Tag Archives: sculpture

Where gold flowers grow

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THE COUNTY OF ESSEX is immediately east of Greater London. Parts of it are heavily built-up and not particularly attractive. The rest of the county is both varied and delightful to explore. So near to London, many parts of it retain rural characteristics, which one might not believe existed so near to the huge city of London. Recently, we visited Goldhanger, a small village close to the River Blackwater’s estuary.

Sculpture by Horace Crawshay Frost in the parish church in Goldhanger, Essex

The village near Maldon (famous for its salt) has been known as ‘Goldanger’, ‘Goldangra’, and ‘Goldangre’. According to Maura Benham (1913-1994) in her history of Goldhanger, the place’s name has always had ‘gold’ as its first part. The gold probably referred to a yellow flower. The second part might either originate in the word ‘hanger’ meaning hill, or ‘anger’ meaning grassland. It is not known exactly when the settlement, which is at the head of a small creek, was first established but there is archaeological evidence suggesting it was already inhabited in the Iron Age around 500BC. One reason for the village’s existence might have been for making salt from seawater. The local saltworks came to an end in the early 19th century.

The heart of the small village is The Square, where Church, Fish, and Head Streets meet. We ate a hearty, tasty lunch in the Chequers Inn. This was listed as the only alehouse in the village in a document dated 1769. It might have been used by smugglers long ago. The building housing it has been used as a pub for at least 250 years. Prior to that it was built about 250 years earlier as a residence. Constructed in stages, the earliest part was probably built in 1500 (http://past.goldhanger.org.uk/Chequers.htm#:~:text=The%20Chequers%20has%20been%20an,landowner%20as%20his%20private%20ressidence.) Inside, the pub, built on several different levels, with an abundance of ageing timber beams, has an authentic ‘olde worlde’ atmosphere and appearance.

The pub is the southern neighbour of the attractive St Peter’s parish church. According to the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, the church originated in the 11th century and some evidence of this can still be observed. The south aisle was built in the 14th century and the west tower in the 15th. Pevsner makes special mention of a tomb chest with a black stone cover plate which has indentations where several brasses used to be. This stands in the South Chapel, which was built by the local Higham family, whose farm was in Goldhanger, in the early 1500s.  The chest tomb contains the remains of Thomas Heigham who died in 1531,

Although the church has many other interesting features to enjoy, I will mention only one of them. Located close to the Higham tomb, I noticed a curious wooden carving, a sculpture depicting two forearms with hands clutching or gripping something I could not identify. This was sculpted by Crawshay Frost. According to a short history of the church, this artwork was dated “1960s”. Whether that means it was placed in the church then, or created then, is not stated. I had not encountered the name Crawshay Frost before visiting Goldhanger. A fascinating web page (http://past.goldhanger.org.uk/Frost.htm) described a notable inhabitant of the village, Horace Crawshay Frost (1897-1964), who lived in Fish Street between 1926 and 1964.

Horace graduated in History at the University of Oxford. During WW1, in which he suffered injuries (both physical and psychological), he took many photographs, some of which are now kept in London’s Imperial War Museum. After leaving the army in the early 1920s, he taught at a school in Brentwood (Essex). Soon after that, he moved to Goldhanger, where he gave private tuition to the children of the curate. In Goldhanger:

“… he involved himself in local history, archaeology, art, sculpture, music, ornithology, horticulture, photography and writing, and also established a reputation as a local philanthropist of extreme intelligent. Whether it was because he was sufficiently wealthy, or because he was too ill, or both, it appears that for most of the time he lived in the village he did not engaged in any kind of full time employment, but rather he spent his time enthusiastically pursuing various hobbies and pastimes, and paid others to help him with them.”

On the basis of this information provided on the webpage, I feel that it was Horace, who produced the sculpture I saw in the church. Further evidence of his interest in wood carving comes from a book, “Celebration”, the autobiography of Graham David Smith. He recalled visiting Horace in Goldhanger in 1955, during the time of the so-called Mau-Mau Uprising in Kenya. Smith wrote:

“We had come to work and earn money. Mr Frost had a perfect job for us. Laid out in front of the open kitchen door were several mahogany beams ordered through local woodyards and a large satchel of finely honed steel chisels from Harrod’s. Mr Frost, deeply disturbed by any stories about war, had come by what he thought would be a perfect solution of that awful Mau-Mau business in Kenya: art to soothe the savage breast. To get the Africans started, he had sketched out the wood scenes and motifs he thought conducive to a peaceful and pastoral life.”

