SEEING LONDON

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 188, 10 August 1931, Page 10

SEEING LONDON

MANY NEW ROOF GARDEN RESTAURANTS.

(By JOAN LITTLEFIELD.) LONDON. June 29. Restaurants are still the theatre's keenest competitor in night-time amusement. Many new and luxurious m foodpalaces ” have sprung up even during the present season, and now that the weather has at last turned warm, the roof garden restaurants of such hotels as the Dorchester and Grosvenor House are far more alluring than a dark and possibly stuffy theatre. There are three decorative roof gardens at the Dorchester, and the one at Grosvenor House, which is shaded by Japan cedars and cypresses, is bright with masses of pale pink polyanthus, roses, blue asters and antirrhinums. The garden is further decorated with climbing vines and escallonias, and meals are served under gay striped umbrellas. The roof garden at Berkeley Court, a new block of super-flats in Upper Baker Street, covers a whole acre. Four hundred tons of soil had to be lifted up to it, lawns laid down, 50CHJ rock plants bedded, and 5000 trees (including 200 rose trees) put in. The result is a real “ pleasaunce ” high above the surrounding chimney-pots. 400-year-old Farmhouse. More than six hundred years of farming history will be swept away by the end of this month when the housebreakers will pull down the only remaming farmhouse w’ithin five miles of Charing Cross. Avenue Farm, near Cricklewood, once known as Cowhouse, or Cowys’ Farm, has a record that goe-> back to the days of Dunstan, and figures in the old manorial rolls and the close rolls from the thirteenth century. The present farmhouth has stood for more than 400 years. One little outbuilding, now a dilapidated ruin, is known as Queen Elizabeth’s Dairy, though the association is doubtful. The farm was worked until quite recently and during the war the hayfields around it were fully productive. Only a few weeks ago the orchards were a rosy cloud of blossom. Now, however, the old building is to go, to make room for a group of modern houses, and soon all that will be left of it will be the avenue of elm trees. These are shown on an old map of London as a grove in 1747 and, under the name of Biuckham’s Grove, jthe plantation existed long before that. Book Dedicated to Royalty. Sir Edward Elgar, whose newest work, the “ Nursery Suite,” dedicated to the Duchess of York and the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, has recently been recorded for the gramophone, has nothing of the professional musician about him. All his life he has maintained the attitude of an amateur of music, and he strongly rel sents the word “ work ” in connection with his musical activities. He looks and dresses like a retired colonel, and j it is said of him that a few years ago j when he was walking along the towing ; path up the river, a steamer full of j trippers passed him, saluted, and began to whistle “-Colonel Bogey.” Edward's chief interest outside music is chemistry, and thereby hangs another tale. Late one night in his Hampstead house, during the war, when the world was wrapped in darkness and spies were suspected everywhere, an explosion occurred in his laboratory. It was so loud that Sir Edward was seriously alarmed at the effect it might have on hi 9 neighbours or on any passers-by. Not wishing to be accused of being a German agent manufacturing bombs. Sir Edward at once rushed out of his house, and with an apprehensive face, began to search the sky for the aeroplane which had dropped the bomb I (Copyright.)