Monuments/memorials/gateways

Around London – Ronald Reagan unveiled, two ways in Pall Mall, Hungarian photography at the RA, and a celebration of the Arab world…

by exploringlondon

• A new statue of former US President Ronald Reagan was unveiled in Grosvenor Square near the US embassy on Monday, 4th July. The 10 foot tall bronze statue of the president, who died in 2004, was unveiled at a private ceremony by the Foreign Secretary William Hague – former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were also among the more than 2,000 people who attended along with current US ambassador Louis Susman (a frail Margaret Thatcher was reportedly too frail to attend). Commissioned by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the statue is the work of sculptor Chas Fagan. Its unveiling is one of a series of events marking the centenary of the birth of the former actor turned politician.

• Pall Mall and St James Street in the West End were opened to two-way traffic this week for the first time in 50 years. The changeover came into effect last Sunday morning. The roads were made one-way in 1963 under a scheme to deal with increasing traffic in the area. But it has been reopened in the first stage of a £14 million overhaul of traffic around Piccadilly Circus – home to world-famous neon billboards and the Eros Statue. The area is visited by 200,000 every day.

• Time to get your togs on. Scores of swimmers will be taking the plunge at the Hampstead Heath Lido tomorrow and Saturday to raise funds for the Lord Mayor’s Appeal, Bear Necessities. A 4,000 metre swim, the City Dip, will be swum by teams and individuals with every swimmer receiving a commemorative certificate and medal. The current Lord Mayor of London is Michael Bear. To sign up or for more information, see  www.lordmayorsappeal.org.uk/dip

• On Now: Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century – Brassaï, Capa, Kertész, Moholy-Nagy, Munkácsi. This new exhibition at the Royal Academy of the Arts at Burlington House in Piccadilly, organised to mark the Hungarian Presidency of the EU, is dedicated to the birth of modern photography and features the work of Brassaï, Robert Capa, André Kertész, László Moholy-Nagy and Martin Munkácsi. It comprises more than 200 photographs, dating from 1914 to 1989, which usually form part of the collection of the Hungarian National Museum of Photography as well as the National Museum in Budapest and other public and private collections in both Hungary and the UK. Runs until 2nd October. For more information, see www.royalacademy.org.uk. PICTURE: Laszlo Fejes, Wedding, Budapest, 1965, Copyright Hungarian Museum of Photography.

• On Now: Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture. London’s first ever celebration of contemporary culture from across the Arab world will feature more than 100 artists involved in 70 events at some 30 venues over the weeks until 24th July. The program includes visual arts, film, music, theatre, dance, literature, architecture, lectures and discussions with many events boasting free admission. Highlights include A Girl in her Room, an exhibition of photo works by highly acclaimed Lebanese/American artist, Rania Matar, at the Mosaic Rooms, one of London’s leading centres for Arab contemporary arts (runs until 23rd July), Shopopolis, a series of collaborations with shoppers at Westfield Shopping Centre (runs until 24th July) and this weekend’s Interference, a series of free films, talks and workshops at the ICA curated by Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha. For full details of all events, see www.london.gov.uk/shubbak.

10 small (and fascinating) museums in London…1. Museum of the Order of St John

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This is the first in our new special series looking at 10 of the best of London’s small museums. We’re not including houses once lived in by famous people (that will be the subject of a later series), but rather those museums which contain some of the city’s most eclectic collections yet still tend to fly a little under the radar when it comes to the crowds…

First up, we take a look at the Museum of the Order of St John. The museum – which was reopened in late 2010 following a £3.7 million redevelopment – is located in St John’s Gate in Clerkenwell (pictured), the Tudor era gatehouse of the order’s once substantial London priory.

Told inside is the story of the order, from its founding in the 12th century as the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem with the aim of caring for sick pilgrims who had travelled to the Holy Land through to its later role as a military order and its Middle Ages moves – following the capture of Palestine by Muslim forces in 1291 – to Cyprus, then Rhodes, and eventually Malta, along with its current work through the charitable foundation of St John Ambulance.

Exhibits include weapons and armour, paintings and illuminated manuscripts (such as the Rhodes Missal of 1504), coins, furnishings, ceramics, silverware and textiles. There is also a 16th or 17th century bust of Jean de la Valette, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller from 1557 to 1568 and famed for leading the order to victory in the Great Siege of Malta in 1565 (he is remembered still in the name of the island nation’s capital, Valletta).

