APOLLINAIRE ENAMOURED Skyline Deadline Part 21

A Love-Struck Poet, Deserted Hospitals, and London's Vanishing History.

Apollinaire Enamoured plunges into the forgotten streets of South London, tracking the ghost of the young poet Guillaume Apollinaire (then Wilhelm Kostrowicki), who visited in 1901 hoping to win the hand of his beloved English governess, Annie Playden.

The film follows Robinson as he searches for clues to literary history—from a rumoured link between Annie Playden's home on Landor Road, Clapham North, and Edgar Allan Poe’s work (Landor's Cottage), to an unsuccessful attempt to trace Conan Doyle in the neighborhood.

This second expedition becomes a deep, rambling walk through London's social and architectural fabric:

The Pursuit of Poe: Robinson decides to walk from Stockwell Bus Garage all the way to Stoke Newington to find the school where Edgar Allan Poe was a pupil.

A City of Layers: Along the way, we stop outside the derelict Belgrave Hospital for Children and explore layers of history at St Mark's Church, where the railings are made from recycled WWII air-raid stretchers. Robinson also passionately discusses the design legacy of the Routemaster bus and the pioneering work of the London County Council.

The Last Stand: Near the Elephant and Castle, the film captures a poignant encounter with a couple who have spent twenty-seven years raising their family in a now-vulnerable, temporary prefabricated house installed in 1965—a testament to London's ever-changing, unforgiving landscape of housing and financial pressure.

Transcript

APOLLINAIRE ENAMOURED

Wilhelm Kostrowicki, a young man who later became the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, visited London in 1901.

He had met an English governess, Annie Playden, while working as a tutor in Germany. When she returned to her family's home in Clapham North, he followed, hoping to persuade her to marry him.

The name of Landor was familiar to Apollinaire from the work of Edgar Allan Poe, and conjured up an image of idyllic domesticity. Annie rejected him, and emigrated to America, leaving strict instructions that he was never to be told where she had gone.

Robinson was following up a rumour that Conan Doyle had once lived in the neighbourhood, but he was unable to contact anyone who could help him.

At Stockwell, he took me to the bus garage.

l asked him where we were going, and he said he would like to walk to London Bridge, and through the City to Stoke Newington, to find the school where Edgar Allan Poe had been a pupil.

The next morning we set off again.

It was hot, and at lunchtime we stopped to rest outside the derelict hospital near the Oval station.

Robinson tires easily. He thinks there is something the matter with his liver.

Opposite St Mark's church, one of four built to commemorate the victory of Waterloo, he showed me railings made of stretchers used in air-raid shelters.

He told me how much he admired the design of the Routemaster buses, which he said was based on techniques of aircraft construction developed during World War II, and about Douglas Scott, their designer, who taught at the Central School of Art.

He told me about the London County Council, London's first metropolitan authority, which built thousands of flats all over London in the years between the two world wars.

Near the Elephant and Castle, we met a couple who had lived in a prefabricated temporary house since it was installed in 1965.

These buildings stood next to a hotel where groups of visiting schoolchildren often stayed.

It had originally been a hostel for homeless men, one of many that had been converted into hotels in the days when hotel building in London attracted government subsidy.

Now, it was rumoured to be in financial difficulties.

After twenty-seven years in the house, where they had brought up all their children, they were reluctant to leave, and had been offered nothing with comparable amenities; but as their neighbours disappeared one by one, the house was increasingly vulnerable, and they no longer felt able to leave it for more than a couple of days.

Locations and filming dates

Corner of Landor Road SW9 and Bedford Road SW4, 4 June 1992 and 7 March 2022
75 Landor Road SW9, 9 July 1992 and 25 May 2022
Voltaire Road SW4, 16 June 1992 and 25 May 2022
Stockwell Bus Garage, 21 May 1992 and 22 August 2022
Belgrave Hospital for Children, Clapham Road SW9, 26 May 1992 and 17 March 2022
Outside Lockwood House, Kennington Oval SE11, 26 May 1992 and 23 May 2022
Dante Road SE11, 28 May 1992 and 23 May 2022

Notes

An 'unofficial' blue plaque on 75 Landor Road, since removed, stated:

HERE LIVED
ANNIE PLAYDEN
APOLLINAIRE'S 'INVICTA' MAIDEN
INSPIRATION IN HER DAY
OF 'LA CHANSON DU MAL-AIMÉ
1895-1904

Landor is referenced by Edgar Allan Poe in Landor's Cottage.

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