Dame Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London since 2018, was named as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury in October so we thought it a good time to explore some of the grand palaces which served as bishop’s palaces, some of them still standing and others not.
And what more appropriate place to start than Lambeth Palace, the official Thames-side residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Earlier…
Located in the Hyde Park Rose Garden in the south-east corner of Hyde Park, the Huntress Fountain dates from 1906.
It is topped with a bronze statue depicting Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting (known as Artemis to the Greeks), naked and in the process of shooting an arrow.
The statue, which was once known as the Diana Fountain, is the work of Countess Feodora Gleichen. She was posthumously named one of the first female members of the Royal Society of Sculptors in 1922.
It is said to have been originally made for Sir Walter Palmer’s pile, Frognal, at Ascot in 1899 but was instead donated the park by Sir Walter and Lady Palmer.
This district in the Borough of Lambeth in south London was formerly a rural manor located on the southern edge of London.
The name, variants of which date back to at least the late 12th century, is said to relate to the Old English words for a tree trunk – ‘stoc’ – and a well or spring, ‘wella’, and has been interpreted as meaning the well or spring by a tree stump, tree truck or perhaps a wood (there was apparently a Stockwell Wood which has long since disappeared).
The manor of Stockwell was formed at the end of the 13th century when King Edward I acquired the manor of South Lambeth and divided it into two, creating the manors of Stockwell and Vauxhall (the manor house itself, parts of which survived until the 19th century, stood on the north side of Stockwell Road).
The area become known for its market gardens and was transformed into an urban landscape until the mid-19th century. Remnants of the 19th century housing stock can still be found in areas including the Stockwell Park Conservation Area in the west of the district.
The area around Stockwell Tube station, which first opened in 1890 and has since been rebuilt a couple times, was heavily bombed during World War II and rebuilt following the war. New developments included a number of social housing estates.
Today, Stockwell and nearby South Lambeth host the district known as Little Portugal which, centred on South Lambeth Road, is home to one of the UK’s largest Portuguese communities. The area is also home to several other immigrant communities.
Local landmarks include the oldest surviving building in the area – St Andrew’s Church, Stockwell Green (built in 1767), the Stockwell Congregational Church (1798) and the Stockwell War Memorial.
The latter – a white stone tower – is located on a site first laid out in the 1920s and features a mural on an adjoining ventilation shelter commemorating French Resistance fighter Violette Szabo (there’s a Blue Plaque on her former home in Burnley Road) and other Stockwell residents who died in war. There is also the ‘Bronze Woman’ statue which was unveiled in 2008 as a tribute to Black Caribbean women.
Residents of Stockwell have included artist Arthur Rackham and pioneering theatre director Joan Littlewood as well as musician David Bowie (born in Stansfield Road), actors Joanna Lumley (who still lives there) and Roger Moore (born in Aldebert Terrace).
Tragically, Stockwell Tube station was where Brazilian man Jean Charles de Menezes was fatally shot by police on 22nd July, 2005, after being misidentified as one of four suicide bombers who were on the run after their devices had failed to detonate the previous day (the attempts had come just two weeks after the 7th July bombings in which more than 50 people had been killed).
Lance Corporal James Bell plays the bag pipes in front of the Cenotaph to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Victory in Japan Day on Friday, 15th August. Lance Corporal Bell was one of six military pipers who performed solemn laments across the UK, the Far East, and aboard HMS Prince of Wales at sea, to honour the end of World War II and the sacrifices of the Commonwealth forces.
This evocative memorial, which stands on the north bank of the River Thames at Wapping, is designed to show the figure (or rather the absence of the figure) of a dove.
This rather poignant monument stands in a park above where an air raid shelter once stood in which a wedding party, 13 people in total, lost their lives in late 1940.
This City of London street runs north-south from the junction of Newgate Street, Holborn Viaduct and Old Bailey to West Smithfield. Its name comes from those who once travelled along it.
An alternative name for the street during earlier ages was Knightrider Street which kind of gives the game away – yes, the name comes from the armoured knights who would ride along the street in their way to compete in tournaments held at Smithfield. It’s suggested that gilt spurs may have later been made here to capitalise on the passing trade.
