This is a list of public art in Whitehall , a district in the City of Westminster, London.
Whitehall is at the centre of the highest concentration of memorials in the City of Westminster, in which 47% of the total number of such works in the borough are located. [1] It includes the eponymous street of Whitehall and Horse Guards Parade, both important ceremonial spaces, and Horse Guards Road, which forms its western boundary with St James's Park. The area's monuments are mainly military in character, foremost among them being the Cenotaph, which is the focal point of the national Remembrance Sunday commemorations held each year. [2]
Map of public art in Whitehall
Image | Title / subject | Location and coordinates | Date | Artist / designer | Architect / other | Type | Designation | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
More images | Bust of Charles I | Banqueting House | 1800 | c.Anon. | Bust | Grade I | One of three busts of Charles I found in a builder's yard in Fulham by Hedley Hope-Nicholson, Secretary of the Society of King Charles the Martyr, in 1945. [3] Installed here in 1950. [4] The plaque below is inscribed HIS MAJESTY KING CHARLES I/ PASSED THROUGH THIS HALL AND/ OUT OF A WINDOW NEARLY OVER/ THIS TABLET TO THE SCAFFOLD/ IN WHITEHALL WHERE HE WAS/ BEHEADED ON 20TH JANUARY 1649. | |
More images | Memorial to the Siege of Cádiz | Horse Guards Road 51°30′15″N0°07′38″W / 51.5042°N 0.1273°W | 1814 (base) | Robert Shipster | — | Memorial | Grade II | Unveiled 12 August 1816. [5] A French mortar from the siege, presented by Spain in thanks for Wellington's lifting of the siege. The mortar is mounted on a figure of the mythological monster Geryon and (at the back) his two-headed dog Orthrus. [6] The support was made by the Carriage Department of the Royal Arsenal to Shipster's design. [7] |
Bust of Charles Dickens | The Red Lion, Parliament Street | 1900 | Anon. | Gardiner & Theobald | Architectural sculpture | Grade II | Commemorates an occasion in Dickens's boyhood when he visited this pub and asked for a glass of "genuine stunning" ale; he was given one, together with a kiss, by the landlady. [8] [9] | |
More images | Statue of Prince George, Duke of Cambridge | Whitehall, opposite the Old War Office Building 51°30′19″N0°07′36″W / 51.505243°N 0.126614°W | 1907 | Adrian Jones | John Belcher | Equestrian statue | Grade II | Unveiled 15 June 1907. [10] Jones was appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order for this work. [11] In 2012 the sword was broken off by a man who had stripped naked and mounted the statue in what was described as a "psychotic episode". [12] |
More images | Archway | King Charles Street | 1908 | Paul Raphael Montford and William Silver Frith | John Brydon and Henry Tanner | Architectural sculpture | Grade II* | Montford sculpted the relief panel on the attic storey facing Parliament Street, and the groups of Old Age and Youth flanking it; Frith produced the allegorical figures in the spandrels on both sides of the structure. [13] |
More images | Statue of Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire | Junction of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall 51°30′17″N0°07′34″W / 51.5048°N 0.1262°W | 1909–1910 | Herbert Hampton | Howard Ince | Statue | Grade II | Unveiled 14 February 1911. The statue of the Duke in his Garter robes stands on a pedestal of Darley Dale stone. Edward VII, as a close friend of the Duke, took a personal interest in the memorial, asking Hampton to bring the modello to Buckingham Palace for his inspection. [14] |
More images | Statue of Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive | King Charles Street, facing Horse Guards Road 51°30′08″N0°07′45″W / 51.502311°N 0.129242°W | 1912 | John Tweed | George Somers Clarke | Statue | Grade II | Erected 1912 in the gardens of Gwydyr House; moved to present site in 1916. The statue was the brainchild of Lord Curzon, who felt that Clive had been insufficiently honoured for his role in establishing the British Empire in India. A marble version was also created for erection in Calcutta. [15] |
More images | Cenotaph | Whitehall 51°30′10″N0°07′34″W / 51.502711°N 0.126107°W | 1920 | Francis Derwent Wood | Edwin Lutyens | Memorial | Grade I | Unveiled 11 November (Armistice Day) 1920 by George V. Lutyens's temporary cenotaph in wood and plaster, designed and built in two weeks in July 1919, proved so popular that this permanent version of the same design was erected the following year. It commemorates the dead of both world wars. [16] |
More images | Statue of Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley | Horse Guards Road 51°30′18″N0°07′39″W / 51.5050°N 0.1275°W | 1920 | William Goscombe John | Richard Allison | Equestrian statue | Grade II | Unveiled 25 June 1920 by the Duke of Connaught. Goscombe John was awarded this commission on the strength of his equestrian bronze of Lord Tredegar in Cathays Park, Cardiff. Trafalgar Square was initially considered as the location for this statue. It was stored for safekeeping at Berkhamsted Castle, Hertfordshire, between 1941 and 1949. [17] |
