Whilst spending a weekend in London, I wanted to find some locations, relating to the life and case of Edith Thompson (she’ll be a big part of this blog so you will hear more about her in due course). I was very keen to find the Holborn Restaurant. The main part, King’s Hall, is aptly named, decked-out in ornate elegance: shimmering chandeliers, white-clothed tables, at times a floor for dancing, lavishly crafted balconies surrounding above.

Imagine my disappointment therefore, emerging from the grime of the underground station to find in its place and glaringly bright, largely composed of glass as so many buildings are now, an office block. The ground level is now a small supermarket.

Is it possible to grieve for a building? Because I think that’s the process I went through after a fruitless wander and some more googling revealed that the Holborn had indeed been replaced by this unapologetically modern office block with a supermarket underneath. I am convinced Edith would share my disappointment and distaste. The supermarket is full of people carrying with them the smog and dirt of a different, modern London. It’s garish.

I’d gone there with a purpose and it had fallen through. All I see in that office block is the now unheeded words of a dying boy. Poor Freddy. It seemed so cruel, that after everything he should lose that too. On 8th January 1923, the day before he died, he wrote in a letter:

‘I want you now that you know Edith to always to love and cherish her memory as a brave-hearted, noble, and loyal woman. Dear, I think, and I know, that you can understand what she has suffered. Don’t pity her but love her. You are right, dear, we will soon be together, and what was not to be on this sordid planet, the land of cowards and curs, will be in another world. As you go into the – restaurant [the Holborn restaurant] on your left is a staircase leading to the balcony (there Bywaters gives a rough sketch of the interior) you will then see a table in about the position I have marked with a cross in this crude diagram. Go there sometimes, you dear girl.’[1]

Freddy asked it for the sake of Edith, and secondly for himself. I’d wanted to go, for them both. Sorry Edith, I tried. In the end, there was a compromise and we went along to one of the hotels Edith and Freddy had frequented. It was one of the fanciest (for want of a better word) places I’ve ever set foot in and being a hotel, that was all that felt appropriate. Inside, wow this place is fancy, quick glance round, back out again.

I had other places on the list but more googling revealed that they had also been lost to modernity. However, the other night we had passed the Criterion Theatre, but that’s a story for another post.

Images of the Holborn taken from the Images on Rene Weis’ website (https://edithjessiethompson.co.uk/), found here: https://edithjessiethompson.co.uk/image-galleries/#album-2

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[1] Taken from Rene’s Weis’ Criminal Justice: The Truth Story of Edith Thompson, 2001, Ch. 6, ‘When Winter Came’ found here: https://edithjessiethompson.co.uk/criminal-justice/chapter-6/).