Architectural wandering

Christopher Wren may have won his claim to being England's most famous architect, but there are others whose claims -- on artistic grounds -- must be at least as strong. Take Wren's pupil, Nicholas Hawksmoor:


That was his extraordinary Christ Church at Spitalfields, one of the most striking churches in the country. Hawksmoor designed half a dozen London churches, each of which adds considerable weight to his claim to be a world class architect. This is St George's in the East (apologies for the washed-out photography... it was a very grey day):


It has a similarly uplifting facade, the main tower end consisting of an extraordinary massing of forms:


The interior was totally destroyed by Second World War Nazi incendiary bombs, and in the 1960s a rather fifth-rate new church was built within the remaining shell (a pale imitation in brick of what Basil Spence had achieved at Coventry Cathedral):


From within the 1960s church you can look out at the, er, interior of Hawksmoor's entrance tower:


Leaving that confusion behind, I walked through bits of London that I have rarely, if ever, visited before. The Underground doesn't penetrate here -- this is the territory of the Docklands Light Railway:


Most of the original housing has been swept away, although some of the Brutalist replacements are now not much better than the slums they replaced:


Decay is everywhere: here, a Nature Studies Centre which closed "temporarily" during the Second World War, never to reopen, is itself being reclaimed by nature:


There is economic life, though -- much of it contained under the railway arches that are such a prominent feature of this part of London:


There remain examples of early social housing -- these are saved by their balconies and the colour:


While modern yuppy flats have been inserted into any spare space, proximity to The City and Docklands being their main selling point:


Cesar Peli's skyscraper glimmers through the glass roof of the Canary Wharf DLR station:


And there are delightful architectural survivals scattered around:


Canals can suddenly reappear, too -- I still have no clear mental map of London's canal network.


And I ended the walk with another Hawksmoor: this one St Anne's at Limehouse:


Hawksmoor built more beautiful church facades than anyone else I can think of -- here, again, the massing into the tower is just extraordinary, soaring:


This tiny sliver of Limehouse is a rare Georgian survival, an atmospheric speck in the heart of the East End grimness:


And it's dominated by St Anne's.


I probably ought to confess that, in general, I'm not a huge fan of the English Baroque -- it's all a bit over-decorated and mannered for my taste.


But in the hands of a genius like Hawksmoor, it's impossible to resist.