More images | Statue of Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts | Horse Guards Road 51°30′16″N0°07′39″W / 51.5045°N 0.1274°W | 1924 | Henry Poole after Harry Bates | Richard Allison | Equestrian statue | Grade II | Unveiled 30 May 1924 by the Duke of Connaught. [18] A scaled-down replica of Bates's 30-foot high bronze of Lord Roberts, erected in Calcutta in 1896. Another, earlier replica by Poole is in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow. [19] |
More images | Royal Naval Division War Memorial | Horse Guards Road 51°30′19″N0°07′44″W / 51.5054°N 0.1290°W | 1925 | Eric Broadbentand F. J. Wilcoxson | Edwin Lutyens | Fountain with obelisk | Grade II* | Unveiled 25 April 1925 by Winston Churchill. [20] Inscribed with words from the poem "1914. III. The Dead" by Rupert Brooke, who served in the RND. [21] Put into storage 1939, re-erected outside the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich in 1959, and returned to its original site in 2003. [20] |
More images | Statue of Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener | Horse Guards Road 51°30′14″N0°07′41″W / 51.5039°N 0.1280°W | 1926 | John Tweed | — | Statue | Grade II | Unveiled 9 June 1926 by the Prince of Wales. [22] Set against a stone screen abutting the garden wall of 10 Downing Street. [23] A larger national memorial to Kitchener, the tomb designed by William Reid Dick, had been erected in St Paul's Cathedral the previous year. [22] |
More images | Guards Division War Memorial | Horse Guards Parade 51°30′16″N0°07′46″W / 51.504502°N 0.12954°W | 1926 | Gilbert Ledward | H. Chalton Bradshaw | Memorial with sculpture | Grade I | Unveiled 16 October 1926. The bronze figures represent five individual soldiers from the Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards; they were cast from captured German guns. After it sustained bomb damage in the Blitz, Ledward asked that some of the "honourable scars of war" be left on the memorial. [24] |
More images | Statue of Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig | Whitehall 51°30′15″N0°07′35″W / 51.5043°N 0.1263°W | 1937 | Alfred Frank Hardiman | Stephen Rowland Pierce | Architectural sculpture | Grade II* | Unveiled 10 November 1937. The statue aroused great controversy, comparable even with the reaction to Jacob Epstein's early works. The depiction of the horse was deemed to be unnatural; Country Life noted that its legs were in the position for urinating. [25] |
More images | Earth and Water | Horse Guards Avenue, outside Ministry of Defence Main Building | 1949–1952 | Charles Wheeler | Vincent Harris | Architectural sculpture | Grade I | Carved from 40 tons of Portland stone. Corresponding sculptures of Fire and Air (completing the set of four elements) were originally intended for the building's southern entrance, but were vetoed by the Treasury. [26] |
Agriculture and Sea and Fisheries | 3 Whitehall Place | 1952 | c.James Woodford | C. E. Mee | Architectural sculpture | Grade II* | [27] | |
More images | Statue of Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein | Whitehall, outside the Ministry of Defence 51°30′12″N0°07′33″W / 51.503364°N 0.125809°W | 1980 | Oscar Nemon | — | Statue | — | Unveiled 6 June 1980 by the Queen Mother. The texture of the lower parts of the statue was achieved by mixing old plaster from the studio floor with fresh plaster at the modelling stage. Another cast stands in Brussels, [28] at a traffic intersection called Montgomery Square. |
More images | Statue of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma | Mountbatten Green, off Horse Guards Road 51°30′13″N0°07′43″W / 51.503607°N 0.12866°W | 1983 | Franta Belsky | Charles Pollard(Lettering by David Kindersley) | Statue | — | Unveiled 2 November 1983 by Elizabeth II. The statue stands on a pedestal at the centre of a low stepped pyramid, a scheme much reduced in ambition from Belsky's competition-winning design which included fountains representing the four seas. The financial constraints and "a very restrictive brief" resulted in a finished work which dissatisfied the sculptor. [29] |
More images | Statue of William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim | Whitehall, outside the Ministry of Defence 51°30′14″N0°07′33″W / 51.503803°N 0.125853°W | 1990 | Ivor Roberts-Jones | David Kindersley (lettering) | Statue | — | Unveiled 28 April 1990 by Elizabeth II. Roberts-Jones had fought in the Burma Campaign of World War II, in which Slim was a commander. [30] |
More images | Statue of Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke | Whitehall, outside the Ministry of Defence 51°30′13″N0°07′33″W / 51.503587°N 0.125815°W | 1993 | Ivor Roberts-Jones | David Kindersley (lettering) | Statue | — | Unveiled 25 May 1993 by Elizabeth II. For the installation of this, the last of the statues of Field Marshals on what was formerly called Raleigh Green, the area was re-configured by the landscape architects RMJM and the statue of Sir Walter Raleigh removed to Greenwich. [31] |
