Open House London 2014 Day 2 Part 1

Trying to get up to date on my photos while I am actually on holiday, so here is where I went on the Sunday of Open House weekend. 

I started off on Lee High Road (probably a good thing that the amazing wool shop on Lee High Road is shut on Sundays) at Boone's Chapel, a former almshouse chapel which is now being used as an architect's studio. 

It was built in the 1680s as the chapel for almshouses built by the Merchant Taylors' Company. The founder - Christopher Boone - was at one point probably one of the richest men in the country and was one of the commissioners of the East India Company. 

The chapel is currently all that's left of the almshouses, which is a shame (the other buildings were demolished in the 1870s). It fell into disrepair for a while but money was raised to restore it and it is now in use as an architect's studio. 

I then stopped by a church (failed to take picture of the name so currently very confused trying to work out what church it was and why won't it show up on Google maps aaaaaagh). I can't just look it up on the Open House site as the guy who told me about it said it wasn't officially part of Open House and wasn't on the website. I went into the grounds/churchyard but didn't go in as there seemed to be services on and as it wasn't officially part of the weekend I didn't feel comfortable interrupting. 

OK I FOUND IT. St Margaret's Church, confusingly enough across the road from St Joseph's Vale. Bloody hell. 

ANYWAY. After that I went off to Blackheath via a shortcut that someone at Boone's Chapel told me about (I am saving this knowledge for future reference). I then got the bus to Greenwich and went to Noodle Time for lunch, because Noodle Time is the best and yes I do think this is relevant. 

In Greenwich I visited St Alfege Church, which as it turned out was a Hawksmoor Church so the deja vu from the day before was a bit odd. The current church is 300 years old and is undergoing a bunch of renovation works. It was damaged by fire in 1941 but was restored to the original design. 

NB photos on the outside are odd angles because some of it was covered up due to renovations. 

Ok, so that was the first part of my Sunday but the two (or three, depending on how you count it) most exciting things are still to come. However it is getting late so I will come back to this tomorrow!