Treasures of London – Diana Memorial Fountain

Located in Hyde Park (not far from the Lido), this memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales, is designed as a ring of water – rather like a stream bed – with two cascades tumbling down to meet in a pool at the bottom.

The fountain, which was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in July, 2004, also features three bridges which lead into the heart of the fountain – a symbol, apparently, of Diana’s openness to people.

Designed by US architect Kathryn Gustafson, the fountain – which cost £3.6 million – is made of 545 pieces of Cornish granite, each of which was shaped using laser cutting technology before being pieced together using traditional skills.

Gustafson’s design was selected after more than 10,000 plans were submitted to the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain Committee in 2002. The architect has been reported as saying she wanted the design to reflect Diana’s inclusive “personality”.

The fountain was briefly closed to the public shortly after opening in 2004 because of safety concerns but reopened with new guidelines soon after.

The fountain is located on the route for the the Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Walk, which takes on four of the royal parks – Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Green Park and St James’s Park.

Diana, whose divorce from Prince Charles had only been finalised the previous year, died in a car crash in Paris in August, 1997, along with Dodi Al Fayed.

WHERE: Hyde Park (nearest Tube stations are Knightsbridge and Hyde Park Corner); WHEN: 10am to 8pm until end of August (check website for times after that); COST: Free; WEBSITE: http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde-park/diana-memorial-fountain

Treasures of London – Marble Arch…

Originally installed as a grand entrance to Buckingham Palace, John Nash’s arch was moved to its current location, what is now effectively a traffic island not far from Speaker’s Corner in nearby Hyde Park, in 1851.

The story goes that this took place after it was discovered that the arch was too narrow for the widest of the new-fangled coaches but there are some doubts over this, particularly as the gold state coach passed under it during Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1952. Another story says that it was moved after extensions to Buckingham Palace left insufficient space for it.

Work on the arch had started at Buckingham Palace in the mid 1820s and it was completed by 1833. It was originally moved to replace Cumberland Gate as the new entrance to Hyde Park and to complement Decimus Burton’s arch at Hyde Park Corner. Successive roadworks in the 20th century, however, left it in its current position.

Clad in Carrara marble, the design of the arch was inspired by Rome’s Arch of Constantine and the Arc do Carrousel in Paris. The sculptural ornamentation, which includes works by Sir Richard Westmacott and Edward Hodges Baily, however, was apparently never completed and an equestrian statue of King George IV, originally destined for the top of the arch, instead now stands 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.

Only senior members of the Royal family and the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery are permitted to pass under the central arch of the monumental structure.

The arch stands close to where the Tyburn Tree once stood (for more on this, see our earlier post). It contains three small rooms which, up until the 1950s housed what has been described as “one of the smallest police stations in the world”.

There was some talk in 2005 that the arch would be moved to Speaker’s Corner but this obviously hasn’t eventuated.

Where is it? #23…

The latest in the series in which we ask you to identify where in London this picture was taken and what it’s of. If you think you can identify this picture, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!

Well done to Jameson Tucker and Sean Dennis, both of whom identified this correctly as the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens. The gallery, which features modern and contemporary art, was created in 1970 and is housed in a tea pavilion which dates from the 1930s. Every summer since the year 2000, the Serpentine – named for the body of water which, strictly speaking, just runs through Hyde Park (although the section in Kensington Gardens is also often referred to in the same way) – has had a different temporary pavilion, designed by a leading architect, set up outside.

The Serpentine Gallery is to be expanded this year with the creation of the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in The Magazine building in the gardens. Located only a short distance from the existing gallery, the new premises is being designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid and is named after Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler, whose foundation made the project possible through the largest single donation ever received by the Serpentine Gallery.

WHERE: Kensington Gardens; WHEN: Daily 10am to 6pm; COST: Free; WEBSITE: www.serpentinegallery.org.

