Esoteric London

Lloyds Bank, Law Courts Branch, Strand, London, WC2. Photo © Roger Dean 2011

A Looker-On in London – Mary H. Krout, 1899:

Chapter III Lord Leighton

From the drawing-room he led the way into what resembled a Moorish court; the walls were of blue and white tiles, every one of which had been selected by the painter – a collection which, he told me, he was years in completing; there was a dripping fountain playing in a basin of black marble, and carved Moorish grilles before the windows by which the light could be excluded, with cushioned divans beneath them; it was like a bit of Aladdin’s palace, which some obliging genius might have set down in London and have forgotten.

[ The photograph above is of the vestibule to Lloyds Bank's Law Courts Branch at 222 Strand. The building was constructed in the late 19th Century as offices with a restaurant on the ground floor which had a quite remarkable majolica tiled lobby which appears to have remained very nearly complete save for the introduction of a couple of ATMs. R.D.]