Embankment

EMBANKMENT

The Victoria Embankment was constructed after a centuries old problem had been avoided to the point where it could be ignored no longer. The river Thames, as it passed through London, had always been used as an open sewer. As the population of London grew, the problem escalated and during the exceptionally hot summer of 1858, the smell became so overpowering that it permeated to the four compass points of London and duly became known as, ‘The Great Stink.’ Sheets soaked in chlorine and lime were hung on the Houses Of Parliament windows whilst inside the politicians of the day were forced to debate a solution, which resulted, in part, with the construction of The Victoria Embankment.

The idea of an embankment was not a new one, it was touted after the Great Fire Of London in 1666, but the plans were not adopted. At low water, even as late as the Victorian period, large muddy reaches were exposed and were considered a ‘hotbed of pestilence and fever.’ The new embankment narrowed the river, with thirty acres of land being reclaimed from the low tide flats. Coupled with dredging, the flow of the water increased in speed, making for a cleaner river. The river had to be dammed during construction, which was no mean feat, to allow the positioning of 650,000 cubic feet of granite, 80,000 cubic yards of brickwork and 140,000 cubic yards of concrete.

The project clearly allowed for no half measures and many vast and expensive riverside properties were destroyed when building began in 1865. Sir Joseph Bazalgette masterminded the engineering feat and it won much applause when it was completed five years later. However, the most important factor was the incorporation of Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s many miles of sewers with Gothic vaulting more reminiscent of the undercroft of a cathedral. Above the sewers the track for the District Line Underground (Tube) trains were positioned and at surface level a new highway was laid, easing traffic congestion from Strand and Fleet Street.

Behind the busy lanes of traffic on the embankment are The Victoria Embankment Gardens, which were opened in 1872. The government wanted the valuable land for development, but Sir Joseph Bazalgette insisted it be laid out for public enjoyment. To this day free concerts take place there, not far from the fine statues of Robert Burns and William Tyndale, who was the first to write an English bible translated from the Greek. In the gardens is ‘The Water Gate’ by Inigo Jones, the only relic of York House, which was destroyed to build the embankment. The Victoria Embankment is lined with fine London Plane trees, which were planted at intervals of twenty feet. Some were vandalised and rewards of twenty pounds, a huge sum for the day, were offered for information leading to convictions of any person caught damaging them. Nowadays, the trees reach high above the splendid original lampposts, all with stylized dolphins at their bases.

Several ships of importance are permanently moored on the riverside and have become fixtures of the landscape. H.M.S. President was built in 1918 and designed to look like a merchant vessel, the intention being to draw German U boats, which would then be attacked using hidden weapons. At one time all land based officers of the Royal navy were enlisted to H.M.S President, as all those serving in the Royal Navy had to be ascribed a ship. In the early twenty-first century, the vessel is hired out for private parties and functions.

A short way upstream from H.M.S. President is H.Q.S. Wellington, built in 1935 and purchased by The Honourable Company Of Master Mariners in 1947 and it is the city’s only floating livery hall. During the Second World War, she was on ‘ocean convoy escort duty’ in the north Atlantic. King Edward the Eighth was the first master of the company and his portrait hangs on board, the only picture of him to have been painted whilst he was king.

Further upstream along the embankment are moored several ships turned into bars and restaurants. The Queen Mary is the only London pub to have spent forty years crossing the Clyde, where it served as a ferry. If you find yourself swaying after only your drink, it probably means you are aboard the Hispaniola by Hungerford Bridge, which vies for business with the neighbouring PS Tattershall Castle, an old coal burning paddle steamer that once carried passengers across the Humber river, that is now also a pub and restaurant.

Old Scotland Yard, The Ministry Of Defence, Charing Cross Railway Station, The Savoy Hotel, Somerset House and The Middle and Inner Temple all overlook the Victoria Embankment and amidst them is ShellMex House. This distinctive early thirties Art Deco construction is distinctive for having the largest clock face in London, visible high up behind the oldest monument in London, Cleopatra’s Needle.

Cleopatra’s Needle was given to the British in 1819 by an Albanian who ruled Egypt on behalf of the Turks. A prominent freemason paid the £10,000 it cost to transport the needle to London the year before it was erected. The sea voyage was difficult, it was towed across the sea in a huge iron cylinder. It was cut loose during a violent storm and was found floating aimlessly like the Marie Celeste, by chance, by another English ship. Six sailors died during transportation to London and it was finally positioned on the Victoria Embankment in 1878.

