WHEN John Constable painted a picture of Branch Hill pond for a friend, he was asked to create a landscape in which one could “feel the wind blowing on his face”. Now the Hampstead pond is to be restored thanks to a neighbourhood group.
Redington Frognal Association has secured £35,000 of funding to reinstate the lost pond, which was filled in around 1890. Constable, who lived in the area between 1819 and 1822, produced hundreds of sketches from Branch Hill, including the painting in the Tate’s collection.
“He loved the sound of water in Branch Hill pond,” art critic Estelle Lovatt tells us. “Constable would approve of getting Branch Hill back to its original condition.”
The reinstatement of the pond was first suggested in 2015, when a map was commissioned to support local policy on basement digs, which can break the flow of water tables and cause buildings to sink. The map allowed expert Dr Adam Broadhead to pinpoint the spring that fed the lost river Westbourne.
The Camden New Journal report that Constable first came across Hampstead when he was an art student. The pond could be restored by the end of this year, recreating the landscape where Constable claimed he would take his everlasting rest.
Imagine paying for Lennon’s NFTs?
WRITER Hunter Davies is sceptical of Julian Lennon selling off his Beatles memorabilia as NFTs.
John Lennon’s son sold six pieces from his collection as unique digital assets for a combined £117,000 this week. “The further we get from the Beatles, the bigger they become… including prices for any old tat, sorry, ‘memorabilia’,” Davies, the band’s biographer, tells us. “I have just had two offers of $1 million each from the USA for the manuscripts in Paul’s hand of Yesterday. I had to say no, of course. I handed it over to the British Library about 30 years ago… let’s hope I get a knighthood.”
Order of the barter.
Modern thinkers are full of Kant
JAMEELA JAMIL gives modern philosophers short shrift.
“So much of the most basic tenets of philosophy are things that we need so much now,” the actress and presenter told a How To Academy event, “and over the years … philosophers have become more and more inaccessible.” She added: “Everything… at the beginning stages of philosophy was so much easier for most people to digest.”
Perhaps a purely reasonable critique…
Now, if you don’t snooze, you lose
TOM HODGKINSON, editor of loafers’ magazine The Idler, celebrates the news from The University of Chicago that an extra hour in bed can shave off the calorie equivalent of three biscuits.
“This is a welcome confirmation from scientists of what we idlers have known for centuries — sleep is good for you,” he tells us, adding: “Now that vanity is an extra motivation — sleep helps you lose weight — perhaps we can move towards a sleepier society.”
The Londoner salutes him — from a horizontal position.
Kate’s cig break causes a stampede
KATE and Lila Moss were the talk of the Fendi Set book launch at the Royal Academy last night. When Kate went out for a cigarette, so many followed her some thought the event had ended. Moss confessed to a pal she felt “overdressed” for the evening. She was joined by her boyfriend, the book’s photographer Nikolai von Bismarck, the author Kim Jones, plus Princess Beatrice, Alexa Chung, Emma Weymouth and Alice Dellal.
SW1A
LYNTON CROSBY, the Aussie election wizard, has recently cast doubt over Boris Johnson’s claims the two are working more closely together. So The Londoner was intrigued to see a source in the Australian media report that “Lynton is returning home to the UK in a couple of weeks”. Following the yellow brick road?
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BRONWEN MADDOX shared a sharp aphorism for the Upper House in her annual lecture as Institute for Government director: “The Lords has been described as indispensable for scrutiny, but indefensible in the way that peers are chosen.” The immovable force meets the unstoppable object, but with more ermine.
