The lion on Westminster Bridge ...

The caryatids on St Pancras Church,  one of my favourite London buildings ...

And the detail on so many houses around Bloomsbury ...

I took all of this for granted and just assumed that it was made of stone. In fact, it is Coade stone, a highly durable artificial stone that resisted corrosion by London's acid rain and still looks good as new today. And what I'd never have guessed was that it was manufactured in the 18th century by an entrepreneurial spinster Mrs (courtesy title) Eleanor Coade. Her factory was on the South Bank where the Festival Hall is today. 

And this is her own home in Lyme Regis, like a pink wedding cake with Coade stone icing, more recently the home of novelist John Fowles and now restored by the Landmark Trust. I am completely addicted to the Landmark Trust's website and when I win the lottery (I'll need to!)  I'm going to work my way around every single one of their properties, inviting all of my friends and some of my relations.   The story of the restoration - and Mrs Coade - is told on the new Channel4 series about the Landmark Trust. It's interesting, but I did wish they wouldn't keep skipping back and forth from one property to another; I'm sure the target audience has an attention span of longer than two minutes. And it means that so much of the programme is wasted on tedious re-caps.