Located in The Regent’s Park, this circular stone planter – often called the ‘Lion Vase’ – dates from the 1860s.
The vase (‘tazza’ just means ‘vase’), which features a circular bowl sitting atop four winged lions or griffins, was designed by Austin and Seeley out of artificial stone.
It was installed as the centrepiece of the Italian Gardens by their designer, William Andrews Nesfield, in 1863.
The vase – which is one of about 30 stone vases in the Avenue Gardens – was restored in the mid-1990s.
WHERE: The Griffin Tazza, The Avenue Gardens, The Regent’s Park (nearest Tube stations are Regent’s Park and Great Portland Street); WHEN: 5am to 9:30pm daily; COST: Free: WEBSITE: www.royalparks.org.uk/visit/parks/regents-park-primrose-hill
• See a glimpse of London as it was during the Victorian era at a new exhibition opening at the London Metropolitan Archives.Lost Victorian City: a London disappeared features photographs, prints, watercolours and documents depicting buildings, horse-drawn transport, docks and various forms of entertainment along with artists’ views of the capital. Highlights include images taken in 1875 by the Society for Photographing Relics of Old London of the 17th century coaching inn, the Oxford Arms, which was demolished two years later, two images by Philip Henry Delamotte showing the moving of the Crystal Palace from Hyde Park to Sydenham following the Great Exhibition of 1851, and a photograph showing the public disinfects whose job was to remove all textiles after an infectious disease outbreak. The display can be seen at the Clerkenwell-based archives until 5th February next year. For more, see
Yinka Shonibare CBE, Cowboy Angel V from the series Cowboy Angels. Colour woodcut and collage of Dutch wax batik fabric. Reproduced by permission of the artist.
• An exhibition has opened featuring works of art acquired by the British Museum over the past two decades including works by David Hockney, Damien Hirst, Julian Opie, Yinka Shonibare and Cornelia Parker. Contemporary collecting: David Hockney to Cornelia Parker features around 100 works acquired since 2001. Many of the works, which span the period from the 1960s onwards, are being exhibited for the first time. Highlights include Hockney’s prints The Marriage (1962) and Henry Seated with Tulips (1976), Parker’s Articles of Glass and Jug Full of Ice from One Day This Glass Will Break (2015), Michael Craig-Martin’s Coathanger, Light bulb and Watch from Drawings (2015); Caroline Walker’s colour lithograph Bathed (2018); Shonibare’s colour woodcuts Cowboy Angel I, II, V (2017) and Joy Gerrard’s Vigil/Protest (Westminster 14th March 2021), a 2023 drawing in Japanese ink. Runs until 29th September in Room 90. Admission is free. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org/david-hockney-cornelia-parker.
Said to be among the oldest still living trees in the City of London, the Cheapside Plane stands in what was once the churchyard of St Peter Cheap.
The church itself was destroyed in the Great Fire of London but how long this leafy tree, which stands more than 70 feet high, has occupied the site remains a matter of some conjecture.
A City of London tree trail puts the age of the tree – which stands at the corner of Wood Street and Cheapside – at 250 years (records held by the City say the tree was originally purchased for sixpence).
Over the years, this landmark tree – which has stood silent witness to everything from the 1854 cholera outbreak to the bombs of the Blitz – has garnered considerable attention appearing in various media, such as the Illustrated London News, and even, so say some, a 1797 poem by William Wordsworth (although some say the poem doesn’t refer to the tree at all).
The tree, which stands behind protective black iron railing, is the only one in the City of London listed among the “Great Trees of London” and planning laws protect it from over-development of the surrounding buildings.
Looking down Whitehall from where the Charing Cross stood today. Locket’s stood on the right. PICTURE: Courtesy of Google Maps.
A famous “ordinary” where meals could be obtained at preset prices, Locket’s was founded by Adam Locket just south of Charing Cross in the 17th century.
A popular meeting place after attending the theatre, the establishment was known for the quality of its food. It was frequented by the well-to-do as well as dramatists like Sir George Etherege (who apparently didn’t pay his bill).
Following Adam Locket’s death in about 1688, he was succeeded by his son Edward who ran it until about 1702. It survived through the reign of Queen Anne but contemporary references – it had been mentioned by writers such as John Vanbrugh and William Congreve – became increasingly scanty and then disappeared altogether after her death in 1714.
Drummond’s Bank later occupied the site where Locket’s had stood.