The obelisk is erroneously named, as Cleopatra never saw it. A staggering 3,500 years old, it came all the way from Heliopolis at Memphis in Egypt. The sphinxes positioned at its base should be pointing outwards not inwards as they are supposed to be guarding it, not admiring it. Stone was blasted away from the plinths and the bronze paws of a sphinx were punctured when a shell narrowly missed the needle during The First World War. Beneath the needle is a Victorian time capsule, which includes a Victorian railway timetable and photographs of those considered to be the most beautiful twelve ladies of the time. The needle has suffered more weathering on the windswept embankment than in the previous three thousand years. There are suggestions it should be moved to the protected atmosphere of British Museum, which would allow the hidden time capsule an untimely opening.

The Victoria Embankment may be accessed by Westminster, Embankment and Temple London Underground (Tube) stations. River cruises offer terrific views of the embankment and can be taken from the Westminster Pier by Westminster Bridge on the Victoria Embankment.

 Where to view Embankment and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Embankment’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Achilles

ACHILLES

The statue of Achilles, correctly known as The Wellington Monument, is positioned just inside the south-easterly corner of London’s Hyde Park, alongside Park Lane. Not so much a lane any longer, it is more like a motorway with eight lanes of traffic roaring past Achilles at speed. Occasionally, a driver will take a moment to glance across at the monument, standing eighteen feet high atop a pediment of granite blocks. Achilles is positioned a stone’s throw from Apsley House, the home of The Duke of Wellington which nowadays houses the Wellington Museum, (see earlier blog: HYDE PARK CORNER.)

Richard Westmacott won the commission for The Wellington Monument, with the project funded by donations from the women of England. Erected in 1822, the inscription on the pediment reads: “To Arthur, Duke of Wellington, and his brave companions in arms, this statue of Achilles cast from cannons won at the victories of Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse and Waterloo is inscribed by their countrymen. Placed on this spot on the XVIII day of June MDCXXII by command of His Majesty George IIII.” Achilles is depicted with a cloak draped over his arm and bearing a shield. When the statue was unveiled, the size and shape of the shield was criticised for being historically inaccurate, however, defenders of the sculptor insisted the shield was allegorical in purpose. Achilles is depicted suitably muscular and heroic in stature and certainly in Greek mythology Achilles was the most handsome of the heroes assembled against Troy.

Achilles was invulnerable except for his heel. In an attempt to make him immortal his mother, Thetis, dipped his infant body into the sacred river Styx of The Underworld.  Whilst doing so, she held him by his heel and Achilles was thereby never fully submerged, leaving his heel vulnerable. By extraordinary bad luck, during the Trojan War, Paris shot an arrow that directly pierced his heel, resulting in his death. The only weakness in the bronze statue of Achilles is not the heel but his fig leaf, which was twice removed by pranksters, in 1870 and 1961. Achilles was the very first statue of a naked man in London and the fig leaf was added as an after thought, on account of the public reaction. It was reported that, “The bronze colossus…excited at first something like wonder, then an ignorant or canting clamour, because it was undraped.”

Situated to the immediate south of Achilles are The Queen Elizabeth Gates, at the entrance to the South Carriage Drive into Hyde Park. The one hundred and twenty feet wide gates were raised through public subscription and presented to Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother on the occasion of her ninetieth birthday in 1990. Made from aluminium and steel, they are adorned at the centre with a rather stylized version of her coat of arms. To the east of Achilles is the statue of Lord Byron, in pensive mood together with his dog ‘Bo’sun.’ He sits on a pink marble slab that was a gift from the Greek government, in memory of Byron who fought for the Greeks during their War Of Independence.

The statue of Byron is somewhat stranded in a traffic island in the centre of Park Lane, one of the capital’s busiest highways. The four lanes to the west were introduced in 1983, taking out a large ribbon of parkland in the process. The southerly part of Park Lane is lined with grand houses and hotels, first built up in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The grandest is The Dorchester, where Elizabeth Taylor spent nights during several of her honeymoons. The hotel is owned by The Sultan of Brunei, who spent £130 million restoring its beautiful Art Deco interior. The Dorchester ballroom was used by General Eisenhower during The Second World War, its soundproofing conveniently doubled up as bomb proofing. The nearby Park Lane Hilton Hotel was built in 1963 and at the time of construction, it was the tallest of London’s hotels. From the Windows restaurant on the twenty-eighth floor of the hotel, there are fine panoramic views to the four compass points. Diners are even able to look into the gardens of nearby Buckingham Palace and of course, back down below to Westmacott’s statue of Achilles.