Around London – Family festival to celebrate Diamond Jubilee; British Library publishes world’s first detective novel; and, Closing Ceremony Celebration Concert tickets on sale Friday…

• Sainsbury’s and Royal Parks have unveiled plans for a two day festival in Hyde Park – billed as the largest family festival London has ever seen – celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee over the June holiday weekend. The Jubilee Family Festival will feature live music and entertainment with one of the key highlights of each day being the finale – a 70 minute Disney concert specially created to celebrate the Jubilee. Other activities will include appearances by celebrity performers and dancer and children’s TV characters as well as equestrian events and motorcycle displays. There will also be a range of “Commonwealth-inspired” acts, food and drink supplied by Sainsbury’s and giant screens showing Jubilee-related events taking place elsewhere. There will be capacity for 50,000 ticket holders on each of the two days – Saturday, 2nd June, and Sunday, 3rd June. The event will run from 10.30am to 7pm on each day. Tickets – priced at £20 an adult/£12.50 for under 16s (children under three free) or £52 for a family of two adults and two children - go on sale at 9am tomorrow (Friday 24 February) from Ticketmaster – www.ticketmaster.co.uk or call 0844 847 1661 (+44 161 385 3211 from outside the UK) - or Seetickets -  www.seetickets.com  or call 0844 858 6760 (+44 1142 249 784 from outside the UK). In addition, from 28th March, Sainsbury’s customers who spend £60 in store will be able to enter a daily ballot for free family tickets. For more information on the festival, see www.sainsburys.co.uk/jubilee.

• The British Library has republished what many believe was the first detective novel ever published. The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Felix was originally serialised between 1862 and 1863 in the magazine Once a Week (pictured right – image courtesy of the British Library). It was also published as a single volume in 1863, meaning it predates both Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone (1868) and Emile Gaboriau’s first Monsieur Lecoq novel, L’Affaire Lerouge, but has not been available commercially since. The story is presented in the form of diary entries, family letters, chemical analysis reports, and interviews with witnesses as well as a crime scene map and follows an insurance investigator, Ralph Henderson, as he builds a case against the sinister Baron ‘R___’ whom he suspects of murdering his wife for life insurance. Available from the British Library bookshop - www.bl.uk/shop.

• Tickets for the BT London Live Closing Ceremony Celebration Concert go on sale tomorrow. The open air event will feature headline act Blur and will be held in Hyde Park on Sunday, 12th August, the day of the Olympic Games Closing Ceremony. Other artists performing at the concert will include The Specials and New Order, and giant screens in the park will show highlights of the Closing Ceremony. Another concert will be held in Hyde Park on Friday July 27, coinciding with the Games’ Opening Ceremony (headline acts and ticket prices will be announced shortly – BT customers will have 48 hour priority access for tickets for both concerts via www.bt.com/londonlive. Tickets for the August concert, priced at £55 (plus booking fee) go on sale at 9am on Friday via www.btlondonlive.com.

Around London – Dickens’ supernatural leanings at the British Library; Art Fund looking to relocate Shop in a Bottle; HMS Belfast closed; and, Winter Wonderland returns to Hyde Park…

• Next year – 7th February to be precise – marks 200 years since the birth of celebrated 19th century novelist Charles Dickens and to mark the bicentenary, London institutions are among those across the country organising a raft of exhibitions under the banner of Dickens 2012. First up for us is a new exhibition launched this week at the British Library. A Hankering after Ghosts: Charles Dickens and the Supernatural explores the way in which Dickens used supernatural phenomena in his works (remember the ghosts of A Christmas Carol anyone?), while at the same time placing them in the context of the “scientific, technological and philosophical debates of his time”. The exhibition includes a letter from Dickens to his wife Catherine written in 1853 (this alludes to a disagreement which arose between them after Catherine became jealous of the attention Dickens was paying to another lady; he apparently used mesmerism to treat Catherine’s “nervous condition”), an article in an 1858 Household Words magazine in which Dickens questions the motivation of the spirits who supposedly tapped out messages to spiritualists, and, a 1821 copy of The Terrific Register: or, record of crimes, judgements, providences and calamities, a publication which was one of Dickens’ favorite reads as a youth. There is a range of accompanying events including talks by Dickens’ biographer Claire Tomalin (author of Charles Dickens: A Life) and John Bowen, author of Other Dickens: Pickwick to Chuzzlewit. Admission is free. Runs until 4th March. For more, see www.bl.uk. Image: Courtesy of British Library

• The Art Fund has launched an appeal to have Yinka Shonibare’s Ship in a Bottle, currently sitting atop Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth, relocated to a permanant home outside the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. The fund, which has kick started the campaign with a £50,000 grant, needs £362,500 to buy the work – a scaled down replica of Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory – which has been on display in Trafalgar Square since May, 2010, but is due to be removed in January next year. The replica work features 80 cannon and 37 sails, set as on a day of battle, and is made out of materials including oak, hardwood, brass, twine and canvas. For more, see www.artfund.org/ship/.

