The details for the gardening version of London Open House Weekend have been announced – where us mere mortals are allowed to wander around those closed off garden squares that act as glorified roundabouts in the posher parts of London – or peek like nosy people at private gardens that people have managed to create in our polluted atmosphere.

Unlike the Open House weekend which is completely free of charge, you do have to pay to get into the gardens. Fortunately, the price is just £7.50 if brought in advance and acts as an unlimited pass for the whole weekend, which is frankly rather good value for money. That also gets you a copy of the printed guidebook.

The Open Garden Squares event takes place on the weekend of June 12 & 13, 2010, so time to mark it off in your calendars.

There are, at time of writing, some 166 venues open to the public over the weekend, and while their website has a list, I tend to find that for these sorts of things, a map works best. So I made one!

Click here for my super-dooper magic map thingymajig

..or you can use their list (boo hiss!) if you prefer.

Many of the gardens have various additional events going on from guided tours to music, refreshments or exhibitions.

The vast majority are turn up and look around, but a couple of rather interesting gardens have to be pre-booked, you need ID with you and no photography permitted. These stringent restrictions become understandable when you realise the venues are HM Prison’s Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs. To reserve a spot, you have to buy tickets then when they arrive, the booking details will be provided at the time.

In additon, some venues have guided tours of their gardens and their history:

Particularly notable though are the Brunel Museum – tiny garden, but access to the floodlit tunnel and main shaft chamber; The Pump House Educational Museum will be open at Lavender Pond Nature Park and the Chapel will have a rare weekend opening at Brompton Cemetery.

Tickets are now available online or via the electric telephone at 020 8347 3230 (Mon-Fri 9am-6pm). Some of the venues will sell tickets on the day, but they cost a bit more at £9.00 each.

Another of the pre-booked tours for Open House Weekend were the guided tours of the Naval Club in the rarefied airs of Mayfair.

The building itself is a notable example of early 18th century grand houses, and indeed, one of the first occupants of the house was the Earl of Chatham, brother of then Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger. However, the building spent the bulk of its private life as the home of the Raphael family before being requisitioned during World War 2.

The building was taken over by the Auxiliary Territorial Service, as the women’s arm of the British Army was then known, and after the war was brought by the current occupiers – the Naval Club.

After having my ID checked at the entrance and a short wait in the reception, we were given a double-act of a tour with one chap chatting about the building and its history and a lady talking about the fine paintings that adorn the walls.

Although the building is owned by the Club, there is a separate heritage association that looks after the fabric of the structure, and they were hosting the tours.

So, up the fine staircase to admire a picture of Prince Charles standing along side the Thames with the ship he commanded at the time, the coastal minehunter HMS Bronington in the background. The painting was notable, as the only the top half of the portrait is actually of Prince Charles. He was too busy to pose for the painting, so the bottom half is a painting of his bodyguard. Apparently, when the painting was unveiled, Lord Mountbatten was heard to mutter that it was a good likeness – of Bronington.

Gossip over, into what is now the restaurant but was originally the private dining room for the family. Here are paintings, there are original fitments, here is some history – and off up another flight of stairs to see more.

Unusually for a building of the time, although there was a grand staircase up to the first floor with a separate staircase for the servants, from the first floor upwards, both staff and family used the same staircase. Not out of a consideration for egalitarianism, but more likely due to the building being too narrow for both staircases to be fitted in.

A nice semi-private room presented itself – and turned out to originally have been the bedroom of the last Mr Raphael. Interestingly, the last surviving daughter of the original family celebrated her 100th birthday in that room only a few years ago, and apparently spent most of the party telling people where everything used to be laid out when she lived there.

A painting in that room had a nice tale to it as well, being of a grand party in the Painted Hall just down the road from me in Greenwich. On one of the first ever tours of the building, one of the visitors said her father had been at the party, wandered over to the painted, and was able to identify him in the crowd, sitting fortuitously close to the painter.

More rooms to see, more art to see and then down to the ground floor again.