Achilles

Park Lane

London W1K 1BE

London Underground (Tube) Hyde Park Corner

Where to view Achilles and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Achilles’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

County Hall

COUNTY HALL

The County Hall is situated on the South Bank in London besides Westminster Bridge and looks across to The Palace Of Westminster across the river Thames. It was the headquarters of the London County Council (L.C.C.) from 1912 and its successor, The Greater London Council (G.L.C.) from 1965 until it was disbanded in 1986. With an impressive façade of Portland Stone, the hall was built in the ‘Edwardian Baroque’ style and stands out from its mostly modernist neighbours, in an area that was heavily bombed during The Second World War.

The construction of County Hall was a particularly costly building project. A ‘Cross and Blackwell’ factory stood on the intended site and being only a dozen years into a 999 lease, a whopping £100,000 had to be paid to the makers of the world famous ‘Branston Pickle’ relish, to persuade them to vacate the site. In addition, £10,000 was spent on reclaiming land from the river, to bring the embankment in line with the neighbouring St Thomas’s Hospital. During the process, a third century Roman Thames riverboat was discovered and it is now on display in The Museum of London.

Plans for an even vaster edifice were scaled down in size after intensive debate between government and the chief architect W.E. Riley. King George V laid the foundation stone in 1912 and formally opened the building in 1922. However, at the official opening, the building was far from complete, with work having been halted during the First World War and construction duly continued over the following decades. ‘The North Block’ of County Hall was commissioned in the 1950's. Extraordinarily, the project was delayed after all ten firms tendered the identical sum of 50,238 pounds, 19 shillings and three pence, leading to a mass referral to the Monopolies Commission!

Expansion continued as late as 1974, with the ‘The Island Block’ annex. It was a truly perfect example of rotten ‘Brutalist’ architecture. Attached to the back of County Hall by a walkway, the bulk of the building was itself stranded within a busy roundabout. Within a meagre twelve years, it was empty and abandoned. The Island Block remained a wretched blot on the landscape until it was pulled down in 2006. On its destruction, the unrepentant architect, John Bancroft, declared, “I am absolutely devastated – I consider that it was a distinguished building.” The general public disagreed, in a nationwide poll it was voted the eleventh most ugly building in Britain.

The Labour Party had controlled the London County Council from 1934 and the political opposition complained that elections were one-sided because the L.C.C. only covered the mostly Labour voting inner London districts. After much debate and procedure, the metropolitan boundaries were extended at all four compass points. Thirty-two boroughs were formed including the more genteel suburban areas, swallowing up chunks of the surrounding counties. The first Greater London Council elections were held in 1964. Some argued that the G.L.C. was ‘created to be a Conservative poodle that turned into a mighty monster of the left.’ During its last five years, the G.L.C. was led by Ken Livingstone, commonly known as ‘Red Ken.’ In 1982 Ken Livingstone was voted runner up to the Pope in a BBC Radio 4’s Today programme’s ‘Man Of The Year.’ At the same time a national newspaper described him as ‘the most odious man in Britain.’ The Left’s strength at the G.L.C. contrasted with the power of the Conservative Party in Westminster. Margaret Thatcher finally disbanded the G.L.C. in 1986. In retrospect, historians generally agree that the vision of the G.L.C. was utopian and its achievement modest.

By 1993 County Hall had been sold to the Shirayama Shokusan Corporation, a private Japanese company, for sixty million pounds. Mr Makoto Okamoto is the family-run corporation's European head and an article published in The Independent Newspaper on 28 September 2005 reported that he had allegedly refused to allow war veterans into the County Hall building to pay respects at a war memorial listing more than a thousand L.C.C. staff who died in the two world wars. The resulting uproar forced the Japanese ambassador to intervene. The Independent likewise reported that in 1998, Mr Okamoto allegedly was accused of making sexist and racist comments at Lisa-Jane Statton, the manager of the London Aquarium, which currently rents the lower ground floors of County Hall. She told an employment tribunal that he called British women ‘bloody fat pigs’ with ‘legs like tree-trunks’, but withdrew the case after she was paid an estimated £100,000 to settle. Mr Okamoto’s wife is herself English. The Saatchi Gallery left County Hall after only three years, likewise after disputes with Mr Okamoto, who allegedly kicked a Gavin Turk sculpture. Another sculpture mysteriously had its nose removed and was spat on, when the gallery was closed to the public and very people had access to the space.

