We just attended the Winston Churchill Memorial Concert on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death and the occasion led me to think about all the plaaces where he can be found in London.
In 2002 Winston Churchill was elected the “Greatest Briton” in a public poll, and London celebrates his life and achievements with statues, mosaics, plaques, a clock and even a pub.
His statue in Parliament Square, looking over at the House of Commons, was sculpted by Ivor Roberts-Jones.
A statue of Winston Churchill stands in the Members’ Lobby of Parliament.
(Image from: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/422634746251735270/ )
The sculptor of this statue was Oscar Neman, a Croatian-born artist. He sculpted more than a dozen statues and busts of Winston Churchill including the one at Guildhall.
Read more about him at http://www.oscarnemon.org.uk/history/churchill_hist.html
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- Just down Whitehall is the gated entrance to Downing Street, where Churchill lived as Prime Minister.
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- This is Downing Street viewed from a window in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Number 10 is the door on the right in the building with the dark ground floor.
Downing Street is named for the man who built the street and the first houses – George Downing. He was born in Dublin in 1623. His father was Emmanuel Downing, a barrister, and his mother was Lucy Winthrop, sister of the Puritan leader and several times governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony – John Winthrop. When George was 5 years old the family immigrated to Massachusetts and he grew up in Salem, Massachusetts.
George attended the newly established Harvard College. In 1642 he was the second person to receive a degree from Harvard. A few years later he sailed across the Atlantic and began his political career working for Cromwell’s government. Downing was an able diplomat, and his skills served him well – when Charles II returned to England George Downing went to work for the new king. Downing proclaimed that he saw the “errors of his ways” and disavowed the Puritan principles of New England. Downing became a spy and hunted down the Regicides who had voted for the execution of King Charles I.
Downing managed to amass a substantial fortune and was the largest landowner in Cambridgeshire at the time, but many people thought he wasn’t a very nice person. He also built several houses on a cul-de-sac off Whitehall. When he died without a will, the government decided it would take over ownership of the property and use it as a residence for the Prime Minister.
A short walk from Downing Street is King Charles Street which runs between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (on the right) and the Treasury (on the left).
Down at the opposite end of King Charles Street is the entrance to the Cabinet War Rooms. These underground rooms were the secret, protected rooms where the Prime Minister and Cabinet met during WWII.
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- The British government oversaw the military actions of the war from the Cabinet War Rooms, which could be entered from 10 Downing Street by a secret tunnel.
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- Churchill slept down in the Cabinet War Rooms during heavy bombing. And – he housed his secret telephone connection with President Roosevelt in this little room with a small sign that said “Private Toilet”.
Not too many years ago, the Winston Churchill Museum was opened in the Cabinet War Rooms. This is the only museum dedicated to commemorating the life of the Great Man.
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- There is a portrait of Winston as a small boy – before his long curls were cut!
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- And a portrait of him at the height of his career – in a typical.y deteermined pose.
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- The museum has his American passport and citizenship certificate. In 1963 he became the first person to be granted honorary citizenship.
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- In 1953 the Nobel Prize for Literature was given to Winston Churchill for his many published works and especially his six-volume History of the Second World War.
The seated statue of Winston Churchill in Guildhall was sculpted by Oscar Nemon in 1955, who also did the Churchill statue in the Members’ Lobby of Parliament.
Churchill was granted the Freedom of the City of London in 1943.
The Guildhall is the seat of government for the City of London.
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- The most frequently photographed statue of Winston Churchill is at the junction of Old Bond and New Bond Streets. He sits on a bench smiling at President Franklin Roosevelt. There is usually a tourist sitting between the great statesmen having his photo taken with them. The statue is called ‘Allies’ and was unveiled on 2 May 1995 by Princess Margaret. It was a gift from the Bond Street Association (the shops and businesses of Bond Street) to the City of Westminster to commemorate 50 years of peace. Lawrence Holofcener, a Baltimore-born sculptor with dual US-UK citizenship created this landmark.
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- Someone told me there was a copy of this sculpture on the Isle of Wight, with seemed very strange to me. So – I checked it out, and guess what – there IS a copy. The sculptor had friends who ran a hotel on the Isle of Wight and he gave them a full-sized copy. Nice.
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- Another unexpected place to find a portrait of Winston Churchill is on the floor of the National Gallery of Art. The Russian-born mosaic artist Boris Anrep decorated the stairs of the main entrance from Trafalgar Square with mosaic portraits that symbolise many human attributes. Winston Churchill, wearing his trademark “Boiler Suit”, personifies DEFIANCE in the face of a monstrous threat, which has the basic shape of a swastika.
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- Here is Winston’s face again, at the centre of the clock on Bracken House.at the corner of Friday Street and Cannon Street in the City. Bracken House, built in 1955-1959 was named after Bernard Bracken, former chairman of the Financial Times, which was published here until the 1980s. He was a personal friend of Winston Churchill.
There are Blue Plaques on a number of places where he lived or spoke –
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- 33 Eccleston Square
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- 2 Sussex Square, Bayswater
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- 11 Morpeth Mansions, Morpeth Terrace, Westminster
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- During WWII Churchill held press conferences in Caxton Hall on Caxton Street, Westminster
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- After Churchill retired he lived at 28 Hyde Park Gate in Kensington. He died here on 24 January 1965.
Finally – it’s time to relax.
Why not raise a glass to Winston at the Churchill Arms on Kensington Church Street?
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- The Churchill Arms on Kensington Church Street has a magnificent flower display every summer.The pub’s website says it was built in 1750 and in the 1800s was frequented by Winston’s grandparents. I’m not sure which grandparents these were – but they did know a good pub when they saw it!
@Cathey Leitch, 2015
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