On our way from the church back to the car, I noticed three pumps on Head Street, near to the Chequers pub. Two of them, standing side by side, were old-fashioned petrol pups bearing the ‘Pratts’ logo. These well cared for objects were installed in about the 1930s, but maybe originally in Church Street. Opposite these and next to the village car park, there is another pump. This was installed to supply water.

The water pump is above a water well that was dug in the hot summer of 1921. According to a notice affixed to the hand operated pumping mechanism, the well is 70 feet deep “with a further 100 feet of artesian bore, making 170 feet in all.”  In 2012, to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, Goldhanger Parish Council restored both pump and well to working condition.

Once again, a brief outing to rural Essex, albeit a small part of it, has proved to be most interesting.

Sherlock Holmes and Bela Bartok in South Kensington

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With his back to the former entrance to the Piccadilly line station at South Kensington and standing at the corner of Pelham Street and Old Brompton Road, is a sculpture depicting the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881-1945). He visited Britain at least sixteen times, often staying in London. To save money, he stayed with his friend the diplomat Sir Duncan Wilson at least twelve times between 1922 and 1937. Wilson owned a house (designed by Basevi) in South Kensington, number 7 Sydney Place, which is just south of Onslow Square. The sculpture, depicting the composer standing on what looks like a pile of fallen leaves, was created by Imre Varga (1923-2019) and unveiled on a traffic island in 2004. This, Varga’s fourth sculpture of the composer, was moved to its present location in 2011.

Bartok statue in South Kensington

Moving northwards, possibly passing the residential Onslow Squares, we reach Queensbury Place, which connects Harrington Road with the section of Cromwell Road that runs past the Natural History Museum. A 20th century brick and concrete building on Harrington Road is home to part of a French school, the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle de Londres. This educational institution for both French- and English-speaking children was created in 1915. After several changes of location, it moved into a building facing the Natural History Museum on Cromwell Road in about 1958. In 1980. the school was named after Charles de Gaulle.

At the east corner of Harrington Road and Queensbury Place, there is a French library. The southern half of the east side of Queensbury Place is occupied by the French Institute, whose building has an imaginatively decorated brickwork façade. This building houses cultural facilities including a library and an auditorium, which hosts the Ciné Lumière. There is also a café. It was designed by Patrice Bonnet (1879-1964) in the Art Deco style and ready for use in 1939. The edifice contains artworks by Sonia Delaunay and Auguste Rodin.

Facing the French Institute is number 16 Queensbury Place, home of The College of Psychic Studies. Founded in 1884, this organisation does the following (according to its website http://www.collegeofpsychicstudies.co.uk):

“The College of Psychic Studies offers courses, workshops and talks on all aspects of healing, self-development, spirituality, and psychic and mediumship training.”

The College moved into its current premises in 1925. A plaque attached to its building commemorates the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). Apart from being a prolific author, he was President of the College from 1926 until 1930. The College’s website reveals much about his interest in spiritualism. He:

“… published his two volume History of Spiritualism and his novel, The Land of Mist, while he was the College’s President … [he] was tireless in helping the bereaved and spreading the word of spiritualism including urging people to join the Alliance and read the latest news in Light.”

Unlike Sherlock Holmes’s fictional address in Baker Street, this townhouse in South Kensington has a real connection with Holmes, at least with his creator.

The blind beggar and his dog

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AN ELIZABETH AND AN ELISABETH figured in my mother’s life during my childhood years. One was the cookery writer Elizabeth David (1913-1992), whose recipes my mother followed faithfully. The other was the sculptor Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993). Although she never met the cookery writer, she was a good friend of the sculptor. Between 1954 and 1962, Frink taught sculpture at St Martins School of Art, which was then located in Charing Cross Road. During that period, my mother, a sculptor, worked in the sculpture workshops in St Martins. It was probably then that she and Elisabeth became friends. ‘Liz Frink’, as we knew her, visited our home in Hampstead Garden Suburb as a dinner guest regularly and I remember meeting her on these occasions. My memory of these meetings was revived when visiting London’s East End this month (March 2022).

