EGYPT, EUSTON & THE COPTIC EXPRESS

(pictured: Greater London House*)

On this walk we’re going to:

· explore the rare** Egyptian Revival, which used Obelisks, the Scarab, Lotus, and Sphinx, the ‘pylon’ wall and cavetto cornice, richly coloured and decorated,

· review the progress of the HS2 tunnels and terminus at Euston, and study the much-criticised 1960’s National Rail station,

· see actual Egyptian columns, with palm-leaf capitals, inscribed with hieroglyphs, AND the trilingual ‘document’ which first made it possible, in 1802, to translate Egyptian,

· go to the 2nd-ever Pizza Express in Coptic Street: over white wine and snacks, I will point out the interior features of the Dairy Supply Company (forerunner of Express Dairies) whose former purpose-built premises—still largely unaltered--the restaurant now occupies, PLUS outline the history and buildings of the Egyptian Coptic Christian Church** in England.

We’ll meet*** at Mornington Crescent Station, designed in his ‘oxblood terracotta’ style by Leslie Green, for the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway in 1907, and see the refurbished and renamed Carreras’ 1928 cigarette factory*, largest example of the Egyptian Revival in the UK.

(A year from now, 16m below this point, the 7 km long HS2 tunnels from Old Oak Common, started in January, and funded by the taxpayer, are expected to emerge)

To Britons, the Pharoahs’ Egypt was unknown, out of reach, and beyond understanding. It was Napoleon’s invasion, and his defeat by Nelson, in 1798, that sparked off a wave of sensational interest in its motifs, and their application to all areas of design, especially in France and Britain.

‘Egyptomania’ was infectious, and Egyptian Revival architecture was seen as fresh, different and modern.

Architects and designers, previously strait-jacketed within the Greek- and Roman-Revival styles, delighted in the sudden availability of new shapes and forms, plentiful colour and surface decoration.

The massive pylon architrave and giant cavetto cornice lent themselves to powerful compositions for Synagogues, mausoleums and prisons, in Europe, America and Australia.

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the first performance, in Cairo, in 1871, of Verdi’s Aida, set in the palaces, temples, halls and dungeons of Ancient Egypt, and the erection, in 1878, on the Victoria Embankment, of the 1500 BC red granite obelisk called Cleopatra’s Needle, found in a sandbank near Alexandria, kept interest alive.

Discoveries of tombs and mummies continued throughout the 1800’s until Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankamen’s tomb in 1922 led to a another wave of buildings which blended Egyptian motifs with Art Deco.

Most recently, the storehouse of Egyptian motifs was plundered by Post-Modernist architects, notably ‘Naked Gardener’ Ian Pollard in 1988, at the Warwick Road Homebase, described by Oliver Wainwright as ‘a camp Egyptian fantasy with friezes of Gods wielding power-tools’. The Egyptian features were over-painted white by its owners soon after opening, and it was closed and demolished in 2014.

In an ironic echo, among the HS2 preparatory work, over the past 10 years, was clearance of the St James’ Gardens graveyard, containing about 60,000 souls, and respectful removal of their remains.

In fact, HS2 have cleared an 11-platform wide swathe of city, including mature trees and 2 big office blocks, erased Cardington Street, truncated Drummond and Coburg Streets, and restricted Hampstead Road.

But while they were busy with that preparatory work, the scale of the project halved, from 530 km length to 230 km, from 11 destinations to 1, from 18 trains per hour to 9, and from a target train speed of 250 mph to 200 mph.

However, unintended and temporary, a charming maze of car-free passageways has been created on the west side of the station: we will use one to access the station.

But key piece of the HS2 connectivity diagram, the new Euston station complex, including a combined Euston Square and Euston tube station, and a pedestrian subway under the Euston Road, will not be complete until ‘2033…or 2043’. Public funding has been ruled out, and a recently-promised planning application for an over-site development will not be lodged for until a year from now.

Ambitions for the station have been dramatically reduced, from aiming for a world-class, 300m longtitudinal concourse above 11 platforms, covered by a dramatic ‘tee-pee’ roof by RIBA Gold Medal and Stirling Prize winners Grimshaw Architects, to 10, and now to only 6, fitted into the west side of the National Rail station. Abandoned designs cost £250m.

It was just before the election of 2010 that the Brown government announced their intention to build a high-speed railway between London, the Midlands, the North of England, and Scotland, having made sure the Conservatives would support it.

It was claimed it would have the capacity equivalent of 2 full-size motorways, at half the cost.

Now, official policy, stated by Heidi Alexander, Minister of Transport, is that HS2 will be completed, but at the lowest possible cost, even if this extends the programme.

For example, it was recently suggested that Avanti West Coast’s current 150mph Pendolino trains will use the now-surplus capacity on the HS2 tracks and in its stations.

Therefore, with new interest, we will review the existing station, designed by British Rail, in a more confident age, which soldiers on, with minimal ‘wow factor’ and amid relentless criticism, valiantly coping with the highest UK mainline station footfall (that is, excluding tube and overground traffic).

It uses a rational, modernist design, and durable materials: polished black granite, white mosaic and dark grey engineering brick, and a low, utilitarian trainshed, appropriate for a fully-electrified railway, which doesn’t need headspace for diesel exhaust, and so allowed a parcels depot to cover the entire north half above the platforms, to get parcels to trains without circulation conflicts.

Crossing Euston Road, we are expected for a very fast group visit to The Petrie Flinders Institute of Archeology at UCL.

We will follow their ’10 objects route’ giving human interest context: Pharaohs’ spells, mummy portraits (of the deceased’s face), pottery, a bead-net dress and a faience ‘ankh’, the symbol for life.

Then, using the less-busy Montagu Place entrance, we will go through the Sculpture Gallery of the British Museum*** to see 4 actual, real, Ancient Egyptian columns, decorated and incised, dating from the 1st millennium BC, AND the actual, real, 200 BC Rosetta Stone, found by Napoleon’s army, and since 1802 the most-visited thing, in the 2nd most-visited place in the UK!

We exit by the South Portico, and the walk will end at the ‘Pizza Express’ in Coptic Street, 400m from Tottenham Court Road Station.

This is a shorter walk, only 2.5 km, out of deference to the heat, but full of interest!

Hope you can come!

Andy

*converted to offices, refurbished and renamed ‘Greater London House’.

** Egyptian Revival and Coptic Church examples in London are few and far between, but we’ll see as much as possible and I will show numerous pictures and diagrams during the introduction and later discussion.

***the route will be shaded if it is sunny, and there will be access to cooled interiors. Bring sun-block or a parasol and as little else as possible. Your bag may be searched as we enter the British Museum.

PS feel free to call me on 07722 547310 if you are planning to attend but get delayed.