Length | 248 m (814 ft) [1] |
---|---|
Location | Westminster, London, United Kingdom |
Postal code | SW1 |
Nearest train station | Charing Cross Charing Cross |
Coordinates | 51°30′24″N0°07′56″W / 51.506764°N 0.132159°W |
North end | Lower Regent Street |
South end | Duke of York Steps and The Mall |
Construction | |
Inauguration | 1815 |
Other | |
Known for |
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Waterloo Place is a short but broad street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster, London. It forms a plaza-like space and is a southern extension of Lower Regent Street. Towards the northern end it is crossed by Pall Mall and at the southern end, by Carlton House Terrace, where it ends at the Duke of York Steps which lead down to The Mall. Located on the Place are several 19th and 20th century monuments to royalty, explorers and military people.
Included in the plan for London prepared by architect John Nash in 1814 was a broad plaza intended as a space for monuments, [2] It would be the southern end of a prestigious new thoroughfare, later known as Regent Street, [3] and would create a grand open area in front of Carlton House, the London residence of the Prince Regent, which stood on the south side of Pall Mall. The site had previously been occupied by St James's Market, [4] and several "low and mean houses" had to be demolished to make way for the development. [5] Construction was financed and managed by the property developer, James Burton. The first leases on the new buildings in the street were taken out in 1815, [4] by which time it was thought appropriate to name it after the British victory at the Battle of Waterloo which had taken place in June of that year, perhaps as a military counterpart to Trafalgar Square. [6]
Residences in Waterloo Place quickly became fashionable due to the proximity to Carlton House. Charlotte Lennox, Duchess of Richmond lived at Number 7, while Lady Elizabeth Egremont, the estranged wife and former mistress of George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, lived at Number 4. [4] Following a fire in 1824, Carlton House was demolished and part of the vacant plot on the western corner of Pall Mall and Waterloo Place was offered by Parliament to the Athenaeum Club who were in temporary premises nearby. Accordingly, in 1826, Decimus Burton, the son of the developer, was commissioned to design an elegant building for the club. Parliament also offered the opposite site to the United Service Club with the specification that both buildings should be of a uniform design. However, the latter club were able to get agreement to some modifications that the Athenaeum were unwilling to follow, so that the two finished buildings were dissimilar. [7]
The focal point of Waterloo Place is the 120 feet (37 m) Duke of York Column, commemorating Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the commander-in-chief of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. It stands above a flight of steps leading down to The Mall in a space between the Western and Eastern terraces of the Carleton House Terrace, designed by Nash and Decimus Burton and built between 1827 and 1832. The column itself was designed by Benjamin Dean Wyatt and was completed in 1832.
Waterloo Place later became a space for memorialising non-royal heroism, due to it being Crown land and therefore administered by the Commissioners of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues, who were more amenable to public monuments than the Commissioners of Works and Public Buildings that controlled many other open spaces in the capital. The first of these was the Guards Crimean War Memorial, sculpted by John Bell and completed in 1861, which occupies a central position in the place. On the western edge, Matthew Noble's statue of Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin was unveiled in 1866, followed the next year by Carlo Marochetti's memorial to Crimean War hero, Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde on the eastern side. In 1874, another Crimean general, John Fox Burgoyne was commemorated in a statue by Joseph Edgar Boehm, who also executed another to a Viceroy of India, John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence completed in 1885.
In 1914, John Henry Foley's 1866 statue of Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea, the Secretary at War during the Crimean War, was moved from outside the War Office in Whitehall to stand close to the Guards memorial in Waterloo Place. It was joined in the following year by a new statue of Florence Nightingale by Arthur George Walker, making a group of three Crimean memorials in the centre of the roadway. Also in 1915, a statue of the Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott, sculpted by his widow, Kathleen, was erected next to that of Lord Clyde. In 1924, an equestrian statue of King Edward VII by Sir Edgar Bertram Mackennal was unveiled, also in the centre of the Place. [8] The last addition was a memorial by Leslie Johnson to Sir Keith Park, known as "the defender of London" during the Battle of Britain, which was installed in 2010 next to Scott and Franklin. [9]
John Nash was one of the foremost British architects of the Georgian and Regency eras, during which he was responsible for the design, in the neoclassical and picturesque styles, of many important areas of London. His designs were financed by the Prince Regent and by the era's most successful property developer, James Burton. Nash also collaborated extensively with Burton's son, Decimus Burton.
Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George, the Prince Regent and was laid out under the direction of the architect John Nash and James Burton. It runs from Waterloo Place in St James's at the southern end, through Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Circus, to All Souls Church. From there Langham Place and Portland Place continue the route to Regent's Park.
Regent's Park is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies 410 acres (170 ha) in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden. In addition to its large central parkland and ornamental lake, it contains various structures and organizations both public and private, generally on its periphery, including Regent's University and London Zoo.
Hyde Park Corner is between Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Mayfair in London, England. It primarily refers to a major road junction at the southeastern corner of Hyde Park, that was originally planned by architect Decimus Burton. The junction includes a broad green-space roundabout in its centre, which is now the setting for Burton's triumphal Wellington Arch.
Decimus Burton was one of the foremost English architects and landscapers of the 19th century. He was the foremost Victorian architect in the Roman revival, Greek revival, Georgian neoclassical and Regency styles. He was a founding fellow and vice-president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and from 1840 architect to the Royal Botanic Society, and an early member of the Athenaeum Club, London, whose clubhouse he designed and which the company of his father, James Burton, the pre-eminent Georgian London property developer, built.
Pall Mall is a street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster, Central London. It connects St James's Street to Trafalgar Square and is a section of the regional A4 road. The street's name is derived from pall-mall, a ball game played there during the 17th century, which in turn is derived from the Italian pallamaglio, literally "ball-mallet".
