London Weekend

25 people (including some on their first Society activity) enjoyed a weekend of good weather in London to explore locations from a number of Malcolm Saville’s books that are set, or contain scenes, in London as well as his non-fiction work Come To London.

On Friday, we walked around Hampstead Heath, visiting possible locations from A Palace For The Buckinghams and parts of the Heath referred to in Come to London. This was followed by a trip to Islington for potential locations that inspired Brownlow Square (about which there was much debate!) and the station to which Jonathan Warrender followed Slinky Grandon in Lone Pine London. Later, during a beautiful sunny evening, we ate at Café Rouge in St Katharine’s Dock (which is briefly referred to in A Palace For The Buckinghams and which lies in the shadow of Tower Bridge and The Tower of London).

Saturday’s activity involved a walk along the old railway line from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace, including visiting the church in Stroud Green in which Malcolm and Dorothy Saville were married in 1926 (although the church was actually rebuilt after the 2nd World War) and the house in Muswell Hill where Malcolm and Dorothy first lived as a married couple. In the evening, we enjoyed a pub meal in Bloomsbury, near to the location of James Wilson’s mews flat in Lone Pine London.

On Sunday morning, we walked from Knightsbridge to Battersea Park, taking in further locations in connection with Lone Pine London, the Jillies series and The Buckinghams at Ravenswyke.