Areas of London

10 London buildings that were relocated…1. Marble Arch…

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It’s well known that John Rennie’s London Bridge was purchased from the City of London by American entrepreneur Robert P McCulloch and in 1967 relocated to Lake Havasu City in Arizona. But what other London buildings have been relocated from their original site, either to elsewhere in the city or further afield?

First up is Marble Arch, originally built as a grand entrance to Buckingham Palace. Designed by John Nash, the arch was constructed from 1827 and completed in 1833 (there was a break in construction as Nash was replaced by Edward Blore) on the east side of Buckingham Palace for a cost of some £10,000.

Inspired by the Arch of Constantine in Rome (and, it has to be said, some envy over the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in Paris, built to commemorate Napoleon’s military victories), the 45 foot high structure is clad in white Carrara marble and decorated with sculptural reliefs by Sir Richard Westmacott and Edward Hodges Baily.

An equestrian statue of King George IV was designed for the top by Francis Leggatt Chantrey but it was never put there (instead, it ended up in Trafalgar Square). The bronze gates which bear the lion of England, cypher of King George IV and image of St George and the Dragon – were designed by Samuel Parker.

The arch, said to be on the initiative of Nash’s former pupil, Decimus Burton, was dismantled and rebuilt, apparently by Thomas Cubitt, in its present location on the north-east corner of Hyde Park, close to Speaker’s Corner, in 1851.

There’s a popular story that the arch was relocated after it was found to be too narrow for the wide new coaches – this seems highly unlikely as the Gold State Coach passed under it during Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1952. Actually, it was moved to create room for Buckingham Palace’s new east facade (meaning the palace’s famous balcony, where the Royal Family gather to wave, now stands where the arch once did).

Whatever the reasons, it replaced Cumberland Gate as the new ornamental entrance to Hyde Park, complementing the arch Decimus Burton had designed for Hyde Park Corner in the park’s south-east.

Subsequent roadworks left the arch in its current position on a traffic island. It stands close to where the notorious gallows known as the “Tyburn Tree” once stood.

The rebuilt, now Grade I-listed, arch contains three small rooms which, until the middle of the 20th century, housed what has been described as “one of the smallest police stations in the world”. Only senior members of the Royal family and the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery are permitted to pass through the central gates.

PICTURES: Top – Marble Arch in its current location and; Middle – and an 1837 engraving showing the arch outside Buckingham Palace.

LondonLife – The Battle of Britain remembered…

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Dignitaries including Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Michael Wigston, were among those attending a service commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in Westminster Abbey on Sunday. The service, which was witnessed by fewer people than would normally have been the case due to the coronavirus pandemic, included an Act of Remembrance during which the Battle of Britain Roll of Honour – containing the names of the 1,497 pilots and aircrew killed or mortally wounded during the 112 days of fighting – was carried through the church and placed beside the High Altar. After the service three Spitfires and a Hurricane from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight took part in a flypast over the Abbey. Pictured above are the standard bearers formed up on the altar at the service (all pictures via MOD © Crown copyright 2020)

Above: The Queen’s Colour Squadron lining the entrance to Westminster Abbey.

Above: Prime Minister Boris Johnson carrying out a reading during the service.

Above: FO Buckingham saluting the Battle of Britain memorial stained glass window at Westminster Abbey.

Above: The four planes from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight fly above the Abbey.

A Moment in London’s History…First air raid of the London Blitz…

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It was on 7th September, 1940, that the German bombers raided London in what was to be the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombings and the start of the air attacks on the city known as the Blitz (short for ‘Blitzkrieg’ meaning ‘lightning war’ in German).

Almost 350 German bombers, escorted by more than 600 Messerschmitt fighters, were involved in the raid on what became known as “Black Saturday”.

This first wave of bombing, which ended just after 6pm on what had been a hot day, largely targeted London’s docks in attempt to destroy the city’s infrastructure and industrial sites including the munitions factories of the Woolwich Arsenal, gasworks at Beckton, West Ham power station and oil storage tanks at Thameshaven.