As well as the gatehouse (which, following the Dissolution, was used for various purposes including being the childhood home of 18th century artist William Hogarth and, at another time, housing a printing press used by famed lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson), the museum’s assets also encompass the 12th century crypt under what was once the priory church (it’s located just to the north across Clerkenwell Road). It’s well worth a visit for the stunning 16th century tomb effigies alone.

WHERE: The Museum of the Order of St John, St John’s Gate, St John’s Lane, Clerkenwell (nearest Tube stations is Farringdon); WHEN: 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday (tours are held at 11am and 2.30pm on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday); COST: Free (a small donation for guided tours); WEBSITE: www.museumstjohn.org.uk.

What’s in a name?…King’s Cross

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The location now known as King’s Cross, north-west of the City, takes its name from a monument adorned with an 11 foot high statue of King George IV which once stood on a site now occupied by King’s Cross Railway Station.

The area had been previously known as Broadford Bridge or Battlebridge – the latter a name many associated with the apparently erroneous belief that it was here, at a bridge which once crossed the River Fleet, the Iceni Queen Boudicca (also known as Boadicea) ill-fatedly confronted the Roman Army under the command of Gaius Suetonius Paulinus.

From the 1830’s (King George IV ruled from 1820 to 1830), however, the area took on the name of King’s Cross thanks to the erection of what Walter Thornbury described in his 1878 text, Old and New London, as a “ridiculus octagonal structure crowned by an absurd statue of George IV”.

The structure, said to be 60 feet high, was erected at the intersection of Gray’s Inn Road, Pentonville Road and what we now know as Euston Road, and during its relatively short lifespan, was employed at different times as a police station and as a pub (complete, apparently, with a camera obscura in the upper level).

It was completely removed by 1845 (King’s Cross Railway Station officially opened in 1852).

The area of King’s Cross has been settled back as far as Roman times – St Pancras Old Church is one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in England although the current church is Victorian – but it wasn’t until the 1700s and 1800s that it was transformed in to an urban area with the arrival of canals – including The Regent’s Canal – and the railways.

Traditionally one of London’s poorest areas, it survived World War II bombings but subsequently suffered as the railways declined in the post-war period. By the 1980s, it had become notorious as a red light district.

It has since gone through – and is still going through – a gradual gentrification process, however, with the 67 acre development King’s Cross Central among the projects currently under construction.

Key attractions of the area include The British Library, The London Canal Museum, arts centre King’s Place, and the recently refurbished St Pancras Renaissance London Hotel.

It’s also now home to St Pancras International – London’s Eurostar terminus (having been moved here from Waterloo) – as well as King’s Cross Railway Station which is believed by many, despite the lack of any evidence, to be the burial site of Queen Boadicea (it’s said she still lies beneath platform 9 or 10) and which is the home of the fictitious platform 9 and 3/4 from which Harry Potter catches the train to Hogwarts.

Treasures of London – Nelson’s Column

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Towering over Trafalgar Square, Nelson’s Column was constructed in the 1840s to commemorate the man many believe to be Britain’s greatest naval hero, Admiral Lord Nelson.

Parliament started discussions on a monument commemorating Nelson only 10 years after his death at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805, but it wasn’t until 1838 that the Nelson Memorial Committee was finally formed and public subscriptions called for to raise funds for the monument.

The government agreed to provide the location and, following a controversial competition (which had to be run twice), William Railton’s designs showing a Corinthian column topped by a statue of Nelson (which it was stipulated had to be made by EH Bailey) with four lions at its base, was adopted.

The column was completed in 1843. It featured a bronze capital, made from old cannons taken from the Woolwich Arsenal and shaped in the form of acanthus leaves, and Bailey’s 5.5 metre (17 foot) tall statue of Nelson (made from Craigleith sandstone quarried in Scotland and donated by the Duke of Buccleuch). The four bronze identical lions, made by sculptor Sir Edwin Landseer and said to be modelled on a dead cat from a zoo, were not added until 1867.

On the column’s pedestal are four bronze relief panels showing Nelson’s four great victories – the Battle of Cape St Vincent, the Battle of the Nile, the Battle of Copenhagen and the Battle of Trafalgar, the scene of which depicts the admiral in the throes of dying (he was killed by a musket bullet fired from the French vessel Redoubtable and was carried below decks where he died). They were apparently made from French guns captured at each of the battles.

