The Cherry Tree 2/2004

The Cherry Tree The Cherry Tree A newsletter for the Cherry TTreesrees Residents’ Amenities Association A newsletter for the Cherry Trees Residents’ Amenities Association 2/2004 Editor: Thomas Blomberg Daytime: 8237 7907 Evenings: 7938 3775 Mobile: 07785 393 330 Congestion charge you’ve been registered with Voice- thieves who stick bamboo canes [email protected] Connect, you have already been or fishing rods through the let- Material for future issues can be sent to: up 60% next year? The Police Flat 7, 18 Vicarage Gate, W8 4AA Emergency only 999 transferred to the new system. terbox. he proposed extension of Notting Hill Station 7221 1212 Those who would like to receive • Always check the identity of the congestion charging The Cherry Trees Residents’ Local Beat Officer the service, please contact Charles unknown callers. Before opening zone, to include most of PC Simon Piper 8246 0162 Amenities Association T Frankly, the new Royal Borough your door fully, ask to see ID if they Kensington, is still undecided, Crime Prevention Officer Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordina- claim to be officials. Telephone PC Andy Booth 8246 0169 Chairman: Willoughby Wynne although most experts think that it tor, on 8246 0822. their office if in any doubt. 39 Brunswick Gardens,London W8 4AW will eventually go ahead. • Don’t make it obvious that Tel: 7727 9786 The Council Keep the burglars away At the end of November, the Graffiti: Katie Phillips 7361 3235 you are away on holiday. Ask a The aim of The Cherry Trees Residents’ recently re-elected Ken Livingstone Follow these tips to help pre- Amenities Association is to improve our Town Hall Car Park 7937 7040 neighbour to keep an eye on your added more fuel to the road toll Noise (24 hours) 7361 3484 vent yourself becoming another neighbourhood and to function as our rep- home and remove mail from your resentative towards the Council and other debate by asking Transport for Dog fouling 7341 5284 burglary statistic – and make a letterbox. authorities in matters concerning the area London to plan for an increase of successful insurance claim if you Membership is open to all residents living • List valuable items with serial the charge to £8 per day. Neighbourhood Watch do have a break-in. in Palace Gardens Terrace, Strathmore Mariju Lee 7727 0205 numbers and a short description. Gardens, Berkeley Gardens, Brunswick The reason given for the 60 per- • All accessible windows (those Ashley McNeile 7229 3239 Take photographs of jewellery and Gardens, Inverness Gardens, Vicarage cent increase, which could come on the ground floor and base- other valuables. Get a property Gardens, Vicarage Gate, Kensington Mall, and on the eastern side of Kensington into effect in July, is to “maintain Voice-Connect upgraded ments, near drainpipes or flat marking kit - use your postcode roofs) should have key-operated Church Street between Kensington Mall the effectiveness of the charge and the number of your house. and Vicarage Gate. and raise additional revenues.” to Ringmaster locks. • If you’re considering installing In order to improve communi- The congestion charge of £5 per • Front doors should have an alarm system, get advice from If you see anything suspicious, cations with members and resi- day was introduced in February deadlocks that at least conform your insurers. Many insist that the contact the Police on 7221 1212. dents of Neighbourhood Watch, 2003. If the charge is increased to to BS3621. These locks can only installation is carried out by com- The 999 number should only be the message service has been be opened with a key - not with a used for emergencies. Please also £8 per day 30 months later, what panies registered with the National will the increase be in January upgraded from ‘Voice-Connect’ to plastic card or through a broken Approval Council for Security keep your Neighbourhood Watch 2008, or at least after the next ‘Ringmaster’. The service is free, door pane. Systems (Nacoss). representatives informed. and you can choose to receive • If you have a large letterbox, fit Your CTRAA Neighbourhood mayoral election? In February 2004 urgent messages and informa- a letterbox casing. Don’t leave car Keep us informed Watch representatives are Mariju Ken Livingstone promised that the tion about criminal activity in our keys and handbags near the front Our aim is for a safer neighbour- Lee (7727 0205) and Ashley charge wouldn’t be increased for The Vicarage Gate House luxury flat development has been rejected by the Council. If the owners decide to area via email, telephone or fax. If door, as these can be reached by hood. Please be vigilant and alert. McNeile (7229 3239). at least 10 years, but that was before his re-election… appeal, their case will probably not be heard by the Planning Inspectorate until next autumn. Three parties Luxury flat development rejected in 2005 t the CTRAA Annual Final decision next autumn? General Meeting on 22 hen the Council’s Planning Committee met in October to A November, a popular vote decided that there will be three consider Northacre’s application for building a block of 12 parties held in 2005, instead of the W luxury flats on the site of the Vicarage