A second wave, which lasted eight hours and involved another 400 bombers, arrived from 8pm striking Millwall, commercial docks at Tilbury and Thameshaven, and the heavily populated slums of the East End in localities including Silvertown, Canning Town, East Ham, Poplar, Stratford, Wapping, and Whitechapel.

Hundreds of tons of bombs were dropped in the raids during which some 448 of London’s civilians were killed and 1,600 injured. Some of the fires started in the bombing burned for five days with the flames visible for miles.

While the attack was the first day of the Blitz, it was actually the 60th day of the Battle of Britain in which the German Luftwaffe had targeted air fields, oil installations and other war-related infrastructure.

While Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring had gone on radio on the day of the raid, describing it as an “historic hour, in which for the first time the German Luftwaffe has struck at the heart of the enemy”, the strategy shift – to target London instead of the air defence-related installations – proved to be what Hugh Dowding, chief of Fighter Command described as a “mistake”, giving the defences time to rebuild.

But at the time, the attack on London was believed at the time to herald the start of a full invasion. It’s known that as the Luftwaffe attacked the East End, the military chiefs of staff were meeting in Whitehall – at 8pm that night, just as the second wave of planes was starting to bomb the city, they issued the code word ‘Cromwell’ which indicated that invasion was imminent and defending troops need to prepare.

The planned invasion – Operation Sea Lion – never eventuated but the Blitz was to continue until May the following year.

PICTURE: The London docks ablaze during the Blitz on 7th September, 1940. Palls of smoke rise in the docks beyond the Tower of London with the Surrey Docks to the right of the bridge and the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs in the distance. PICTURE: © Port of London Authority Collection / Museum of London. For more on the ‘Docklands at War’, head to www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/permanent-galleries/docklands-war.

Exploring London’s 100 most popular posts of all time! – Numbers 54 and 53…

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The next two entries in Exploring London’s 100 most popular posts countdown…

54. 10 (more) fictional character addresses in London – 6. 9 Bywater Street, Chelsea…

53. Where’s London’s oldest…outdoor statue?

This Week in London – Open House London; The British Army in Germany; and, Christine Granville’s Blue Plaque…

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• It’s Open House London this weekend and, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, this programme features a host of documentary films, online events and self-led walking tours. Highlights from the festival, which runs over Saturday and Sunday with some additional events taking place until 27th September, include online tours of the HM Treasury in Whitehall (pictured) and Dorich House Museum in Kingston-upon-Thames, a self-guided walking tour of Fosters + Partners buildings in London’s centre, and the chance to visit Rochester Square in Marylebone. The programme features a series of collections of related events – such as those related to ‘colonial histories’ or ‘architecture for the climate emergency’ – to help make it easier for people to access. For the full programme of events, head to https://openhouselondon.open-city.org.uk. PICTURE: HM Treasury Building taken from the London Eye (Dave Kirkham/licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0/Image cropped)

• The work and lives of the more than million British Army soldiers who have served in Germany following World War II is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the National Army Museum in Chelsea next Tuesday. Foe to Friend: The British Army in Germany since 1945 charts how the Army helped to rebuild a broken nation in the aftermath of the war, provide protection during the Cold War and, later, how they used Germany as a base to deploy troops all around the world. It will include stories of family life as well as those involving espionage and massive military training exercises. The free exhibition can be seen until 1st July, 2021. For more, see www.nam.ac.uk.

