Cecil Rhodes House

• THE tenants’ and residents’ association decision to avoid renaming Cecil Rhodes House after a person neatly prevents this from becoming a political football, (Cecil Rhodes’ tenants say block does not need to honour anyone, July 3).

That it ended up being called “Cecil Rhodes” was probably the result of authorities imposing their views.

Yet again it is a repeat of a familiar pattern of those distant to Somers Town determining its future: with suggestions for renaming coming from councillors who do not even represent the area and for names of people completely unconnected to the area, such as George Floyd.

It seems finally residents are being consulted about the name of the block they live in.

The Somers Town History Club has followed this with amusement and, having worked in the area for over four years, we can offer many rich historical associations closer to home than those so far mooted; from the global, the pan-Africanist George Padmore or Mary Wollstonecraft, who both have plaques in Somers Town, to the cultural; Doris Lessing, Dickens, or Mary Shelley, who courted across the road in St Pancras Old Churchyard; or even the Beatles, whose Mad Day Out antics were photographed inside those same gardens.

Or why not call it Fleet after the river, since the building is sited close to where that old river, now subterranean, runs feeding from Hampstead ponds to pipes as far as the City? How romantic that would be!

Cecil Rhodes House is also, notably, a beautiful building that is, in our 2019 survey, the most popular candidate for listing.

We would call on Camden Council to pay attention to maintaining the wonderful social housing heritage that this building represents and list it.

DIANA FOSTER
Somers Town History Club