Here’s another Cab drivers’ shelter, which serves cab drivers, workers and visitors from its busy location at the North end of Hungerford Bridge.
Cab drivers’ shelter Northumberland Avenue WC2N 5AQ, sketched 29 September 2026 in Sketchbook 17
This shelter is still very much in use. People queued at the window for their drinks and snacks.
I sketched it from the steps of Hungerford Bridge as people walked by.
This shelter was built in 1915, replacing an earlier shelter from 1882. It is listed Grade II, listing number 1462592. The listing entry is here.
The shelter is right next to Embankment Tube station, which is reached by walking under the bridge to the right of my drawing. The Playhouse Theatre is to the north of the shelter, in the background of my sketch.
The steps of Hungerford Bridge, though convenient, were metallic, and therefore cold. I warmed myself with a cup of tea from the shelter and tried to keep out of people’s way.
Oddly, hardly anyone noticed me. As is often the case, it was the small children who took an interest: “What is she drawing?” [I hold up the picture so the child can see it] “Oooh!” says the child, fascinated, looking up to compare my drawing with the view in front [Thinks: “Adults can draw too!”]. I hope I inspired at least one small person to keep drawing.
Also dogs took an interest, mostly in my tea.
Sketchbook 17 page spread
My growing collection of sketches of Cab drivers’ shelters is here.
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St Clement Danes stands on a traffic island in the Strand.
St Clement Danes, Strand, WC2R 1DH, sketched 7 February 2024 13:30 in sketchbook 14
I sketched this church over a lunchtime. At 1pm its bells played its tune, “Oranges and Lemons“, a little haphazardly, but quite distinct.
Why St Clement Danes? What’s Danish about it? According to the church leaflet, in the 9th century, “Danish settlers who had married English wives were allowed to settle in the area taking over a small church dedicated to St Clement. The Church came to be known as ‘St-Clement-of-the-Danes'”. A rather more brutal story is told by the Viking Ship museum of Roskilde in Denmark:
“By the 9th century London was yet again a powerful and wealthy town attracting the attention of the Danish Vikings. They attacked London in AD 842, and again in AD 851, and The Great Army spent the winter in the town in AD 871-72.” “Cnut became King of England and in AD 1018 he was able to send his army back to Denmark. He burdened the English population with the tax thingild to pay for the maintenance of a small army. He also placed his Danish garrisons around London, including by the church St. Clemens Danes. Generally, Cnut was a popular king, and during his reign peace prevailed in England. Cnut died in AD 1035 and one of his sons, Harold Harefoot, took over the English throne. On his death Harefoot he was buried in Westminster Church, but his brother Harthacnut ordered the body to be dug up and thrown into the Thames. Perhaps Harold Harefoot was re-buried in St. Clemens Danes outside the town wall. The peace in England was over.”
The “Science Nordic” site offers lively descriptions of the Danish people that arrived in England in the 9th and 10th centuries. Today we might describe them as “economic migrants”
“In eastern England the Vikings discovered a milder climate and a rich agricultural landscape, similar to the one they knew back home. Faced with a lack of good farming land in Denmark, many families decided to try their luck on the other side of the North Sea.” – Dr Jane Kershaw, Archaeologist and Viking researcher
St Clements no longer has any particular Danish connection. It is linked to the Royal Air Force. The statue outside, in the bottom centre of my sketch, is
“Air Chief Marshall Lord Downing, Baron of Bentley Priory, Fighter Command 1936-40”
according to the inscription on his plinth. The Danish church in London is St Katherines, to the East of Regents Park.
Here is the song the bells played, with links to my drawings of the churches:
Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clement’s. (St Clement Danes) You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin’s. (St Martin in the Fields) When will you pay me? Say the bells at Old Bailey. (St Sepulchre-without-Newgate) When I grow rich, Say the bells at Shoreditch. (St Leonard Shoreditch) When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney.(St Dunstan’s Stepney) I do not know, Says the great bell at Bow. (St Mary Le Bow) Here comes a candle to light you to bed, And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
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This lamp burns gas from the sewers. It’s an engineering marvel from the Victorian age, together with Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, the Embankment and Tower Bridge. Amazingly, it’s still standing, and still burning sewer gas, now renamed “biogas”. The notice on the fence says:
The adjacent street light is the last remaining sewer gas destructor lamp in the City of Westminster. Installed in association with Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s revolutionary Victoria Embankment sewer which opened in 1870, this cast iron ornamental lamp standard with original lantern continues to burn residual biogas.
City of Westminster, notice in Carting Lane
Carting Lane Sewer Gas Destructor Lamp, sketched 13 Feb 2023, 2pm in Sketchbook 13.
The original purpose of the lamps was not to light the streets but to burn off sewer gas, with the aim of reducing odours, exterminating bacteria in the sewer gas and reducing the explosion risk. Some town gas is drawn in with the sewer gas to make sure the lamp stays alight and does its job. The lamp is alight night and day. This was alight at 2pm.
Carting Lane runs down from the Strand to the Thames Embankment, right next to the Savoy Hotel. I drew the picture standing above the lamp, looking down the lane towards the Thames. Here’s a map.
Here is work in progress:
The colours in the picture are:
Ultramarine Blue and Lavender for the sky,
Serpentine Genuine/Burnt Umber/Fired Gold Ochre/ Mars Yellow for the mid-tones
Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber mix for the blacks and greys
Transparent Pyrrol Orange for the 20mph sign on the lamppost.