• Christine Granville, Britain’s first and longest-serving female special agent, has been honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque. The plaque is located at the 1 Lexham Gardens hotel (previously known as the Shelbourne Hotel) in Kensington which was Granville’s base after the war. Granville, who was once described by Churchill as his “favourite spy”, was born in Warsaw as Krystyna Skarbek. She joined  British intelligence after Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and undertook missions including skiing over the snow-bound Polish border in temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius, smuggling microfilm revealing Hitler’s plans to invade the Soviet Union across Europe and rescuing French Resistance agents from the Gestapo (in fact, it’s said she was also the inspiration for Vesper Lynd, a spy in Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, Casino Royale). Christine Granville was one of her aliases she had been given during her time with intelligence and it was a name she decided to keep after the war. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

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LondonLife – ‘Rivers of the World’…

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River inspired artwork created by young people from across London, the UK and around the world is one show on South Bank as part of the Totally Thames festival. The art for Rivers of the World was created during the coronavirus lockdown under the guidance of professional artists who provided briefs and films to help the young artists. The outdoor exhibition, on Riverside Walkway near the Tate Modern, is free to visit. For more on Totally Thames, London’s annual month-long celebration of its river, head to https://thamesfestivaltrust.org. PICTURES: Young artists with work created as part of ‘Rivers of the World’ (Courtesy of Totally Thames).

What’s in a name?…Gunnersbury…

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There is a tradition which holds that this tiny district in west London was named after Gunhilda, a niece of King Canute.

While that story may be merely apocryphal, the name Gunnersbury does apparently mean the ‘manor of Gunhilda’, so it follows there was a Gunhilda who once lived here.

The manor – said to have been held by Alice Perrers, mistress to King Edward III, for a time as well as by the bishops of London – was located in what is now Gunnersbury Park.

It was rebuilt in the Palladian-style in the mid 17th century for Sir John Maynard, legal advisor to King Charles II, and a century later was used by Princess Amelia, the daughter of King George II as a summer residence (during which time William Kent is said to have improved the gardens; a ‘Temple’ built in the gardens during that time survives today).

The house was demolished in 1801 and the estate divided into two with two new properties built – Gunnersbury Park and Gunnersbury House. Both properties subsequently passed into the hands of the Rothschild banking family and, after part of the estate was sold off for housing, the houses and surviving estates were acquired by local municipalities.

These days 185 acres, the park – jointly run by the Boroughs of Houslow and Ealing – is now open to the public and since 1929, the Grade II-listed house, Gunnersbury Park, has contained a museum dedicated to local history.

The area also lends its name to the Gunnersbury Triangle, a three hectare nature reserve which was saved from development in the early 1980s.

Gunnersbury previously had its own Church of England parish church – built in 1886, St James’s was located on Chiswick High Road until it was demolished in the late 1980s (another church, Gunnersbury Baptist Church stands in Wellesley Road and a Russian Orthodox Cathedral stands on Harvard Road).

There is also a Gunnersbury Tube station which offers a link to both the Underground and Overground. Located on the District Line, it sits under the 18 story high British Standards Institution building.

PICTURE: The large mansion in Gunnersbury Park in 2006 (Lancey/licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)

This Week in London – The Havering Hoard on show; and, Totally Thames returns…

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With the impact of the new rules being put in place to counter the coronavirus outbreak still being assessed, some scheduled events may be subject to change. As we would always advise anyway, please check with organisations before making any plans…

• The ‘Havering Hoard’ goes on display at the Museum of London Docklands on Friday, the first time it’s ever been on public display. Havering Hoard: A Bronze Age Mystery features all 453 objects found during an archaeological investigation in Havering in London’s east, in September, 2018. Dating from between c900 and c800 BC, the cache of items – the largest Bronze Age hoard ever found in London and the third largest find in the UK – includes fragments of swords and spears as well as tools including axeheads, sickles, gouges and awls, and terret rings, believed to prevent reins from tangling when horses were pulling a cart (these are the first examples found in England). There are also bracelet fragments, part of a double-sided razor, a ceramic loomweight and bronze pin decorated with amber which may have been used to secure a cloak. The display will explore questions surrounding who buried the hoard and why as well as why it was never recovered. Runs until 18th April. Admission charge applies. For more – including how to prebook tickets to the museum – see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/haveringhoard. PICTURE: Part of the hoard found in Havering (© Archaeological Solutions).

