Sunday 24 January 2016

Tates, Old and New.


The picture below is the Tate and Lyle factory as seen from London Airport DLR station. There has been a sugar factory on this site for over a hundred years, owned originally by Henry Tate & Sons until the company merged in the 1920s (20 years after Henry's death). Incidentally the 'save our sugar' banner on the front is to do with EU regulations about importing sugar cane and you can read more here if curious. 


Henry Tate, of course, was the Victorian philanthropist who built the Tate Gallery in Pimlico which bears his name, and now has baby and stroppy teenage Tates at St Ives, Liverpool and in the old power station at Bankside.

The members room of the Tate at Bankside (theTate Modern) has some great views. You can get a particularly good picture of St Paul's - but there are a hundred and one copies of that on the internet and there's no point in me adding to them. Instead you can have towards Cheapside and the City:


Or over Blackfriars Bridge in the other direction: 



Tate actually lived at Streatham and funded libraries more locally to home at StreathamBrixton and West Norwood. In fact it was wandering through Streatham today with a camera that triggered my sudden recollection of Tate and all his works. 

I didn't take a picture of the library though. I took a pic of this opposite Streatham station:


Artwork by Emma Harrison. It turns out Peter Davison was born in Streatham in the 50s. Which raises a question in my mind. Has there ever been an episode where the Doctor met Henry Tate? And if not, why not?

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