Dawn Chorus: The former acrobat arena you can now call home, the return of the obelisk and our quiz of the day

A storied space for sale in Brixton

What do a ballroom, a salsa club and an acrobat arena have in common?

Once-upon-a-time, they all occupied this space (pictured) inside an Edwardian hotel on Loughborough Road in Brixton, London. The hotel was converted into flats in 2008 and one of them (The Old Ballroom, previously the salsa club, previously the acrobat arena), is now for sale with Inigo. 

The three-bedroom, three-bathroom property is stuffed full of beautiful and quirky design and architectural details, each one as unique as the building’s history, including the soaring, stuccoed dome that crowns the central living space. 

The first bedroom is accessed via a study on the main floor and could be repurposed as a second or third reception room; the subsequent two, both ensuites, are on individual mezzanine floors.

On the doorstep, there’s Annapurna Cafe, San Mei Gallery and Ruskin Park; Loughborough Road itself is a quiet, residential street, but Camberwell and Brixton proper — and all that they have to offer — are nearby.

The Old Ballroom is for sale with Inigo, for £1,150,000.

Quiz of the day

1) Musophobia is a fear of what?

2) Who wrote the opera The Barber of Seville?

3) Which metal signifies a 10th wedding anniversary?

4) What type of insect is a grizzled skipper?

5) How many rounds are fired from the Tower of London to salute The King's birthday?

It’s a date!

There’s something wonderfully rounded about ‘2025’, whether you’re reading the numbers or saying them out loud. It feels like a milestone year, a special year, and it is in many ways — because it’s the anniversary year of a myriad cultural moments.

Little could Henry VIII have known that his beloved hunting lodge, Greenwich Castle, would one day become an observatory, so renowned that its location would define the Earth’s two hemispheres and, therefore, time itself.

The auspicious moment was 4.14pm on August 10, 1675 — 350 years ago — when the first Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed (1646-1719) laid the foundation stone amid the castle’s demolished ruins.

In 1775, 250 years ago, author Jane Austen and artist J. M. W. Turner were born; 200 years ago, the Cox’s Orange Pippin apple was first grown, as recorded by diarist Samuel Pepys. 

In 1900, 125 years ago, and somewhat less happily, critic John Ruskin, archaeologist August Pitt Rivers and Oscar Wilde all died. On the plus side, Queen Victoria formed the Irish Guards. 

Speeding forward to more recent times: 60 years go, the F-word was blurted out for the first time on British television, towards the end of an eventful year that saw Sir Winston Churchill die, The Rolling Stones getting ‘no satisfaction’ and Mary Quant introducing the mini skirt. 

It’s been 20 years since Doctor Who was reincarnated, The King and Queen Camilla got married and the last London Routemaster bus ran (No 159). A decade has passed since the Succession to the Crown Bill got rid of male primogeniture, Oxford beat Cambridge in the first Women’s Boat Race and the Met Office officially named a storm for the first time — Abigail. Let’s hope she and her friends lay low for a while in 2025. Annunciata Elwes 

Animals, obelisks and bare plaster

Not since the days of the interior designer David Hicks has the obelisk — a diminutive version of Cleopatra’s Needle — been so in demand. 

It’s making a comeback in 2025, according to Country Life’s Interiors Editor, Giles Kime.

Missed his design predictions for 2025? You will find the whole list here.

The painting's on the wall

A limited-edition 1:1-scale digital reproduction of Raphael’s The Marriage of the Virgin, certified by the Pinacoteca di Brera in partnership with Save The Artistic Heritage, is currently on show in the Kipling Suite at Brown’s Hotel in London, until April.

Rocco Forte Hotels is sponsoring of the current ‘Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael’ exhibition at the Royal Academy.

That’s it for today — we’re back tomorrow.

Quiz answers

1) Mice or rats

2) Rossini

3) Tin

4) Butterfly

5) 62