The Grade I-listed column, which cost £47,500 to build, was refurbished in a four month exercise costing £420,000 in 2006, during which it was discovered that it was actually 16 foot shorter than had previously been thought (its total height, to the tip of Nelson’s hat, is actually 169 feet instead of the 185 feet previously supposed). It had previously been refurbished in 1986 and in 1968. You can see a gallery of images taken during the most recent restoration here.

Interestingly, it is reported that just before Bailey’s statue was raised to the top of the column in 1843, 14 stonemasons who had worked on it during construction held a celebration dinner party on the plinth at the top.

LondonLife – The visit of the American President…

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President Barack Obama has been in London for the past two days, so Exploring London decided to take a break from our series on King James’ I’s London and instead, in honor of the president’s visit, take a look at where you’ll find some other US presidents in London.

First up, it’s President George Washington. A life-sized statue of the first US president stands outside the National Gallery on the north side of Trafalgar Square. It’s a replica of an eighteenth century marble statue by Jean Antoine Houdon which stands in the State Capitol building in Richmond, Virginia. A gift of the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1924.

Civil War President Abraham Lincoln stands looking toward Parliament Square and the Houses of Parliament (pictured). The statue dates from 1920 – it was originally proposed to put a statue of President Lincoln in Parliament Square to mark the 1915 centenary of the last time the US and Britain were at war but the plans were put on ice until several years later. The statue, a gift of the US government, is a replica of the Chicago Lincoln Memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. (There is also a bust of Lincoln inside the Royal Exchange building).

Next in the chronology is President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose statue can be found on the north side of Grosvenor Gardens (overlooked by the vast and soon-to-be replaced US embassy). This bronze was unveiled by the president’s wife, Eleanor, on the third anniversary of FDR’s death- 12th April, 1948. The statue depicts the president standing – apparently at Mrs Roosevelt’s insistence – instead of seated in a wheelchair.

Across the gardens stands another wartime president, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. A bronze by sculptor Robert Dean, this life-size statue was the gift of the US city of Kansas in 1989 and was unveiled by British PM Margaret Thatcher and US Ambassador Charles Price. It stands only a short distance from Eisenhower’s wartime HQ. (Grosvenor Square has also been home to then future US President John Adams who lived at number nine as the first US Ambassador to the Court of St James between 1786-97).

A bronze bust of the 35th president, President John F. Kennedy, can be found on the corner of Park Crescent and Marylebone Road. Unveiled by his brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, in 1965, it’s a copy of a bust located in the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

Among those mooted for the future is one of President Ronald Reagan (also in Grosvenor Square), planning permission for which was granted by Westminster City Council in 2009.

Where’s London’s oldest…outdoor statue?

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It’s generally believed that London’s oldest outdoor statue is that of King Alfred the Great which stands in Trinity Church Square in Southwark but there are a few others worth mentioning for their age.

But first, to the statue of Alfred the Great. Located now in Trinity Church Square, it is thought to have been made in the late 14th century (although it’s also suggested it could be much younger) in honor of the man who ruled Wessex in the 9th century and is often credited as being the first “king of the English”.

The statue (right) was apparently located at the Palace of Westminster before it was brought to its present location in 1823 at about the time the square was being laid out.

Others among London’s oldest statues is that of King Charles I sitting astride his horse and looking from Whitehall from its position on the southern side of Trafalgar Square.

Credited as being London’s “oldest equestrian bronze”, this statue is the work of French sculptor Hubert Le Sueur and was cast in 1633 (during King Charles I’s rule) at the behest of Richard Weston, one of the king’s favorites, who that year became the 1st Earl of Portland.

It was removed during the Civil War but later reacquired by the Portland family and, following the Restoration, was reinstalled on its current site – once that of the Charing Cross (see our previous entry for more details) – in 1675 by King Charles II.

Another of London’s oldest statues is that of Queen Elizabeth I which stands on the facade of the church St Dunstan-in-the-West in Fleet Street. This statue, which has been attributed to William Kerwin although other names have also been suggested, dates from 1586 (created during her reign) and decorated the west side of Ludgate until its demolition in 1760, after which it was apparently put into storage until being brought to the church in the 19th century.

