Marble Arch

MARBLE ARCH

The Marble Arch stands at the northeasterly corner of Hyde Park in central London. It is positioned at an ancient crossroads, where two Roman highways once crossed paths. Today, the arch is stranded within a huge traffic island, at the meeting point of Oxford Street, Park Lane, Bayswater Road and the Edgware Road. Being surrounded by busy lanes of fast moving vehicles, means that it is safest to gain access to the arch through the subterranean walkways, with entrances at four compass points. Once in the central reservation, the many benches, fountains and a grassed rose garden provide a popular resting point for local office workers and tourists alike, albeit with the incessant roar of the surrounding traffic.

The arch was designed by John Nash in 1828 and it is loosely based on the Arch Of Constantine in Rome. At one time Marble Arch stood outside of Buckingham Palace, as a gateway, but it was too narrow for the royal carriages to comfortably pass through. When the east front of Buckingham Palace was remodeled in 1851, the arch was brought to the present location to replace the Cumberland Gate as the north-easterly entry into Hyde Park. Only senior members of the Royal Family and 'The King's Troop', Royal Horse Artillery, can pass through the arch on ceremonial occasions. The King's Troop will cease to go through the arch when they are relocated from St John's Wood to Woolwich in 2012, some fifteen miles distant from where they carry out their ceremonial duties.

The arch has given its name to much of the surrounding residential and business locality. For those exploring the area, to the east is Oxford Street, offering a mile of shops and department stores, with many of the larger ones at the Marble Arch end. To the south, just inside Hyde Park is Speakers Corner, where many gather to rant and rave, perched on the proverbial soapbox, whilst others prefer to heckle. Park Lane, flanked with some of London's largest hotels, leads down to Hyde Park Corner. To the north is the cosmopolitan Edgware Road, with many noted Lebanese restaurants and shisha cafes. To the west is the Bayswater Road, where at number 10, can be seen the narrowest property in London. A few doors away is the Oranhaven, which was a famous refuge for Dutch soldiers during the second world war.

An important part of London's history took place very close to Marble Arch, although nowadays it is marked solely with a plaque set into a small traffic island.  The plaque marks the site where the public hangings took place for seven hundred years. The first recorded hangings took place in 1196 and here they continued until 1783. The prisoners were hanged on the Tyburn Tree. Not a real tree, it was a three armed wooden construction and on each arm eight people could be hanged, twenty-foyr at any one time. On the nearby Bayswater Road is to be found the Shrine Of The Sacred Hearts And Tyburn Martyrs, where nuns pray for the souls of the victims of the Tyburn Tree to this very day.

Marble Arch is very occasionally open for the public to climb its interior, sometimes during 'Open House' weekend when many buildings not ordinarily accessible by the general public throw open their doors. Marble Arch is nearest the London Underground station of the same name. Many bus routes converge at this busy junction.

Where to view video clips of Marble Arch  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 ‘Marble Arch’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.