• The historic ship HMS Belfast, moored on the Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, has been closed until further notice after a section of gangway which provides access to the ship collapsed earlier this week. Two contractors received minor injuries in the collapse and staff and visitors were evacuated by boat. The HMS Belfast is described as the most significant surviving Royal Navy warship from World War II and later served in places like Korea. It contains extensive displays on what life was like aboard the vessel. Keep on eye on www.iwm.org.uk for more information.

• Now On: Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. Hyde Park’s annual festival of all things Christmas is on again and this year’s festive offerings include, an ice rink, circus, giant observation wheel, rides and the chance for younger people to visit Santa Land as well as a plethora of opportunities to purchase presents at the Angels Christmas Market and warm-up with some of the fare available at eateries including the Bavarian Village, English Food Fair, and Spiegel Saloon. Winter Wonderland is free to enter and open between 10am and 10pm daily. Runs until 3rd January. For more, see www.hydeparkwinterwonderland.com.

The Royal Parks – 2. Kensington Gardens

Once the western part of King Henry VIII’s hunting ground, the 111 hectare Kensington Gardens is now primarily associated with the palace which sits at its heart.

The origins of the gardens go back to 1689 when King William III and Queen Mary II decided to make Kensington Palace (which, as we mentioned last week, was formerly known as Nottingham House) their home. Queen Mary oversaw the creation of a formal, Dutch-style garden featuring hedges and flower beds.

Queen Anne expanded the gardens after King William III’s death and commissioned landscape designers Henry Wise and George Loudon to create an English-style garden. She also ordered the construction of the Orangery which still stands to the north of the palace complex today (and houses a fine restaurant).

But it’s to Queen Caroline, wife of King George II, to whom Kensington Gardens owe its current form for it was she who in 1728, scythed off 300 acres of Hyde Park and employed Charles Bridgeman to create a new garden. His designs included damming the Westbourne stream to create the Long Water and the adjoining Serpentine in Hyde Park. He was also responsible for the creation of the Round Pond in front of the palace and, a landscape-history making move, used a ditch known as a ha-ha to separate the gardens from Hyde Park.

By the reign of King Charles II, the gardens had become fashionable for the elite to stroll in with the Broad Walk a popular promenade. But the gardens gradually fell from favour – a move exacerbated when Queen Victoria, who was born in Kensington Palace, moved to live at Buckingham Palace.

There were some changes made during the era, however. They included the creation of the ornamental Italian water gardens at the northern end of the Long Water and the Albert Memorial (see our previous story here) on the southern edge of the gardens.

Other highlights there today include the Peter Pan statue (see our earlier story on this), the Serpentine Gallery (with, in summer, a temporary pavilion), the Peter Pan-themed Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground (opened in 2000), and the Elfin Oak, a stump which originally came from Richmond Park and is carved with tiny figures of woodland animals and fairies.

There’s also a statue of Queen Victoria directly outside of Kensington Palace which, interestingly, was sculpted by her daughter Princess Louise in celebration 50 years of her reign, as well as statues of Edward Jenner, creator of the small pox vaccine, and John Hanning Speke, discoverer of the Nile.

Other facilities include a cafe and, next to the magazine, an allotment.

WHERE: Kensington Gardens (nearest tube stations are that of Queensway, Bayswater, Lancaster Gate, South Kensington, Gloucester Road and Kensington High Street); WHEN: 6am to dusk; COST: Free; WEBSITE: http://www.royalparks.gov.uk/Kensington-Gardens.aspx

PICTURE: Courtesy of Royal Parks. © Giles Barnard

The Royal Parks – 1. Hyde Park

This year marks the 160th anniversary of the transfer of the care of the Royal Parks to the government (meaning the public was freely able to enjoy access for the first time). To celebrate, over the next weeks we’ll be taking a look at the history of each of them. First up is the 142 hectare Hyde Park, perhaps the most famous of all eight Royal Parks.

Formerly owned by Westminster Abbey, King Henry VIII seized the land in 1536 for use as a private hunting ground. He had it enclosed with fences and the Westbourne Stream, which ran through the park – it now runs underground – dammed.

It remained the king and queen’s private domain (Queen Elizabeth I is known to have reviewed troops there) until King James I appointed a ranger to look after the park and permitted limited access to certain members of the nobility in the early 17th century.

The park’s landscaping remained largely unaltered until the accession of King Charles I – he created what is known as the ‘ring’ – a circular track where members of the royal court could drive their carriages. In 1637, he also opened the park to the public (less than 30 years later, in 1665, it proved a popular place for campers fleeing the Great Plague in London).