Standing nearby in the vestry porch as statues of the legendary pre-Roman British king, Lud, and his sons, Androgeus and Tenvantius, which were also removed from Ludgate and probably date from the same period (about 1586).

Lost London – The ‘Tyburn Tree’

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For six centuries, the gallows at Tyburn, in the city’s west, was one of London’s sites of public execution. Today, little remains to remind visitors of the infamous past of the area, which lies close to Marble Arch, but for a plaque set in the middle of a road.

From 1196 to 1783, it’s suggested that thousands of people (some have estimated as many as 60,000) were hanged at various gallows erected at Tyburn, known by numerous names over the centuries including ‘The Elms’, the ‘The Deadly Never Green Tree’, and most infamously the ‘Tyburn Tree’.

Hangings were apparently initially carried out using the branches of a tree on the bank of the Tyburn River but the first gallows date from 1220. In Elizabeth times these were upgraded to a larger gallows known as the ‘Triple Tree’ which enabled many more people to be hanged simulteously – as many as 24 at once in 1649.

The gallows was removed in 1759 because it was blocking the road and a mobile gallows used until hangings were moved into Newgate Prison (see our earlier entry on Newgate).

Executions were a public spectacle and it’s estimated that at times the crowds at Tyburn swelled to more than 50,000 people, all eager to witness someone “dancing the Tyburn jig”.

Among those to be hanged at Tyburn were William Fitz Osbern (a champion of London’s poor who was hanged in 1196), Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (hanged in 1330 after being accused of assuming royal power), Perkin Warbeck (pretender to the throne of King Henry VII who was hanged in 1499), and Elizabeth Barton, the ‘Holy Maid of Kent’ (hanged for treason after prophesying King Henry VIII would die within six months of marrying Anne Boleyn).

Others included key figures in the so-called Pilgrimage of Grace (an uprising in England’s north in 1536 which followed King Henry VIII’s break with Rome) and many other Catholics including Oliver Plunkett, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland (1681).

In an unusual move, the body of already deceased Oliver Cromwell, along with that of John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton, was exumed from his grave and and hanged there to mark the first anniversary of the Restoration.

What is believed to have been the site of the Tyburn Tree is today marked by a plaque set in a traffic island at the corner of Edgware Road and Bayswater Road (nearest tube station is Marble Arch).

There is a Shrine of the Martyrs dedicated to the more than 105 Roman Catholics who were hung at Tyburn for their faith at the Tyburn Convent in Hyde Park Place (for visiting details, see www.tyburnconvent.org.uk).

Note: This article originally referred to the Shrine of the Martyrs commemorating more than 350 Catholic martyrs who died during the Reformation as all being executed at Tyburn but it is believed some 105 were – the greater figure refers to those martyred across England and Wales during the Reformation.

Around London – See museums after hours; the White Tower is white again; and, foundation stone for Bomber Command is laid…

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• The annual Museums at Night event returns to London (and Britain) this weekend with hundreds of museums and galleries across the country opening their doors for special after hours events. Among those places in London taking part is the Churchill War Rooms, which is hosting a 1940s evening on Friday night, the London Canal Museum which is hosting”candle-lit tours, atmospheric lighting, and exhibits of art and film in dark places”, and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology which is hosting a double hill of Hammer films and a “Gothic Egypt” trail. Other institutions taking part include the Sir John Soane Museum, the National Gallery, the Bank of England Museum, and Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham.  For more information about what’s on see www.museumsatnight.org.uk

• King William the Conqueror celebrated at the Tower of London this week following the completion of a £2 million, three year project to clean the White Tower. First built shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066, the tower had become blackened by pollution but has now been restored to its original color. For more information on visiting the Tower, see www.hrp.org.uk/toweroflondon/.

• A foundation stone has reportedly been laid for a Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park. The memorial, which is due to be completed for the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations in 2012, will be constructed of Portland stone and will feature a nine foot tall statue of a bomber command aircrew. Bomber Command lost more than 55,000 airmen during World War II. The foundation stone was laid by the Duke of Gloucester. Supporters of the monument’s construction have included former Bee Gee Robin Gibb, Sir Michael Beetham, Marshal of the RAF, and  The Daily Telegraph newspaper which is running an appeal to help raise funds for the memorial.

Curious London Memorials – 10. The Bard or not The Bard?

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For the last in our series of curious London memorials, we’re looking at one which isn’t quite what it seems.