We were now shown something significantly more sombre – a book listing the names of all the people who died during WW2 as part of the Naval Volunteer Reserves (RNVR).

Of the 6,200 names, 1,200 are from Canada, 350 from South Africa, 300 from New Zealand and 100 from Australia. In total, 14 countries of the then Empire are represented in the Roll, which is the only single record of all RNVR casualties in existence.

The whole building is in fact, now a dedicated War Memorial in recognition of the people who died in the war.

The tour finished off in the ground floor bar, which is finely decorated with wood panelling and an ornate ceiling – where we were invited to finish off the visit with a beer.

It’s not often you get to drink a pint inside a war memorial.

Lurking not too far from where I live is a subterranean marvel that is considered to be one of the most important locations in engineering history. I am referring to the currently closed off East London Line railway – for the tunnel it runs through under the Thames is world’s first (successful) sub-aqueous tunnel.

Not too far from the Rotherhithe tunnel is the Brunel Museum situated within an old pumping station, but conveniently next to the original deep shaft that Marc Brunel (father of more famous Isambard Kingdom Brunel) sunk into the clay soil to get down to the depth where the tunnel would stretch out under the river.

I won’t relate the torturous history of the tunnel itself – as that is amply told elsewhere, for my visit to was not to the tunnel but to the remains of that original shaft.

I arrived at at the museum just as a lot of people were filing out to go to the shaft, so I ahem, joined the crowd. I’ve been in the museum before as they used to run tours of the two key stations, Rotherhithe and Wapping and take a slow train between them.

As part of the refurbishment of the tunnels for the overland railway, the shaft, which has always been empty from surface to deep underground has had a slab of concrete installed and the upper space will be handed over to the museum to clean up and turn into an extension. As the slab was finished off only a few weeks ago – the opportunity here was to see the interior of the shaft before it is cleaned up again.

Getting in for visitors will be down a replica of the original stair case that lined the tunnel when it was open to pedestrians – but our access was through a tiny door that you quite literally had to crawl through and then down some scaffolding to the floor, which is about 3 stories below its roofline (and about 2 stories below ground).

Here lots of photos were taken and a volunteer gave us a brief run through why the shaft is so important in engineering history and some details of its construction.

In essence, they had a huge metal ring, upon which they started building a high wall. As the wall got heavier, it started sinking into the soft soil – aided by workers inside digging out that soil. More bricks added, and the shaft continues to sink into the ground. At one point it got stuck and even adding 50,000 bricks to the top of the shaft wouldn’t unstick the gigantic pipe.

Here there seems to be two variants of the solution – in essence, water leaking into the shaft normally lubricated the sides and one weekend the whole thing dropped down several metres. Whether this was an accidental switching off of the water pumps over a weekend that had a fortuitous outcome, or a deliberate decision seems to vary depending on who is telling the tale.

The shaft finally at its required depth, the tunnel under the river could be cut out. A similar shaft on the north side was also built – although two more shaft, four times wider to allow horses down to the tunnel never got built as some idiot stuck a bridge at Tower Hill and ruined the finances of the tunnel.

Talk over and a climb back out through the tiny exit, and that was it. A short visit, but this subterranean geek was bouncing with delight to have been able to have a look around.

I took a quick look around the museum and picked up a guide book that I would have brought last time I was there, only they couldn’t take cards and I was out of cash on the day. I also had a long chat with one of the staff about the pneumatic railway I am researching and he mentioned something about its precursor at Crystal Palace I wasn’t aware of. More research needed. Yay!

It was a shame we couldn’t go down to the original tunnels – but I have done a slow train tour through there before courtesy of the museum.

A slight rant – they let people into the shaft through a really tiny doorway – and yet other underground structures with significantly easier access points refuse to open up for the public visits due to “health & safety” concerns. That really annoys me as it quite evidently isn’t a problem.

As usual – more photos over at Flickr.

Another of the London Open House events that needed pre-booking, and this was a visit to the White Tower inside the Tower of London.