• Totally Thames – London’s annual celebration of its river – is once again underway with a program featuring art exhibitions and installations, tours and online performances. The events include an online performance of Whittington about the life of the City’s famous mayor, ‘Words on the Wind’ – an outdoor art installation in Kingston featuring a soundscape of recorded poets, and online tours of The Golden Hinde, a replica of Sir Francis Drake’s famous ship. Many events are free and the festival runs to the end of the month. For more, see https://thamesfestivaltrust.org.

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LondonLife – ‘THE END’ at Trafalgar Square…

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The 13th sculpture to occupy Trafalgar Square’s famous Fourth Plinth is a nine tonne, 9.4 metre high swirl of cream topped with a cherry. Unveiled in late July, THE END is the work of Heather Phillipson and also features a giant fly as well as a drone that transmits a live feed of Trafalgar Square to a specially created website, www.theend.today. The sculpture, which plays on the idea of the square as a site of celebration and protest, replaced Michael Rakowitz’s The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist and both Phillipson and Rakowitz were selected by the Fourth Plinth Commission Group in 2017 following an exhibition at the National Gallery where 10,000 people voted for their favourite shortlisted artwork. PICTURE: astonishme (licensed under CC BY 2.0)

Where’s London’s oldest…street with house numbers?

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OK, so we’re not absolutely certain which street is the oldest in London to have introduced a number system. But one contender – according to The Postal Museum at least – is Prescot Street in Whitechapel.

That comes from a mention, in 1708, when topographer Edward Hatton made a special note of the street’s use of numbers instead of signs in his New View of London, in a rather clear indication that the use of numbers was still at that stage rather unusual.

The following century saw the numbering of properties become more common. Some suggest that the banning of hanging signboards (under an 1762 Act of Parliament) and the subsequent requirement that names to be fixed to all thoroughfares (under the Postage Act of 1765) both played a significant role in encouraging the use of house numbers.

Interestingly, not all numbering schemes are the same. The first schemes introduced in London involved numbering houses consecutively along one side of the street – this can still be seen in streets like Pall Mall and Downing Street, where Number 10 – official residence of the Prime Minister, is located next to number 11 – official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The system used in more modern times, typically, involves numbering one side of the road with odd numbers (usually the left with the lowest number closest to the city or town centre) and the other with even.

But it’s fair to say that the numbering of houses was, initially at least, rather haphazard and it wasn’t until the passing of the Metropolitan Management Act that the numbering of properties become more standardised with the then new Board of Works given the power to regulate street numbers.

PICTURED: Number 23 Prescot Street, said to be the street’s single 18th century survivor.

Exploring London’s 100 most popular posts of all time! – Numbers 60 and 59…

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The next two entries in Exploring London’s 100 most popular posts countdown…

60. 10 (more) curious London memorials…3. William Wallace Memorial…

59. Where’s London’s oldest…public library?

Treasures of London – Ropers Garden and ‘The Awakening’…

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Newly awarded upgraded heritage status, Ropers Garden in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, was created in the wake of World War II.

The buildings which had formerly stood here were destroyed on 17th April, 1941, thanks to a parachute mine.

The first gardens were planted on the site by the Chelsea Society but these were then redesigned by Peter Shepheard in 1960.

Shepheard used the basements of the terraced housing previously on the site to create a sunken garden, maintaining a link with the history of the site and reducing the noise of traffic from nearby Chelsea Embankment.

The centrepiece of the now Grade II-listed gardens – which were recently added to the Register of Parks and Gardens – is a sculpture called “The Awakening”. The work of Gilbert Ledward, who lived and worked in the area, it depicts a bronze standing nude figure of a woman (apparently modelled on the artist’s wife and cast in the 1920s).