St James's is a central district in the City of Westminster, London, forming part of the West End. The area was once part of the northwestern gardens and parks of St. James's Palace. During the Restoration in the 17th century, the area was developed as a residential location for the British aristocracy, and around the 19th century was the focus of the development of their gentlemen's clubs. Once part of the parish of St Martin in the Fields, much of it formed the parish of St James from 1685 to 1922. Since the Second World War the area has transitioned from residential to commercial use.
The Duke of York Column is a monument in London, England, to Prince Frederick, Duke of York, the second son of King George III. The designer was Benjamin Dean Wyatt. It is sited where a purposefully wide endpoint of Regent Street, known as Waterloo Place and Gardens, meets The Mall, between the two terraces of Carlton House Terrace and their tree-lined squares. The three very wide flights of steps down to The Mall adjoining are known as the Duke of York Steps. The column was completed in December 1832, and the statue of the Duke of York, by Sir Richard Westmacott, was raised on 10 April 1834.
The Wellington Arch, also known as the Constitution Arch or (originally) as the Green Park Arch, is a Grade I-listed triumphal arch by Decimus Burton that forms a centrepiece of Hyde Park Corner in central London, between the corner where Hyde Park meets Green Park. The Arch stands on a large green-space traffic island with crossings for pedestrian access. From its construction (1826–1830) the arch stood in a nearby location, slightly to the east, directly across from Burton's Ionic screen entrance to Hyde Park; it was moved a short distance to its current site at the top of the Constitution Hill road in 1882–1883. The triumphal arch originally supported a colossal equestrian statue of the 1st Duke of Wellington by the sculptor Matthew Cotes Wyatt, acquiring its name as a result. Peace descending on the Quadriga of War by sculptor Adrian Jones, a bronze of the Goddess of Victory Nike riding a quadriga, has surmounted the arch since 1912.
Carlton House, sometimes Carlton Palace, was a mansion in Westminster, best known as the town residence of King George IV, particularly during the regency era and his time as prince regent. It faced the south side of Pall Mall, and its gardens abutted St James's Park in the St James's district of London. The location of the house, now replaced by Carlton House Terrace, was a main reason for the creation of John Nash's ceremonial route from St James's to Regent's Park via Regent Street, Portland Place and Park Square: Lower Regent Street and Waterloo Place were originally laid out to form the approach to its front entrance.
The Guards Crimean War Memorial is a Grade II listed memorial in St James's, London, that commemorates the Allied victory in the Crimean War of 1853–56. It is located on Waterloo Place, at the junction of Regent Street and Pall Mall, approximately one-quarter of the way from the Duke of York Column to Piccadilly Circus.
Carlton House Terrace is a street in the St James's district of the City of Westminster in London. Its principal architectural feature is a pair of terraces, the Western and Eastern terraces, of white stucco-faced houses on the south side of the street, which overlook The Mall and St. James's Park. These terraces were built on Crown land between 1827 and 1832 to overall designs by John Nash, but with detailed input by other architects including Decimus Burton. Construction was overseen by James Pennethorne. Both terrace blocks are Grade I listed buildings. A separate but linked cul de sac at the terrrace's western end is named Carlton Gardens.
Lieutenant-Colonel James Burton was an English property developer. He was the most successful property developer of Regency and of Georgian London, in which he built over 3000 properties in 250 acres. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says that Burton was "the most successful developer in late Georgian London, responsible for some of its most characteristic architecture".
The Athenaeum is a gentlemen's club in London, founded in 1824. It is primarily a club for men and women with intellectual interests, and particularly for those who have attained some distinction in science, engineering, literature or the arts. Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday were the first chairman and secretary and 51 Nobel Laureates have been members.
The United Service Club was a London gentlemen's club founded in 1815 for the use of senior officers in the British Army and Royal Navy – those above the rank of Major or Commander – and the club was accordingly known to its members as "The Senior". The club closed in 1978.
Portland Place is a street in the Marylebone district of central London. Named after the 3rd Duke of Portland, the unusually wide street is home to the BBC's headquarters Broadcasting House, the Chinese and Polish embassies, the Royal Institute of British Architects and numerous residential mansion blocks.
Palazzo style refers to an architectural style of the 19th and 20th centuries based upon the palazzi (palaces) built by wealthy families of the Italian Renaissance. The term refers to the general shape, proportion and a cluster of characteristics, rather than a specific design; hence it is applied to buildings spanning a period of nearly two hundred years, regardless of date, provided they are a symmetrical, corniced, basemented and with neat rows of windows. "Palazzo style" buildings of the 19th century are sometimes referred to as being of Italianate architecture, but this term is also applied to a much more ornate style, particularly of residences and public buildings.
The statue of Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea is an outdoor sculpture in London, England. Created by J. H. Foley, it was erected by public subscription in 1867 and was originally placed in the courtyard of Cumberland House, Pall Mall. It moved with the War Office to Whitehall in 1906, where it was placed in the courtyard of the new War Office building; but eight years later it was moved again to Waterloo Place to stand alongside the Crimean War Memorial, where it is paired with a statue of Herbert's friend and fellow reformer Florence Nightingale.
The statue of the Duke of Kent is a sculpture located in Park Crescent, just south of Regent's Park and at the northern end of Portland Place in Central London. It is on land owned by the Crown Estate in the City of Westminster and was designed by the Irish artist Sebastian Gahagan. It commemorates Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of George III and brother of George IV and William IV, as well as the father of the future Queen Victoria. Installed in January 1824, the statue stands 7 feet 2 inches high, depicting the Duke in his Field Marshal's uniform and wearing the regalia of the Order of the Garter.