Gate House nursing normal two: home, the committee’s unanimous rejection came so quickly that The Spring Party, on Tuesday 24 May at 6.30 pm in Inverness the attending public had hardly had time to sit down. Gardens. The main reason for the rejection was the expected; Society, the Crown Estate and the Norwegian The Midsummer Party, on that the proposal involved a loss of elderly persons’ Embassy (a close neighbour). Thursday 16 June at 6.30 pm accommodation and therefore didn’t comply with After the Council’s refusal, Vicarage Gate Ltd (the in the garden of St Mary Abbots the Council’s policies in these matters, especially company set up by Northacre for this project) will Vicarage. as the Robson Rhodes study, commissioned by the have to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. Such The Autumn Party, on Sunday 18 Vicarage Gate Action Group, “indicates that a viable an appeal will probably not be considered until next September at 12 noon in Inverness [nursing or care home] scheme could be provided autumn, and it is expected that this will take the form Gardens. on the site”, according to the report laid before the of a big public hearing in the Town Hall, instead of At the AGM it was also agreed committee. a small meeting at the Inspectorate’s headquarters that the CTRAA membership fee However, the committee also rejected the applica- in Bristol. should be increased to £6 for tion for another, rather unexpected, reason. The Meanwhile, Northacre’s troubled finances seem to one year or £15 for three years, Unitary Development Plan requires developers of worsen. On 12 November, the company published from the £4/£10 that has been sites with 15 or more flats to provide affordable its latest six months’ result, showing that the income housing within the site. With 12 flats, Northacre’s has gone down and the expenditure has gone up. In unchanged for eight years. project is below that limit, but the committee chose fact, the losses have increased so much that they to interpret the UDP regulation as meaning sites that now are higher than the turnover. The income in the Back issues of can accommodate 15 or more flats, and concluded period was £1.3 million, and the loss was £1.5 mil- the Cherry Tree that this could easily be done at the Vicarage Gate lion, due to the fact that the administrative expenses House site, and that it therefore must provide some (mainly salaries) were almost twice as high as the f you want to read previous affordable housing as well - something the potential income. In September the company sold its own issues of the Cherry Tree, all buyers of the luxury flats probably wouldn’t be very offices for £2.8 million, in order to pay a loan to I issues since 2/1999 can now thrilled about… Coutts & Co, but the remaining debts payable within be downloaded as pdf files from The objections from the Vicarage Gate Action a year will still be almost £3 million. the internet – and whilst the print- Group, the Kensington Society and others are With no substantial income in sight, Northacre ed version is in black and white, well known by now, but the report also included continues to live on borrowed money, putting all There can be a no more fitting Christmas card for the Cherry Trees area than ’s. It was the world’s first mass-produced the later internet versions are in some previously not published objections against its hopes on a positive ruling by the Planning Christmas card, published in 1843 and designed in Horsley’s home at 128 Kensington Church Street (or 1 High Row, as it was then known). colour. Just go to http://homepage. Northacre’s plan from the West London Architectural Inspectorate, almost one year from now... Through our very good contacts upstairs, we asked John to send a card to his future neighbours, which he was delighted to do... mac.com/cherrytreelondon Page 2 The Cherry Tree 2/2004 2/2004 The Cherry Tree Page 3

empress, Archduchess Maria In the mid 1830’s her description of Leopoldina of , who passion- the earthquake in 1822 started The cosmopolitan lady ately shared her interests in the a heated debate in the Geological natural sciences. Society, where she was caught in In March 1826, King João VI of the middle of a fight between two who wouldn’t be ladylike died. His son Pedro inher- rivalling schools of thought regard- ited the throne, but as he preferred ing earthquakes and their role in to remain Emperor of , he mountain building. n the autumn of 1826, a 42-year-old widow moved into rooms at 6 abdicated the Portuguese throne in Besides describing the earthquake High Row (today’s 138 Kensington Church Street). At a time when favour of his six-year-old daughter. in her “Journal of a Residence in women of good families could hardly venture outside their own home So, ’s little chubby Chile”, she had also written about I pupil had suddenly become Maria II it in more detail in a letter to Henry alone, her neighbours must have viewed her both with awe and some da Gloria, Queen of Portugal. With Warburton, who was one of the apprehension. She had travelled the world alone, had written several her pupil sailing off to Portugal, Maria Geological Society’s founding books about faraway places, and had just returned to from Graham