Restoring St. George’s 
Peter Campbell looks out of the window of 28 Little Russell Street
The steeple of the church of St George, Bloomsbury is an astonishing confection. A square tower rises from the ground to above roof level. It is topped by a little pedimented temple. The temple supports a stepped pyramid and the pyramid a sacrificial altar. On the altar, like a doll on a wedding cake, is a statue of George I in Roman dress. It was paid for by Mr Huck, brewer to the royal household. The lion and unicorn from the royal arms once played around the base of the pyramid: they were finally removed in a dilapidated state during G.E. Street’s renovation of 1871 – he was probably embarrassed by them in any case. Funds permitting, current restoration work will see them back in place, newly carved.
Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is available for purchase online. Buy this article.
Peter Campbell is the London Review’s resident designer and art critic.
Other articles by this contributor:
At the Hayward · Dan Flavin
At Tate Britain · Stanley Spencer
At Kew · The ultimate in controlled habitat-imitation
At Tate Britain · Paula Rego
At the Villa Medici · 17th-Century Religous Paintings
At the National Gallery · Vermeer and de Hooch
In Cambridge · The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West
At Victoria Miro · Sarah Sze’s Art of Arrangement
print layout
tell a friend