We were walking eastwards along Roman Road from Globe Road towards the Regents Canal when we passed the Cranbrook Estate, a collection of six rather bleak looking blocks of flats. The buildings are arranged around Mace Street, which is in the form of a figure of eight. The estate was built on land which had formerly accommodated a factory, workshops, and terraced houses. The blocks were completed by 1963. They were designed by Douglas Bailey and Berthold Lubetkin (1901-1990). Born in Georgia (Russian Empire), Lubetkin lived in Russia during and after the 1917 Revolution. He studied in Moscow and Leningrad (now St Petersburg), where he became influenced by Constructivist architectural principles. In the 1920s, he practised architecture in Paris, and by 1931, he had emigrated from the USSR to Great Britain, where he mixed with the artistic community then based in Hampstead (see my book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09R2WRK92). In London, he founded Tecton, an architectural practice. He is particularly well known for his Penguin Pool at London Zoo and his luxurious block of flats in Highgate: High Point. The flats he designed on the Cranbrook Estate were for social housing.

Various other buildings and features have been added to the estate. One of these is a triangular garden surrounded on two sides by rows of single storey houses (bungalows for the elderly). In the middle of this, the Tate Garden, there is a pond with a fountain. Perched on what looks a bit like a diving board made of concrete discs piled one above another, there is a sculpture of a man and a dog. As soon as I saw this, I was reminded of Elisabeth Frink’s sculptures. Later, when I investigated it, I discovered that it is a sculpture by her. Entitled “Blind Beggar and his Dog” and cast in bronze, Liz Frink created this in 1958, which was when she and my mother must have already become friends. A sculpture depicting the Blind Beggar and His Dog, who figure in a tale that gained popularity in Tudor times, was commissioned in 1957 by Bethnal Green Council. Incidentally, there is a Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel Road, where in 1966, the gangster Ronnie Kray shot dead a member of a rival gang, George Cornell.

We had visited the area near the Cranbrook Estate to see a small exhibition. As it had not taken long to view it and it was a warm sunny day, we took the opportunity to roam around the area. Had we not done that, I doubt that I would have become aware of this sculpture by an old friend of my mother.

Hepworth and Mondrian in Salisbury

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IN THE 1930s, both the sculptor Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) and the painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) lived in Hampstead (north London). Hepworth and her two successive husbands lived and worked in the Mall Studios near Parkhill Road. Mondrian lived at 60 Parkhill Road. According to one of Hepworth’s biographers, Eleanor Clayton, writing in “Barbara Hepworth. Art and Life”:

“The beginnings of a friendship between Hepworth and Mondrian can be seen in her letters to Nicholson at the time: ‘so glad Mondrian said nice things about me & work. Goodness U did learn a LOT.’”

Visitors to the cloisters of Salisbury Cathedral can see an abstract sculpture at the southeast corner of the grassy space enclosed by them. At first sight, it looks like a sculptural version of a painting that might have been created by Mondrian. It is a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth called “Construction (Crucifixion)”. This bronze artwork was created in 1966, and then donated by the artist to the Cathedral in 1969. It is according to a notice by the sculpture:

“… Hepworth’s response to Christ’s Crucifixion …”

The interpretation of the piece’s symbolism is far from simple, as a website text (https://www.salisbury.anglican.org/news/the-crucifixion) explained:

“What we see are 3 verticals linked by a single horizontal bar, and by 2 other horizontals at different heights.

A large circle, attached to the intersection of the horizontal and vertical lines, is painted citrus yellow on one side and blue on the other. At the bottom of the central vertical, we see red on its own beneath the blue side of the circle, and red and white beneath the yellow. On the yellow side, a metal hoop encircles the point of crossing.

Hepworth wrote that she found it ‘very serene and quiet’, but that doesn’t have to guide what we make of this piece. We could see the yellow circle as the sun, the blue circle as the moon, the red paint as blood, the 2 verticals on either side as the crosses of the 2 men crucified with Jesus.

Or we could contemplate its hardness, weight, size (12ft tall and 2-and-a-half tons) and stark simplicity. We could seek to find meaning here, or we could stand before it and try to imagine the experience of meaningless horror and sheer emptiness which brutality of any kind must impose on those who witness it. For us, it need not seem ‘serene and quiet’ as for Hepworth. On the contrary this cross might confront us with the tragic lack of meaning which has so often afflicted humanity since the cross of Christ was first set up.”

Whatever its symbolism, Hepworth’s piece is attractive and looks good surrounded by the gothic architecture of the cloisters. Above all, its appearance immediately brings to mind thoughts about thw works of art created by Mondrian. One website (https://artistscollectingsociety.org/news/barbara-hepworth-sculpture-returns-salisbury-cathedral-permanent-display/) describes the piece as “Construction (Crucifixion): Homage to Mondrian” and then continued as follows:

“The sculpture is thought to explore the duality of Jesus Christ in its use of geometric symbols and features bold colours borrowed from the palette of ACS member Piet Mondrian, referenced in the artwork title.”