County Hall is now home to the aforementioned London Aquarium, the London Film Museum and two hotels, The Marriot and The Premier Inn. There are several restaurants and a number of one and two bedroomed apartments. Dali Universe moved out in 2010. County Hall is also a popular location for marriage ceremonies. The entire fourth and fifth floors have been left entirely empty since the G.L.C. was disbanded in 1986.

County Hall, Belvedere Road, London Se1 7PB. Waterloo and Westminster London Underground (Tube) stations.

London Underground Railway (Tube): Bond Street and Marble Arch 

Where to view County Hall and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘County Hall’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Selfridges

SELFRIDGES

It was announced on February 11^th 2010 that the forty year old fashion designer Alexander McQueen has been found dead at his London address. One of the creations from his last year alive was passed by hundreds of thousands of ordinary shoppers during the last months of 2009, in London’s Selfridges department store. In collaboration with the two hundredth anniversary celebrations of the first performance of Cinderella at The Theatre Royal and as the centrepiece of Selfridges 2009 winter collection, Alexander McQueen made a one-off £16,000 ‘pantomime dame’ dress. It was a truly exquisite creation and typical of Selfridges to display such a jaw dropping crowd puller.

Every day in central London, people can be seen clutching distinctive yellow and black carrier bags, each betraying a visit to Selfridges, famous across the four compass points of the world. It is the second largest shop in the United Kingdom, after Harrods, (see earlier blog.) Selfridges has remained fashionable since it first opened up in 1909 and this is in no small part to its founder, the extraordinary H. Gordon Selfridge who, leading by example, totally transformed the experience of shopping in this country.

Gordon Selfridge was an American who learned his trade in Chicago. On his first visit to London, he was astonished to find on more than one occasion, that he was asked to leave stores for simply browsing, rather than making an obligatory rapid purchase. His encounter with frosty shopkeepers standing behind imposing counters, protecting the shelves from shoppers, inspired him to leave America and open the store that still bears his name to this day.

The store cost £400,000 to build and is positioned on the northwest side of what was to become London’s premier shopping thoroughfare, Oxford Street. It was a massive sum to pay at the time, partly because it was one of the first buildings in London to have a steel frame construction. Gordon Selfridge called it a ‘trade palace’ and the expression was hardly an exaggeration. He wanted the exterior of the building to be indicative of the quality of goods on sale within. The store is fronted by load bearing ionic columns, with a 1928 Art Deco clock, known as ‘The Queen Of Time’ riding her ‘Ship Of Commerce.’ The ground was not levelled before construction and the entire building slopes eleven feet from one end to the other, a feature that may be noticed by careful observation.

Back in Chicago, Selfridge had been the first to promote Christmas with the expression, “only x number of shopping days left until Christmas.” Never one short of a catchphrase, he also coined, “less servility and more service,” and this motto was drummed into his staff, who were made to have three months of training before the grand opening. Such was the anticipation, that on the first day of business people queued around the block (unlike most of London this area is laid out in grid pattern and does have blocks) and a million people passed through its doors during the first week.

Marketed as the equivalent of Macy’s in the USA, its popularity was instant. Selfridge was the first to put expensive popular items, such as perfumes, near to the entrance. He tried to make shopping fun rather than a chore, merchandise was displayed so that customers could touch and examine it, leading to profitable impulse purchases.

Bristling with ingenuity, he exhibited Bleriot’s airplane in Selfridges one day after its pioneer flight across the channel, attracting people 150,000 people into the store who would never otherwise cross its threshold. He staged the first public show of television in 1925 and installed a seismograph, which in 1932 recorded a well-documented earthquake in Belgium.

The roof of the building is nowadays covered in air conditioning units, but in Gordon Selfridge’s time, a garden with trees and a lily pond covered the roof. At times, ‘mini golf’ was played up there and a seasonal ice rink provided further excitement. Selfridge even threw election night parties for English society on the roof, which was also where in 1930, he exhibited the work of sculptors from ‘The London Group’ whose members were the most pre-eminent artists of the day.