had no more reason to stay fathers. As this was one of the first in Brazil, and returned home. detailed eyewitness accounts by “a Brazil, where she had been governess to Donna Maria da Gloria, the Having arrived in London, Maria learned person” of an earthquake, he 7-year-old princess who had just become Queen of Portugal. Graham took rooms in Kensington Augustus Wall Callcott, painted by found it interesting enough to publish Gravel Pits, which was something of his nephew John Callcott Horsley, in “Transactions of the Geological The more intellectual part of London’s naval officers that the illustrious laird of Fintry. They married in India who lived in 1 High Row (128 an artists’ enclave. There lived the Society of London” in 1823. society quickly flocked around her, Scottish family has raised through in 1809. Kensington Church Street). Royal Academy painter Augustus One of her observations had been attracted by her wit and sharp intel- the years. George Dundas (not to be In 1811, the young couple returned Wall Callcott and his musician brother longer travel, but she could continue that of large areas of land rising from lect. Most attracted was the famous confused with the much more famous to England, where Maria pub- , but also painters to entertain her friends, and could the sea, and in 1830 that observation Royal Academy landscape painter naval officer George Heneage lished her first book, “Journal of a like , David Wilkie and continue her writing. was included in the groundbreaking Augustus Wall Callcott, who lived Dundas) was made post-captain in Residence in India”, followed soon , and musicians Immediately after her return from work “The Principles of Geology” just around the corner. This man, 1795 and saw quite a lot of action as afterwards by “Letters on India”. such as William Crotch (the first Brazil in 1826, her publisher, John by the geologist , as who had been known as “the hand- commander of HMS Juno, a 32 gun A few years later her father was principal of the Royal Academy of Murray, had asked her to create a evidence in support of his theory somest young man in Kensington”, , between 1798 and 1802. In appointed Commissioner of the Music) and William Horsley (John book about the famous and recently that mountains were formed by vol- had finally found a woman worth 1803 he was given the command naval dockyard at the Cape, where Callcott’s son-in-law). In addition, completed voyage of HMS Blonde to canoes and earthquakes. Four years giving up his 47 years of bachelor- of HMS Elephant, a 74 gun 3rd he died in 1814, aged 58, having this closely-knit group was frequently the Sandwich Islands (). later the president of the Society, hood for. rate that had been Nelson’s flagship been promoted rear-admiral just two visited by artists like , King Kamehameha II of Hawaii and , decided The feeling must have been mutual, during the Battle of Copenhagen in months earlier. , his Queen Kamamalu had been on to attack Lyell’s theories. But instead for the same year they were married 1801, and took her down to Jamaica and J.M.W. Turner. a visit to London in 1824 when they of attacking Lyell directly, he did it and she moved into his family home to patrol the Caribbean waters until Translator and book editor both died of the measles, against by publicly ridiculing Maria Callcott’s in The Mall (which wasn’t The Mall 1806. As all other naval officer’s wives, Befriending the neighbours Maria spent several years ashore, which they had no immunity. HMS observations. we know today, but a short cul- Maria’s lodgings very quickly Travelled to India seldom seeing her husband. Most Blonde was commissioned by the de-sac going down today’s Palace became a focal point for London’s Backed by Darwin In 1808 his sea-fighting years were of these years she lived in London. Government to return their bodies to Gardens Terrace from its junction intellectuals, such as the Scottish Maria Callcott, however, was not over and he was made head of But while other officers’ wives spent the Hawaiian Islands, with the cousin with today’s Mall). poet , Maria’s someone who accepted ridicule. Her the naval works at the East India their time with domestic chores, she of the poet Byron in command. The book publisher John Murray and husband and her brother offered Daughter of a Naval officer Company’s dockyard in Bombay, and worked as a translator and book resulting book contained a history of the historian Francis Palgrave, but to duel Greenough, but she said, Her maiden name was Maria brought his now 23-year old daughter editor. In 1819 she lived in their visit to London, a résumé of the her keen interest and knowledge of according to her nephew John Dundas, and she was born in 1785. along. During the long trip Maria fell for a time, which resulted in the discovery of the Hawaiian Islands painting (she was a skilled illustrator Callcott Horsley, “Be quiet, both of She hadn’t seen much of her father in love with a young Scottish naval book “Three Months Passed in the and visits by British explorers, as of her own books, and had written you, I am quite capable of fighting during her childhood and teenage officer aboard, Thomas Graham, Mountains East of Rome, during the Maria Callcott, painted