Memorials, Sculpture and Architecture Walk 14th Jan 2012
Posted on Sunday 15 January 2012 by Marion Houghton
Fantastic bright cold and sunny weather greeted the large group that assembled at Embankment Tube and we set out at once to savour the statues of the great and good in Embankment Gardens. Taking in the controversial Battle of Britain memorial and Boudicca on her chariot we pressed on through the tourists past Cromwell and Richard I to the Victoria Tower gardens to see the work of a Victorian ‘rogue’ gothic architect in the colourful shape of the Buxton fountain. Back through Parliament Square for a well earned coffee in the Methodist Central Hall and a spontaneous guided tour of the building. Then up Whitehall for the Cenotaph, Foreign Office, Haig and sundry others and through Horseguards to see “the best equestrian statue ever”. After lunch the memorials came thick and fast down the Mall, up the Duke of York steps for more Boys Own heroes and onwards to finish triumphantly at Hyde Park corner in the gathering gloom of a January afternoon. I didn’t count but it must have been 20-25 individual artworks in all in the space of about 2 miles. They were in turn sad, pompous, eccentric, vainglorious, heroic, dignified, restrained and some frankly naff – all of them gave us something to think about.