At first glance, the granite plinth topped by a bronze bust of William Shakespeare which stands in gardens at the junction of Love Lane and Aldermanbury in the City, looks like yet another tribute to the Bard.

But take a closer look and you’ll read that the inscriptions in fact refer to John Heminge and Henry Condell, two actors and friends of the Bard, who were responsible for collecting his works and giving them “to the world”.

The two men were partners with Shakespeare at the Globe and it was they who were behind the publication of his First Folio in 1623. They were both buried here in what was formerly the churchyard of St Mary Aldermanbury (first destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 and then again in the Blitz although the surviving walls were later rebuilt in the US – more on that another time), Heminge on 12th October, 1630, and Condell on 29th December, 1627.

It’s worth quoting the inscription on the memorial – and there is a lot of it – at greater length. “The fame of Shakespeare,” it reads, “rests on his incomparable dramas. There is no evidence that he ever intended to publish them and his premature death in 1616 made this the interest of no-one else. Heminge and Condell had been co-partners with him in the Globe Theatre Southwark and from the accumulated plays there of thirty-five years with great labour selected them. No men living were so competent having acted with him in them for many years and well knowing his manuscripts. They were published in 1623 in folio, thus giving away their private rights therein. What they did was priceless, for the whole of his manuscripts with almost all those of the dramas of the period have perished.”

The memorial was erected by Charles Clement Walker, of Shropshire, in 1896. Walker, who has his own memorial in Northampton Square in Clerkenwell, was a Justice of the Peace for the counties of Salop and Stafford and a native of the parish of Clerkenwell.

The bronze bust of Shakespeare was by Charles Allen.

What’s in a name?…Clerkenwell

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Located just to the north of the City, the area of Clerkenwell takes its name from the Clerk’s Well which stands in Farringdon Lane.

The well was mentioned as far back as 1174 and was the scene of medieval mystery plays which were performed by the parish clerks of London. It was formerly located inside the wall of the 12th century St Mary’s Nunnery (located on the site of St James Parish Church) but is now found in the basement of a building named Well Court.

Islington Council record that a pump was installed at pavement level in 1800 to enable the public to use the well to draw water but this was closed by the mid 1800s and the exact site of the well lost to public knowledge. It was only in 1924 that the well was rediscovered during building work.

Alongside the nunnery, Clerkenwell was also home to the Priory of St John of Jerusalem, English headquarters of the crusader order known as the Knights Hospitallers. The Order of St John is still headquartered on the site of the former priory – the remains of the original priory include the Norman crypt under the rebuilt church and the priory’s main entrance, St John’s Gate, now home to a museum on the order. Also found in Clerkenwell is the Charterhouse, founded by Carthusian monks in 1370 and later a school (it’s these days home to a school of medicine and dentistry).

The area, centred on Clerkenwell Green (although apparently there hasn’t been a green here for several hundred years), become famous for its leisure-related institutions in the 1600s – these included spas, tea gardens and theatres (Sadler’s Wells Theatre still remains, albeit in a modern, dance-related form) – and gradually evolved into a more built-up residential area.

It was initially favored by the fashionable until the Industrial Revolution saw printing houses, breweries and distilleries, and clock and watchmakers move in. A survivor from the 18th century is the Middlesex Sessions House, built on Clerkenwell Green as a court around 1782 and now used by the Freemasons.

Industry declined in the area after World War II and Clerkenwell, which had also become a noted location for communists in the early 1900s (Lenin edited a paper here at one stage), was gradually transformed back into a residential area. Since the Eighties, Clerkenwell has again been going through a process of transformation – this time one of gentrification.

The well, located at 14-16 Farringdon Lane, can be visited – to arrange a visit, contact the Islington Local History Centre on 020 7527 7988 or email local.history@islington.gov.uk. For walks in Clerkenwell, see the Clerkenwell & Islington Guides Association  at www.clerkenwellwalks.org.uk.

Curious London memorials – 9. The Golden Boy of Pye Corner

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It’s widely known that Pudding Lane was the place where the Great Fire of London is believed to have started in 1666 – hard to miss given the site is commemorated nearby in the form of The Monument, the world’s tallest freestanding stone column – but what about where it was stopped? Standing in a niche on the corner of a building overlooking the junction of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane is a small gilt statue known as the ‘Golden Boy of Pye Corner’.

