“LONDON OF THE FUTURE”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVIII, 12 March 1914, Page 5

“LONDON OF THE FUTURE”

SIR ASTON WEBB S DREAM OF 2014. SALMON WEIR. AT LONDON BRIDGE. LONDON, Jan. 24. Speaking on “i.«ndon of the Future” at a dinner of the London Society at the Waldorf Hotel on Tuesday night. Sir Aston Webb, the famous architect, treated the subject as though be bad fallen asleep and awakened in the year 2014. He found a London, lie said, from which smoke and dirt had been banished, and the waters of the Thames were so clean and pellucid that fishing for salmon and trout was carried on from embankments which lined both sides of the river, and there was a salmon weir at London Bridge. The bridge itself wa.s like a street, with fine shops and beautiful houses on .either side, and helped to make Southwark as valuable as the Strand. After he awoke from his dream a friend reminded him that the most picturesque features of many cities were their bridges with houses on them, and that the great revenue of the Bridge House Estate Committee of the City Corporation arose originally from the houses on old London Bridge. St. Paul’s Cathedral was still standing, and was safe for centuries. A law - had been passed that no sewers or tunnels should pass with 150 yards of it.

SOUTHERN RIVERSIDE EMBANKMENT. Party no longer entered into municipal politics, and so the south side of the river was embanked and many other things were done which formerly were left undone. The County Council buildings by Westminster Bridge were now used as Government offices; while close alongside was die Imperial Parliament, buildings, where the Parliament of the Empire met and thought imperially once every throe years. (Laughter.) Cannon Street railway bridge and the bridges at Ludgate Hill and Charing Cross had been taken down, and the old glass railway termini also. Instead, two big terminal stations had been built, one of south and one for north London, and they were connected by a tunnel. The House of Lords, his/ companion said, was stronger than ever. (Laughter.) In a bird’s-eye view he obtained of London he noticed that besides the railway tracks out of London there were great arterial roads., stretching out in all ways.