New Year’s Eve in London

This Week in London – Turner’s ‘The Battle of Trafalgar’ returns to public display; Halloween at Hampton; Diwali at Greenwich; and, NYE tickets…

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The Queen’s House, Greenwich. PICTURE: Frank Chou/Unsplash

• Artist JMW Turner’s only royal commission has returned to public display in Greenwich to mark the 250th anniversary of the artist’s birth. The more than three metre-wide painting (Turner’s largest completed work), The Battle of Trafalgar, went on display on Tuesday – 220 years to the day since the battle it depicts – at the Queen’s House. The 1824 painting, which was commissioned by King George IV, commemorates the victory of the British Royal Navy over a combined French and Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar on 21st October, 1805. First displayed at St James’s Palace, it was transferred to the Naval Gallery at Greenwich Hospital in 1829. It was removed from public display in March last year to protect it during a works project at the National Maritime Museum and has now found a new home at the Queen’s House. Admission is free. For more, see www.rmg.co.uk/queens-house.

• The ghosts of King Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell are among those which can be encountered at Hampton Court Palace from Friday as it marks Halloween. Immersive Halloween-inspired installations with unearth the stories of some of the palace’s former residents while outside there’s a Haunted Garden complete with skeletal horse and carriage. Halloween season at the palace runs until 2nd November and is included in general admission. For more, see www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/whats-on/halloween-at-hampton-court-palace/.

• Diwali, the annual Hindu celebration, comes to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich this Saturday with the ‘Illuminate’ festival. The free festival, which runs from 11am to 5pm and is curated by Mehala Ford – founder of South Asian art collective COMMONGROUND&, includes performances, creative workshops including traditional Rangoli art and Henna art, storytelling sessions including a puppet show telling the epic story of Ramayana, and a lantern parade around Greenwich Park. There ares also talks and Diwali-inspired food. For more, see www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/national-maritime-museum/diwali.

• Tickets to London’s New Year’s Eve celebrations have gone on sale. The 12 minute show celebrating the new year will kicks off with the familiar sounds of Big Ben’s chimes, before thousands of fireworks and hundreds of lights help to illuminate the night sky around the London Eye all set to a wide-ranging soundtrack. Around 100,000 Londoners and visitors are expected to attend. Ticket prices are between £20 and £35 for Londoners and £40 and £55 for visitors. For more, see www.london.gov.uk/nye.

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This Week in London – Gothic literature at the British Library; founder of War Graves Commission honoured; and, New Year’s Eve tickets on sale…

by exploringlondon

•Gothic The UK’s largest exhibition of Gothic literature opens at the British Library in Kings Cross on Saturday (4th October), marking the 250th anniversary of the publication of the breakthrough book, Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto. Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination will feature manuscripts and rare and personal editions of Gothic classics like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist as well as the work of contemporary writers like Angela Carter and Mervyn Peake. There will also be Gothic-inspired artworks by the likes of Henry Fuseli and William Blake and modern art, photography, costumes and movies by the likes of Chapman Brothers and Stanley Kubrick. A range of literary, film and music events will accompany the exhibition which runs until 20th January. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/gothic/. PICTURE: Percival Delivering Belisane from the Enchantment of Urma, Henry Fuselli. © Tate.

• The founder of the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission, Sir Fabian Ware (1869-1949), has been honoured with an English Heritage blue plaque at his former home in Marylebone. Sir Fabian lived at the early 19th century Grade II-listed terraced house at 14 Wyndham Place between 1911 and 1919. It was during this period that he served with the British Red Cross in France and first began recording the graves of soldiers killed in battle. In 1917, the Imperial War Graves Commission was formed with the task of reburying the war dead in permanent cemeteries in France. Knighted in 1920, Sir Fabian was to be director of graves registration and enquiries at the War Office during World War II and it was at this time that he extended the war graves scheme to civilians killed in the conflict. The commission changed its name to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in 1960. Today it cares for cemeteries and memorials at 23,000 locations in 153 countries. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/blue-plaques/.

• New Year’s Eve in London will be a ticketed event for the first time this year with 100,000 tickets being made available to the public with each costing a £10 administration fee – the entire sum of which will apparently be used to pay for the ticketing system. Making the announcement last month, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson’s, office, said the growth in numbers of those who have gathered to watch the fireworks on the Thames – from around 100,000 in 2003 to an estimated 500,000 last year – has put an enormous strain on transport and safety infrastructure and meant people have had to turn up earlier and earlier to get a good view, facing hours waiting in cold and cramped conditions, or risk being among the “hundreds of thousands” unable to get a good view or even see the display at all. Booking tickets – people may secure up to four – will guarantee “good views of the celebrations and a better visitor experience”. To book tickets, head to www.london.gov.uk/nye.

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