Like many, Gordon Selfridge made a fortune during the First World War. In 1919, he planned to build a huge mansion on the south coast of England, with grand intentions for it to be taller than St Paul’s Cathedral, a plan that was never realised. Ultimately too extravagant, Gordon Selfridge lived the life of Croesus and he died a pauper. He became a British subject in 1937, three years before he was forced to relinquish control of the store, shortly after the start of the Second World War. It was during the war that the lowest of the three floors beneath ground level was used by U.S. personnel. At a depth of sixty metres, it was safe enough for both Churchill and Eisenhower to hold meetings there.

In his last years, Selfridge was reduced to travelling through London by bus, sometimes making the trip up to Oxford Street to gaze across at his greatest achievement. He died almost penniless in 1947, but was held alive in the memories of loyal staff of longstanding service. Indeed, many of the staff served out their entire career there, which was unusual for retailing, where a high turnover of workforce was common, even during the earlier part of the twentieth century. There was much to be proud of, from its history of bold window displays, to its marvellous food hall.

The Selfridges food hall is one of four major food halls in central London, Fortnum and Mason, Harrods and Harvey Nichols incorporate the other three. Selfridges food hall has the best reputation amongst internationals, with Middle Eastern cuisine comfortably stacked around the corner from the famous kosher department. If you cannot afford the oyster bar, then fill up with free samples, Selfridges has a longstanding generous tasting policy.  Although now surpassed in cost if not by flavour, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, Selfridges Food Hall sold the world’s most expensive sandwich, at £85. Consisting of Wagyu beef, brie de Meaux, foie gras and black truffle mayonnaise, the sandwich was reportedly most often requested from and dispatched to, a number of luxury hotel rooms on the nearby Park Lane.

The store is open from ninety-thirty in the mornings until eight, nine on Thursdays and Sunday opening is midday until six. Finally, to answer the question that every child asks when first encountering the famous name, yes, they do sell fridges…

Selfridges

400 Oxford Street

London

W1A 2LR

London Underground Railway (Tube): Bond Street and Marble Arch 

Where to view Selfridges and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Selfridges’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Piccadilly Circus

PICCADILLY CIRCUS

The West End is the location of many theatres, restaurants, bars and clubs and a popular place to meet at the start of the evening is at Piccadilly Circus. In fact, it is very rare to not see people waiting for friends and loved ones, standing near the famous and much admired Statue Of Eros (see earlier blog entitled EROS.)

Piccadilly Circus is sometimes described as being the Times Square of London, its many illuminated advertising signs being a comparable feature. The very first illuminated sign was put up in 1909, advertising Schweppes, which was then a mineral water supplier. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the signs had long since abandoned neon and were mostly state-of-the-art LED video displays, costing millions of pounds per year to rent each space.  One computer animated sign posted personal messages with a special rate for marriage proposals. After a romantic kiss at The Statue Of Eros, loved ones would be encouraged to look up to the sign, to see the personal message scrolling across. The service was discontinued in 2007.

Piccadilly Circus was built in 1819 and it is named a circus from the Latin word for ‘circle’ or ‘ring.’ Although no longer truly circular, it is the hub of six streets, including both Regent Street and Piccadilly. It has over a million pedestrian visitors each week and a further two million people pass through it by bus. Six hundred thousand people use Piccadilly Circus underground station on a weekly basis. Besides being filled with pedestrians and swirling traffic, Piccadilly Circus is closely surrounded by many famous locations.

Situated on the south side of Piccadilly since 1925 is Lillywhite’s, a multi-floored sports store. Nowadays it draws in tourists by selling replica Premiership football sports kits cheaply, but still specializes in outfitting for minority sports. Beneath Lillywhite’s is the Criterion Theatre, one of only two subterranean theatres in London and decorated with extravagant gilding by Verity in 1884. Nearby, on ground level is The Criterion, the restaurant where Sherlock Holmes first met Doctor Watson in its splendid Long Bar. The Criterion was a favourite of the French artist Toulouse-Lautrec who, when visiting London, ate porterhouse steaks there whilst gazing across to The London Pavilion.

