Literary Locations #5: The College of Arms

The College of Arms

130 Queen Victoria Street

London

EC4V 4BT

 

Website: www.college-of-arms.gov.uk

 

“The College of Arms is in Queen Victoria Street on the fringe of the City. It is a pleasant little Queen Anne backwater in ancient red brick with white sashed windows and a convenient cobbled courtyard, where Bond parked his car.”

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Ian Fleming (Jonathan Cape, 1963)

View of the College from Queen Victoria Street

The College of Arms is a royal corporation which is the official repository of the coats of arms and pedigrees of English, Welsh, Northern Irish and Commonwealth families and their descendants. The officers of the College specialise in genealogical and heraldic work which they undertake for their clients.

 

The first edition of On Her
Majesty's Secret Service

The College and its work features prominently in Ian Fleming’s eleventh James Bond novel On Her Majesty’s Secret Service both as a setting and plot device. Having been despatched to the College by M, Bond is initially unaware of the reason for his visit and is quizzed by one of the College officers – who rejoices under the archaic title of Griffon Or – about his own family background. This amusing interchange provides Fleming with the pretext to provide us with some details of Bond’s roots. For instance we learn that he has “no connexion with Peckham” and that his “father was a Scot” who “came from the Highlands, near Glencoe” and that his “mother was Swiss”. Griffon Or believes that Bond will be anxious to establish whether he is related to Sir Thomas Bond, who gave his name to Bond Street in London’s West End and whose family motto is Orbis non sufficit or “the World is not enough”. The Bond coat of arms and motto provided the basis for Richard Chopping's cover design for the book's first edition.

After this initial misunderstanding Bond learns from another of the College’s officers, Sable Basilisk, that his arch enemy Blofeld has designs on the title of “le Comte de Bleuville” and has asked the College to validate his claim. This provides Bond with the opportunity to pose as “Sir Hilary Bray” - an envoy of the College – and thereby gain access to Blofeld’s mountain-top lair Piz Gloria.

The College, which has stood in its present location since 1555, looks very much as it did in Fleming’s day with the most recent addition being the gates which were erected in 1956 - although modern visitors will be unlikely to regard the present day Queen Victoria Street as a “backwater”!

Rating (out of 10): 4

Literary Locations #4: John le Carré’s “Circus”

Trentishoe Mansions

90 Charing Cross Road

London

WC2H 0JE

In John le Carré’s classic trilogy of novels featuring George Smiley as the mild mannered but mentally agile spy, the “circus” is the term used to refer to the British secret intelligence service MI6. The name derives from the proximity of its headquarters to Cambridge Circus, a traffic intersection in central London. However, le Carré provides a number of clues in his novels that enable us to pinpoint the exact building that he had in mind.

The junction of Charing Cross Road
and the former Little Compton Street

"an hexagonal pepper pot overlooking New
Compton street and the Charing Cross Road"

Firstly, in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy we are told that Smiley’s colleague Bill Haydon has an office which is “an hexagonal pepper pot overlooking New Compton Street and the Charing Cross Road”. Although today these two roads do not intersect, New Compton Street was once joined with Old Compton Street by Little Compton Street, which has now vanished beneath an office block. In The Honourable Schoolboy, the circus is described as being housed in an “Edwardian mausoleum”. At the junction of Charing Cross Road and what was once Little Compton Street stands an Edwardian block of flats named Trentishoe Mansions and, if you look up to the roof, you can see a small turret resembling the description of Haydon’s lair.



"A dull doorway in the Charing Cross Road"

Further corroboration is provided when, in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, we are told that the circus’ archives are not accessible from the main entrance but are “reached by a dull doorway in the Charing Cross Road jammed between a picture-framer and an all-day café”. Although the commercial spaces are currently occupied by a musical instruments shop and a West End ticket agency, the doorway is still much as le Carré describes.

However, whilst the building itself exists, its role as a spy headquarters is a fictional construct as MI6 were never based in these residential flats. However, the building does have another literary connection in that it is adjacent to the former site of the antiquarian booksellers Marks & Co which featured in Helene Hanff’s book 84, Charing Cross Road, which documented a twenty year correspondence between Hanff and the shop’s chief buyer Frank Doel. Although Marks & Co has long since closed, the story is commemorated by a circular brass plaque on the wall.

