Cartoon: John Sadler with apologies to George Morland

• I WRITE to you from the indignity of a cardboard box in which my skeletal remains have been unceremoniously deposited while exhumation of the 33 million souls buried in Saint James Gardens gathers apace in readiness for an Iron Road the cost of which will doubtless bankrupt the entire nation.

Added to this, I have now been made aware from the pages of your esteemed Journal (July 4 2019) that where my wife and I formerly resided, namely Warren Place, and where, if I may be so bold, I produced my finest work, a monstrous edifice is currently proposed to be erected in the guise of an Inn with 80 bedchambers.

In the 1930s Messrs Woolworth demolished part of Warren Place in order to erect their new Emporium, taking care that this modest building, (now home to Sports Direct), mirrored in height the houses previously on this site.

Although the fields surrounding Warren Place have long disappeared consenting to this lamentable piece of architecture would merely be adding to the worst that Camden High Street has to offer, rather than the best. I beg to remain your faithful servant.

GEORGE MORLAND
Genre painter
Formerly, 9 Warren Place
1787 to 1789
St James Burial-ground 1804 to 2019 Current address Unknown – possibly an HS2 storage facility
Letter sent via Marian Kamlish, a concerned resident
NW1