A Putney cottage designed by Erno Goldfinger has been illegally destroyed. Arbus Ltd, of Croydon, applied for permission to pull down the building in 2002, but was refused. Living up to his surname, Director of the company Rajiv Laxman paid little heed to the order and the building’s Grade II listed status, demolishing the cottage anyway. He’s now been ordered to pay £11,000 and forced to rebuild the property using the same design and......

19. St Christopher's Place Where? A clement thoroughfare connecting Oxford Street (near Bond Street Tube) to Wigmore Street. What? It might be full of beautiful people today, but St Kitt's was once a rather slummy backwater known as Barretts Court. It later found some semblance of respectability under the guidance of Octavia Hill, one of the Victorian founders of the National Trust, who bought the noisome plot and rechristened it after her pet saint.......

As of tomorrow The British Library will be showing off its most recent acquistion: a collection of work by William Fox Talbot. This historic photographic archive was previously held by the National Trust above the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock in Wiltshire, and access was very limited. But the Talbot family wanted the public and researchers alike to get at the images, which include some of the first photographs ever taken, so they turned......

Goldfinger. Bah-Bah BAH! He’s the man…who should have used thicker toilet paperrrrr. So went the iconic sixties Bond theme. (Or was that the man with the golden pun? No matter.) Goldfinger is that rare example of a man who left his mark on both the silver screen and the west London skyline. For those who are puzzled right now, the famous Bond villain was actually named after a real-life architect, one Ernő Goldfinger. Ian......