More Buxton

Continuing my investigations of Sir Thomas Buxton, eighteenth century brewer, philanthropist and politician, discovered in the course of a recent visit to Wisley, noticed towards the end of reference 2, off to London recently to inspect his memorial, now in Victoria Tower Gardens.

Put off resuming Bullingdons yet again, and settled for the Stockholm folding chair and a lift to the station.

Slightly puzzled by the sight of a large lorry from Warburtons (of reference 4) manoeuvring in the limited space around our local Costcutter. Puzzled, because one would not have thought a neighbourhood shop of that sort would sell enough of the stuff to justify its own lorry. Why not some wholesaling middleman? I think BH takes their bread from time to time, but I cannot remember when I last did. Perhaps in a picnic put together by some third party?

Lower Court Road was blocked and the ticket machine at the station was blocked, but I made my train. To get on to a particularly irritating stream of announcements. How is that no-one has told them to calm them down a bit? Most of them are repeated verbatim on the overhead screens and it is not as if there are that many blind people on the trains. And the ones that I have talked to know where they are anyway - with one chap being a regular enough traveller to know where he was by the quality of the rattle of the wheels.

Lots of security barriers around the Houses of Parliament. I was sure that there were more than when I was last in the vicinity, possibly for the last Dignity in Dying demonstration.

The Tower Gardens were looking well, even if the grass was a little tired. And the memorial was rather impressive; a miniature version of the much grander Albert Memorial outside the Albert Hall, erected at almost the same time and to be found at reference 5.

It started out as a drinking fountain, and I now know that a lot of drinking fountains, horse troughs and cattle troughs were installed across the country in the mid 19th century. We even have a trough in the marketplace at Epsom. Part of this was to do with water hygiene, another part was getting people off alcohol. Rum for a chap who ran a brewery.

I decided in the end that the red was sandstone of some kind, not terracotta. Doubt arising from the very smooth finish.

A bit further on, a rather new but still defunct water fountain. Thames House North behind, part of which was once home to some part of the Department of Employment. Thames House South over the bridge, mostly now home to some part of the Home Office. But also, in my day, home to an outpost of the Northern Ireland Office.

Today, I asked Gemini about when the memorial stopped being a drinking fountain, and he had a long story about vandalism and theft going back a number of decades. The theft including the eight statues which used to decorate the pedestals at the bottom of the spires. Statues which were, apparently, intended to stand for the inexorable march of British progress (and empire) - the eight representatives being listed in the snap above.

There was also the matter of 20th century water hygiene, not very consistent with mid Victorian provision.

The memorial in its heyday was drawn by Gustave Doré, with at least one statue already gone, and the snap above looks to be a copy of that drawing, lifted from reference 6. For those with a taste for a bit of serious monument history there is also reference 7.

We also have a picture of a replica of one of the stolen statues. Once again, Gemini was a little careless with his dates and had to be told that the statues were no longer there - whereupon he embarked on a further story about why this was so.

All in all a fascinating monument with a fascinating story. I dare say one could make quite a decent programme for television about it - not that I ever watch that kind of thing on the box.

Moving on, I was impressed that the public conveniences at the Lambeth Bridge end of the gardens still worked - to the extent of my being let in through the turnstile without producing a 20p coin - which I did not have about my person - by the helpful attendant. Something else that the much-maligned Victorians - and the Edwardians that followed - managed rather better than we do now.

Plus a spot of botanical interest, in the form of ripening seed pods.

Some kind of hellebore, quite possibly Helleborus foetidus (the Stinking Hellebore), but Google Image's AI assistant stayed silent on this occasion. Part of what Gemini had to say about this is snapped above: all very geeky. Maybe it will work better tomorrow.

Next stop, the Tate Britain, still clutching my Stockholm viewing chair. Access to the beach was not denied, but it was not exactly encouraged either. The gate was open but was very stiff and there was no handrail to the steps going down. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour on this occasion. Stockholm visible lower right.

The tide must have been fairly high, as this was the only stretch of beach in sight.

I could get into the Tate by the front entrance and found that entry was still free, so I made a donation instead. To find that the Constables and Turners had been moved from their old home to a special exhibition - which one had to pay for and which was fully booked for the day - and I was not going to renew my membership - which used to include queue jumping - just for Constable. As a consolation prize I went to look for the pre-Raphaelites, still in the free department, at least those of them that were still there, had not had to give up their house room to something more relevant to the young people, the young tourists of today.

On the way, I was able to enjoy the empty sculpture gallery, the two lines of neo-classical draped figures having been removed. The floor being a long way down these days, the Stockholm earned its keep. Perhaps the curator was mindful of the success of the empty turbine hall down river.

Aside: at this angle, the doors in the snap above like rather like fireplaces. I guess it is the high ceiling which does it.

The sheep were at home and on this occasion, unlike on the last, I decided that I liked the cleaned version better than that we had hanging up at home, from where it is noticed in these pages from time to time. More alive somehow. I also liked the frame: I need a frame to do what it says on the tin, to frame the picture and help with focus, with blocking out neighbouring material. Although, that said, the frame on the right is perhaps a bit OTT.

Described in Wikipedia as being 30 inches by 48, which I am sure is quite wrong. And I had thought that the original was rather smaller than our reproduction, which is 19 inches by 25.5. The first time I have caught Wikipedia out for a while.

Our visits to the place in question are noticed at reference 12. Or maybe just one of them.

