[This is the seventh in a series of articles describing some
of the most interesting and attractive places in London]
I here describe two London sights to which visitors would
have flocked in the 19th and 17th centuries. Both are now
rather taken for granted, if not actually neglected, but they are of
substantial historic and aesthetic interest.
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| The Albert Memorial, Kensington Gardens |
Prince Albert, beloved husband and Consort to Queen Victoria,
died of typhus at Windsor Castle in 1861 at the early age of 42. The
grief-stricken Queen naturally wanted Albert’s life to be commemorated. South
Kensington, whose museums Albert had sponsored and nearby Hyde Park, site of
the Great Exhibition of 1851, which Albert had energetically promoted, was an
eminently appropriate location for a memorial.
With money raised by private donations The Albert Memorial was completed in 1872 to designs by the
distinguished ecclesiastical architect George Gilbert Scott, a prominent Gothic
Revivalist. Scott’s design is in essence a shrine, technically a ciborium, with its lavish canopy
decorated with precious stones – it has also been likened to a bejewelled
reliquary. But the Memorial is not a religious building despite Victoria’s
pious hero-worship. Albert’s statue has him in gold leaf seated with the
catalogue of the Great Exhibition on his earnest lap.
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| A golden Albert with his catalogue |
His patronage of the
arts is reflected in the friezes below him depicting famous writers, poets, composers,
architects and scientists. Surrounding him are sculpted figures representing
agriculture, commerce, manufacture and engineering and at each corner of the
Memorial are allegorical figures representing Asia (with a camel) the Americas
(with a bison) Asia (with an elephant) and Europe (with a bull).
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| Frieze honouring great writers |
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| Figures representing the Americas |
The Memorial’s canopy is richly embellished with yet more
statues of the great, with mosaics, with depictions of Virtues and with lavish
and glittering use of enamel, agate, onyx, jasper, cornelian, marble and
granite. This tremendous confection is crowned by a golden cross.
19th century taste is not our taste and the
Memorial is certainly over the top but one admires the boundless
self-confidence of Victorian Britain: rightly government funds were recently
found for a comprehensive renovation. Surely the tearful but revered Widow of
Windsor would have swelled with pride and gratitude.
…………………………………….
The Monument at
Fish Street Hill in the City is a memorial too but it remembers a grim event,
the Great Fire of London of 1666. Breaking out at a baker’s shop in Pudding
Lane, the subsequent fire-storm was an immense conflagration consuming 13,200
houses, 87 churches, many civic buildings and destroying timber-beamed Old St
Paul’s Cathedral. Some 70,000 of the City’s population of 80,000 lost their
homes. Casualties were allegedly light (only 6 dead) but modern experts believe
many more perished, their charred remains unrecognisable as was seen in Dresden
and Nagasaki. This terrible event was vividly recorded in the renowned Diaries
of Samuel Pepys: “a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame”. The Fire was
eventually halted at Pie Corner after gunpowder blew up houses to make a
firebreak.
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| The Great Fire of London 1666 |
Charles II vigorously set about rebuilding the City,
financed by a levy on coal. Sir Christopher Wren was appointed architect of
this vast project, assisted by his lieutenants Nicholas Hawksmoor and Robert
Hooke. The many new City churches and the magnificent new Baroque St Paul’s are
their splendid legacy. There were to be no Parisian boulevards in the City as
the City Fathers insisted on the retention of most of the original medieval
street plan.
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| The Monument by day |
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| The Monument and The Shard by night |
The Monument, designed by Wren and Hooke, was opened in 1678 and was the tallest structure in London for some years. It comprises a fluted Doric column in Portland stone crowned by an elaborate gilded urn containing a flame. Its height of 202 feet is the exact distance from its base to the seat of the Fire in Pudding Lane. Fine views of the City reward those who have the energy to climb the winding 311 steps up to the viewing platform.
Sculptures on the base depict the fight against the flames
and a lengthy inscription describes the Fire. Quite falsely, in 1681 the
authorities in their Protestant fanaticism added the words “but Popish frenzy,
which wrought such horrors is not yet quenched”. Catholics had nothing to do
with starting the Fire and the matchless poet Alexander Pope, himself a
Catholic, protested against this libel:
Where London's column,
pointing at the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.
Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.
It was not until 1830 that the offending words were
chiselled off.
Wren’s rebuilding of the City was a remarkable feat and the
Monument honours his work.
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| Wren, Genius behind the rebuilding of the City |
SMD
4.06.2014
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2014
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