The sculpture (pictured at the top with Chelsea Old Church in the background) was recently added to the garden’s Grade II listing.

Other features of the garden include an unfinished stone relief by Jacob Epstein (pictured, right) who had a studio nearby in the early 20th century (the sculpture was unveiled in 1970) and a cherry tree which commemorates Gunji Koizumi the father of British Judo (1885-1965).

And the garden’s name? That comes from the history of the land on which it lies – once an orchard and part of the marriage gift of Sir Thomas More to his daughter Margaret and son-in-law William Roper in 1521.

PICTURES: Top – David Adams; Right – Andy Scott (licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

This Week in London – National Maritime Museum, London Transport Museum reopen; and, Picasso at BASTIAN gallery…

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• The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich opens its doors this Monday, 7th September. Those who visit in the first week will be able to see all the winning images in the ‘Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year’ competition.Entry is free but tickets must be booked in advance. For more, see www.rmg.co.uk/national-maritime-museum.

• Other reopenings include the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden which also throws back its doors on Monday. Along with displays including historic vehicles and iconic posters, the reopening includes the ‘Hidden London’ exhibition revealing London’s ‘abandoned’ Underground stations. Tickets must be booked in advance. Admission charges apply. For more, see www.ltmuseum.co.uk.

• Picasso’s Cannes’ studio has been recreated in an immersive experience  at the BASTIAN gallery in Mayfair. Atelier Picasso is an installation-style exhibition and features furniture, sculptures, ceramics, drawings and prints. Highlights include portraits of the artist taken by his friend André Villers, ceramic works such as Wood Owl (1969) and Carreau Visage d’Homme (1965), lithograph and linocut posters and books including Gallieri Jorgen Expose Le Lithographies de L’atelier Mourlot (1984), and the masterpiece Minotaure caressing une dormeuse from the artist’s Vollard Suite. Admission is free. For more, see www.bastian-gallery.com. PICTURE: Courtesy of Luke Andrew Walker.

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10 disease-related memorials in London – A recap…

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We’ve reached the end of our series on disease-related memorials in London. But, before we jump into the next Wednesday series, here’s a recap…

1. The Broad Street pump…

2. Commemorating the monks who died in the Black Death…

3. The Lambeth cholera epidemic memorial…

4. Edward Jenner statue…

5. Sir Ronald Ross…

6. Human BSE (vCJD) memorial…

7. The Great Plague of 1665…

8. Former site of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases…

9. The Imperial Camel Corps Memorial…

10. Thomas Hodgkin…

LondonLife – ‘The Sunbathers’ returns to Waterloo Station after almost 70 years…

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A sculpture created for the 1951 Festival of Britain has returned to Waterloo Station where it was first displayed almost 70 years ago. The work of Hungarian-born artist Peter Laszlo Peri, The Sunbathers features two figures – made from ‘Pericrete’, a special kind of concrete created by the artist as a cheaper alternative to casting in bronze – and was mounted on the wall close to the station’s entrance. It was presumed lost until it was rediscovered in 2016 at the Clarendon Hotel in Blackheath and, following restoration, was put on show in 2017 in the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. Now, thanks to the efforts of Historic England and Network Rail, the sculptures have returned to the station, close to its original site, and will stay there for five years. PICTURES: Courtesy of Network Rail

Lost London – St Giles hospital for lepers…

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Partly located on a site now occupied by the church of St Giles-in-the-Fields in central London  was a leprosy hospital founded by Queen Matilda, wife of King Henry I, in 1101.

The site was located outside the City walls making it ideal for such an establishment (given lepers had to isolate from the rest of the population) and the hospital, one of the first such establishments in England, was dedicated to St Giles, the patron saint of outcasts.

As well as an oratory or chapel, the hospital, initially founded on eight acres of farmland, is believed to have included houses for lepers, a master’s house, and quarters for a chaplain, clerk and servant. A chapter house was added in the early 14th century.