It’s not known how old the statue is but it is known that it was previously located on the front of a pub, The Fortune of War, which stood on the site until it was demolished in 1910 (and was apparently used by body-snatchers as a place to display stolen corpses for surgeons to peruse).

The statue – which apparently marks the place where the fire was ‘stayed’ (that is, buildings were destroyed to stop the fire spreading any further) –  is accompanied by an inscription which reads “This Boy is in Memmory put up for the late Fire of London Occasion’d by the Sin of Gluttony 1666”.

Below it an explanatory note below explains that the boy was made deliberately fat in reference to the fact the fire was started in Pudding Lane as a result of gluttony and not by Papists as was claimed on The Monument (this reference – “But Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched” – was added to the inscriptions on the Monument in 1681 but was removed in 1831).

Curious London Memorials – 8. Edith Cavell Memorial

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Prominently located on Charing Cross Road near Trafalgar Square, this memorial is a war memorial with a difference. Rather than commemorating armies or great war leaders, its subject is Edith Cavell, a British nurse who was executed by a German firing squad during World War I.

Cavell, originally from Norfolk, was working at a medical institute in Brussels when the German army invaded in 1914. The institute become a Red Cross hospital and Cavell continued caring for injured soldiers regardless of their nationality until, on 5th August, 1915, she was arrested on charges of treason for helping as many as 200 British and French soldiers escape to neutral Holland.

Held for a time in solitary confinement, she was tried at a court martial after signing a confession. Cavell was sentenced to death, and on, 12th October, was shot dead at the age of 49 – an event that sparked worldwide headlines and prompted an international outcry. She subsequently featured prominently in propaganda designed to boost British recruitment.

The 1920 memorial, designed by Sir George Frampton, features comments Cavell made to an English Anglican chaplain with her on the night before her death: “Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone”.

Cavell was buried next to the prison where she had been held before her body was later exhumed before being reburied in Norwich Cathedral.

LondonLife – Vroom Vroom

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Lorenzo Quinn’s sculpture of a giant hand playing with a full-sized vintage Fiat 500 sits on a traffic island in the midst of busy Park Lane, not far from Hyde Park Corner. Vroom Vroom – which features the first car the sculptor bought using money from the sale of his art –  is on show until April. It was installed as part of Westminster council’s City of Sculpture Festival.

Famous Londoners – Geoffrey Chaucer

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Best remembered for his landmark Middle English work in The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer is known by many as “the father of English literature”.

But he also had a distinguished career as a diplomat, civil servant and courtier and while much of his life (and death) remain something of a mystery, there’s no doubt that he spent a considerable part of it in London.

Chaucer (the name comes from the Latin for ‘shoemaker’) was born into a wealthy London family sometime between 1340 and 1345 and nothing is known of his early life or education. In 1357 he was working as a page in the household of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster and daughter-in-law of King Edward III.

Two years later, he travelled in the retinue of the countess’ husband, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, to France with the army of King Edward III but in 1360 was captured near Rheims. He was subsequently ransomed with the king himself contributing to the sum needed.

Soon after Chaucer formally joined King Edward III’s court and was over the next two decades was sent on numerous missions by him to places as far flung as France, Genoa, Florence and possibly Padua (it was on these trips that he was apparently exposed to the writings of men such as Dante, Boccaccio and Froissart).

In 1366 he married Philippa Roet, a lady-in-waiting to Philippa of Hainault, King Edward III’s queen (and, some suggest, the sister to Katherine Swynford, mistress to John of Gaunt). Chaucer and his wife are believed to have three or four children – their son, Thomas, was later chief butler to English kings and served as the Speaker of the House of Commons.

In 1374, Chaucer was appointed as Comptroller of Customs for the Port of London, a post which he held until 1386 or so. It was during this time that he wrote many of his other major works including Parlement of Foules and Troilus and Criseyde (he had written his first major work, The Book of the Duchess, in honor Blanche of Lancaster, the late wife of his friend John of Gaunt sometime earlier following her death in 1369). Chaucer was also known at this time to have lived rent free in an apartment above the now removed Aldgate.

At some time in the 1380s, it is suggested Chaucer moved out to Kent where he is thought to have started work on The Canterbury Tales and where he also served as a local MP. His wife is believed to have died while they were there.

