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Side by side, the loo and Hazlitt’s grave |
Writer’s fans take grave exception to pupils’ loo
WHEN a new public convenience was winched into St Anne’s Gardens in September, Soho Parish primary pupils breathed a collective sigh of relief.
The £52,000 toilet meant they could enjoy their lunch break under supervision in the Gardens without having to dash back to the school toilets.
Dubbed the “Lou’vre”, because its interior is decorated with works by local artists, the new loo’s arrival made the national newspapers and has since been regarded as a great success.
But its location, just a few feet from the grave of writer William Hazlitt, has upset literary buffs. Ian Mayes, chairman of the Hazlitt Society and readers’ editor at the Guardian newspaper, has written to Soho’s Clarion community paper expressing his concerns.
He said: “Of course, it is wonderful that Soho schoolchildren bring some life to the gardens, but a grave is a grave. Did the lavatory have to be quite so close?”
Mr Mayes added: “Unless it can be removed, perhaps the best course now would be to plant a few shrubs between the two as a small reminder that a bit of respect is due.
“Placing a copy of Hazlitt’s Table Talk among the artefacts on permanent display in the loo portico, nice gesture that it is, does not do the trick.”
Katherine Powlett, who set up the charity Soho Green and lobbied successfully to raise funds for the egg-shaped loo, said: “Soho Green tried very hard to get the loo as far as possible from the site of the Hazlitt stone, but constraints of drains and tree roots meant it had to go where it is.”
Hazlitt, celebrated for his humanist essays and insightful literary criticism, died in poverty in lodgings in Frith Street, in what is now called Hazlitt’s Hotel.
His grave’s long inscription honours the dissenter acknowledged as one the greatest masters of English prose. The tribute recalls “a despiser of the merely rich and great, a lover of the people, poor or oppressed, a hater of the pride and power of the few”.
The grave, which had been neglected, was restored after £26,000 was raised in 2002 by the Guardian newspaper and the Hazlitt Society, whose committee members include philosopher AC Grayling, leading lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman and Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. |
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