bryan ferry – Lavender's Blue

Pump Up the Jam

It was the petrol filling station with a shop where clubbers would call in for bottles of water on their way to Bagley’s rave when the back of King’s Cross was an urban desert. Then the team behind Bistrotheque, one of Hackney’s most popular restaurants, opened a pop up called Shrimpy’s at The Filling Station in July 2012. Behind architects Carmody Groarke’s undulating fibreglass screen, the station forecourt was transformed into an outdoor seating area and the former kiosk turned into a 50 cover Latin American seafood residence. The meanwhile use would become permanent; the temporary building would remain just that.

In the days before Small Plates, the menu was traditional in its order of Starters, Main Courses and Puddings, while modern in its ingredients. Typical courses were seabass ceviche, plantains (£8.50); monkfish, quinoa, almonds, courgettes (£19.00); and poached quince, crème fraîche, almonds (£6.00). Cocktails (£8.50 to £9.00) included Lavender Tea: gin, lavender, grapefruit, camomile tea. Pound signs were stripped off the menu in a futuristic nod to minimalism. Unusually for its time, Shrimpy’s was cashless. Another sign of things to come was the 12.5 percent service charge when 10 percent was the norm.

It was all terribly buzzy; we sat up at the bar next to the singer Bryan Ferry. We attended the Christmas tree press party a few months later in December 2012. Clearly full of the joys, after dashing from Ballymore’s Embassy Gardens launch party in Vauxhall, we reported, “Across town, we joined opera singer Camilla Kerslake and fashionistas Giles Deacon and Jonathan Saunders at King’s Cross Filling Station. The tenuous editorial link? Vauxhall. A Christmas tree made out of Vauxhall Amera car parts was unveiled. Moving parts mechanically grooved to a techno beat as fluorescent orange light and frosted air filled the forecourt. Lady Gaga’s erstwhile designer Gary Card dreamt up the tree. Mince pies, mulled wine and dancing kept us warm.”

Gin Works – a bar, restaurant and micro distillery for Kent winemaker Chapel Down – took Shrimpy’s place in 2017. Guy Hollaway Architects, the practice behind Rocksalt restaurant on the harbour front in Folkestone, designed a replacement two storey building with an industrial aesthetic. The entrance along Goods Way is set in a curved sweep of finned coloured glazing. The Regent Canal elevation is framed by the fragments of a cast iron Victorian gasworks. Cladding maintains the pop up appearance. After Gin Works closed, the owners of Camden Town Brewery and Mare Street Market in Hackney opened The Gas Station in the building in 2021. A wild garden designed by Richard Wilford, Head of Garden Design at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, surrounds the beer garden overlooking the canal.

The buzziness is back. We’re sat at a marbleised top table for two on the ground floor of the two storey restaurant and bar. There are wallflowers (not us) climbing up the staircase walls. Sticking to savouries for sharing, Snacks are mushroom arancini, porcini mayo (£7.00) and whipped cod roe taramasalata, toasted flatbread (£7.00). Small Plates are mussels and clams on sourdough, garlic, lemon, samphire (£11.00) and blackened leeks, nori, leek aioli, warm hazelnut vinaigrette (£9.00). Our Large Plate is aubergine steak, smoked babaganoush, sourdough croutons, caponata, basil (£14.50). The vibe is high end pub grub. Cocktails are a speciality of the bar at The Gas Station. Monte Mule (£11.50) is Amaro Montenegro, Old Jamaica Ginger Beer and lime. “Gas” is Dublin slang for great fun. And The Gas Station is just that.

Sir John Soane’s Museum London + Emily Allchurch

Collage of the Titans

After organising a hugely successful and academically driven Irish Georgian Society London work-in-progress tour of Pitzhanger Manor, Sir John Soane’s country home (due to reopen to the public next year), an invitation to breakfast at his townhouse museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields proves providentially irresistible. Morning sunlight pierces the shadowy interiors, soaking the sarcophagi, the inimitable collection lit by shafts of coloured light through stained glass cupolas and lanterns and domes. Nowhere in the capital is there such a multilayering of art and ideas. As Bryan Ferry used to sing, “All styles served here…”

We’ve heard of the Soane style being heralded as the forerunner of modernism – think of his streamlined later work – but today’s proclamation is about his postmodernism aesthetic. Applying such plaudits, bestowing such honorifics to the ultimate disruptor, is but a fitting tribute. Dr Bruce Boucher, Director of Sir John’s Soane Museum, says, “In many ways Soane was postmodern. He’d no fear of adapting different styles. Even the double coding of this building as a house-museum and workplace is postmodern.” A diorama of China Wharf by the cleverest postmodernists, CZWG, takes pride of place in the first floor gallery space. The custard yellow egg in the custard yellow drawing room looks strangely familiar. Turns out it’s from Terry Farrell’s TV AM building.

There’s also an exhibition on the ground floor of what Bruce calls “remarkable digital collages”. It comprises three works by the artist Emily Allchurch. She trained as a sculptor and has an MA from the Royal College of Art. Emily was inspired by significant works by the artist Giovanni Piranesi and the architectural illustrator Joseph Gandy in the Museum’s collections. “The light boxes are windows into another world,” she explains. “My practice creates a dialogue between historic artworks and the present day, using hundreds of photographs and a seamless digital collage technique to recreate the original image in a contemporary idiom. I always take my own photographs. Visiting the buildings is part of the journey.”

Grand Tour: In Search of Soane (after Gandy) is a reworking of Soane’s built projects. Its companion piece Grand Tour II: Homage to Soane (after Gandy) is neoclassical architecture around Britain with “unbuilt” Soane additions. The roofscape of Calke Abbey is amusingly spruced up by three splendid domes. Such euphoric recall! Punchy. Like Joseph Gandy’s work, both these pieces were exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The third piece is Sic Transit Gloria Mundi (after Piranesi).”It’s a conversation about London and Rome,” Emily confirms, “a reminder that empires can collapse.” There’s a weight and confidence to her work. It displays great artistry. And super wit. A “Dead Slow” sign next to mausolea; “If you lived here you’d be home now!” graffiti beside Pitzhanger Manor.

Soon, it will be time for the Irish Georgian Society London to return to its roots. A party to celebrate half a century since the restoration of Castletown House in County Kildare, the Society’s first major success story, awaits.

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