In 1389, he was appointed to the position of Clerk of the King’s Works and oversaw building projects at the Palace of Westminster, St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, and at the Tower of London (building the wharf). Later he served as deputy forester of the royal forest of North Petherton in Somerset.

Chaucer’s name disappears from records in 1400 and he is believed to have died either that year or shortly after. The cause of his death remains unknown although writer Terry Jones, in his book Who Murdered Chaucer?, has suggested Chaucer was murdered in 1402 at the behest of Thomas Arundel, the Archbishop of Canterbury – a claim which has met with short shrift with many.

Chaucer’s remains were later transferred to a more elaborate tomb and he become the first writer to occupy a space in Poet’s Corner – a fitting place for a towering figure of English literature.

PICTURE: Image of Chaucer as a pilgrim from Ellesmere Manuscript in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. The manuscript is an early publishing of the Canterbury Tales. Source: Wikipedia.

Lost London – Newgate Prison

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The most notorious of London’s many prisons, Newgate remained in use for more than 700 years.

The prison – located on the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey on the site of what is now London’s Central Criminal Court (known as the Old Bailey thanks to its position on the street known as Old Bailey) – was apparently first constructed around the end of the 1100s on the orders of King Henry II at the site of one of the gates in the Roman wall (see picture).

It was enlarged and renovated several times over the ensuing centuries (including a complete rebuilding after the Great Fire of London in 1666 and another to the design of George Dance after the prison was badly damaged during the Gordon Riots of 1780, sparked by opposition to Catholic emancipation).

The prison, which was infamous for the squalid conditions in which prisoners were housed, was used for a range of purposes including housing debtors and the incarceration of people awaiting execution (by the 18th century, it’s said that more than 350 crimes had become punishable by death).

In 1783 public executions were moved from Tyburn, west of the city, to a site just outside the prison. In 1868, executions were no longer open to the public at large and the gallows moved inside. The prison closed in 1902 and was eventually demolished in 1904.

Famous prisoners who spent time in Newgate include Shakespeare’ contemporary Ben Jonson (for killing a man in a duel), 17th century author Daniel Defoe (for his authorship of political pamphlets), Captain William Kidd (for piracy), and William Penn, Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania (for contempt of court during a case brought after he was accused of having illegally preached ).

But perhaps the most infamous is the 18th century criminal Jack Sheppard, known for having escaped from the prison several times before finally being hanged at Tyburn (close to where Marble Arch now stands).

The only surviving part of the prison in its original location is part of the prison wall which can be seen in Amen Corner.

PICTURE: Wikipedia.com

Curious London memorials – 6. The Buxton Memorial Fountain

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Standing in Victoria Tower Gardens at the southern end of the Houses of Parliament, not far from more high profile monuments such as Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais, is a memorial to those who fought for the emancipation of slaves.

The gothic memorial, designed by Samuel Sanders Tuelon, was erected in 1865 by MP Charles Buxton to commemorate the work of his father, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton and his associates including William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Zachary Macaulay, Henry Brougham, and Dr Stephen Lushington – all of whom played important roles in the eventual passing of the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.

Sir Thomas, a founding member of the Anti-Slavery Society along with Wilberforce and Clarkson, took over as leader of the abolitionist movement in parliament after Wilberforce retired in 1825.

The memorial, which looks a little like a smaller version of the Albert Memorial (without the figure within) and is actually a public drinking fountain, was originally erected in Parliament Square but was removed in 1949 and placed in its current location in 1957, marking the 150th anniversary of the 1807 Act which abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The memorial originally bore eight statues representing the rulers of Britain from the Roman era to Queen Victoria but these were long since stolen. It as restored by Royal Parks in the mid-Noughties and unveiled again on the 27th March, 2007, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the same act.

PICTURE: © Giles Barnard

Curious London Memorials – 5. Eros (or the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain)

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Situated in the heart of Piccadilly Circus, the Eros statue has become an icon of London. Yet few of those who cluster around this iconic figurine realise that the aluminium statue (a rarity in itself) is actually a memorial, not to mention that it wasn’t intended to represent Eros at all.

The monument – which also features a bronze fountain below – was erected in the late nineteenth century to commemorate Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury and a well-regarded Christian reformer and philanthropist of the Victorian era, and is formerly known as the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain.