The hospital was under the care of the crown and in 1299, King Edward I ordered that the hospital be run by and its revenues given to the military Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem (also known as the Leper Brothers of Jerusalem or Lazarists).

By the 15th century leprosy (now known as Hansen’s disease) was on the decline in England but this hospital continued to be used for lepers until at least 1500 after which it is recorded that it had opened it doors to the poor who needed care.

In 1539, the hospital was closed under King Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the monasteries. While the chapel remained in use as a parish church (it was at this time that “in-the-fields” was added to the church’s name), the hospital’s other buildings were given by King Henry VIII to John Dudley, Lord Lisle (and later Duke of Northumberland and Protector of Edward VI, the king’s eventual heir).

The church, meanwhile, had fallen into a poor state of repair by the early 1600s and was demolished. Construction of a Gothic replacement started in 1623 in a project largely funded by Alice, Duchess Dudley, daughter-in-law of Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite Robert Dudley. The new church was consecrated by William Laud, Bishop of London in 1631. The current building dates from 1733 (but more about that at another time).

PICTURE: The church of St Giles-in-the-Fields as it appears now. (Prioryman/licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

This Week in London – Rare Hebrew manuscripts at British Library; British Museum to reopen; and art at the Old Royal Naval College…

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• The launch of a new exhibition looking at Hebrew manuscripts marks the next phase of the British Library reopening. Hebrew Manuscripts: Journeys of the Written Word explores the history, culture and traditions of the Jewish people around the world and features rarely seen treasures including a letter to King Henry VIII written by an Italian rabbi in 1530 regarding Biblical laws that could support Henry VIII’s claim to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon as well as the earliest dated copy – 1380 – of Moses Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, a rare uncensored copy of the Babylonian Talmud dating from the 13th century, and a 15th century illustrated copy of Abraham bar Hiyya’s Shape of the Earth, one of the first Jewish scientific works written in the Hebrew language. Also reopening is the library’s free permanent gallery – the Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library – with a new one-way route taking in treasures including Leonardo da Vinci’s sketchbooks and handwritten manuscripts by the Brontë sisters, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath. For more on the exhibition and the library’s reopening, see www.bl.uk. PICTURE: David Jensen.

• The British Museum reopens to visitors from today after the longest closure in its 261 year history. Tickets must be pre-booked online or over the phone and visitors will be able to access the ground floor galleries through a new one-way route. The museum has also announced that Grayson Perry’s work, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman – an elaborate, cast-iron coffin-ship originally created for his British Museum exhibition of the same name in 2011 – is returning to the museum. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.

• A “celestial choir of spinning sound machines” can be seen at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich this weekend. Positioned in Lower Grand Square, Chorus is the monumental work of award-winning artist and British Composer of the Year Ray Lee. It features a series of giant metal tripods supporting rotating arms, at the end of which are loudspeakers which emit finely turned musical pitches. It can be viewed from Friday through to Monday. Meanwhile, the Painted Hall is hosting Luke Jerram’s artwork Gaia which features NASA imagery in creating a virtual, 3D small scale Earth. Gaia can be seen from tomorrow until 6th September (admission charge applies).  For more, see www.ornc.org.

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10 disease-related memorials in London…10. Thomas Hodgkin…

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Thomas Hodgkin was a physician, pathologist and reformer whose name is now associated with Hodgkin lymphoma, a malignant disease of lymph tissue.

Born in Pentonville in what is now central London, Hodgkin (1798-1866), who trained at St Thomas’s and Guy’s Medical School and the University of Edinburgh, went on to work at Guy’s – where he built up a reputation as a pathologist – and later heading teaching staff at St Thomas’s (after it had split from Guy’s).

He first described the disease that bears his name in a paper in 1832 but it wasn’t until 33 years later, thanks to the rediscovery of the disease by Samuel Wilks, that it was named for him.