 

Rating (out of 10): 6

Literary Locations #3: The Temple Church

Temple

London

EC4Y 7BB

Website: www.templechurch.com 

Admission charge: £4.00 (£6.00 for Friday lunchtime talks)

“London’s ancient Temple Church was constructed entirely out of Caen stone. A dramatic, circular edifice with a daunting façade, a central turret and a protruding nave off one side, the church looked more like a military stronghold than a place of worship.”

The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (Bantam Press, 2003)

The Temple Church was built by the Knight’s Templar, the order of military monks that was created to protect pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land during the time of the Crusades. It’s original design was based around a circular church, rather than the usual cross, which was modelled on the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The round church was consecrated in 1185 with the rectangular chancel being a later addition.

The church features in Dan Brown’s best-selling popular novel The Da Vinci Code as one of the locations that its protagonists Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu visit in their search for the Holy Grail. They are led there by a coded riddle that seems to point to the grave of a knight who has been persecuted by the Pope, although upon arriving there they discover that the stone carvings of nine knights that are located in the round church are actually effigies rather than grave markers.

"Lying supine on the floor, the carved, life-sized figures rested in peaceful poses."

The church is open to the public and, provided that a service is not in progress, you are free to wander around inside upon payment of the admission fee. However, it is best to coincide your visit with one of the talks that are given on Fridays during the summertime by the current Master of the Temple, Robin Griffith-Jones. Griffith-Jones gives a lively and engaging account of the origins of the Knights Templar and their persecution in France by Philip IV as well as the history of the church, including its restoration after it was badly damaged by German air raids during the Blitz – the evidence of which is still visible on the effigies of the knights. Whilst Griffith-Jones’ talk touches upon the appearance of the church in the novel, you can consult his book The Da Vinci Code and the Secrets of the Temple - which can be purchased at the desk just inside the entrance – for a more thorough examination of fact and fiction in Brown’s work.

Rating (out of 10): 6

Literary Locations #2: Platform 9¾, Kings Cross Station



The current site of the platform

Kings Cross Railway Station

Euston Road

London

N1 9AL

Admission charge: Free

“Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the ticket box had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. He had done it”

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J. K. Rowling (Bloomsbury, 1997)

Platform 9¾, Kings Cross features in J K Rowling’s Harry Potter novels as the departure point for the Hogwarts Express, the rail service by which Harry and his friends reach Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Although it is invisible to those without magical ability, the platform can be reached by passing through a brick wall barrier located between platforms 9 and 10.

Following the success of the books and subsequent film series, a “Platform 9¾” sign was erected at the station. Below it the rear wheels and handle of a luggage trolley were set into the bricks to give the appearance that it is moving through the wall.

The new concourse at Kings Cross

The sign and trolley were originally located on the wall of a separate annex to Kings Cross which houses the real platforms 9 and 10. However, they can now be found on a wall of the impressive new station concourse – the canopy of which is the largest single span structure in Europe – which was opened on 19 March 2012.

Whilst it’s worth a visit if you happen to be passing through Kings Cross and young children will enjoy the photo opportunity that it provides, it’s not worth making a special trip to see it unless you are a diehard Harry Potter fan.

Rating (out of 10): 3

Literary Locations #1: Dr Johnson’s House

17 Gough Square
London
EC4A 3DE

Website: www.drjohnsonshouse.org 

Admission charge: £4.50 (Adult)

17 Gough Square is the former home of the eighteenth century lexicographer, writer and wit Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) whose best known work was his highly influential A Dictionary of the English Language. Published in 1755, this was the leading English dictionary for almost 130 years until the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary appeared in 1884. Johnson, who was commissioned to write the dictionary by a syndicate of London booksellers in 1746, had originally claimed that he would complete the work in three years. In the end this considerable feat of scholarship, which involved writing definitions for over 42,000 words and compiling 114,000 literary quotations to illustrate them, eventually took him nine. Johnson was immortalised by his friend and biographer James Boswell in his Life of Samuel Johnson, published in 1791.

