WALKING THE WALK

 And so to Gray’s Inn Garden to see Sir Francis Bacon’s The Walks with my own eyes. It looked like this: 

As a “design feature” The Walks don’t look as though they took all that much designing, and the casual viewer might also observe that nobody’s actually walking in or on The Walks, but I suppose walking is not mandatory. Though there were was the couple in this picture, walking on the grass.

 

Also you’ll notice in the background that fine magnolia tree (at least I’m reasonably sure it’s a magnolia), and there was this splendid sculpture by Richard Renshaw called “The Bird Sculpture.” It was, apparently, presented to the Inn by Master Leighton Williams and installed at the end of 2022

And just around the corner was this statue of Sir Francis Bacon himself, but it’s not the best picture because there was a “keep off the grass sign” and although in general I’m not averse to a bit of light trespassing and rule breaking, I did think that being pursued by the lads from the Inns of Court might be more trouble than I could handle.

 

I was there with fellow flaneur Ashley Biles and as we walked around the area he took me to the Lincolns Inn Chapel which is a magnificent thing and looks like this from ground level (not my photo):

 

And at home later that very same day I watched the Persauders on TV, the episode titled “Take Seven” and I’m reasonably sure that some of it was filmed very close to the chapel.  Like this:

 

I mentioned this to Ashley and he wasn’t surprised. He said he used to work in that area and crews were filming there all the time and he said in an email “They still do a lot of filming in the area, particularly in and around Lincoln’s Inn. I have been told off before now, ignoring signs and impolite requests to not interrupt the filming. I did receive a broad grin once from Olivia Coleman, by the MI6 building for telling a ‘runner’ to fuck off. I was late for work and they had over run their license to film. A rather pointless act, but needs must.’

 

He added “she gives a good smile” - Just another reason to love Olivia Colman.

 

 

 

WALKING WITH BACON

 I was reading about Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1662), philosopher, writer, begetter of the Baconian method of scientific investigation, and latterly a disgraced politician in the days when politicians were capable of grace.

 

He also had a lot to say about gardens, and from the late 1590s he was responsible for the grounds of Gray’s Inn,  known as The Walks.  In 1702 it looked like this:

 

Like this in 1804:

currently like this:

 

Bacon’s Walks were a place to go for a walk, and a fashionable one at that, as recorded by Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn.  I suppose they're less fashionable now; a private garden but open to the polloi sometimes.

 

Polymath though he was, Bacon seems not to have been much of a walker.  John Aubrey’s Brief Lives contains this passage, ‘I remember Sir John Danvers told me that his lordship (Bacon) much delighted in his curious garden at Chelsea and as he was walking there one time he fell down in a dead swoon.  My Lady Danvers rubbed his face, temples etc and gave him cordial water: as soon as he came to himself, said he ‘Madam, I am no footman.’” I can’t help feeling I might be missing something in that reply.

 

And here’s an illustration by Joseph Ratcliffe Skelton titled, ‘Accompanied by a friend to jot down his thoughts, Sir Francis Bacon takes a walk in his garden.’

 

I made a note to go for a wander around The Walks just as soon as the weather warms up, and while I had this in mind a couple of days ago as walking in London, around the back of the Royal Academy, what was the old Museum of Mankind, and blow me down, there was a statue of Sir Francis Bacon, which of course I'd seen before but never took any notice of:

Sir Francis Bacon was a quotable man – “knowledge is power” that’s one of his - but of course he is not the only Francis Bacon in the world.  This is how he’s remembered on goodreads.com:

 

That, of course, is the wrong Francis Bacon, the one seen below, ‘Francis Bacon Walking on Primrose Hill’ by Bill Brandt.