Last Sunday the 4th May was another gorgeous day in London. People keep telling us that days like those are few and far between but its hard to believe thats the case with the great weather we've been having. One thing good about it is that it makes you really appreciate the good days. Which is why I dragged Pramod with me to do the podcast walk in Marylebone, the area right around where we live in Edgware Rd.
We began our walk near the Marble Arch tube station, on Oxford St and turned into one of the adjacent streets to come into Marylebone. As a side note, the podcast made us realise we've been mispronouncing Marylebone all this time. Its meant to be pronounced as Merry-Le-Bone not Marley-bone. Who knew?
The streets in Marylebone have a mix of everything from very old buildings and housing to modern offices, shops and flats. Though there are some internal streets with very homogeneous old architecture, mostly cream and white in colour. Marylebone was the closest village to the city of London until its development for housing by two landlords in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The early part of the walk took us past several squares. These are basically private gardens in the middle of a circular road where several streets meet. They are about 20-25 sq meters in size and basically allows people paying an annual fee its private use. The squares we saw were immaculately kept with lush green lawns, majestic trees, blooming flowers and shrubs. They looked so idyllic especially seeing families enjoying their time together. I was not jealous at all. One day when I'm rich perhaps.
At the edge of one of these squares is the Wallace Collection. Its a national museum set in a large historic London town house. It has a great collection of French 18th century paintings, furniture and porcelain with Old Master paintings and a great armoury section(European and Eastern). Every gallery is a room that has been immaculately decorated and arranged. There is a nice internal courtyard with a restaurant for those wanting to enjoy the weather and take a break. In the main gallery room upstairs there are many paintings and sculptures, we noticed that one particular French painter had a fascination with game. He had painted dead rabbits, birds, even lobster repeatedly, it gave us a bit of a chuckle.
Entry is free and even being a weekend it was not very busy so I would recommend this hidden treasure to everyone here and visiting London. For more info see http://www.wallacecollection.org/.
We spent about 2-3 hours there looking at all the galleries then continued on with the walk. We passed Wigmore Hall apparently a great small concert venue with good acoustics and down towards Oxford St on a very small but famous shopping strip called St Christopher's Place. Basically it was a small alleyway full of designer shops, restaurants and cafes leading on to the smallest of entry ways to Oxford St. We must have walked past it many times before without realising what it was.
After a short walk along busy Oxford St we turned into another adjacent street that lead into the heart of Marylebone. This area in Marylebone historically has had a significant connection with the medical profession with the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and Royal College of Physicians as well as 3 hospitals situated in the area. Even today there are many doctors, dentists, physiotherapists etc in the area. There are quite a few houses with blue plaques on their walls where famous surgeons, architects, poets etc lived. Next we arrived in Marylebone High Street bustling of shops, restaurants, cafes and pubs. The area almost had a feel of Balmain back in Sydney. I would like to go back there again.
The end of High St leads to St Marylebone church where Charles Wesley(leader of the Methodist movement) is buried. There is a path across the Church ground which leads to busy Marylebone Road just before the junction with Baker St.
Overall a very interesting walk I thought.
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