A published statistic states that of the twenty-six million visitors to London each year, the majority pass through Piccadilly Circus and one in twenty-five of those go inside the London Pavilion. The north side pavement (sidewalk) on Coventry Street, outside the London Pavilion, has the highest density of pedestrian traffic in the United Kingdom. The London Pavilion was originally a music hall, nowadays it is part of The Trocadero Centre. The Trocadero Centre has been a London landmark for two and a half centuries, its fortunes almost changing on a decade-by-decade basis. In the late 1990’s, a forty-five million pound investment programme transformed the venue into a ‘high-tech’ indoor entertainment complex.

The entrance to The Café De Paris is on Coventry Street, which leads off Piccadilly Circus to the east. It opened in the roaring twenties, much of its early success rose from the patronage of King Edward VIII, who often visited when he was Prince Of Wales. The Aga Khan, the Mountbatten’s and Cole Porter were also regulars and its subterranean location allowed it to remain open at the outbreak of The Second World War. However, tragically, in March 1941, two fifty-kilogram explosive devises came through the roof during an air raid, landing straight onto the dance floor. Eighty people were killed including the young bride of Group Captain John Darwen RAF DSO DFC. Aged just twenty and married only weeks earlier, she died in his arms on the dance floor. John Darwen went on to become a heroic and much documented pilot, until a little over two years later he was killed in action, shot down by stray flak over Italy in 1942. The Café De Paris remains a popular venue to this day.

Not far from the entrance of The Café De Paris, is a street level statue called The Horses of Helios and the four beasts, Pyrios, Eos, Aethon and Phleyon, rear up above foaming fountain water. Directly above them, high up on the building’s top are three golden naked figures. They represent Faith, Hope and Charity, known as The Three Graces and they can be seen frozen mid-leap, heading downwards into the crowds beneath.

Not only is Piccadilly Circus at the meeting point of six thoroughfares, it has Mayfair, Soho, St James’s and China Town all quickly accessible to the four compass points, with the remainder of central London stretching beyond. Indeed, at one time, Piccadilly Circus was said to be the hub of the British Empire itself. It is hardly surprising then, that a flagship retail store bordering Piccadilly Circus has recently contracted to pay 1.95 million pounds a year to rent its premises.

Many descend on Piccadilly Circus simply to soak up the atmosphere and the saying goes, that if you wait in Piccadilly Circus long enough, you will meet someone you know. Be prepared, it may well be quicker than you think! Piccadilly Circus, Piccadilly, London W1J 7BX.

 Where to view Piccadilly Circus and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Piccadilly Circus’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Embassies

EMBASSIES

To be posted as ambassador to London is considered to be a top job, the reward after many years of service for a career diplomat. For countries that offer ambassadorial roles as favours, political or otherwise, three years in London is likewise a coveted position.  New ambassadors are accredited to The Court of St James. St James’s Palace technically remains the senior palace of the British monarchy, although the sovereign has not lived there since King William the Fourth. Nevertheless, The Marshal of the Diplomatic Corp is permanently based at St James’s Palace and it from where all ambassadors and high commissioners are received at court.

There are one hundred and seventy-two foreign missions in London, mostly located in St James’s, Mayfair, Belgravia, South Kensington, Knightsbridge, Holland Park and Kensington Palace Gardens and its surroundings. One hundred and twenty-eight of these are embassies and there are forty-six high commissions from the Commonwealth countries and many missions have consular sections in separate locations to the chancery sections of their embassies. It means that in some streets and squares in the above areas, many of the buildings have large flags from the four compass points of the globe, waving from poles above the grand entrances.

The Diplomatic Protection corps seldom have a dull moment, as embassies are frequently the target of demonstrations. The Israeli Embassy, in particular, is well accustomed to such occurrences. The French Embassy saw protests by British Muslims after the banning of headscarves in French schools in 2004. The Royal Danish Embassy was targeted in 2006 after a Danish cartoonist produced material deemed offensive by some British Muslims. There has been a continuous peaceful protest outside the Chinese Embassy for many years by practitioners of  the ‘Falun Gong’ spiritual movement.

It is usually rare for those inside the embassies to take much notice of such protests on an outward level, but that was not the case at the Libyan Embassy in 1984, when Yvonne Fletcher was shot and killed in St James’s Square whilest on duty during a protest. The exact series of events has never fully been explained, however, it is allegedly thought machine gun fire was directed at her from the second floor of Libyan Embassy. Her death resulted in the longest police siege in London’s history, lasting nine days, resulting in a souring of diplomatic relations between the two countries that lasted for many years afterwards.

