The visit started with a walk around Grosvenor Gardens looking at the statues and other public artworks. The most prominent is the statue of Marshal Foch, leader of the Allied Forces at the end of WWII. The statue which shows him mounted on a horse is a copy of the statue in Cassels in France, his wartime headquarters. It was positioned facing Victoria Railway station to be seen by French visitors arriving in London on the Boat Train.
Also in the gardens is the Rifle Brigade War Memorial commemorating soldiers from the brigade killed in the First World War and then subsequently WWII. Two ‘Sheds’ now used to house gardening equipment were built as follies. They were designed by a Frenchman, Jean Moreux and are adorned with shells from England and France. The other statue in the gardens is ‘Lioness and Lesser Kudu’ which was installed in 2000. It is a copy of a statue in Eaton Hall, at the Duke of Westminster’s estate in Cheshire.
We then proceeded to Cardinal Place via the Victoria Theatre, which is topped by a statue of Anna Pavlova, the Russian Prima Ballerina. We inspected ‘Little Ben’ a scaled down version of the Victoria Tower (Big Ben) in the Houses of Parliament.
After lunch, we strolled back to Westminster Cathedral down St Francis Street. passing a statue of St Francis on a building, originally an Orphanage for Guardsmen’s children, subsequently a monastery for Franciscan monk who commissioned the statue, and is now an independent prep school. Across the road in Morpeth Terrace, we were surprised to find a plaque identifying the home of Winston and Clementine Churchill from 1930 to 1939.
Interesting visit and great photos
Jh