I was very pleased to see this work once again in March 2022, soon after publishing my book about Hampstead, past and present, in which I have included a substantial chapter about the modern artists who lived and worked in the area between the two World Wars. There is a good chance that Hepworth’s encounters with Mondrian and his work whilst they were both in Hampstead is reflected in the appearance of this abstract Crucifix, which stands in the cloisters at Salisbury.

PS My book, “Beneath a Wide Sky: Hampstead and its Environs” is available from Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09R2WRK92).

A magnet for modernists: Hampstead

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YESTERDAY, 22nd February 2022, we saw an exhibition at the Pace Gallery in central London’s Hanover Square. The gallery stands facing a conventional sculptural depiction of William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806), created in bronze by Sir Francis Chantrey (1781-1841). I have been reading a great deal about Pitt in a wonderful, recently published biography of King George III by Andrew Roberts. What is being shown in the Pace gallery until the 12th of March 2022 is far from purely representational, as the exhibition’s title, “Creating Abstraction”, suggests.

By Barbara Hepworth

The exhibition contains works by seven female artists: Carla Accardi (1924-2014), Leonor Antunes (b. 1972), Yto Barrada (b. 1971), Saloua Raouda Choucair (1916-2017), Kim Lim (1936-1997), Louise Nevelson (1899-1988), and Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975). Most of these names were new to me apart from Nevelson and Hepworth. The latter interests me greatly not only because one of her sculptures is near the gallery on the southeast corner of John Lewis’s Oxford Street department store, but also because for a while she lived and worked in an area that fascinates me: Hampstead.

There are several of Hepworth’s works on display at Pace. One of them, “Two Forms”, was created in 1934. By then, she had been living and working in Hampstead for about seven years. For the first few years, she was living with her first husband, the sculptor John Skeaping, and then after 1931 with her second, the painter Ben Nicolson. In 1939, she left Hampstead.

Hepworth was not the only ‘modern artist’ living in Hampstead in the 1930s. I have described the active and highly productive artistic scene in the area in my new book “Beneath a Wide Sky: Hampstead and its Environs”. I have also explained why it was that artists like Hepworth, her contemporary Henry Moore, and many others were attracted to Hampstead between the two World Wars. Their reasons for congregating in the area differed somewhat from those of earlier artists, such as Constable and Romney, who were attracted to the place many years before. Read my book to discover why Hampstead easily rivalled Montmartre in Paris as a ‘mecca’ for artistic activity. The book is available as a paperback and a Kindle e-book from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09R2WRK92

Noguchi on show in London

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AT FIRST GLANCE, the lower floor exhibition space at the Barbican art gallery in London resembles the lighting department of a furniture store such as Habitat. It is full of lighting units with Japanese-style paper and bamboo shades. After a moment, you will notice that these lighting units are not run-of-the-mill illuminations; they are interestingly shaped works of art lit up from within. These lamps are part of an exhibition of the artistic creations of Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). Born in Los Angeles, he was the son of a Japanese father and an Irish American mother. The first 13 years of his life were spent in Japan, where he began learning carpentry whilst helping his mother building their family house. From these early skills, it was not long before he embarked on what was to become a highly productive creative career, making works from a wide variety of materials from wood and stone to metals and plastics and … you name it.

Noguchi studied sculpture at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School in New York City. In 1927, he was given a grant to travel to Paris. It was there that he was apprenticed to the Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brâncuși (1856-1957), who introduced him to abstraction. After learning much from the great sculptor in Paris, Noguchi abandoned pure abstraction and moved towards depicting the living world. However, his experiences working with Brâncuși influenced his artistic output for the rest of his life. After Paris, Noguchi travelled extensively, learning about techniques and philosophies, especially Chinese and Japanese. In 1929, he first met the architect and inventor Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), whose ideas about science and technology chimed with his. In the exhibition, there is a shiny chrome-plated bronze bust he made of Buckminster Fuller in 1929. There are also a couple of models he created in collaboration with Buckminster Fuller.  Noguchi’s interest in science was not only expressed in sculptures but also in stage settings for ballet performances choreographed by Ruth Page and for performances by Martha Graham.

During WW2, although it was not required for him to enter one of the camps where the Americans ‘cooped up’ potential Japanese enemy aliens – Japanese who lived in the USA – Noguchi volunteered to be confined in a camp in Arizona. By doing so, his aim was to create an arts programme that would ease the lives of those confined in the camp. The barren landscape surrounding his camp proved to be yet another influence on his creative output.