• A landmark exhibition exploring the final three decades of the life of Renaissance master Michelangelo has opened at the British Museum. Michelangelo: the last decades focuses on how his art and faith evolved and centres on the two metre high Epifania (about 1550–53), which is being displayed for the first time since conservation work on it began in 2018. Showing alongside it is a painting made from it by Michelangelo’s biographer, Ascanio Condivi, as well as preparatory drawings from the Last Judgment, which chart how Michelangelo invented a fresh vision of how the human form would be refashioned at the end of the world, and works created as part of his correspondence with his friends Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and the poet Vittoria Colonna. The latter include The Punishment of Tityus (about 1532) showing an eagle tearing out the liver of a bound naked man which was gifted to Tommaso as moral guidance for the young man. Other highlights include a group of drawings of Christ’s crucifixion which he made during the last 10 years of his life and through which he explored his feelings about mortality, sacrifice, faith, and the prospect of redemption. Runs until 28th July in the Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org/michelangelo.
• A new exhibition has opened celebrating the expressionists’ radical experimentations with form, colour, sound and performance at the Tate Modern. Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider features masterpieces from the Lenbachhaus in Munich and includes some works never previously seen in the UK. Among the artists whose work is on display are everyone from renowned artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, Franz Marc and Paul Klee, through to lesser known figures like Wladimir Burliuk and Maria Franck-Marc. Highlights include Marianne Werefkin’s Self-Portrait (c1910), Münter’s Listening (Portrait of Jawlensky) (1909), Erma Bossi’s Circus (1909), Kandinsky’s Impression III (Concert) (1911), Franz-Marc’s Deer in the Snow II (1911), Klee’s Legend of the Swamp (1919), and a selection of photographs from the Masterpieces of Muhammadan Art exhibition staged in Munich in 1910. Runs until 20th October. Admission charge applies. For more, see tate.org.uk.
• On Now – Dinosaur rEvolution.This exhibition at the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill highlights discoveries from recent decades which have changed the way we envisage dinosaurs – not all as scaly green reptiles but many with an array of colours, feathers, quills and spikes. At the centre of the display are five large animatronic dinosaur models – including a seven metre-long Tyrannosaurus rex – as well as well as artworks by artist and exhibition curator Luis V Rey. The exhibition also features fossil casts including the horned skull of a Diabloceratops, the claw of a Therizinosaurus, and skeletons of Velociraptor and Compsognathus – a chicken-sized, feathered dinosaur. Runs until 3rd November. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.horniman.ac.uk.
Spring is upon us, so we thought it an appropriate time to consider some of London’s greatest natural assets – its trees. But, as well as being significant for their environmental impact, each of these trees (or, in some cases, the remains of them), are significant for historic reasons (we’ve previously mentioned a couple including what’s believed to be the oldest tree and the unusual – and sadly now deceased – Hardy Tree).
PICTURE: Steve Daniels (licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)
First up, it’s the tree known as Queen Elizabeth’s Oak in Greenwich. Thought to date from possibly as far back as the late 13th century, this tree survived until the 19th century before its carcass finally fell to the ground during a storm in 1991. It has lain in Greenwich Park ever since.
The tree, which is located at the end of what is now Lover’s Walk close to the Maze Hill Gate, was located in the grounds of Greenwich Palace (also known as the Palace of Placentia) and was there when King Henry VIII resided at the palace.
In fact, it’s said that he and Anne Boleyn danced around the oak while courting, and (and here’s where the name comes from) that Elizabeth, their daughter (and later Queen Elizabeth I), picnicked under its canopy (some accounts suggest she actually picnicked in the tree’s hollow – but still then upright – trunk).
Following the creation of what is now Greenwich Park, the hollow tree was apparently used as a prison for those caught illicitly on the grounds. They were secured behind a heavy wooden door fitted to the trunk (a park keeper’s lodge was built nearby in the 17th century; it was demolished in the 1850s).
The tree, one of 3,000 in the park, had died in the 19th century and was reduced to an eight metre high stump, partly supported by ivy, when it was blown over by the storm in June, 1991.
A replacement oak, which was donated by the Greenwich Historical Society was planted nearby by the Duke of Edinburgh on 3rd December, 1992, to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s 40 years on the throne.
A ring analysis carried out on the tree found in 2014 it dated back to at least 1569 but with the core missing a precise date of germination couldn’t be found. Estimates, however, place the date of germination to the last 13th or early 14th century. The analysis placed the tree’s death to between 1827 and 1842.
The tree is marked with a plaque and both it and the new tree are surrounded by an iron railing.
London’s first Pizza Express in Soho, taken prior to its closure in July, 2014. PICTURE: Google Maps.
While pizza had been available in London restaurants some time before, the first dedicated pizzeria is said to have been the first Pizza Express located in Wardour Street in Soho.