Designed by Alfred Gilbert and unveiled in 1893, the winged figure holding a bow was apparently actually intended to represent Eros’ brother, Anteros – a Greek god associated with selfless love as opposed to his brother Eros, who is associated with erotic love – and, according to some, bore the name The Angel of Christian Charity, which makes sense given the man whom it is intended to commemorate.

While the statue attracted controversy when it was first unveiled thanks not least to its nudity, it has stood in Piccadilly Circus ever since (or at least mostly ever since – there have been a couple of brief periods such as when it was moved while Piccadilly Underground station was built and during World War II when it was moved for safe-keeping). It was restored in the 1980s.

A copy of the fountain and statue by Gilbert was later placed in Liverpool’s Sefton Park.

Lost London – York Watergate

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There’s several places along Victoria Embankment where it’s possible to see where the River Thames bank stood before the massive mid-19th century project to reclaim land. Not the least of them is located in the downstairs foyer to Somerset House, where looking through the glass floor, you can see the pebbles of the original riverbank.

Another is York Watergate, once the river entrance to the Duke of Buckingham’s London mansion, and now stranded some distance from the water in Victoria Embankment Gardens.

The mansion, known as York House, was originally located on the southside of the Strand. Originally built in the 13th century, it was later acquired by King Henry VIII and granted to the Archbishop of York, Nicholas Heath, in 1556 (hence its name). The house became the home of George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham and somewhat sycophantic favorite of King James I, in the early 1620s.

When the duke was stabbed to death in 1628, the property passed to his son, the second Duke of Buckingham (also George), who later sold it to a land developer. It was apparently as a condition of the sale that the streets there now include the duke’s full name – hence George Court, Villiers Street, Duke Street, the slightly ludicrous Of Alley, and Buckingham Street.

The impressive Italianate watergate, which stands below the junction of Buckingham Street and Watergate Walk just a short walk into the gardens from Embankment tube station, was designed by the irrepressible Inigo Jones and built in 1626. Though weathered, it still bears the coat of arms of the Duke of Buckingham on the front.

Curious London Memorials – 4. The Suffragette Memorial

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Tucked away in a corner of Christchurch Gardens, opposite New Scotland Yard in Victoria Street, St James, this memorial was only erected in 1970.

Designed to resemble an uncurling scroll, the bronzed glass fibre scroll – designed by Edwin Russell – was put there by the Suffragette Fellowship (a group which was founded in 1926 to commemorate the suffrage movement of the early 20th century) and dedicated to the “courage and perseverance of all those men and women who in the long struggle for votes for women, selflessly braved derision, opposition and ostracism, many enduring physical violence and suffering”.

The monument, which is located near Caxton Hall – a now-listed building opened as the Westminster Town Hall in 1883 and “historically associated with women’s suffrage meetings”, was unveiled by former campaigner and hunger-striker Lillian Lenton.

While we’re on the subject of women’s suffrage, we should also mention the memorial to the most prominent member of the early 20th century women’s suffrage movement, Emmeline Pankhurst (1857-1928). Located not far away in Victoria Tower Gardens, right under the shadow of Victoria Tower at the southern end of the Houses of Parliament, stands a 1930 statue of the suffrage leader, who was imprisoned for her stand.

The statue is accompanied by two bronze medallions – one commemorating Mrs Pankhurst’s daughter and suffragette, Dame Christabel Pankhurst (1880-1958), and the other showing the badge of the Women’s Social Political Union (WSPU).

Curious London Memorials – 3. Charing Cross

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Another royalty-related memorial, the Charing Cross – located outside Charing Cross railway station – is actually an embellished Victorian replica of one of a series of medieval memorials the apparently heartbroken King Edward I had erected in memory of his wife, Eleanor of Castile.

The original cross, which was originally located in the south of Trafalgar Square at Charing, was one of 12 built between 1291 and 1294 to mark the nightly resting places of the Queen’s funeral procession as it made it way from Lincoln to Westminster Abbey where she was buried.

The Queen had died at Harby near Lincoln in 1290 while on her way to meet her husband in Scotland. The original monument was demolished in 1647 by Parliamentary order. A plaque on the site indicates it is the point from where all distances on road signs to London were measured.

Only three of the original 12 crosses still stand – at Waltham Cross, Northampton and Geddington – although some remnants of others can be seen. Another London cross – in Cheapside – was demolished in the mid 1600s.

The Victorian era replica outside Charing Cross station dates from 1865. It was unveiled last year following a five year restoration project.