In 1911 Johnson's former home was bought by the liberal politician and newspaper magnate Cecil Harmsworth. Since Johnson’s occupancy it had been put to a number of uses including a hotel, printer’s workshop and warehouse space and had fallen into a state of disrepair. Harmsworth spent a considerable amount of his own money conserving and renovating the house, following two rules – that nothing old should be taken out and that nothing new should be brought in – so that a visitor today can form a good impression of how it would have looked in Johnson’s day. Although he received a fee of 1,500 guineas (the equivalent of about £230,000 in today’s money) for his dictionary, Johnson spent much of his life in financial difficulty and this fact is reflected in the simple and modest way in which the house is furnished and decorated.

There are four floors of the house to visit, starting in the entrance hall which doubles as a gift shop selling a range of books as well as paperweights and tea towels. You then work your way up through the living room, library and eventually into the garret in which the work of compiling the dictionary was carried out. During World War 2, members of the Auxiliary Fire Service were allowed to use the house as a social centre and this proved invaluable in saving the building when it was hit by incendiaries and a barrel of burning oil during air raids– events which are still evidenced today by the scorched beams in the roof.

One feature that will enhance your visit to the house is the excellent audio commentary which is provided on a portable handset with headphones. This is well worth the additional £2.00 charge and will enable you to gain a much better appreciation of the features and history of the house as well as Johnson’s life and his circle of friends, including his Jamaican manservant Francis Barber and the actor David Garrick. You should allow about an hour for a self-guided tour around the house with the audio commentary.

Rating (out of 10): 8

Classic Novels #1: Bomber by Len Deighton

First edition: Jonathan Cape, 1970

Current first edition value (in VG condition): £60-£70

After establishing himself as an author during the 1960s with his series of spy novels featuring a laconic, nameless protagonist (who became “Harry Palmer” for the subsequent films starring Michael Caine) Deighton turned to another of his major interests for inspiration – the Second World War.

Bomber - his seventh novel – was his most ambitious work to date and recounts a botched Allied bombing raid on Germany in 1943. Although the personalities involved and the details of the raid are fictitious (the action is said to take place on the non-existent date of 31^st June) it was meticulously researched to ensure that it provided an authentic and gripping portrayal of what it was like to  participate in – and experience the effects of – an air attack. This depth of research is particularly evident in Deighton’s mastery of technical details. Weather patterns, the workings of the German radar defence system and even how many fragments a flak shell might disintegrate into upon exploding are all described with a cool detachment that provides a counterpoint to the intense human drama of the story.

Deighton provides a variety of different viewpoints to recount the action. In addition to the bomber crews themselves the reader sees events unfold from the perspective of German Luftwaffe radar station operatives and night-fighter pilots as well as civilians in the small town of Altgarten that becomes the unintended target of the raid after marker bombs are dropped short of the industrial centre of Krefeld. This narrative technique helps to provide a balanced picture of both the effectiveness and morality of the Allied night bombing strategy – a feature which was unusual in a novel published just 25 years after the end of the conflict. Similarly, Deighton employs light and shade in his portrayal of individual characters with heroes and villain appearing on both sides, from the Luftwaffe pilot who learns of the horrific experiments being carried out within the concentration camps to the RAF ground crew who profit by selling their base’s provisions on the black market.

Bomber is one of Deighton’s most critically-acclaimed works. Kingsley Amis rated it as one of the ten best books of the 20^th century whilst Anthony Burgess included it within his list of the 99 best English novels published since 1939. These factors have helped to make it one of the more collectable of the author’s later works and you can expect to pay upwards of £60 for a copy of the first edition in very good condition in its Ray Hawkey-designed dust-jacket featuring detail from the Turner painting “Fisherman at Sea off the Needles”.

Novel facts:

1.     Bomber provided the inspiration for heavy metal band Motörhead’s album of the same name, which was released in 1979.

2.     In his introduction to the 2009 reissue, Deighton describes how Bomber was the first novel to be written on a word-processor after he was permitted to become the only private owner of an IBM MT 72 computer which was “the size and shape of a small upright piano”!