The premises on the corner of Rupert Court and Wardour Street was established by Peter Boizot, who has reportedly first discovered pizza while in Italy in the 1940s, and, having witnessed the appearance of pizzerias elsewhere in Europe, decided to bring the concept to London.
Opening its doors on 27th March, 1965, the establishment was modelled on Italian pizzerias. Boizot had partnered with Italian designer, Enzo Apicella, to create an authentic Italian experience which included an open kitchen, simple furnishings and a wine menu (he also brought in a pizza chef from Sicily).
While the concept apparently wasn’t an instant success, it soon did catch on and Pizza Express opened further branches across the city – the first in Coptic Street next to the British Museum in 1967.
Sadly the Wardour Street premises was among dozens that the chain closed during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
• Caravaggio’s last painting – the 1610 work known as The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula – has gone on display in the UK for the first time in almost 20 years. The National Gallery is displaying the work – lent by the Intesa Sanpaolo Collection (Gallerie d’Italia – Naples) – alongside another late work by the Italian artist from the gallery own collection – Salome receives the Head of John the Baptist (about 1609–10). The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, which features a self-portrait of the artist, was only reattributed to Caravaggio in 1980 following the discovery of an archival letter describing its commission. The letter – which is being displayed along with the painting – was sent from Naples, where Caravaggio created the work, to Genoa, where his patron, Marcantonio Doria, lived. Caravaggio died in Porto Ercole on 18th July, 1610, less than two months after finishing the work. He was attempting to return to Rome where he believed he would be pardoned for a 1606 murder at the time. Admission to the display is free. Runs until 21st July. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.
Tulips in the Netherlands. PICTURE: Giu Vicente/Unsplash
• Hampton Court Palace’s Tulip Festival is on again. Displays include thousands of tulips spilling from a Victorian horse cart in the heart of the palace courtyards, giving the appearance of a Dutch flower seller’s cart, ‘floating’ bowls in the Great Fountain, free-style plantings in the kitchen gardens and more than 10,000 tulips in a display in Fountain Court. There are also daily ‘Tulip Talks’ sharing the history of the flower and Queen Mary II, who was responsible for introducing them to Hampton Court. Runs until 6th May (including in palace admission). For more, see www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/whats-on/tulip-festival/.
• Five hundred years of Black British music is being celebrated in a new exhibition at the British Library. Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music features soundscapes, artworks and films along with costumes, interactive displays, and of course, music. Highlights among the more than 200 exhibits include letters from 18th-century composer Ignatius Sancho, records by likes of Fela Kuti and Shirley Bassey, a nostalgic video archive of grime’s golden era captured on Risky Roadz DVD, and the equipment that Jamal Edwards used to start SB.TV, theYouTube channel dedicated to Black British music. The display concludes with a multi-screen film installation by South London-based musical movement and curatorial platform Touching Bass. Admission charge applies (with Pay What You Can days on the first Wednesday of each month). Runs until 26th August. For more, see https://beyondthebassline.seetickets.com/timeslots/filter/beyond-the-bassline.
Experience blossoms in all their glory at ‘Nature’s Confetti’ a new installation at Outernet London. Created in partnership with the National Trust as part of its annual “blossom” campaign, this immersive experience in the Now Building at the intersection of Charing Cross and Tottenham Court Roads has been created using shots switching between city vistas and close ups of blossoms accompanied by sound recordings replicating those in nature captured at National Trust properties such as Petworth House and Park in West Sussex. Visitors also have the opportunity to donate to the Trust’s ‘Plant a Tree’ appeal, which will help plant and establish 20 million trees by 2030, four million of which are expected to be blossom varieties. But you’ll have to be quick – Nature’s Confetti only runs until 28th April. Entry is free. For more, see www.outernet.com/news/outernet-and-the-national-trust-launch-natures-confetti-experience.
The name of this pub, one assumes, is all about its location.
It’s located on one of Belgravia’s many cobbled mews, the back-streets or courtyards that were traditionally lined by stables and carriage houses located at the back of expansive homes. Hence the pub’s name (a name also associated with its address at 7 Groom Place).
The pub is believed to date from at least as far back as the 1850s and has apparently seen many famous faces over the years including The Beatles and, more recently, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rihanna. It also appeared in the recent Julian Fellowes’ TV drama Belgravia.
One of the lamp-posts in Russell Street, Covent Garden, in 2012. PICTURE: Google Maps
Recently listed as Grade II, these four gas lamps on Russell Street in Westminster were among a series of lamps installed around Covent Garden to mark the beginning of King George V’s reign.