Next up Rossetti, which grows on me. I didn't used to like him.

A helpful trusty found out that Pegwell Bay, which I had hoped to visit, was missing. But this one, reference 15, caught my eye instead, reminding me very much of the sort of thing that painters and wood engravers did between the wars. I was surprised this morning to find that it was much closer in time to the sheep, despite the very different treatment.

Out to head off to Tooting Broadway, via Pimlico - a station I only very rarely use - and Stockwell. The distinctive platform clocks at Tooting were still there and I leave finding previous notice as an exercise for the reader.

Passed through Wetherspoon's, to find that high chairs had taken over a lot of the space. On to Honest Burger, where I took burger and chips, without salt. Me recollection is that they were a bit free with the stuff.

I puzzled about what the place had been before, with its very large, still working, sash windows.

Burger entirely satisfactory, better than average. And I had remembered to tell them to go easy on the goo.

An exuberant tinnie, from the people at reference 16. Undistinguihsed to my mind, but then, I am not a tinnie person. Bring on the warm beer!

Gmaps knows all about the address given in Brooklyn at the bottom of reference 16, a rather run down district which looks entirely probable although I failed to find the building in question. But I did find that their hire bicycles and stands (the latter of which are visible lower left) look very like our Bullingdons and their stands, so perhaps one borrowed from the other. I had thought London was based on Paris. Yet another thing to check out on a dull afternoon.

Entertainment was provided by an older chap banging on, more or less without paise, to the young lady he was with. Touching on all kinds of subjects along the way. I associated to the custom in the US for all kinds of people - often young men - to talk knowingly about all  kinds of stuff of which they have but little knowledge. I suppose we do it too, but we tend to keep it for the bar room, where it is more easily tolerated.

An establishment that I had once taken a bacon sandwich from. Once favoured by bus crews. And so to the bus for Earlsfield, and so home.

Which took a while, as there had been some incident in the vicinity of Clapham Junction which was disrupting country bound trains. RPPL was locked and I fell asleep outside while waiting for my train, but luckily a helpful lady woke me up in time. She, quite rightly, thought I might be a bit cross to miss it, having waited for a good while.

Miniature pineapples, picked up from a Tooting grocer. Rather good, if rather small and much the same price as their full sized cousins. The shopkeeper said something, or I thought he said something, about their coming from Turkey, which seemed a bit improbable. But I have yet to check that one out.

The memoirs: the story so far

I bought my copy, from the 1848 edition, back in mid March from a bookseller in Dunedin in New Zealand, to be found at reference 18. They are turned up by gmaps fast enough and occupy a building called Milford House in Dowling Street, a rather grand looking place, built in 1882, which would not be out of place in London and which is a listed building.

It is a lot deeper than it is wide and most of the space was factory above and warehouse below - so the prim & proper facade is misleading.

My book arrived, nicely wrapped, five days after it left Dunedin, which I thought was pretty good.

[Harry Soane being, according to the British Museum, a 'London wood-engraver, heraldic draughtsman, stationer; designed numerous heraldic bookplates. An album of his bookplates is in the Viner collection'. Born around 1840 so the book plates must have been added some time after acquisition]

A nicely made book, if a little tired, very much of its time, with marbled boards and end papers and gilding to the top of the page block. A book which had started life in 1848 as a gift to one Thomas Hodgkin of Newcastle upon Tyne from his brother, passing to Andrew John Hodgkin in 1913. Search suggests that Thomas Hodgkin was the historian, biographer, banker - and Quaker minister - to be found at reference 19. Hodgkin's magnum opus, 'Italy and her invaders', was an eight-volume work on the history of the wars in the late Roman empire. One wonders if anyone has read it recently.

After that, a blank. Perhaps Andrew Hodgkin emigrated to New Zealand at some point.

The book was said to be a best seller in its time, and oddly, considering that it is built around the correspondence of a pious Victorian brewer, it is oddly readable. Engaging even. I am not racing through it, but in parallel with various other reads, I am steadily working my way through. Worth the bother and expense.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/pitcher-plant.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/04/wellingtonia-137.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Buxton.

Reference 3: Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Baronet, with Selections from his Correspondence - Charles Buxton - 1848.

Reference 4: https://www.warburtons.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Memorial.

Reference 6: https://thetidalthames.com/2026/01/25/the-buxton-memorial-victoria-tower-gardens/. Lots of handsome photographs of the memorial to be found here.

Reference 7: On Stage at the Theatre of State: The Monuments and Memorials in Parliament Square, London - Stuart James Burch - 2003. A lot on the background to and construction of the memorial is to be found here. The Buxton may have been brewers, but the family was also mixed up with the temperance movement.

Reference 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_English_Coasts.

Reference 11: Our English Coasts, aka Strayed Sheep - William Holman Hunt - 1852. Four years younger than my copy of reference 3.

Reference 12: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=fairlight.

Reference 13: The Beloved, aka The Bride - Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1865-6.

Reference 14: Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858 - William Dyce - 1860.

Reference 15: Battersea reach - Walter Greaves - 1870.

Reference 16: https://brooklynbrewery.com/brooklyn-beers/year-round/the-stonewall-inn-ipa/.

Reference 17: https://www.honestburgers.co.uk/. 'In March 2026, we were crowned winners of the National Burger Award 2026'.

Reference 18: https://www.hardtofind.co.nz/.

Reference 19: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hodgkin_(historian).