• The British Library has paid £9 million for a 7th century text, the St Cuthbert Gospel, which is also the oldest intact European book. The acquisition follows the library’s most successful fund-raising effort ever – it included a £4.5 million grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The book – a Gospel of John bound in beautifully tooled red leather – was produced in north-east England in the late 7th century and was placed in the saint’s coffin after his death on the Isle of Lindisfarne in 698. It was retrieved when the coffin was opened at Durham Cathedral in 1104. The Gospel is on display in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery at the library in St Pancras and following a conservation review, it is anticipated it will soon be displayed with the pages open for the first time. There will be a public event celebrating the acquisition on 15th May. For more, see www.bl.uk/whatson/events/may12/index.html.
• London this week marked 100 days until the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. This included unveiling the latest installation of the Olympic rings – made of 20,000 plants the 50 metre long rings are located in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the city’s west and can be seen from planes on the Heathrow flight path. The organising committee also announced the Red Arrows aerobatic display team will perform a nine-ship flypast in ‘big battle’ formation on the day of the Opening Ceremony (27th July) and stated that the games motto will be ‘Inspire a Generation’. For more, see www.london2012.com.
• The Museum of London’s archaeological archive – known as the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC) – is officially the largest in the world according to Guinness World Records. The archive contains more than five million artefacts and the records of almost 8,500 excavations dating back to 1830. Items in the archive include shoes dating back to Roman times, a 200-year-old set of false teeth, ‘witching bottles’ including one with human hair and toenails, and coffin plates from London’s cemeteries. The world record has been recorded as part of World Record London, a series of world record breaking events being held in the run-up to the Olympics. Others have included the Faberge Big Egg Hunt.
• Thousands of people are expected to take part in the Virgin London Marathon this Sunday. The 26.2 mile route starts in Blackheath, passes through Woolwich and Greenwich and crosses the Thames at Tower Bridge before looping around the east end of London, through Canary Wharf, and the west along The Highway (formerly known as The Ratcliffe Highway) and Embankment to Parliament Square, Birdcage Walk and finally to Buckingham Palace. The first London marathon was run in 1981. For more, see www.virginlondonmarathon.com.
• On Now: Turner Inspired – In the Light of Claude. The first major presentation of 17th century artist Claude Gellée’s influence on the English romantic artist J M W Turner, the exhibition focuses on Claude-inspired themes which run through Turner’s work including “the evocation of light and air in landscape, the effect of light upon water and his often radical reworking of contemporary scenes”. The display includes works from large scale oils on canvas through to leaves from Turner’s pocket sketchbooks. Interestingly, the exhibition also explores the story behind the so-called Turner Bequest – that on his death, Turner linked himself to Claude forever by leaving the National Gallery two pictures - Dido building Carthage (1815) and Sun rising through Vapour: Fishermen cleaning and selling Fish (before 1807) – on condition that they were hung between two pictures by Claude, Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba (1648) and Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca (1648). Runs until 5th June. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.
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LondonLife – New Year’s Day Parade 2012
January 3, 2012
More than 8,500 performers – including those pictured celebrating the launch of London’s Olympic year – took part in this year’s New Year’s Day Parade in London, the wettest in the event’s 26 year history. But the wild weather didn’t put off the more than 500,000 people who turned out to watch the parade as it made its way from the starting point outside the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly via Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square. As many as 19 London boroughs submitted entries in a competition based on the themes of the Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee with Merton (its entry ‘From Horsepower To High Speed Rail’ featured animatronics) and the City of Westminster (its entry ‘Peter Pan’ involved a giant galleon and the The Sylvia Young Theatre School) announced as joint winners. For more on the parade, see www.londonparade.co.uk.
IMAGE: Courtesy of www.londonparade.co.uk
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Where is it? #12
November 25, 2011
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 reckon you know the answer, leave a comment below. We’ll reveal the answer early next week. Good luck!
And the answer is…this is part of the decorative facade of the Middlesex Guildhall which stands opposite the Houses of Parliament in Parliament Square. The building, which dates from 1912-13 and stands on the former site of the Westminster Abbey Sanctuary Tower and Old Belfry (where fugitives from the law could seek sanctuary), is now home to the Supreme Court and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
Designed by architect James Gibson, it is the latest in a series of buildings which stood on the site which have served as courthouses and the headquarters of the Middlesex County Council (the first Middlesex Guildhall was built here in 1889). Described by Nikolaus Pevsner as “art nouveau Gothic”, it features a series of medieval-looking decorative friezes and sculptures by Henry Charles Fehr.
The image pictured above shows one of the friezes – this one of the Duke of Northumberland offering the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey the Crown (known as the “Nine Days Queen”, she was later imprisoned and eventually executed on 12th February, 1554). Others show King John handing the Magna Carta to the English barons and the granting of the charter of Westminster Abbey.
It was refurbished for use of the Supreme Court in 2007 and the court has occupied it since its creation in 2009.
Interestingly, according to Ed Glinert of The London Compendium, it was here that courts martial were held of those suspected of giving aid to the enemy during World War I.
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LondonLife – The visit of the American President…
May 25, 2011
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.
Famous Londoners – Sir Robert Peel
March 22, 2011
Credited as the creator of the Metropolitan Police Force, Sir Robert Peel was a two-time Prime Minister who oversaw landmark social reforms in arenas ranging from the workplace and prisons to trade.
Born on 5th February, 1788, into a wealthy Lancashire family (his father, also Robert Peel, was a cotton mill owner), Sir Robert was educated at Harrow and Oxford before entering parliament as part of the Duke of Wellington’s Tory government in 1809.
He married in 1820 and he and his wife Julia Floyd, the youngest daughter of General Sir John Floyd, had five sons and two daughters.
Having served in roles including under-secretary for wars and colonies and chief secretary for Ireland during his early political life, Sir Robert was appointed Home Secretary in 1822. It was during his subsequent time in the office that he introduced many reforms related to prisons and law and order – including reducing the number of crimes punishable by death by about 100 – and at the same time ordered the foundation of the Metropolitan Police Force (the terms ‘Bobby’ and ‘Peeler’ are both references to his name).
Having later spent time on the Opposition benches, he became Prime Minister in 1834 after Earl Grey’s Whig Government was dismissed by King William IV. It was during this time that he issued the famous Tamworth Manifesto, seen as a defining moment in the creation of the Conservative Party. But frustrated at the minority government, he resigned a year later.
It wasn’t until 1841 that Sir Robert returned to government, again becoming Prime Minister. Subsequent years saw him overseeing the introduction of laws forbidding the employment of women and children underground, limiting working hours for women and children in factories, and, after a long fight, repealing the trade-restricting Corn Laws – a party-splitting act which was apparently a bid to free up more food for the Irish population then in the midst of a devastating famine.
Sir Robert resigned from politics in 1846 and died four years later on 2nd July, 1850, after he was injured falling from a horse in Constitution Hill, London. He was buried at his home, Drayton Manor, near Tamworth in Staffordshire.
The city’s most famous statue of Sir Robert stands in Parliament Square, outside the Palace of Westminster.
Curious London memorials – 6. The Buxton Memorial Fountain
February 9, 2011
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