While the columns of the lamps date from 1910, three of the lanterns – described as an ‘Upright Rochester lantern’ and manufactured by William Sugg and Company Limited – are replacements believed to have been installed around 1930. The fourth was installed following a campaign to save Covent Garden from redevelopment in the 1970s.
The newly listed lamp-posts – the first Westminster lamps to be listed in 40 years – are located outside numbers 4-6, 24, 29, and 34-43.
There are currently about 1,300 working gas lamps in London, around 270 of which are in Westminster (and about half of which are listed).
• The National Gallery is celebrating its 200th anniversary with festivities kicking off with a special night of celebrations on Friday, 10th May, and continuing over the weekend. In a special Friday night late, Jools Holland is performing in the Rausing Room with friends including Ruby Turner, Louise Marshall, and Sumudu while across the rest of the gallery there will be DJ sets, music from London Contemporary Voices, soundscapes by Anna Phoebe and poetry from Ben Okri. There will also be a celebration of music collaboration past and present in the Future Room and creative workshops offering sculptural postcard making and ‘Renaissance Selfies’ with London Drawing while outside on Trafalgar Square the building’s facade will be illuminated in a light show featuring projections of paintings from the gallery as well as the story of its history. Meanwhile, across the weekend visitors to the gallery will have the chance to join in the making of a creative “birthday day” by contributing their own paper creations. All events are free but booking is advised and tickets to the public open today. For more, see nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/big-birthday-weekend-late.
• Trafalgar Square hosts two days of celebrations this weekend with Eid in the Square on Saturday and St George’s Day festivities on Sunday. Eid in the Square runs from noon to 6pm and features creative arts workshops, storytelling and VR experiences with musical performances on the main stage and food stalls from across the world. Among those performing will be Love’s Pilgrim, Raghad Haddad and Raghad Haddad and members of the Orchestra of Syrian Musicians, Muslim Belal and Chahat Mahmood Ali Qawwal and Group. For more, see www.london.gov.uk/Eid-in-the-Square-2024. Meanwhile, St George’s Day, which also runs from noon to 6pm, features a wide range of entertainment, food stalls and music with artists including The Kurfew, Natalie Shay of Busk in London, West End Kids and Snottledogs. Folkdance Remixed will present a mass barn dance while She’s Got Brass, an all-female brass group, Nick Howe and the Stringbeats Trio and Tom Carradine will lead a cockney sing-a-long. Other activities will include an English Pentathlon – events include welly wanging, pancake tossing, human Crufts, bubble Olympics, the art of Morris Dancing and a chance to meet Pearly Kings and Queens. St George and the dragon will be available for selfies. For more, see www.london.gov.uk/st-georges-day-celebrations-trafalgar-square-sunday-21-april. Both events are free to attend.
• A new display revealing stories of loss from The Troubles in Northern Ireland opens at the National Portrait Gallery opens on Monday.Silent Testimony features 18 large-scale portraits by Belfast-born artist Colin Davidson which were painted between 2014 and 2015 and speak to the impact of the conflict on the sitters, their families and friends and the wider community. The paintings were first displayed at the Ulster Museum in Belfast and most recently at Stormont’s Parliament Buildings and the Irish Arts Center in New York. The display in Room 14, level three, is free to see and runs until 23rd February next year. For more, see www.npg.org.uk.
For all inclusions, email exploringlondon@gmail.com.
A suffragette and women’s right’s campaigner, Princess Sophia Jindan Alexandrovna Duleep Singh was the daughter of the deposed Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh, last Sikh emperor of Punjab, and god-daughter of Queen Victoria and is known for having leveraged her position to advocate for the rights of others.
Princess Sophia Duleep Singh selling subscriptions for the ‘Suffragette’ newspaper outside Hampton Court in London in about 1913. PICTURE: Via Wikipedia/Public Domain.
Singh was born on 8th August, 1876, at a house in Belgravia, the third daughter of the Maharajah and his German-born first wife, Bamba Müller. The fifth of six children, she was named Sophia for her maternal grandmother, a formerly enslaved woman from Ethiopia who married a wealthy German banker, and Alexandrovna in tribute to her godmother, Queen Victoria.
Following his forced abdication, the Maharaja had travelled to England as a boy in 1854 where he lived on an annual government pension of £25,000. Having later married Bamba in Cairo, he returned to England where in 1863 he purchased Elvedon Hall in Suffolk (which he later rebuilt). Sophia subsequently spent her childhood there.