The street is said to have been the location where King Richard II met with the leaders of the Peasant’s Revolt who had camped at Smithfield. And where, when the meeting deteriorated, the then-Lord Mayor of London William Walworth, ending up stabbing the peasant leader Wat Tyler who he later captured and had beheaded.
St Bartholomew’s Hospital can be found on the east side of the street. On the west side, at the junction with Cock Lane is located Pye Corner with its famous statue of a golden boy (said to be the place where the Great Fire of London was finally stopped).
There’s also a former watch house on the west side which features a monument to the essayist late 18th century and 19th century Charles Lamb – the monument says he attended a Bluecoat school here for seven years. The church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate stands at the southern end with the Viaduct Tavern on the opposite side of the road.
The street did formerly give its name to the small prison known as the Giltspur Street Compter which stood here from 1791 to 1853. A prison for debtors, it stood at the street’s south end (the location is now marked with a City of London blue plaque).
The first V2 rocket to strike London hit Chiswick in west London in September, 1944.
This unusual – and rather poignant, if overlooked – memorial, located on the side of a housing block in Lambeth, is a sculptural relief depicting a series of children.
More than 100 people died when, on the night of 15th October, 1940, a bomb destroyed an air raid shelter located in Kennington Park in Lambeth.
While no official death toll was announced at the time, it’s now believed that 104 people died in the bombing. Forty-eight bodies were recovered and buried in Streatham Cemetery while the remainder still lie under the park.
The majority of those killed were women and children with the youngest just three-months-old. The oldest known victim was 75.
While Lambeth’s civilian dead are commemorated in a memorial at Lambeth Cemetery dedicated in 1952, in early 2000s the Friends of Kennington Park raised funds for a permanent memorial to those killed in the tragedy in the park.
The memorial, which was designed by Richard Kindersley and is located in the South Field close to the Tinworth Fountain Gate, is an upright stab of Caithness stone brought from Scotland standing 2.6 metres tall.
It is inscribed with a quote from poet Maya Angelou – “History despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived but if faced with courage need not be lived again.”
While another inscription around the edge of the stone commemorates the more than “50 men, women and children” who died during the bombing, a nearby interpretation board puts the toll at more than 100.
WHERE: Kennington Park, inside the Tinworth Fountain Gate, Kennington Park Road, Lambeth (nearest Tube station is Oval); WHEN: Usually 7.30am until 15 minutes before sunset; COST: Free; WEBSITE: www.lambeth.gov.uk/parks/kennington-park
This month, the UK and other nations marked 80 years since VE (Victory in Europe) Day. London suffered greatly during the Blitz and later rocket attacks, so we thought it appropriate to take a look at some key memorials around the city.
One of the most devastating moments of World War II in Britain took place 80 years ago this month when, at 12:26pm on 25th November, 1944, a German V2 rocket bomb hit a Woolworths store in New Cross, south-east London.
There were some 30 staff and 100 customers in Woolworths when the rocket struck (a queue had formed at the store after word had spread that tin saucepans had arrived).
The massive blast flattened the shop and spread into nearby streets, bringing down neighbouring houses and shops, overturning an army lorry and causing cars to burst into flames.
Some 168 people, including Woolworths customers and store workers as well as 33 children (some just babies in prams), were killed in the blast. Some of those who died were in the neighbouring Royal Arsenal Co-operative Socierty store, others were sitting at their desks in nearby offices and some were killed while sitting on a passing bus. Some 123 passersby were injured in the blast.
It took three days to clear the debris. Twenty four of those killed were never identified.
It is believed that the nearby New Cross Station was the intended target.
The V2, the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile, travelled at some 3,000 mph and, as such, few too high and fast to be tracked by radar, put down by anti-aircraft fire or intercepted by fighter aircraft.
V2s had only started to be used in September, 1944, following an order from Adolf Hitler for their manufacture in December, 1942. The first V2 rocket had hit Chiswick on 8th September, 1944, and over the next few months about half of the 3,000 rockets fired at Allied targets were aimed at London.
Such was the fear over the rocket attacks that it had only been on 10th November 1944, that Winston Churchill had publicly admitted the country was facing rocket attacks.