A Quaker, Hodgkin was also involved in the movement to abolish slavery and also raised concerns about the impact of the West on Indigenous culture. He died while on a trip to Palestine in 1866 and is buried in Jaffa.

Hodgkin is commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque on his former home at 35 Bedford Square in Bloomsbury. Interestingly the house also bears a plaque to another giant of the medical field – Thomas Wakley, the founder of The Lancet.

The plaque commemorating Hodgkin was erected by the Greater London Council in 1985.

PICTURE: Spudgun67 (licensed under CC BY 2.0)

LondonLife – Windrush generation commemorated in Kensal Green…

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A new sundial and garden have been unveiled in Kensal Green commemorating the Windrush generation. The sundial, the work of carver Martin Cook, is located at St John The Evangelist Church which, according to its vicar, Rev David Ackerman, has relied upon the local Caribbean community to survive and thrive since the 1960s. The sundial has been made of a single piece of slate and carved with the words “Work Together, Pray Together, Struggle Together, Stand Up for Freedom Together” which are taken from Martin Luther King Jr’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech. An official opening ceremony for the sundial – which was funded by Westminster City Council – was held earlier this month. In a statement, Jonathan Glanz, the Lord Mayor of Westminster, said he hoped the outdoor space would become a “beacon of peace and unity for the local community in troubled times”. PICTURES: Courtesy of the City of Westminster.

Famous Londoners – Gertrude Bell…

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Having been granted the honour of having an English Heritage Blue Plaque unveiled at her former Chelsea home last year, Gertrude Bell is actually famous for the time she spent elsewhere.

A traveller, archaeologist and diplomat, Bell’s legacy includes a mountain named after her in the Alps – Gertrudspitze – and the key role she played in the creation of the modern state of Iraq.

Born on 14th July, 1868, in Washington, County Durham, Bell was the daughter of affluent and progressive mill-owner Sir Hugh Bell and Mary Shield Bell, who died just three years after she was born. Her paternal grandfather was industrialist and MP Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell whose role in international policy-making undoubtedly influenced her interest in the world and politics.

Bell was educated at Queen’s College in London and then at Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford University and was the first woman to graduate in modern history at Oxford with a first class honours degree. Following her graduation in 1892, he travelled to Persia to visit her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, a British ambassador based in Tehran.

It was the start of more than a decade of travels which included mountaineering in Switzerland – where she conquered peaks including La Meije and Mont Blanc and recorded 10 new paths or first ascents in the Bernese Alps (one previously uncharted peaks was named after her) – and visits to the Middle East including to Palestine and Syria.

During this period, Bell became fluent in Arabic along with a number of other languages and developed an interest in archaeology, working with Sir William M Ramsay on excavations in Binbirkilise in what was then the Ottoman Empire (and is now modern Turkey).

In 1909 she traveled to Mesopotamia, mapping and describing the Hittite city of Carchemish and visiting Babylon and Najaf. Her last journey across the Arabian Peninsula – a 1,800 mile trek – took place in 1913 during which she travelled from Damascus in Syria to Ha’il in Saudi Arabia.

Bell volunteered with the Red Cross in France during World War I before British intelligence put her to work using her expertise to get soldiers through the deserts, working in places including Basra, Damascus and Baghdad.

Following the war she was involved in mediating between Arab and British officials and played a significant role in the creation of the nation of Iraq, becoming an advisor to Faisal bin Hussein, the first King of Iraq, who named her director of antiquities. She was also among attendees at the 1921 Conference in Cairo.

Bell, who wrote a number of books about her travels, including Safar Nameh: Persia Pictures (1894) and Syria: The Desert and the Sown (1907), returned to Britain in 1925 where she faced family problems and ill-health before returning to Iraq where she died in Baghdad on 12th July, 1928, apparently from an overdose of sleeping pills. She was buried at the British Cemetery there.

PICTURE: An image of Gertrude Bell in Iraq in 1909. (Wikimedia Commons)