guttering at Whipps Cross Hospital, Leytonstone, London - and remember the NHS is safe in the hands of the tories (as if)

mausoleum of Harvey Lewis, (c.1854) Brompton cemetery, London

John Harvey Lewis (1814-1888) was born in Ireland and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He was called to the bar in Ireland in 1838 but relinquished practice in 1850, becoming High Sheriff of Co. Kildare in 1857. He was the Liberal Member of Parliament for Marylebone from 1861 to 1874, under Prime Ministers Palmerston, Disraeli and Gladstone. His first wife Emily Owen Lewis, whom he married in 1840, died in 1850 at the age of 36. Her body was placed in a vault in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin and later re-buried in the mausoleum at Brompton Cemetery in November 1854.

Brompton Cemetery was one of the 'magnificent seven' privately-run burial grounds established in the 1830s and 1840s to relieve pressure on London's overcrowded churchyards. It was laid out in 1839-1844 to designs by the architect Benjamin B Baud, who devised a classical landscape of axial drives and vistas with rond-points at the intersections marked by mausolea or ornamental planting, the latter devised by Isaac Finnemore with advice from J C Loudon. The main Ceremonial Way culminates in a dramatic architectural ensemble recalling Bernini's piazza in front of St Peter's in Rome, with flanking colonnades curving outwards to form a Great Circle, closed at its southern end in a domed Anglican chapel (the planned Catholic and Nonconformist chapels were omitted for financial reasons). The cemetery, never a commercial success, was compulsorily purchased by the General Board of Health in the early 1850s, and has remained in state ownership ever since.

things that one always sees by building sites/roadworks but nobody seems to know what they're called

shovel face

STW WO

gate and chain, Tate Britain, Millbank, London

Peasgood's Nonsuch

railings alongside coastal path, St Ives, Cornwall

railings, Barnes footbridge, Barnes, London

railings, Park Square West, London

railings, Mount Nod Hugenot burial ground, Wandsworth, London

 

railings, St Ives, Cornwall

railings of the royal academy, Piccadilly, London

railings of the Giardinetti Reali, Venice

 

further adventures of Lottie the superpup

Waitrose organic are her favourites

door knocker, Venice

door fastening, Venice

door hinge, Venice

door handle, Venice

my life is changing in so many ways*

* opening line from 'a man needs a maid' by Neil Yong

and why is my life changing in so many ways? because yesterday, Lottie, our eight week old bearded collie puppy came to live with us. she is, of course, adorable

but you don't have to take my word for it - see for yourself: