KEEPING UP APPEARANCES .sx The Heritage of London Trust is helping restore the 'grace notes' of the capital's landmarks , writes Tony Aldous .sx What have the Dogs of Alcibiades , a gazebo at Twickenham , eight 19th-century cabmen's shelters and the intricately carved pulpit of Sir Christopher Wren's church of St Stephen Walbrook in common ?sx The answer is , they have all been restored with the help of grants from the Heritage of London Trust ( HLT) .sx These are just four of the more than 150 conservation projects the trust has funded in its first 10 years of existence .sx In doing so , the trust has brought to wider notice a number of little-known architectural gems in the remoter parts of Greater London .sx For example , it has three times given grants towards restoration of the interior of the church of St Lawrence Whitchurch at Stanmore , on the capital's unprepossessing northern suburban edge .sx From the outside this looks like a decent Georgian church with a 16th-century tower ; inside the richly decorated Baroque interior you could for a moment think yourself in the Tyrol or southern Germany .sx Stanmore owes this unexpected treasure to the 18th-century Duke of Chandos , who built a mansion , Canons , near by , and remodelled the church to serve , in effect , as his private chapel .sx He sat with his bodyguard in the west gallery under the tower , listening to his 30-strong concert of musicians playing music by his composer-in-residence , George Frideric Handel .sx At ground level the nave is filled with very English box pews , but above them rise painted walls and a vaulted ceiling that ought to be in Austria , filled with depictions of the virtues , evangelists and biblical scenes by Louis Laguerre .sx At the east end the effect is quite theatrical :sx in front , the altar ; behind it , gilded organ pipes rising from a finely carved case attributed to Grinling Gibbons ; and , behind that , a retro-choir with vaulted ceiling on which painted clouds swirl across a blue sky .sx On the corresponding canopy above the Duke's gallery is a dramatic copy by Antonio Bellucci of Raphael's Transfiguration .sx St Lawrence , unique in Britain , has attracted funds from a number of organisations to restore its interior .sx HLT's contributions so far have been used to restore two of the ceiling paintings ( pounds12,000 , of which pounds6,000 came from the Pilgrim Trust ) ; to restore the antechamber to the adjoining Chandos Mausoleum in which are buried the Duke and his first two wives ( pounds5,000 , plus pounds7,000 from Pilgrim ) ; and repainting of the Duke's colourful armorial hatchments .sx Sometimes the trust puts its money into restoring a room or rooms in a building undergoing more general restoration .sx Thus at Pitshanger Manor , Ealing , another little-known treasure which was Sir John Soane's country house , its money is earmarked to restore the principal bedchamber to the appearance Soane gave it in 1801 .sx The Heritage of London Trust's pounds6,830 grant is matched by an equivalent sum from the Leche Trust .sx At Charles Dickens's House , No 48 Doughty Street , Clerkenwell , one of HLT's earliest grants , of pounds10,000 , returned the drawing room to an early-Victorian state .sx Judged by present-day taste , it may seem fairly indigestible , but Dickens and his contemporaries considered it just the thing .sx The restorers had some difficulty in tracking down an authentic carpet design , but eventually found the King of Sweden possessed one of the right pattern .sx Buildings benefiting from the HLT's assistance range from the prestigious to the obscure .sx Prestigious beneficiaries include the Royal Academy of Arts ( restoration of the Palladian fa c-cedille ade of Burlington House ) ; Lambeth Palace ( return of a 17th-century wooden screen to the chapel ) ; English National Opera's base , the London Coliseum ( restoration of the original Frank Matcham-designed entrance canopy ) ; and St Bartholomew's Hospital ( Henry VIII Gate and courtyard fountain) .sx Among the relatively obscure are repairs to the 130-year-old spire of Christ Church , Cubitt Town ; restoration of the Pelican group of statuary in Coade stone at the Horniman Museum ; replacement of a statue on the pediment of the Hackney Empire theatre ; rebuilding a granary at Harrow's medieval Headstone Manor ; and the reinstatement of copper flower finials on the roof parapets of public halls designed and given to South Norwood by local inventor and industrialist William Stanley .sx The Stanley Halls grant comes from a special fund given to the trust by Croydon Corporation and earmarked for projects within its boundaries .sx Not all grants are for buildings or even for artifacts .sx In continuing to support restoration of Hawksmoor's splendid Christ Church , Spitalfields , the trust paid out pounds10,000 for a research report and working drawings which could not otherwise have been afforded .sx It has also backed an exhibition on Sir Christopher Wren at Whitechapel Art Gallery in east London , and publication of an architectural map of Covent Garden .sx Heritage of London Trust came into being in 1981 when the Greater London Council decided that London should follow other cities and countries in Britain by setting up a building preservation trust .sx These operate primarily as 'revolving funds' , buying and restoring historic buildings , then selling them to finance further projects .sx But for various reasons , not least the nature of the London property market , the HLT has developed in a very different way and instead has concentrated on two invaluable functions .sx First , it provides grants to those engaged in conservation projects for what may be called the 'grace notes' of restoration - putting back a sculpted figure on a pediment , for instance , or returning to working order the rusty , dismembered , 350-year-old clock of Inigo Jones's St Paul's Church , Covent Garden .sx These are the important details , reinstated to a very high standard , which might have been omitted , postponed or merely patched up for want of the extra few thousands - or even hundreds - of pounds required .sx The trust's second characteristic function is , in the words of its director , Sir John Lambert , " to stimulate things , to get projects off the ground " .sx This it does not by using financial muscle but by persuasion , influence in key places , and 'leverage' - offering