Images Dated 2009

Upton Park, West Ham 26448_011

UPTON PARK, London. Aerial view of Boleyn Ground, the home of West Ham United FC since 1904. Photographed in 2009

© Historic England Archive

Aerial, Football, Leisure, Recreation, Sport

Lord Frederic Leightons studio BL13090_A

LEIGHTON HOUSE, 12 Holland Park Road, London. Home of the artist Lord Frederic Leighton (1830 - 1896). Interior view. The studio of Lord Frederic Leighton displaying recently completed works including Flaming June and The Maid with the Golden Hair'. Leighton was loosely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Photographed by Bedford Lemere in 1895

© Historic England

Chiswick House, Red Velvet Room ceiling J970259

CHISWICK HOUSE, London. Interior. View of the ceiling in the Red Velvet Room.
The ceiling is inset with painted panels attributed to William Kent and has usually been interpreted as an allegory of the Arts. The panels around the edge, for example, incorporate musical instruments, portrait roundels of gods and goddesses (Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mars, Diana and Apollo) and their appropriate Zodiac signs. In the central panel the messenger god Mercury hovers above a stone arch, below which is a group of figures with further emblems of the visual arts: Architecture is represented by a bare-chested woman with a set square and a cherub with a plan of a Roman temple, Sculpture by a fallen bust of Inigo Jones, and Painting by a woman unveiling a self-portrait of Kent.
The radical alternative interpretation of this symbolism is that it alludes to the ritual of the Royal Arch masonic lodge. Red is the Royal Arch colour, so the red velvet on the walls is symbolic, as is the red drape which is being removed to reveal Kent's portrait in the ceiling. The traditional implements of the architect and sculptor, depicted in the ceiling, are likewise masonic emblems, while the combination of an arch below a rainbow which occurs in the ceiling painting was apparently a common subject of early Royal Arch lodge banners. The suggestion, therefore, is that this room could have been designed by Burlington and Kent - both of whom were certainly freemasons - to function as a masonic meeting place

© Jeremy Young