My current watercolour palette. The colours I used for this picture are starred. All Daniel Smith colours.
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On the way back from a visit to the West End, I passed St-Martin-in-the-Fields, standing out against the cold sky.
St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square. Sketched 2nd Dec 2022, in sketchbook 12
The statue in the foreground, left, is the Edith Cavell Memorial, seen from the back. Edith Cavell (1865-1915) was a British nurse. In German-occupied Belgium, guided by her principles of humanity and her Christian faith, she provided medical care to soldiers irrespective of which side they were on. She was executed by a German firing squad 1915, because she had helped Belgian, British and French soldiers to escape the German occupation and reach Britain. Her grave is in Norwich Cathedral.
I sketched standing on a corner of the Charing Cross road, see map above. This turned out to be a very noisy location. The National Portrait Gallery is being refurbished and there was continuous drilling and banging. Buses and cars ground their gears, and thundered past, rushing through the traffic lights to shriek to a halt at the next junction.
But St-Martin-in-the-Fields rose above it all. The inscriptions which faced me on the Edith Cavell Memorial were: “Determination”, “Fortitude”.
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Houses in West London, 12″ x 9″ on Arches Aquarelle CP, [sold]
I enjoyed the television aerials, which look like runes or calligraphy, above the formal lines of the terrace of houses. The street was not as empty as I have drawn it. There were delivery vans coming and going, building work in progress, children being led to school, all manner of arrivals and departures.
I made a preliminary sketch, to make sure I’d understood the perspective. Here are photos of work in progress:
Preliminary Sketch
Pencil
Pen
Work area
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Here’s a quick sketch of Canada House on Trafalgar Square, seen though the modern windows of the National Gallery Sainsbury wing.
While I sketched, I overheard fragments of conversations: “I was dating a Chinese girl, and she was taller than me…..”, and someone on a mobile phone: “It needs to be connected to the WiFi…yes…though why one would want the dishwasher… I don’t know!”
About 30mins pen and ink on location, colour added later.
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This statue is in the centre of St James’ Square, SW1, London.
William III is William of Orange. He was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1688 to 1702. The statue was originally proposed in 1687. It was completed in 1807, which is the date on the plinth. There were a number of delays. The first commissioned sculptor, John Bacon Senior, died. The sculpture was eventually created by his son John Bacon junior.
As you see, the statue has green highlights. This is how it was. It is bronze, which is an alloy of copper and tin: tin 12% roughly. The green is verdigris: a mixture of copper compounds. Wikipedia is lyrical on the subject:
“Verdigris is a variable chemical mixture of compounds, complexes and water. The primary components are copper salts of acetate, carbonate, chloride, formate, hydroxide, and sulphate…..All the components are in an ever-changing and complex reaction equilibrium that is dependent on the ambient environment.”
Wikipedia entry for verdigris
This makes it sound like a 21st century environmental art project.
Written on the plinth is: GVLIELMUS. III. And on the other side:
I.BACON.IVNR. SCVLPTR.1807
The sketch took about half an hour. Colours are mostly Phthalo Green, Prussian Blue, and Perinone orange. In Jackson Watercolour sketchbook.
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Captain Horatio Nelson, painted by John Francis Rigaud in 1781, with Fort San Juan in the background.
For our Boxing Day walk, John researched places in London associated with Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805).
First we saw some houses of the period, and then went to the various places that Nelson lived or visited in London. My mission was to draw very quick pictures. We had a lot of places to visit, and I didn’t want to hold up the expedition. Here are my sketches, in the order of our visits.
11 Cavendish Square, a Georgian House of the period
Stratford House built 1771-6, another example of a Georgian House of the period
103New Bond Street. Nelson lived here in 1798
147 New Bond Street. Nelson lived here later.
22 Grosvenor Square. Lord and Lady Hamilton lived in a house on this site.
A window in 37 Dover Street, opposite Nelson’s House
Number 15 St Jame’ Square, a “pure Palladian mansion” of the period.
We saw and named architectural details. On 11 Cavendish Square we noted the “blocked vermiculated columns”
“Vermiculated” means wormlike. It’s a really useful adjective. “I found it impossible to follow his vermiculated arguments.” ” After navigating the vermiculated back alleys, we emerged at last onto the main square.”
We saw ionic columns on Stratford House. These are the ones with scrolls at the top. Above the columns is the “metope” or frieze. On this there were “bucrania” which are bulls skulls.
An “aedicule” is a house shape with columns each side. At 37 Dover Street we saw a window in an aedicule.
A window in 37 Dover Street, opposite Nelson’s House
Here is our route:
It took us 5 hours and was 14km.
After the Georgian London visits in the West End, we walked to Trafalgar Square to see Nelson’s Column, and then along the Strand, where we saw the site of a silversmith he visited. Nelson went along the Strand in his carriage to receive his “Freedom of the City of London”. At Temple, the cheering crowds unhitched his horses and hauled his carriage themselves.
We arrived at St Paul’s Cathedral, where Nelson is interred.
I used Organics Studio arsenic gray ink, and a Lamy Safari pen with fine nib, from The Writing Desk. The book is a sketchbook from Seawhite of Brighton.
Ink: it’s not waterproof. It does not contain arsenic.
Lamy Safari pen.
Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook
Sketchbook: hardbook.
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