During the ensuring Civil War, the Parliamentarians created forts in the park to help defend the city against the Royalists – some evidence of their work still remains in the raised bank next to Park Lane.

After King William III and Queen Mary II moved their court to Kensington Palace (formerly Nottingham House) in the late 1600s, they had 300 oil lamps installed along what we know as “Rotten Row’ – the first artificially lit road in the country – to enable them and their court to travel safely between the palace and Westminster.

The natural looking Serpentine – the great, 11.34 hectare, lake in the middle of Hyde Park (pictured) – was created in the 1730s on the orders of Queen Caroline, wife of King George II, as part of extensive work she had carried out there. It was Queen Caroline who also divided off what we now know as Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park, separating the two with a ha-ha (a ditch).

The next major changes occurred in the 1820s when King George IV employed architect and garden designer Decimus Burton to create the monumental park entrance at Hyde Park Corner – the screen still remains in its original position while Wellington Arch was moved from a parallel position to where it now stands (see our previous posts for more on that). Burton also designed a new railing fence and several lodges and gates for the park. A bridge across the Serpentine, meanwhile, was built at about the same time along with a new road, West Carriage Drive, formally separating Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.

While the basic layout of the park has been largely unchanged since, there have been some additions – among them, the establishment in 1872 of Speaker’s Corner as a place to speak your mind in the north-east corner of the park (near Marble Arch), the creation in 1930 of the Lido for bathing in warm weather, and, more recently, the building of the Diana, Princess of Wales’ Memorial Fountain (unveiled in 2004), and the 7 July Memorial (unveiled in July 2009).

Other sculptures in the park include Isis (designed by Simon Gudgeon, located on the south side of the Serpentine), the Boy and Dolphin Fountain (designed by Alexander Munro, it stands in the Rose Garden), and a monumental statue of Achilles, a memorial to the Duke of Wellington designed by Richard Westmacott, near Park Lane. There are also memorials to the Holocaust, Queen Caroline, and the Cavalry as well as a Norwegian War Memorial and a mosaic marking the site of the Reformer’s Tree (the tree was burnt down during the Reform League Riots of 1866).

The park has been integral part of any national celebrations for centuries – in 1814 a fireworks display there marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Great Exhibition – with the vast Crystal Palace – was held there in 1851 and in 1977 a Silver Jubilee Exhibition was held marking Queen Elizabeth II’s 25 year reign. Cannons are fire there on June 2nd to mark the Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and on 10th June for the Duke of Edinburgh’s birthday.

Facilities these days include rowing and pedal boats, tennis courts, deck chairs, a restaurant and cafe (the latter based in the Lido) and, of course, some Boris bikes. There is a heritage walk through the park which can be downloaded from the Royal Parks website.

WHERE: Hyde Park (nearest tube stations are that of Marble Arch, Hyde Park Corner, Lancaster Gate, Knightsbridge and South Kensington); WHEN: 5am to midnight; COST: Free; WEBSITE: www.royalparks.gov.uk/Hyde-Park.aspx?page=main

PICTURE: Courtesy of Royal Parks. © Indusfoto Ltd 

The Royal Wedding – London’s royal reception venue

Following the wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey on Friday, the now married happy couple will head in a carriage via a processional route down The Mall to Buckingham Palace.

There, they will enjoy a champagne reception with 600 guests hosted by the Queen before, at 1.30pm, appearing on the balcony of the palace to wave to the crowds and watch an aircraft flypast expected to include a Lancaster, Spitfire, Hurricane, two Typhoons and two Tornados.

Buckingham Palace, which has served as the official London residence of the reigning monarch since 1837, has a long tradition of hosting royal events. Then much smaller and known as Buckingham House, the property was built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1705.

It passed into royal hands when it was bought by King George III in 1761 for his wife, Queen Charlotte, to use as a family home located conveniently close to St James’s Palace where many court functions were held.

The house was extensively remodelled in 1762 and again, this time on the orders of King George IV, in the 1820s (after initially wanting to use it, like his father, as a family home, the king decided after the works had started to instead transform it into a palace, created to the designs of architect John Nash).

When King George IV died in 1830, his brother King William IV ordered the works to be continued albeit with a new architect, Edward Blore (the spiralling costs of Nash’s work are said to have cost him the contract). The king himself never lived in the house – even offering at at one stage as a seat for Parliament after the Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire in 1834 – and it wasn’t until the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 that the palace became the sovereign’s official residence.