shortly after the marriage, by her husband, Augustus well as the story about Blonde’s the book about Poussin) made it my own battles, and intend to do it”. years, as he was one of the many third son to Robert Graham, the last Year 1819”. Being very interested in Wall Callcott. She was known for her wit and sharp tongue. Once, when a journey. Maria wrote it with the help group of people discussed the use of the word “female”, she said, “As for me, inevitable that she would quickly of official papers and journals kept She went on to publish a crushing I would rather be called a bitch than a female”. become part of the artists’ enclave by the naturalist Bloxam. reply to Greenough, and was shortly as well. thereafter backed by none other than the arts, she also wrote a book about Later in 1822, she experienced It must have been love at first sight Little Arthur’s History Darwin, who had observed the same the French baroque painter Nicholas one of Chile’s worst earthquakes in when Maria Graham and Augustus In 1828, immediately after returning land rising during Chile’s earthquake Poussin, “Memoirs of the Life of history, and recorded its effects in Callcott met, because they married from their honeymoon, she pub- in 1835 aboard the Beagle. Nicholas Poussin”, in 1820. detail – something nobody had done on his 48th birthday, 20 February lished “A Short History of Spain”, In 1837 Augustus Callcott was In 1821 Maria was invited to before. 1827, just a few months after her and in 1835 her writings during knighted, so Maria became Lady accompany her husband aboard arrival from Brazil. They immedi- her long convalescence resulted Callcott. Shortly afterwards her HMS Doris, a 36 gun frigate under Tutor to the princess ately left for a year long honey- in the publication of two books; health began to deteriorate, how- his command. The destination was In 1823 she began her journey back moon to Italy, , Austria and “Description of the chapel of the ever, and in 1842 she died, 57 years Chile, and the purpose was to pro- to Britain. She made a stop in Brazil Czechoslovakia. It was his first trip Annuziata dell’Arena; or Giotto’s old. She continued to write until the tect British mercantile interests in and was introduced to the Brazilian abroad, and he obviously enjoyed Chapel, in Padua”, and her first very end, and her last book was the area. emperor and his family. The year before, the Brazilians had declared it. From then on he would travel and most famous book for children; “A Scripture Herbal”, an illustrated Widow in Chile independence from Portugal and extensively, both to Europe and the “Little Arthur’s History of England”, collection of titbits and anecdotes In April 1822, shortly after the had asked the resident Portuguese Middle East, with Maria as well as which has been reprinted numerous about plants and trees mentioned in ship had rounded Cape Horn, her crown prince, Dom Pedro to become with friends like Turner. times since then (already in 1851 the Bible, which was published the the 16th edition was published, and same year she died. husband died of a fever, so HMS their emperor. It was agreed that Invalid in Italy Doris arrived in Valparaiso without she should become the tutor of the it was last reprinted in 1975). “Little Augustus Callcott died two years In 1831, during a trip in Italy, Maria a captain, but with a distraught cap- young princess Donna Maria, so Arthur” was followed in 1836 by a later, at the age of 65, having been Callcott ruptured a blood vessel and tain’s widow. All the naval officers when she reached London, she just French version; “Histoire de France made “Conservator of the Royal became an invalid. She could no in Valparaiso – British, Chilean and handed over the manuscripts of du petit Louis”. Pictures” the same year. American – tried to help Maria - one her two new books to her publisher American captain even offered to (“Journal of a Residence in Chile sail her back to Britain – but she was during the Year 1822. And a Voyage determined to manage on her own. from Chile to Brazil in 1823” and She rented a small cottage, turned “Journal of a Voyage to Brazil, and her back on the English colony (“I Residence There, During Part of the say nothing of the English here, Years 1821, 1822, 1823”), collected because I do not know them except suitable educational material, and as very civil vulgar people, with one returned to Brazil the same year. The Callcott houses, where Augustus’ family had lived for generations, were a row of four houses where the Christian Science Church stands today. Some history books want to place them on the site of today’s Essex Church, but maps or two exceptions”, she later wrote), She stayed in Brazil until 1826, from the period show that they were in the Mall cul-de-sac. They were pulled down in the 1870’s, when the little village and lived among the Chileans for a teaching the young princess and Maria Graham-Callcott was also a skilled illustrator of her own books, which these three pictures show: of Cuesta da of Kensington Gravel Pits was swallowed up by the metropolis. whole year. becoming a close friend to the Prado in Chile, of slave trade in Rio (she was much opposed to slavery), and of a dragon tree on Tenerife.