Amongst the many exhibits in the Barbican’s show, there are, in addition to the lighting units, several pieces of furniture designed by Noguchi. One of these is a triangular plate glass tabletop supported by two interlocking timber supports. I have seen this elegant item for sale in upmarket furniture shops, but until I saw the exhibition, I had no idea it had been designed by Noguchi as long ago as 1944. It is still being made today.  The wonderful variety of lighting sculptures, which at first reminded me of lampshades that were trendy in students’ rooms in the 1970s, are examples of ‘Akari’. Noguchi began creating them in the early 1950s, and despite their fragile nature, they are still in good condition now. One of the gallery invigilators told us that the translucent paper used to construct these lamps is made from mulberry tree bark. Known as ‘Washi’, this handmade paper can also be made from the bark of some other tree species.

As with other exhibitions at the Barbican gallery, the artworks are well-displayed and beautifully lit. If you go to this exhibition, you should not miss the video film in which Noguchi talks about his life and art very eloquently. And while you are watching it, you can sit on stools and a bench Noguchi designed. Prior to visiting this show, I had heard of Noguchi and seen a few of his works. The exhibition, which continues to the 23rd of January 2022, has truly opened my eyes to what a magnificent artist he was.

Unveiled at last

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THE CORONET CINEMA in London’s Notting Hill Gate was renamed The Print Room a few years ago. Once a cinema, it is now a theatre. Like other theatres, it was closed for a long time during 2020 and early 2021 because of the covid19 lockdowns. During this prolonged period of closures, a statue was placed upon the dome that stands above the theatre’s main entrance. In my book “Walking West London” (freely available as a pdf file from https://adamyamey.co.uk/walking-west-london/), I wrote about the Coronet/Print Room as follows:

“… the former ‘Coronet Cinema’. This was designed as a theatre by WGR Sprague (1863-1933) who designed many of London’s theatres. It opened in 1908. By 1923, the Coronet had become a cinema, and remained so for many years. Apart from the screen, the fittings inside the auditorium were those of an unmodernised Edwardian theatre. Until smoking was banned in all public places, the Coronet was one of the last cinemas in London which permitted smoking (but only in the balcony seating). Between 2004 and 2014, the Coronet doubled up as both a branch of the Kensington Temple Church and, also, as a cinema. And, in 2015 the Coronet reverted to being used as a theatre, now called ‘The Print Room’. This sensitively restored theatre puts on interesting plays, which are well-produced. The bar, which is located beneath the stage in what was once the stalls area of the cinema, is worth visiting to see its ever changing, tastefully quirky décor. In 2020, the theatre was redecorated and a statue by the British sculptor Gavin Turk (born 1967) has been placed upon the dome above the building’s main entrance. The new artwork replaces one that was removed many decades ago.”

When I wrote this, the sculpture was enshrouded in a tarpaulin. Only recently, the covering has been removed and the sculpture can be seen in all its glory. The artwork depicts the artist Gavin Turk posing as the famous artist Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) just as he appears his sculptural in the Annenberg Courtyard of Burlington House in the grounds of the Royal Academy. When seen from the east, the new sculpture looks like a painter holding a palette and his brush. However, when seen from the west, the viewer might be led to believe that the statue is of a man holding a gun. I feel that the sculpture is a great addition to the landscape of Notting Hill Gate, but a bit too high above ground level to be able to see it easily with the unaided eye.

Aphrodite and a spring

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LONDON’S PARKS ARE filled with surprises of historical interest. The Terrace Gardens overlooking a bend in the River Thames at Richmond are no exception. A short path leads from a larger one to a cave in the side of a well vegetated slope. The entrance to the cave is topped with a semi-circular arch and its is closed by a locked iron gate. There is little to be seen inside the small cave. The pathway leading to the entrance is lined by barrel shaped concrete blocks

An informative plaque at the start of the path explains the history of this small, rather well-concealed cave, now known as Spring Well. From this we learn that the cave, formerly believed to have been an icehouse, was part of Richmond Wells. The latter were:

“…a place of entertainment from 1690 to 1750. In 1755, the buildings were demolished and replaced by Cardigan House as a residence for the sixth Earl of Cardigan.” (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1001551).

The Wells were closed because local residents felt that they attracted rowdy and badly behaved visitors.