Further works were subsequently needed to ensure there was adequate accommodations for the Queen’s family and it was during these works that the monumental Marble Arch – designed as the centrepiece of the palace’s courtyard – was moved away to its present location on the north-eastern corner of Hyde Park.

The palace, which now boasts 775 rooms including 19 staterooms, has since been the site of numerous royal wedding receptions – it was on the balcony  where Queen Elizabeth II and Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, greeted crowds on 20th November, 1947, after their wedding in Westminster Abbey and, similarly, where Prince William’s parents, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, held a reception before greeting crowds on 29th July, 1981, after their ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Buckingham Palace was also the location for Queen Victoria’s wedding breakfast following the ceremony in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace on 10th February, 1840.

Around London – South Bank marks 60 years since the Festival of Britain; Royal wedding cakes; and, a new cable car for London…

• South Bank is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Festival of Britain with a four month series of events. The official celebrations kicked off yesterday and will run until early September. Highlights of the celebrations include the Museum of 1951 – a temporary museum located in Royal Festival Hall featuring exhibits relating to the 1951 festival, themed weekends including next weekend’s ‘London in Love’, featuring performances by Billy Bragg, and a Festival of Britain-inspired ‘Meltdown’ curated by Ray Davies of The Kinks (runs from 10th to 19th June). The original Festival of Britain was opened on 3rd May, 1951, with the intention of developing a sense of “recovery and progress” among the British in the aftermath of World War II and marked the centenary of the 1851 Great Exhibition. The South Bank Exhibition was at the heart of what were national celebrations and was attended by more than eight million people. For more information on what’s happening, see www.southbankcentre.co.uk.

• Historic royal wedding cakes have been recreated this Easter weekend  in an exhibition celebrating the lead-up to this Friday’s Royal Wedding. The English Heritage-event Let Them Eat Cake, which is being held at Wellington Arch near Hyde Park Corner, features a “four-and-20 blackbirds pie” of the sort King Henry VIII gave to his new wife Anne Boleyn as well as recreations of Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s wedding cake and that of Queen Elizabeth II. The event, which is sponsored by Tate & Lyle Sugars, involves some of Britain’s leading bakers. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/events/765107/. See Exploring London this week for more on the upcoming Royal Wedding.

• The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, confirmed this week that work will begin on a new cable car to cross the Thames River in East London this summer. The 34 gondola cable car will stretch for 1.1 kilometres, connecting Greenwich Peninsula and the O2 on the river’s south bank with Royal Victoria Docks and the ExCel centre on the north and carrying up to 2,500 people every hour. Construction will be carried out by a consortium of firms led by Mace – the company currently building the Shard Tower – and it is hoped it will be completed before next year’s Olympics.

Around London – Giant screens for the Royal Wedding; Graham Greene plaque; and, getting down and dirty at the Wellcome Collection…

• The Royal Wedding will be broadcast live on giant screens at Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park under plans announced by the Department for Media, Culture & Sport, the Mayor of London and The Royal Parks. The live coverage will be free to watch from 7am on 29th April and guests are advised to get there early. A “celebration wheel” has also been set up in Hyde Park – fees apply. See www.london.gov.uk/royalwedding.

• A blue plaque has been unveiled at the house where novelist Graham Greene wrote Brighton Rock. Greene, who died in 1991, lived at 14 Clapham Common North Side in London from 1935 to 1940 and while here wrote several works – these also included the Cannes’ winning collaboration with Carol Reed, The Third Man, and The Power and the Glory – before he joined the forerunner to intellgience service MI6 in 1941. Graham moved out of the house at Clapham Common after it was hit by a bomb in October 1940 (the Queen Anne-style property has since been rebuilt). No-one was in the house at the time – Greene’s wife Vivien and his children had been evacuated to Sussex while Greene himself was staying in Bloomsbury with his lover Dorothy Glover when the bomb hit. The English Heritage plaque was unveiled by Greene’s daughter, Caroline Bourget.

• On Now: Dirt, the Filthy Reality of Everyday Life. Get down amongst it at the Wellcome Collection where they’re running an innovative exhibition on dirt and humanity’s at times desperate efforts to keep it under control. The exhibition features 200 artefacts including visual art, scientific artefacts, film and literature with highlights including the earliest sketches of bacteria, John Snow’s ‘ghost map’ showing the spread of cholera in London in the 1850s, and a bejewelled broom. The exhibition features six different locations – from a street in Victorian London to a New York landfill site in 2030 – from where to begin the exhibition. Runs until 31st August. See www.wellcomecollection.org.