PLANS FOR LONDON

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 4, 6 January 1937, Page 8

PLANS FOR LONDON

4(H)-YEAR-OLD SCHEMES WREN'S PARLIAMENT PROPOSAL. OTHER PLAKS VMREALMED. (Special.—By Air Man^> LONDON, December 19. / London traffic blocks, town-planning schemes and even Charing Cross bridge projects are by no means a growth of the twentieth century. A remarkably interesting, exhibition of old maps and plans v now being held at Westminster City Hall, shows that London has been the subject, of the earnest, endeavour of Architectural reformers and town . planners for the last 400 years. About 1650 Inigo Jones drew up plans for redesigning Lincoln's Inn Fields and laying out the site with houses, and there is an interesting scheme for town planning Covent Gar- ! den in 1640, when, apparently, no market was held there. The fruit and vegeable market dates from the eighteenth century, for another plan of 175J shows a small collection of stalls. There is a particularly striking plan of a scheme of Wren's for a royal palace and new Parliament buildings on the site of the present Houses of Parliament. By not adopting Wren's scheme London has lost an architectural monument which, judging from the plans, would have equalled St. Paul's Cathedral. Sir Ch&rles Barry, designer of the existing Houses of Parliament drew up plans' for a wide new street to be cut through from Trafalgar Square to a point on the river where a Charing Cross bridge was to be built.