But after the breakdown of her parents’ marriage (after which her father remarried before being exiled to Paris where he campaigned for a return to India until his death in 1889) and the death of her mother in 1887 from typhoid (she had contracted the disease but survived), Sophia and her siblings were placed in the care of Arthur Craigie Oliphant – chosen by Queen Victoria to be guardian – first at their home in Folkestone and then in Brighton.
After finishing her education at a girls school in Brighton, Sophia and her sisters sisters Bamba and Catherine embarked upon a six-month tour of Holland, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Egypt.
Sophia, who had inherited some of her father’s fortune, was given Faraday House – part of the Hampton Court estate – as a grace-and-favour apartment by Queen Victoria in 1896 (along with an annual grant to maintain the property and a key to Hampton Court Palace where she could walk her dogs).
The princess took a keen interest in dogs – she was a member of the Ladies’ Kennel Association and showed her dogs on several occasions – as well in music, photography and fashion. She also supported Indians in London, particularly those in the Sikh community, and travelled to India a number of occasions.
Princess Sophia is known for her work in the women’s suffrage movement and was an active member of the Women’s Social and Political Union. She was present in Parliament Square ion 18th November, 1910, when more than 300 suffragettes including Emmeline Pankhurst gathered and demanded to see the Prime Minister HH Asquith and, having refused to disperse when he refused to see them, were met with a violent response by police. The day, which resulted in injuries to more than 200 women including two who died of them, became known as Black Friday.
Sophia was also, perhaps more importantly in terms of public impact, a member of the Women’s Tax Reform League and refused to pay fines on a couple of occasions, protesting that taxation without representation was “tyranny” (with the result that some of her jewels were confiscated and auctioned off).
During World War I, Princess Sophia – as well as being part of a 10,000-strong march calling for the establishment of a female volunteer force – was involved in fundraising for organisations such as the Red Cross and in support of Indian soldiers and also worked as a nurse at the Brighton Pavilion and other hospitals where Indian soldiers were recovering.
During World War II, Sophia moved to Penn, Buckinghamshire, with her sister Catherine, and took in evacuee children from London.
Having never married, Princess Sophia died in her sleep in Penn on 22nd August, 1948. A full band played Wagner’s Funeral March at her cremation and her ashes were taken to India for burial.
Sophia’s name and image are among those on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square. In 2023, an English Heritage Blue Plaque was unveiled on Faraday House in Richmond.
Sources: Historic Royal Palaces; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; BBC.
• The remarkable life and legacy of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), the founder of the Sikh Empire, is the subject of a new exhibition which opened at the Wallace Collection this week.Ranjit Singh: Sikh, Warrior, King features historic objects from Ranjit Singh’s court, courtiers and family members, including those personally owned by the Maharaja and the most famous of his wives, Maharani Jind Kaur, as well as their son, Maharaja Duleep Singh. Highlights include a fine miniature painting of Ranjit Singh and his favourite, a Golden Throne made by Hafez Muhammad Multani, and a sword richly mounted in gold and gemstones which was thought to belong to the Maharajah. Runs until 20th October at the Manchester Square institution. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.wallacecollection.org/whats-on/events/ranjit-singh-sikh-warrior-king/.
• A “fresh perspective” on London can be seen in a new exhibition by multi-award-winning wood engraver Anne Desmet at the Guildhall Art Gallery. Inspired by looking at a fragmented view of the world through a toy kaleidoscope, Anne Desmet: Kaleidoscope/London features works created by the artist slicing into prints focused on London from her earlier wood-engravings, linocuts and hand-drawn lithographs to make a new series of digital collages. The display features 150 works including 41 London-themed kaleidoscopic prints created exclusively for this exhibition. Among highlights is a complex collage, Fires of London, created using 18 razor-clam shells to present a theme of the many historic fires of London over the last 1,500 years. Admission is ‘pay what you can’. There are an accompanying series of artist-led tours. Runs until 8th September. For more, see www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/events/anne-desmet-kaleidoscopelondon-exhibition.
• Photographs depicting women and children forced to leave their Ukrainian homes following Russia’s invasion is on at the Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury.Polly Braden: Leaving Ukraine features the work of photographer Polly Braden and includes first-hand photographs, personal films and recorded conversations. It focuses on four central stories – that of three school friends trying to forge new lives and continue their education; that of a young graduate making a fresh start as a lawyer in London; that of a mother whose baby was born shortly after a perilous escape from Kherson to Warsaw; and that of two friends and their children who fled to Moldova with help from a kickboxing club, now struggling to find work in Italy. Admission charges apply. Can be seen until 1st September. For more, see https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/event/polly-braden-leaving-ukraine/.
Exploring London 