Cardigan House was purchased by John Willis (1820-1899) in the 19th century. Willis was the proprietor of a shipping company, John Willis & Sons of London, which owned several clippers. One of these boats, a tea clipper, can still be seen in its full glory downstream from Richmond at Greenwich: The Cutty Sark, visited by many tourists. The barrel shaped concrete blocks near the entrance to the cave are possibly, according to the information panel nearby, moulded from barrels carried by the Cutty Sark. I like the idea, but who knows whether this was really the case after such a long time.

Near to the now disused spring, another surprise awaits the visitor. It is a sculpture of a voluptuous naked woman seated on a dolphin. Carved in Portland stone in 1952 by Allan Howe, she depicts the goddess Aphrodite (‘Venus’ in Latin). From her seat on the dolphin, the goddess has a wonderful view of the Thames far below her. When she was unveiled, many locals regarded her as being in ‘bad taste’, but she has survived the test of time and is perfectly acceptable nowadays.  A statue of Aphrodite might not be regarded as a great surprise in a park, but the local people’s name for here, ‘Bulbous Betty’, might be.

A bridge near Regents Park

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PARKWAY LEADS GENTLY uphill from Camden Town Underground station to a short road called Gloucester Gate, which leads to the Outer Circle that runs around Regents Park. Much of Gloucester Terrace runs along what looks like a bridge, which is lined on its north side by red-coloured, decorative stone parapet.

St Pancras, Regents Park, London

The bridge traverses a grassy dell that does not appear to contain any kind of watercourse. I wondered why such an elaborate bridge had been built to traverse what appears to be merely a grassy hollow. Well, when it was built, it did cross a waterway, the Cumberland Market Branch of the Regent’s Canal  known as ‘The Cumberland Arm’ (www.londonslostrivers.com/cumberland-arm.html). This waterway, built in 1816, ran for about half a mile from the Regents Canal to a basin near Euston Station, running for most of its length parallel to Albany Street. During WW2, the Cumberland Arm, which had up until then been used to transport freight, was used to supply water to firefighting appliances. By the end of the war, the canal had been filled with rubble from buildings destroyed by bombing and then covered with topsoil. All that remains of the Cumberland Arm is a short blind-ending stretch of water near Regents Park Road, on which there is a large floating Chinese restaurant and a few moorings for narrow boats.

The Gloucester Gate bridge with its decorative parapet and elaborate cast-iron lampstands also includes two interesting memorials. One of these relates to the fact that the bridge was constructed by the St Pancras Vestry, the then local authority governing the area (www.andrewwhitehead.net/blog/the-most-pointless-bridge-in-london). There is a bronze bas-relief depicting the martyrdom of St Pancras. It was a gift of William Thornton and sculpted by the Italian Ceccardo Egidio Fucigna (c1836-1884), who died in London. St Pancras (c289-303/4) was born a Roman citizen. He converted to Christianity and was beheaded for his beliefs when he was 14 years old (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancras_of_Rome). The bronze relief on Gloucester Gate bridge shows a young man being mauled by an animal, possibly a lion. Why this motif was chosen when the saint was beheaded puzzles me.

Near the St Pancras panel, also on the bridge, there is an old but elaborate drinking fountain. A metal plate attached to it has faded letters that read:

“Saint Pancras Middlesex.

This fountain and works connected therewith were presented to the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain Association on the (?) day of August 1878 by

Matilda

Richard Kent esq. Junior Churchwarden 1878.

The figure … cast in bronze was designed by Joseph Durham ARA.” (https://victorianweb.org/sculpture/durham/1c.html)

The fountain, known as ‘The Matilda Fountain’, is part of a miniature cave made with granite boulders. A sculpture of a milkmaid stands above the cave. At her feet, there is a wooden pail with two handles. The girl with a rich crop of hair on her head is depicted shielding her eyes from the sun with her right hand as she stares into the distance. Cast in bronze, the female figure and the pail were sculpted by Joseph Durham (1814-1877). Matilda might possibly have been Richard Kent’s wife, but the plaque does not specify this. The sculpture is not unique; several other copies of it, all by Durham, exist. One of these, dated 1867 and called “At the Spring/Early Morn”, can be seen in Blackburn’s Town Hall (https://victorianweb.org/sculpture/durham/1d.html).

Today, the bridge is redundant since the canal was filled-in long ago. However, it is used by many people walking to and from Regents Park and its zoo and a steady stream of vehicular traffic crosses it. Although it has outlived its original purpose, the bridge serves as a reminder of a once important element of London’s continuously evolving transportation system.