architecture Archives - Lovely Old Tree

An Art Deco tour of London – part 2

Posted by Katherine on August 4, 2017 in 20th Century

The Dorchester The site of the Dorchester hotel was purchased by Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons and Gordon Hotels Ltd. in 1926. The two companies commissioned Sir Owen Williams and then William Curtis Green to design a new hotel on…

An Art Deco tour of London – part 1

Posted by Katherine on June 6, 2017June 6, 2017 in 20th Century, Local

Inspired by my recent obsession with watching old episodes of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, set in the 1930s, I decided to take a self-guided tour of some of the best examples of Art Deco architecture in central London. The first thing…

The neo-gothic redesign of the Palace of Westminster

Posted by Katherine on April 25, 2014May 30, 2014 in 16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, Local, Medieval

The complex of buildings found at Westminster is a little architecturally confusing. We have Westminster Abbey, clearly old from what you see inside it, Westminster Hall and the Palace of Westminster, which look similar, and Big Ben, which screams Victoriana. These buildings can easily blend together if you don’t look carefully and that blending was indeed the intention of the designers.

Too easily overlooked – The Banqueting House, Whitehall

Posted by Katherine on November 1, 2013 in 17th Century, Exhibitions

I must have walked down Whitehall a hundred times, past one stone façade after another, and not realised that such an important building lay just beside me. I knew about the old Palace of Whitehall, which was a key royal…