Sunday 21 October 2007

William Blake in Soho



The staff entrance at the Savoy Hotel was once the doorway to William Blake's home, and dying-place. It's down an alley that was once Fountain Court off the Strand. Not the Fountain Court that you'll find on the A-Z, no matter what the security guard there says. London moves to protect its own.




Prohibition tactics. Aimed at the homeless or the commuters?




Epstein sculptures, Charing Cross. Puritans would clamber up ladders to smash off the genitalia with hammers.




Irving Street, off Leicester Square. Once Green Street, off Leicester Fields. And the marriage home of the Blakes.




Mayfair, Hanover Square. Blake's enemies are the Establishment. George III said 'take him avay'





Prof Fox - have you been reverse prohibitioning again?





Hazlitt's slab in St Anne's. He said of Blake's poems: 'they are beautiful, only too deep for the vulgar'





The Intrepid Fox, home of Soho revolutionaries back in the day..




Flaxman, Blake's contemporary. Infinitely more popular back then, apart from this court which bears his name, who remembers him now?




28 Poland Street. Blake moved he when he was 28. He was born on the 28th. Here his brother Robert died of TB. But Blake visioned him as an angel teaching him his new technique of relief etching.




King's Arms - Druids





Shelley - Poland Street





Red brick where the water-pump was, outside the watering-hole now named after John Snow





Opposite Blake's birthplace




Basement of William Blake house, triptych of Blake and an illuminated copy of the works that you can read




They tore down the house and put up this sign. Someone stole the O.




William Blake House





Soho Mural on corner of Broadwick and Carnaby Streets





Soho alumni




George II in Golden Square. The child William Blake would have played here. Perhaps that should be commemorated on one of the empty plinths.





Hendrix next door to Handel





Reed Employment ~ Blake's house ~ South Molton Street




Swallow Street




Science Commerce Art




Televisionary and Visionary (and a rabbit on dogback)




Sheridan





A city in transformation




Pitt the Behomeoth





The baptism font of Blake in St James' Church, Piccadilly.





The Artists Rifles - inspired the SAS, apparently




Haunch of Venison Yard