THERE IS A LOVELY walled garden, open to the public, in Sunbury-on-Thames. We were introduced to it today (20^th August 2023) by our friends, Sue and Imtiaz, who live in Richmond. The large garden is well-tended and awash with flowers including a wonderful crop of late flowering roses. In the centre of the square garden, there is a carved stone lion on a plinth.

The lion commemorates the deaths of Captain Charles Frederick Lendy on the 15^th of January 1894, aged 30. And his brother Edward August William Lendy on the 23^rd of December 1893, aged 25. Charles died in Bulawayo (now in Zimbabwe) during the Matabele Campaign. And Edward, who was a captain in the Sherwood Foresters and Inspector General of the Sierra Leone Frontier Police, died in Warina (in Sierra Leone). According to a website (https://victorianweb.org/sculpture/warmonuments/9.html), he died as a result of ‘friendly fire’, and Charles died “from the effect of the Matabele campaign”, whatever that might mean. According to another website (www.photosunbury.com/lendymemorial4.htm), Charles

“… collapsed and died of peritonitis on 15th January 1894. Elsewhere, another interpretation places him at the Tati Hotel (in Botswana) where his illness was attributed to a heavy bout of drinking and eating.”

The brothers were the only sons of French born Major Auguste Frederic Lendy (1826-1889), a Royalist, who came from France as an exile, and settled in Sunbury-on-Thames. He ran his Practical Military College in nearby Twickenham, which prepared young men for entry into the major British military academies. He also wrote some books about warfare, and encouraged the British to be well prepared for military encounters. His sons’ military careers, though prematurely ended, were a credit to his teaching and philosophy.

Both brothers were in Africa to assist in the preservation and growth of Queen Victoria’s British Empire. One of them died because of friendly fire, and it seems that the other died of illness rather than during fighting. I doubt that their father would have been too pleased to know that neither of them had died whilst attempting something demanding bravery.

Apart from the Lendy memorial, there is a café in the walled garden, and next to that there is a small gallery. The gallery contains a fascinating embroidery on which most of the old houses in Sunbury-on-Thames are depicted beautifully and in great detail.

In addition to the walled garden and its contents, Sunbury-on-Thames has many old houses and a magnificent church (St Marys), which was designed by the Victorian architect Samuel Sanders Teulon (1812-1873), son of a French Huguenot, and built in 1857. I am very grateful that our friends introduced us to this charming place on the Thames.