In 1980 Iranian Arab Separatists took over the Iranian Embassy, at its premises overlooking Hyde Park. Inside were twenty-six hostages including police constable Trevor Lock, who later received the George Cross for his bravery. On the sixth day of the siege the kidnappers killed a hostage and threw his body outside. Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister at the time, decided it was time for action and the SAS, (Special Air Service) stormed the building. In ground-breaking manner for the day, the whole episode was played out live, with a short time delay, in front of the media. To disguise the noise of the SAS approach, aircraft approaching Heathrow Airport were diverted to fly at low height directly over the embassy. As an additional precaution, British Gas were instructed to start noisy drilling nearby. Five of the six militants were killed during the release of the hostages. Suggestions that the final captor survived after one of the hostages protected him, whilst suffering from a dose of Stockholm Syndrome, was later denied.

Canada House, which faces onto Trafalgar Square, is Canada’s oldest diplomatic posting, dating to 1880. Greek revival in style, it was built by Sir Robert Smirke, the architect of The British Museum. Canada House looks across to South Africa House, where Nelson Mandela spoke to the crowds from a balcony, whilst he was president of the country in 1996. A little further to the east is Zimbabwe House. Stunning architecturally, the exterior of Zimbabwe House features Epstein sculptures, from his first major commission in London. President Mugabe was reported a few years ago to have allegedly handed over the deeds of his country's High Commission in London to Colonel Gaddafi in a last ditch effort to keep the flow of Libyan oil heading southwards to Zimbabwe.

The Czech Embassy, near to Notting Hill Gate, is seen by the local residents as being one of the ugliest buildings in the neighbourhood. An effort to counter this was made in 1999 when three sculptural pieces were mounted on the side of the building by the Czech artist David Cerny, who first came onto the international scene during The Velvet Revolution. In contrast, for an example of award winning late twentieth century design, look to the Royal Danish Embassy in Sloane Street. The building fits in perfectly against the backdrop of some of London’s most expensive and upmarket boutiques and fashion stores.

At thirty-one Portland Place is located the aforementioned Chinese Embassy.  Unexpectedly to many, it was pulled down in 1980, giving the protected buildings committee a shock, but it was rebuilt with an exterior almost identical to the original 1785 Adam brothers’ building. Sometimes the elegant facades of foreign embassies have been left to rot, the French Embassy on Knightsbridge was for many years the scruffiest looking building in the neighbourhood, with the exterior paint so weathered there were scarcely any peelings left to fall off. The largest embassy in London is the American Embassy, (see the previous Grosvenor Square blog in Tom’s Guide for full details.)

It is often the case that on entering an embassy one feels almost arrived in the represented country itself. Even in the twenty-first century, when paying for a travel visa in the London embassy of one large African country, the money handed across is dropped into a cavernous wooden drawer with notes and coins loosely floating around and the receipt is hand written on a piece of lined paper torn from a notebook. At one Southeast Asian mission, a sweeper in local attire seemingly pushes dust from one side of the hall to another,  as tourists stand in the middle, queuing for visas.

In 1907, the idea to build The Titanic was conjured up over a dinner at the Spanish Embassy. A great deal of what is said and done behind the four walls of London’s foreign embassies is unknown, in fact often deliberately secretive. The world of espionage has long overlapped with the more mundane aspects of diplomatic life and it would be an injustice to such an occluded environment to attempt to tackle the subject in this short text.

Diplomatic immunity is essentially legal immunity from the host country’s laws, meaning that diplomats are not susceptible to lawsuits or prosecution, although they can be expelled. It is argued by some that this leaves the privilege open to abuse. It was reported by The Independent On Sunday newspaper in 2006, that between 1999 and 2004, one hundred and twenty-two serious offences were committed by those protected by diplomatic immunity in the United Kingdom. These figures were released by the then foreign secretary Margaret Beckett. It is alleged that this included murder by a Columbian diplomat and rape and child abuse by a member of the Moroccan Embassy staff. Elsewhere, person or persons protected by diplomatic immunity from the Dominican Republic were allegedly accused of fraud and money laundering, embassy staff from France accused of assault and from Germany of assisting illegal immigration. Many embassies consider London’s traffic controlling Congestion Charge to be nothing more than a tax and the American Embassy alone allegedly owes nearly four million pounds in Congestion Charge fees and other traffic fines. Zimbabwe personnel top the league of driving without a license.