Unlike the tourists who were a) paying and b) going inside the Tower, we a) didn’t pay and b) were to be allowed to climb up the outside of the building via the scaffolding that surrounds some of it during an ongoing restoration job.

After registering my arrival, a brief chat about heights ensued and my own slight issue with heights was debated. I am semi-OK with heights, but some-things do worry me at times, and sadly scaffolding is one of them! This might prove to be a challenge.

After donning the ubiquitous high-vis jackets and hard hats and a health & safety message was read out, we started up a staircase.

A few flights up, we stopped to be shown the base of what is basically an open-air sewer outlet. I guess you wouldn’t want to be walking past at ground level when someone was using the loo inside the tower.

Up a few more floors, and taken round to see an odd bit of stone that doesn’t belong where it is – not just because the stone is the wrong sort, but also because it has writing carved into the surface. No one really understands why it is there, and there is a bit of a debate about what, if anything should be done to preserve it.

More stairs.

Another few flights up, and now to look at an example of poor quality preservation from the past where an iron clamp was used to hold a window stone in place. The iron rusted, expanded and dutifully split the stone so the whole piece has to be replaced now.

About here, thanks to a few wooden floor planks that seemed to be a bit less solid and more bouncy than others, I did have a bit of a heights wobble and had to calm myself down for a moment.

A lot of chat about the grouting work – which the Victorians re-pointed with hard concrete and how has to be painstakingly removed and replaced with a lime based mortar as concrete is damaging the stone work.

More stairs.

At last at the top – and we can see finished stonework along with some fine views over the top of the Tower from an angle that visitors would never see (Google Maps excepted).

As we started coming down, the lead archaeologist who took us around pointed out a raven sitting proudly at the top of the tower. Presumably not one of the famous ones who have their wings clipped to stop them flying away. You know, just in case.

Back down on the ground, a talk from a stone mason and grouter about their work. A question about using a slurry based grout to fill deep holes lead off on a tangent to talk about an odd period in the Tower’s history where clocks were mounted into one of the turrets. No one really knows much about this, and a b&w photo was produced that shows the clocks in situ, which even the two stone workers hadn’t seen before.

An interesting visit by our group, and by accident, also interesting for the restoration staff as well.

More photos as usual over at Flickr.

In my perambulations around London for the annual Open House events, I found myself in between planned venues so decided to wander around to Whitehall to see what was available san-queues to occupy a spare hour.

I was already in Victoria and walked past the tall if less than impressive Westminster Town Hall tower block and noticed the tell-tale green banners of the Open House event.

Odd I thought to myself, that building wasn’t in the guide book – and a quick flick through confirmed this. Nonetheless, it seemed sensible to cross the road and see what they were up to, and a small sign outside the building offered enlightenment.

On Saturday, as part of Open House, the borough’s collection of silver plate would be on display on the 18th floor, along with fine views over London.

Hmm, silver plate always attracts me and…. wait, what?

18th floor you say – with views over London you say?

As my two favourite things are descending as deep under London as possible, and ascending as high above it as possible, this was too good an opportunity to miss.

A very informal entry as you just signed in and then were told to take the lift up to the 18th floor without any escorts or security to stop a person wandering off. At the top, around a corner and through a heavy duty safe door (although the glass window next to it made it seem a bit redundant) and into a smallish room packed full of ceremonial maces, silver plate and an awful lot of tobacco boxes.

Now to go round the corner and into what is evidently a meeting and presentation room with the aforementioned “fine views over London”. The windows could do with a bit of a clean and as usual, the air was bit hazy in the heat so photos are not perfect, but it is indeed a heck of a view.

Buckingham Palace is laid out to one side, although you mainly see the huge arena like space in front of it. The London Eye dominates the view to the other side and a vast array of barren roofs are available to peer down on.

Not the most impressive interior, being very evidently a functional office, but considering it wasn’t in the guide book (was added at the very last minute) and hence wasn’t on my itinerary, I am quite chuffed to have managed to get a visit inside – so that I could look at what is going on outside.

More photos over at Flickr.