A Pyramid on Primrose Hill -- The London that Never Was

What London really needed in the 1820s, Thomas Willson thought, was a gigantic pyramid. Ninety-four storeys high, covering 18 1/2 acres on top of Primrose Hill.

In the churchyards of inner London, space for graves was running out. Willson's planned Metropolitan Sepulcher would have contained tens of thousands of alcoves, each with room for 24 bodies, giving a total burial capacity of 5 million. Five million! Coffins would have been moved upwards on ramps around a central shaft. And there would have been a viewing platform at the top....

It was never built, of course, but it's only one of a number of remarkable schemes that failed to materialise in the capital, as revealed in an interesting, entertaining and enjoyable exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery -- The London that Never Was.

Can you imagine the size and the visual impact of that structure? Every day, Londoners would have been reminded of their own mortality by the giant cemetery in the sky looming over them....

What's on display at the Guildhall in this intriguing (and free) little show is London in an alternative universe; when you're so used to Tower Bridge the way it is, it's hard to imagine how different it could have been.

It was Sir Horace Jones who built the bridge we know and love today, but his original design from around 1880 had an arched span between the neo-Gothic towers. You can look at his drawing again and again, but you can't quite get your brain to picture it as being a real possibility.  

About two decades earlier, Peter Barlow and Robert Richardson had proposed a suspension bridge across the river, with pillars on each embankment modelled on the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 

Don't think that one would have become a design icon alongside the red bus and red telephone box, somehow.... On the other hand, WFC Holden's 1940s plan to put Tower Bridge in an Art Deco-style glass-and-steel casing would have been an astonishing enhancement to the riverscape. It looks like a 1930s flagship department store. 

There have been ambitious plans for London Bridge too down the years. In 1800, Thomas Telford proposed a cast-iron structure with a single dramatic 600-foot span, tall enough to allow ships to pass underneath. This would have been an astonishing cutting-edge technological achievement, just two decades after the world's first iron bridge in Shropshire. It's unclear why it wasn't built, but it may have been because of the vast works needed to create approach roads. 

George Dance had his own idea, for two bridges 300 feet apart, each with a central drawbridge to allow ships to pass through, thus ensuring that one would always be open for cross-river traffic at any time. Dance's scheme features huge piazzas at each end of the bridges, reminiscent of the Vatican or St Petersburg. 

Now, there's no mention in this show of the ill-fated Garden Bridge project, or indeed of another Boris Johnson favourite, the Estuary Airport, but perhaps those are a little too close to the bone at the moment politically for an outing at the Guildhall. But we can all thank our lucky stars that one wacky 1960s transport proposal literally never got off the ground. 

A 1967 Greater London Council plan foresaw four large monorail loops running at first-floor level above the traffic along some of central London's most historic and most congested streets. 

Well, it it's good enough for the Germans.... Wuppertal has had one since 1901, mostly running above a river. But a monorail down Regent St, hiding the elegant facades? Here's a mock-up view of how the planners thought it would enhance Fleet St, with the Daily Express building on the left. "The scheme," we are told, "failed to progress beyond the preliminary assessment." 

In the picture above, you are of course looking down towards Ludgate Circus, where in 1862 Thomas Dunn had a brainwave for a scheme to stop pedestrians crossing the road and interrupting the heavy flows of horse-drawn traffic. Build a four-arched footbridge at the intersection, he suggested, with spiral staircases to take pedestrians up to crossing level. A bit like the walkway round the inside of the Temperate House in Kew Gardens, just in the open air. 

It's fair to say the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London weren't impressed. The design wasn't suitable for the elderly and infirm, and the commissioners were especially concerned that the structure might attract "sightseers and idle people" who would block the walkways.

But you couldn't accuse Willson, Telford, the monorail men of not thinking big. And the unknown artist who produced a series of images called Wake Up London! in 1913-14 was thinking big too, looking forward to the bright future of 1925. Here's the London terminus of the Trans-Atlantic Aerial Transit Company. "All aboard for New York!" the guard shouts.

Welcome on board, and if you're seated on the right as we take off, you should have an excellent view of the pyramid on Primrose Hill.

While you're at the Guildhall Gallery

See how the city, as actually built and rebuilt, has looked to artists down the years in the Architecture of London exhibition, which is on until December 1. Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach are among the painters featured.

Practicalities

The London that Never Was is on at the Guildhall Art Gallery until December 8, and entry is free. The gallery is open from 1000 to 1700 Mondays to Saturdays and 1200 to 1600 on Sundays; allow yourself 30 minutes for this exhibition. The gallery is located right next to the Guildhall itself, just off Gresham St. Moorgate, Bank and St Paul's are the nearest rail and Tube stations.

Images

Thomas Willson, Pyramid Cemetery, 1829, London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)
Sir Horace Jones, Design for a bascule bridge over the Thames, c. 1880, London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)
Peter Barlow and Robert Richardson, Tower Bridge over the River Thames, 1862, London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)
A plan taken from a 1967 Greater London Council report on the feasibility of introducing monorails in central London, London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)
Image of Fleet St taken from the 1967 GLC monorail report, London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)
Thomas Dunn, Ludgate Circus crossing bridge, 1862, London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)
A proposal for a Trans-Atlantic Aerial Transit Company building in London, interior, London Metropolitan Archives (City of London)