its grants on condition others match them .sx Furthermore , it can give the projects it supports credibility in the eyes of bigger and wealthier grant-giving charities like , for instance , the Pilgrim Trust .sx " We're like a little spider sitting in the middle of a web of contacts - boroughs , charitable trusts and , above all , English Heritage , " says Sir John , whose previous post was as Britain's ambassador in Tunis .sx " We operate in a quiet way , but the pace has increased over the last two or three years .sx We've got better known , and we've been jolly active .sx " .sx 'We' chiefly means Sir John , his second-in-command , Diana Beattie , and the trust's chairman , William Bell .sx Sir John and Mrs Beattie operate three days a week from a tiny office ( a former stationery cupboard ) at Chesham House , English Heritage London Division's premises off Regent Street .sx English Heritage , set up to look after historic buildings and monuments in England , took over from the trust's original sponsor , GLC Historic Buildings Division , when the GLC was abolished in 1986 .sx It was Mr Bell who , in 1980 , persuaded the GLC to set up the Heritage of London Trust with a dowry of pounds50,000 and the promise of pounds10,000 a year more if it raised pounds40,000 .sx GLC abolition knocked away that prop , although the London boroughs' joint grants scheme supplies core funding to keep HLT ticking over .sx However , the extra degree of independence has encouraged the trust to stand on its own feet , and helps explain why in the past few years its business has been booming .sx Though English Heritage's London Division owes HLT nothing , in practice the two work in partnership .sx " It's a two - way process , " says Sir John .sx " People tell us about possible projects , and we get English Heritage to take an interest in them ; English Heritage refer projects to us where they think we might help .sx " .sx The trust leans very much on the expertise of its host's professional conservation staff , and often helps to make a restoration scheme practicable by matching English Heritage grants with money from its own funds and from other trusts with which it has close links .sx These include the Leche Trust , founded by Angus Acworth , a leading campaigner for Georgian buildings and furnishings , and Manifold , a family charitable trust set up by Sir John Smith , whose Landmark Trust has restored scores of follies and small buildings all over the UK .sx Sir John Lambert says that economic recession has made it harder for the trust to raise the pounds100,000 it needs each year to top up its working capital - and this just at a time when many conservation groups , for the same reason , desperately need its help .sx On the other hand , high interest rates linked with the trust's tax - exempt status have worked to its advantage .sx The trust has a useful pounds500,000 in its kitty , of which pounds350,000 is committed in grants offered but not yet paid out .sx " Our aim , " Lambert explains , " isn't to build up big reserves , but to be solvent , with a little put to one side in case the right revolving fund project comes up .sx " .sx Lambert and his trustees are finding that donors increasingly ask HLT to use their money for socially worthwhile projects , and this matches the trust's preference for 'good end uses' .sx Examples of these include work on the Trinity Centre , Tower Hamlets , used by the Breakthrough Trust for the Deaf ; restoration of important sgraffito decoration on the old St Paul's Cathedral choir school , now a youth hostel ; restoration of chimneys and windows in Mitcham's pretty 1829 Mary Tate Almshouses , converted to high-standard sheltered housing ; and restoration of the Georgian billiard room at Tottenham's former Bell Brewery as the centre for a disabled people's transport service .sx One very worthwhile exercise which could scarcely have happened but for HLT's determined intervention was the rescue of nursery-rhyme wall-tiles during demolition of a children's ward at Moorfields Eye Hospital and their installation in other children's wards at Moorfields and Great Ormond Street .sx Another was restoration work at Lauderdale House , Highgate , badly damaged by fire but now used as a community arts centre .sx A third and most unusual example is the restoration of , to date , eight of the 13 surviving shelters built by a Victorian charity to give cab-drivers somewhere warm and dry to rest and partake of cheap , nourishing and non-alcoholic refreshment - which they still do .sx VIP reopenings have featured the Duke of Westminster at Grosvenor Gardens , the Duke of Gloucester ( the trust's patron ) at Kensington Park Road and the Prince of Hanover at Hanover Square .sx But what of the Dogs of Alcibiades ?sx These are two marble dogs atop brick piers in Victoria Park in the East End of London , whose restoration the trust funded after they had been vandalised .sx Heads raised and ears cocked as if some invisible benefactor were offering them a succulent bone , they were first installed there in 1912 , and are copies of a sculpture by the fifth-century-BC sculptor Myron .sx This represented a dog owned by Myron's contemporary , the Athenian politician-general Alcibiades , and were given to the London County Council in 1912 .sx Alcibiades had a chequered career :sx sentenced to death in his absence after being blamed for desecration of the Hermae ( ancient statues in Athens ) ; recalled to lead the Athenians to victory against their enemies ; finally murdered in Phrygia where he had fled after the fall of the city .sx But whether Alcibiades's dog barked when the murderer struck , or why he and his twin were thought fit guardians for the park , is unknown .sx CHESS MITES .sx Twenty years ago England ranked 25th in the world of chess and had no grandmasters .sx Now it is second only to the Soviet Union , boasts 19 grandmasters and has a huge potential among the very young .sx Is Britain at last nursing a world champion ?sx Ted Nottingham , a schoolmaster whose students are among the country's best young players , and Bob Wade , English national coach , report on the prospects .sx Photographs by Chris Cormack .sx Chess has recently become a highly popular game for British children , and they seem to be starting younger every year .sx Now they are learning the game at the age of five or six , and there are champions of under eight .sx