Where to view Embassies  and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Embassies’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Grosvenor Square

GROSVENOR SQUARE

Grosvenor Square is the largest of the three squares in the area of central London commonly known as Mayfair. Mayfair is so named because fairs were held here during the month of May, before the district was developed. Grosvenor Square has remained a fashionable place to live since it was laid out, between 1721 and 1725 by Sir Richard Grosvenor. The square covers the site of Oliver’s Mount, an earthwork thrown up by the English subjects in 1643 when Charles I was approaching London after the Battle Of Edge Hill.

The original buildings of the square have almost entirely been rebuilt over the centuries, one of the better known redevelopments being the American Embassy, built between 1958 and 1960 and still the largest embassy building in Europe. The Americans have had a presence in Grosvenor Square and its surrounding streets since its independence. At number nine Grosvenor Square is where John Adams, the second US president lived, when he was ambassador to London in 1785. In fact, the area is fondly known to many as, ‘Little America.’ Grosvenor Square was where anti Vietnam War protests by many thousands of students and workers took place in 1968, in front of the American Embassy.

The American Embassy is said to be the only American Embassy in the world where the Americans do not own the land beneath the four walls of the embassy. When the U.S.A. were first planning to expand into this building, the British Government placed great pressure on The Grosvenor Estate to sell the west side of Grosvenor Square to the Americans. There were mutterings of compulsory purchase. The Duke Of Westminster, head of the Grosvenor family, who was a good friend of the American ambassador of the day, offered to sell the freehold if the Americans returned to the Grosvenor family twelve thousand acres in East Florida which had been granted to his ancestor, the first Earl, in 1769. The land had been forfeited at the War Of Independence. The land in question today includes the site of Cape Canaveral. The Americans chose to back off and a compromise was reached whereby they pay rent one peppercorn a year to The Grosvenor Estate. It is believed that this was paid in full, some years ago, with the presentation of three solid gold peppercorns, covering the period up until the end of the nine hundred and ninety-nine year lease.

On top of the embassy, beneath the American flag, can be seen the bald eagle, its wingspan is longer than a London bus, it is made from aluminium and any American will tell you its head is pointed in the wrong direction. Today, anti terrorist devices are positioned around the building and there are many concerns about its exposed position. For this reason there are advanced plans to move the entire embassy to a five acre site in Nine Elms, Vauxhall, south London, where tightened security will be easier to achieve. The Grosvenor Square site was bought in late 2009 by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, although the Americans are unlikely to fully move out before 2017, at the earliest.

Positioned outside the embassy is a statue of Dwight D Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander during The Second World War. This is the only statue of him in London and was unveiled by Baroness Thatcher in 1989. It was presented by the people of Kansas City. Eisenhower is depicted his hands on his waist, looking across towards his old headquarters of strategies, over at number twenty, on the other side of the square.

The American Embassy was previously located in what is now part of the Canadian High Commission, at number one, on the opposite side of the square to its present location. London is Canada’s oldest foreign mission and the High Commissioner is based here at Macdonald House, this fine building on Grosvenor Square. The Indonesians also have their London diplomatic mission in Grosvenor Square, at number thirty-eight.

The large garden within Grosvenor Square, covering six acres, was originally a key garden, solely for the use of its residents, but is now open to all. Memorials are positioned to the four compass points of the garden, on the north side stands a fine statue of Franklin D Roosevelt. The Roosevelt Memorial was put up with donations of five shillings by most Londoners. The memorial shows the figure of Roosevelt clutching his stick hidden under his cloak, his other hand is on his lapel.

Opposite Roosevelt is the memorial to the Royal Air Force American Eagle Squadron by Dame Elizabeth Frink. The squadron was made up of mostly American citizens who had volunteered to join the Royal Air Force. Also, within the garden of Grosvenor Square stands a smaller memorial garden dedicated to those who lost their lives on September the eleventh 2001.

Grosvenor Square

Mayfair

London W1

Nearest London Underground (tube)

Bond Street and Marble Arch

Where to view Grosvenor Square  and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Grosvenor Square’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.