More images | Memorial to the Brigade of Gurkhas | Horse Guards Avenue 51°30′18″N0°07′30″W / 51.505098°N 0.125007°W | 1997 | Philip Jackson after Richard Reginald Goulden | Cecil Denny Highton | Statue | — | Unveiled 3 December 1997 by Elizabeth II. Modelled on a 1924 sculpture by Goulden in the Foreign Office. The Hong Kong Handover transferred the Gurkhas' headquarters to the United Kingdom, which until that point had no memorial to the brigade. [32] |
More images | Royal Tank Regiment Memorial | Whitehall Court 51°30′22″N0°07′28″W / 51.506129°N 0.124442°W | 2000 | Vivien Mallock after George Henry Paulin | Christopher Rainsfordfor HOK International | Sculptural group | — | Unveiled 13 June 2000 by Elizabeth II. The group depicts the five-man crew of a World War II-era Comet tank; it is an enlarged version of Paulin's statuette of 1953 in the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset. Mallock's husband had been an officer in the RTR in the 1960s. [33] |
More images | Monument to the Women of World War II | Whitehall 51°30′13″N0°07′34″W / 51.5035°N 0.1262°W | 2005 | John W. Mills | Giles Quarme | Plinth with reliefs | — | Unveiled 9 July 2005 by Elizabeth II. Around the plinth are reliefs of servicewomen's clothing and protective costumes, appearing as if they have been hung up at the end of a working day. [34] |
More images | Memorial to the 2002 Bali bombings | Horse Guards Road, rear of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office 51°30′09″N0°07′46″W / 51.502410°N 0.129572°W | 2006 | Martin Cook | Gary Breeze | Memorial | — | Unveiled 12 October 2006, the fourth anniversary of the bombings, by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. The memorial consists of a granite globe carved with 202 doves—one for each individual killed in the bombings—and a wall inscribed with their names. [35] |
Image | Title / subject | Location and coordinates | Date | Artist / designer | Architect / other | Type | Designation | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
America | Whitehall façade (spandrel on first storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead | Relief | [36] | ||||
Australasia | Whitehall façade (spandrel on first storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead | Relief | [37] | ||||
Africa | Whitehall façade (spandrel on first storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead | Relief | [38] | ||||
Asia | Whitehall façade (spandrel on first storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead | Relief | [39] | ||||
Europe | Whitehall façade (spandrel on first storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead | Relief | [40] | ||||
Captain James Cook | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
Sir John Franklin | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
William Wilberforce | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
David Livingstone | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
Sir Francis Drake | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
Elizabeth I | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
Alfred the Great | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
Edward the Confessor , an Angel and Christianity | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette and surrounding spandrels on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
Æthelberht of Wessex | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
Adam Smith | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
Sinclair | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
Sir Francis Bacon | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
Sir Joshua Reynolds | Whitehall façade (roundel in lunette on second storey) | Henry Hugh Armstead or John Birnie Philip | Relief | |||||
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon | North façade | 1937 | William Reid Dick | Edwin Lutyens | Relief | [41] |
Image | Title / subject | Location and coordinates | Date | Artist / designer | Architect / other | Type | Designation | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sorrow of Peace and Winged Messenger of Peace | Whitehall façade | Alfred Drury | William Young and Clyde Young | [42] | ||||
Horrors of War and Dignity of War | Whitehall façade | Alfred Drury | William Young and Clyde Young | [42] | ||||
Truth and Justice | Whitehall Place façade | Alfred Drury | William Young and Clyde Young | [42] | ||||
Victory and Fame | Horse Guards Avenue façade | Alfred Drury | William Young and Clyde Young | [42] |
Parliament Square is a square at the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Laid out in the 19th century, it features a large open green area in the centre with trees to its west, and it contains twelve statues of statesmen and other notable individuals.
Henry Hugh Armstead was an English sculptor and illustrator, influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites.
John Birnie Philip was a nineteenth-century English sculptor. Much of his work was carried out for the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott.
Henry Weekes was an English sculptor, best known for his portraiture. He was among the most successful British sculptors of the mid-Victorian period.
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