The New Cross attack is commemorated by two memorial plaques at the site, one erected by the Deptford History Group in 1994 and the other by the London Borough of Lewisham in 2009.
A new sculpture of Romantic poet John Keats has been unveiled near his birthplace in Moorgate to mark the 229th anniversary of his birth.
The work of British artist Martin Jennings, the sculpture is a bronze cast of an enlarged life mask of Keats which was made when he was 21 (he died just four years later of consumption in 1821).
A plaster cast of the life mask is owned by Keats House, in Hampstead, and it was scanned and digitally enlarged as the basis for the sculpture which is mounted on a stone plinth. The plinth in turn is set in a circular slate base inscribed with some words from the Keat’s Ode on Idolence.
The new statue, which was unveiled last Thursday, was funded by former City of London Corporation Alderman, Bob Hall, who has donated it to the City of London Corporation. Hall has previously funded a statue of poet John Donne – the work of Nigel Boonham – which sits outside St Paul’s Cathedral.
Keats was son of an ostler at an inn and livery stable called The Swan and Hoop, which stood not far from the modern-day Moorgate station.
• The most complete Roman pottery kiln found in Greater London is going on public display in Highgate Wood in what is the first public showing since its discovery in 1968. The kiln has been restored thanks to a £243,550 National Lottery Heritage Fund grant and will be unveiled at 11am on Sunday as part of the annual Highgate Wood Community Heritage Day. The day, which runs until 4pm, will see the firing of a replica kiln and there will also be guided walks, a children’s Roman-themed woodland adventure workshop, arts, crafts, and other activities. The kiln will be on show in the Information Hut. For more, see www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/events/highgate-wood-community-heritage-day.
• Khaleb Brooks’ sculpture The Wake has been selected as the new Memorial to Victims of Transatlantic Slavery to be located at West India Quay. The design, which features a seven metre tall cowrie shell in recognition of the shell’s role as symbol of slavery. A number of smaller shells will also be installed at other locations in London that have connections to the trade of enslaved people. Khaleb’s work was selected from a shortlist of six proposals by an artistic advisory panel of experts following a public consultation period. The memorial will be unveiled in 2026.
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• Members of the public are invited to view a shortlist of ideas for the proposed Memorial to Victims of Transatlantic Slavery to be located in West India Quay. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan pledged £500,000 to fund the memorial which will be the first of its kind in the UK. Short-listed works include Alberta Whittle”s Echoes from beneath the deep and in between the canes (a Caribbean-style pavilion alongside a sugarcane field and cowrie shells which are synonymous with the trade in enslaved people); Zak Ové’s Nana Buluku (an 11 metre tall and richly decorated representation of an African Queen, Nana Buluku); Grada Kilomba’s Archaeology of Contemplation (this uses the image of a boat as a metaphor of remembrance, remembering those who were transported as cargo by the British and other nations); Helen Cammock’s Ripple (a large-scale, circular stone structure with six discoverable engraved texts in West African wood); Hew Locke’s Memorial for the victims of the transatlantic slave trade (bronze sculptures of boys and girls carrying buildings which were built in London from money earned by the trade in enslaved people); and, Khaleb Brooks – The Wake (a large scale cowrie shell which represents the perseverance, prosperity and beauty rooted in African and African diasporic heritage). An online exhibition of the shortlisted work is available to view on https://www.london.gov.uk/transatlantic-slavery-memorial and the public is invited to give their feedback.
• Winning entries from the Royal Parks’ photographic competition Creating Spaces for Life can be seen online. Take a gander, which features four goslings under the protective wing of a parent, won the competition which invited visitors to photograph the new life emerging in the eight Royal Parks during the springtime. Other entries among the winners included a swan taking flight, a silhouetted coot appearing to walk on water and a common blue butterfly pictured in the spring sunshine. To see the winning images, head to www.royalparks.org.uk/photography-competition-creating-spaces-for-life.
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Sitting over the main entrance to Waterloo Station is a Victory Arch which commemorates railway personnel who died in World War I and II.
There are several plaques located at the top of the steps under the arch commemorating those who died in the conflicts and among them, particularly notable this week as the world marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, is one commemorating those who died in the Normandy landings.
The plaque was installed on the 50th anniversary of the landings – 6th June, 1994.
