City and Suburban
BY JOHN BETJEMAN 0 NE of the most surprising possessions of the LCC is Marble Hill, Twickenham. It is that very rare thing in England, a small Palladian villa, and was built 1724-29 for Henrietta Howard. Pope, Swift and Gay used to visit it. It stands now in a flat expanse of well-known recreation grounds, and trees survive near the house. It is really the south London equivalent of Kenwood, but the LCC has not treated Marble Hill with the same respect. On application in the winter you can see inside, where a mahogany staircase of great richness leads to the magnificent painted and carved saloon which looks over the river. But the rest of the noble first floor is at present partitioned into rooms—a flat for the head keeper—and the charming ground floor on the river side has the usual LCC cafeteria. Such a building as this should make a splendid gallery for pictures and furniture.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Last week I had to judge a competition in Oxford Town Hall. with Lord David Cecil and Mr. Michael Astor as my fellow judges, for the prettiest girl in Oxfordshire. We all of us agreed about the winner, though there were disputes that lasted for about half an hour about the second, third and fourth. Our wives, who were with us, though separated from us during the judging, agreed unanimously with our choice of the winner. Why, I have been asking myself since, was this graceful girl from Long Hanborough the winner? Was it her nose, her eyes, the way she walked, her proportions? for the other girls were very beautiful, too. Why did she stand out? The older I grow the less I know about beauty.
LABLANDIA
Keble College, Oxford, has extended itself on its northern boundary in the Butterfield style of its original building (1871). Here is this new continuation of a Butterfield building using the patterned red brick, the chimneys, the ironwork and Bath stone dressings of the rest of the College. It is extremely effective and looks inevitable. No other kind of building could have been put there that was not out of keeping with the work of a highly individual architect. Now we learn that Lab-land is•developing opposite this north of Keble. When Butterfield used brick for his college, he did it because already North Oxford was a brick suburb and not merely because it was a cheap material. It would be a great pity if the new developments to the labora- tories attempt to go monumental in a Cotswold stone way in the middle of this attractive brick suburb.
DORMY
I am told that anti-Semitism is strong in America, and that one golf club near New York does not allow Jews to play on it. A man playing on it lately was suspected. The secretary was sent to interrogate him, and said that he was very sorry but this club had its rules, and he understood that the player was a Jew and therefore he must ask him to play somewhere else. The man replied : 'My father was not Jewish, but my mother was. Suppose I play nine holes?'
ST. MICHAEL'S HILL
I learn with relief from the Professor of Greek at Bristol University, who writes to me a rightfully wrathful letter, that his university does not intend to destroy the buildings of St. Michael's Hill, Bristol, but to preserve them as private houses.
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