Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
17
Wellington Arch
Hyde Park Corner • Wed-Sun: April-Oct 10am-5pm; Nov-March 10am-4pm • EH • £4 •
!
Hyde Park Corner
Designed by a youthful Decimus Burton in 1828 to commemorate Wellington's
victories in the Napoleonic Wars,
Wellington Arch
originally served as the northern
entrance to Buckingham Palace. Positioned opposite Burton's delicate Hyde Park
Screen, the arch once formed part of a fine architectural ensemble with Apsley House,
Wellington's London residence, and the former St George's Hospital, now
he
Lanesborough Hotel
(see p.377). Unfortunately the symmetry was destroyed when the
arch was repositioned in 1883 to line up with Constitution Hill - named after the
“constitutional” walks that Charles II used to take here. The arch's original statue was
an enormous equestrian portrayal of the “Iron Duke” erected in 1846 while he was still
alive. The duke was taken down in 1883, and eventually replaced by Peace and her
four-horse chariot, erected in 1912. Inside, you can view a permanent exhibition on
the history of the arch, and special exhibitions on England's heritage, and take a lift to
the top of the monument (once London's smallest postwar police station) where the
exterior balconies offer a bird's-eye view of the swirling tra
c of London's first-ever
roundabout established in 1962.
Apsley House
149 Piccadilly • Wed-Sun: April-Oct 11am-5pm; Nov-March 11am-4pm • EH • £6.70 •
!
Hyde Park Corner
Known during the Iron Duke's lifetime as “Number One, London”,
Apsley House
was once an immensely desirable residence, but nowadays, overlooking a very busy
roundabout, it would be poor reward for any national hero. The interior isn't what it used
to be either, but in this case it's Wellington who's to blame. Built and exquisitely decorated
by Robert Adam in the 1770s for Baron Apsley, it was remodelled by Benjamin Wyatt
THE IRON DUKE
Perhaps if the
Duke of Wellington
had died, like Nelson, at his moment of greatest triumph,
he too would enjoy an unsullied posthumous reputation. Instead, the famously blunt duke
went on to become the epitome of the outmoded, reactionary conservative, earning his
famous nickname, the “Iron Duke”, not from his fearless military campaigning, but from the iron
shutters he had to install at Apsley House after his windows were broken by demonstrators
rioting in favour of the 1832 Reform Act, to which the duke was vehemently opposed.
Born
Arthur Wesley
in Dublin in 1769 - the same year as Napoleon - he never considered
himself Irish: “just because you're born in a stable, doesn't make you a horse” he is alleged to
have said. He was educated at (but hated) Eton and the French military academy at Angers,
and campaigned out in India, helping to defeat Tipu Sultan, and becoming Governor of
Mysore. After continued military success in his Napoleonic campaigns, he eventually became
Duke of Wellington in 1814, shortly before achieving his most famous victory of all at Waterloo.
With great reluctance he became
prime minister
in 1828, “a station, to the duties of which
I am unaccustomed, in which I was not wished, and for which I was not qualified…I should
have been mad if I had thought of such a thing”. Despite his own misgivings, his government
passed the Catholic Relief Act - allowing Catholics to sit in Parliament - thus avoiding civil war
in Ireland, but splitting the Tory ranks. Accused of popery by the Earl of Winchelsea, Wellington
challenged him to a duel in Battersea Park; the duke fired and missed (he was a notoriously
bad shot), while the earl shot into the air and apologized for the slur.
Wellington's opposition to the 1832 Reform Act brought down his government and allowed
the Whigs (under Earl Grey, of tea fame) to form a majority government for the first time in
sixty years. Despite retiring from public life in 1846, he was on hand to organize the defence of
the capital against the Chartists in 1848, and strolled across to the Great Exhibition every day in
1851. Two million people lined the streets for his funeral in 1852 (more than for anyone before
or since), and he has more outdoor statues (and pubs named after him) in London than any
other historical figure. Despite this, his greatest legacy is, of course, the
Wellington boot
,
originally made of leather, now rubber.
