As a teenager, Simon Warrack took the 31 bus through London and found the city’s beauty in the worn stone of its buildings. His story, “On Finding the Beauty in a Block of Stone,” makes a quiet case for loving old houses instead of knocking them down.
The Bus Ride From World’s End to World’s End
Warrack’s route started in Camden High Street, past the World’s End pub, up through the Roundhouse, and on through the oddly kitsch Swiss Cottage. It swung south to Abbey Road, crossed the Kilburn High Road, and continued through Notting Hill Gate to the King’s Road in Chelsea, where another World’s End pub waited at the end of the line.
People were supposed to board the bus by grasping the white pole and swinging aboard while it was still moving. Warrack hustled up to the smoky upper deck, grabbed the front seats, and pried open the little steel windows so the cigarette smoke blew to the back. Every time the conductor asked for his fare to Westbourne Grove, he got a glare, then a small piece of paper with purple ink printed on it. Once in his seat, Warrack could lean forward and enjoy one of the best views in London.
Kilburn and the Contrast of Prosperity
The late 1960s were patchy. The war had ended more than 20 years before, but plenty of areas had not recovered from the Blitz. Neighborhoods like St. John’s Wood and Belsize Park were clean and prosperous, while just a few hundred yards down the road was Kilburn. Damp houses with moldy plaster and broken windows lined streets between terrifying schools with grimy kids gazing through lethal wire fencing around the playgrounds.
The district of Kilburn was a low region and a favorite haunt of Irish settlers. Warrack gazed down from the platform of the bus at windows on the ground floor, at rooms that were bare, with wall coverings that were peeling, cold, empty, and without furniture, a sight that filled him with sorrow and dread. Then the bus crossed over the Grand Union Canal and entered Notting Hill and Kensington, where prosperity was on the increase. The change in fortune before his eyes troubled him and weighed heavily upon his spirit.
“The contrast baffled and saddened me. It seemed so wrong that one could travel through such extremes—from poverty to wealth, from pain to comfort—all on a single smudged ticket,” Warrack wrote, and his words carry the weight of the whole argument.
Don Potter and the Sculptor’s Task
When Warrack was a boy of early teens, Don Potter instructed him in stone and wood carving. Potter was an eccentric genius who created significant sculptures, and he restored the old barn where he and his family lived. In his kitchen, he fashioned all the plates and pots, while his wife Mary wove the carpets and made the curtains. Potter was demanding with his charges, and he expelled boys from the workshop for poor work or vexation.
Potter taught Warrack to cut stone for the first time when Warrack became 13. The challenge was to wrestle with the material and resist the despair of chipping off a piece accidentally. Potter’s method was to remove everything that was not needed in order to make a good sculpture.
Warrack came to know that Michelangelo had said the same thing. He never discovered whether Don was aware of this or if it is merely what every carver feels.
The Fight Against Demolition
Soon enough, developers brought down large portions of the old Victorian homes in order to bring the district up to date. The result was streets that looked like a vision of an urban utopia, with brutalist high-rise blocks and parking lots standing alongside metal swings and slides for children. From the top deck, Warrack could see the changes taking place, and he knew that something was amiss.
“Why would anyone want to destroy lovely old houses, the same houses that made Kensington so desirable, and replace them with buildings that resembled a pile of washing machines 30 floors high? How could this be right?” he wrote.
His devotion to looking after beauty, which was later called heritage, took him all the way to the farthest reaches of the globe, far past the northern and southern boundaries of Chelsea and Camden Town. He brought his travels to people everywhere, from the stonemasons shaping the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela to the Syrian refugees from Aleppo and Homs.
The Story’s Argument
Warrack’s argument is straightforward: the houses in Kilburn were no different from those in Camden or Notting Hill, apart from the need for repair, restoration, cleaning up, and affection. He noted that there was a clear link between beauty and well-being, but the developers and planners had plans of their own.
He rode the 31 bus through poverty and wealth, and he saw that the same houses could be beautiful and comfortable, if only someone would care. He found the beauty in a block of stone, and his passion for caring for it carried him to the ends of the world.
The story’s key facts:
- The 31 bus ran from world’s End to world’s End, passing through Camden, Kilburn, Notting Hill, Kensington, Earls Court, and Chelsea
- Don Potter taught Warrack to carve stone at age 13
- Potter’s method was to remove everything that was not required
- Developers knocked down Victorian houses to build brutalist high-rise blocks and car parks
Source material: “On Finding the Beauty in a Block of Stone,” Literary Hub.
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