courtauld Institute (on this site anyway) and where I learned that the library was shut until 1300, then something more than an hour away.

Southern side of altar - one

Southern side of altar - two

Grand water dispenser

First stop, St.Mary-le-Strand, looking slightly less shabby than I remember it, still a handsome church, if not very holy, what with ladies with tea and cakes, canned music and a selection of what I think were Ukrainian religious images. Plus the piano already noticed at reference 4. Plus the unusual pulpit, visible right in the first of the snaps above.

I think I have come across a similar water dispenser in the past, perhaps associated with a font, but cannot now find it.

The ladies had some very nice looking cakes and I took a sliced of a boiled fruit cake. Very good it was too.

I didn't like to ask if there was still a congregation.

Second stop, the chapel at King's College, a place first visited just over ten years ago, a visit noticed at reference 5. A rather unusual place, with a lot of red and light brown paint and a lot of dark brown wood. Rather more holy on this occasion than St.Mary-le-Strand. A quiet and decent place to sit in and take a break.

Modest amount of control at entry, that is to say I had to fill out an entry in the visitors' book and they printed me off a small ticket.

Control on entry

A serious toy train - it looks as if it actually worked once

Provenance

Made by the chap who founded the company at reference 7. To think that we still bash metal, just like in the olden days. To think that King's College ran to a model railway club as recently as 1960. I don't think that LSE, on the other side of the Aldwych, had one a decade later when I was there. I have failed to track Pearl down, but I have learned that heritage locomotives did have rather whimsical names.

A view of the interior

I chickened out of trying to get underneath the close fitting loose cover to the (upright) piano visible right, so not a scoring piano. I didn't like the stained glass, which I thought a failed attempt to fit in with the Arts & Crafts interior. The more serious error was the low, flat ceiling, which, according to reference 5, was lowered to keep the anatomists upstairs quiet.

More interior

I took my break sat in a short bank of replica choir stalls, the sort of thing with lots of carved wood and a little wooden roof that you get in cathedral choirs and in the Henry VII lady chapel at Westminster.

Drunken whale - recto

Drunken whale - verso

The story according to Bing

From there I called time on the Library and headed down the Strand to Terroirs for a spot of lunch. A wine called the drunken whale caught my eye, but the arrival of the bottle snapped above confused me. The waitress managed to persuade me that it was the right stuff and I set to work on it. However, this afternoon, Bing turns up the whale, so clearly something to ask her about again when I am next there. While the maker, one Cyrille Vuillod, is clearly far too busy making wine to bother with a website.

Wine good, as I have come to expect from Terroirs. But I have to admit that, for once in a while, I did not think it improved when it came up to room temperature - one of my wine fads being to insist on it not coming in a bucket, not liking my wine chilled.

Plus the usual white bread and butter, followed by a modest portion of rib of beef. Meat good, but the thin sauce it was in was a bit strong for my delicate palette. Something I have noticed at Terroirs before. For dessert, more white bread with some proper yellow cheese, from Germany. Very good it was too, as was the drop of Calvados that came with it. Dear, but much better than the stuff that I get from either Majestic or Waitrose.

Quality waste water tanker

Out to find a rather smarter waste water tanker than the one we get in Epsom, first noticed at reference 6 - and still there last time I looked.

Architectural trim

I wondered about scoring the trim on the building across the walkway from the RFH as fake, it not serving any very obvious purpose. But I was unsure, so desisted. And so to Waterloo to get my Guardian from the Smith's there, from the now familiar checkout girl. Maybe she remembers me.

PS: I think some of the cuttlefish noticed recently were raised in Calvados. So it's not just booze that they do there.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/02/aachen-barbarossaleuchter-revisted.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/01/a-near-thing.html.

Reference 3: https://www.themarquess.co.uk/. Young's must have been quick off the mark to get this URL. Plenty of other marquesses about.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/02/piano-43.html.

Reference 5: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=usaf+pacheco.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/01/waterworks.html.

Reference 7: https://www.peterbrotherhood.com/.