The arch was built as part of a station rebuild in the first couple of decades of the 20th century and added to the design following World War I. The new station was completed in 1922.
The now Grade II-listed memorial, the work of sculptor Charles Whiffen, features two sculptural groups located on either side – one dedicated to Bellona and dated 1914 and the other dedicated to Peace and dated 1918.
Set around a glazed arch are the names of countries where key battles were fought in the conflict and at the centre is a clock set within in a sunburst. Sitting above the arch is a depiction of Britannia holding aloft the torch of liberty.
As well as the D-Day plaque under the arch, a Roll of Honour commemorates the 585 London and South Western Railway employees who lost their lives in World War I. There is also a plaque commemorating the 626 men of the Southern Railway who died in World War II.
Sir Christopher Wren’s name is one which pops up in association with buildings all over London – some authentically so, others less so.
One of the more talked about locations where it can be physically seen is on a plaque attached to the front of a house overlooking the Thames at 49 Bankside, on the corner with Cardinal Cap Alley.
The plaque, written in a flowery script, claims that “Here lived Sir Christopher Wren during the building of St Pauls Cathedral” before going on to state that the property was also where in 1502, Catherine of Aragon, “took shelter” on first arriving in London before her marriage to King Henry VIII.
But author and historian Gillian Tyndall debunks the claim in her 2006 book The House by the Thames and the People who Lived There.
Tyndall explains that the property apparently dates from 1710 – St Paul’s was officially declared complete in 1711, leaving little cross-over (and certainly ruling out any residence by Queen Catherine who actually landed in Plymouth). She says that while it’s true the present house stands in the footprint of an older one, the house where Wren may have actually lodged during the 1670s is located further west along Bankside.
London Remembers notes that this property was apparently marked with an 18th century plaque commemorating Wren. But when that house was demolished in 1906, the plaque was saved and subsequently attached to a power station’s outer wall. When that was redeveloped in the post-war period, the plaque disappeared.
It was apparently that plaque which inspired the creation of the current plaque which was created by Major Malcolm Munthe, who acquired the property in 1945, and subsequently had the plaque made for the home’s exterior.
So it seems the plaque, despite what it says, does not commemorate a Wren residence (although perhaps it may commemorate the residence of Wren in the area). And, it’s been suggested, that while the plaque may not actually have marked a Wren home, its presence may have been enough to protect the building it adorns from threatened redevelopment in the mid-20th century.
Think of Sir ChristopherWren and chances are it’s St Paul’s Cathedral – perhaps the most famous building he designed – which comes to mind. Certainly not Westminster Abbey, which he did not.
Yet, aside from his time at the Westminster School as a child, Wren did have a long relationship with the royal church at Westminster. In March, 1698, he was appointed the Surveyor of the Fabric at Westminster Abbey, a post he held until his death (when he was succeeded by Sir Nicholas Hawksmoor).
Wren did some work on the building. Prior to being appointed surveyor he had undertaken some work on schoolmaster Dr Richard Busby’s house (Wren had been one of his students) in the Little Cloister in 1683 (the house was destroyed during the Blitz in World War II).
Following his appointment, Wren did undertake a major restoration of the decayed stonework and roof of the church. He also approved designs by his deputy, William Dickinson, for the north front and an altarpiece which Wren had originally designed for the royal chapel at the Palace of Whitehall was given to the minster by Queen Anne (it was removed in the 19th century).
In 1713, Wren had also created designs for a series of works at the abbey which included the addition of a central tower and spire at the abbey and the completion of the west front which were never realised and which were shelved after his death (the wooden model for the tower and spire is located in Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries, along with a pair of wooden obelisks he designed for the entrance to the Quire).
While there’s no memorial to him in the Abbey, Wren’s image can be seen in the lower right section of a memorial window in the north choir aisle dedicated to 19th century engineer Robert Stephenson while his coat of arms is shown along with numerous others in some post-war glass windows in the Chapter House.
WHERE: Westminster Abbey (nearest Tube stations are Westminster and St James’s Park); WHEN: Times vary – see the website for details; COST: £29 adults/£26 concession/£13 children (family rates available); WEBSITE: www.westminster-abbey.org.
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