Welcome

The Society was formed in 1985 to save from demolition London's first public library in Great Smith Street (above right).  Since then we have kept a watchful eye on developments in this area, which includes the World Heritage Site encompassing the Abbey and Houses of Parliament. We respond on behalf of residents and businesses to local planning applications. Our 250+ members enjoy local visits & talks & more recently virtual on-line talks, of historic and other interest, social events and an archive of books, prints, plans and ephemera.

News ! Victoria Tower Gardens

JANUARY 2022

Contractors do ground penetrating radar work in Victoria Tower Gardens, hoping to start excavations in February.  We object to the Government's proposal to build a Holocaust Memorial and underground Learning Centre on this Grade 2 listed park.  We support the London Gardens Trust whose legal case will be heard also in February.

22nd NOVEMBER 2021

GRANTED LEAVE TO APPEAL!  Read more CLICK HERE

29th OCTOBER 2021

The London Gardens Trust (LGT) have at last heard that their appeal against the decision to grant planning permission for the Holocaust Memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens (VTG) is to be heard in the High Court.  The judge has ruled that there is a case to answer on two of the six grounds: one is to do with the meaning of 'substantial harm', which  LGT say will be caused to the grade 2* Buxton Memorial as well as the Grade 2 gardens themselves. The second is the fact that no alternative sites were seriously considered and weighed up against VTG.

Thorney Tales (22) - Rosamund's Pond

Everyone knows and loves the lake in St James’s Park but not everyone knows that there was another one before that called Rosamond’s Pond which was just as famous, indeed infamous, in its day and a source of delight for poets. 

Pope, in “The Rape of the Lock” summed it up:

"This the blest lover shall for Venus take, 

And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake."

Bishop Warburton was even more succinct, describing it as "long consecrated to disastrous love and elegiac poetry". 

The pond was situated at the Buckingham House end of the park stretching from near the end of the existing lake, then a canal, to St James’s Street (now Buckingham Gate) in front of Tart Hall (long since demolished). There was also a vineyard nearby.

Often referred to in contemporary comedies as an assignation for married ladies with fashionable lovers but it also had a darker side which Fanny Burney hinted at in her writings, as a place where thwarted lovers drowned themselves in it. It was filled-in around 1770 when the Crown purchased Buckingham House and turned it into a palace.

Who was Rosamund? She is sometimes supposed to be ‘Fair Rosamond” Clifford, the favourite mistress of Henry ll who was later painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Burne-Jones and was the subject of many poems and myths (such as that she was murdered by Henry’s wife Eleanor of Aquitaine). A less flattering contemporary description came from the Welsh chronicler Gerald of Wales who dismissed her as 'that rose of unchastity.'

It seems that everyone can make their own images of Rosamond just as Hogarth did of the pond in his painting (above) which has Westminster Abbey with elongated wings posing between conveniently separated trees. 

Events 2022

Sadly we postponed our Christmas Party on 6th December due to ongoing uncertainty regarding the impact of large indoor gatherings in the current Covid situation.  We hope to hold a replacement event as soon as we can in 2022.

Please see below our 2022 Programme of Events.  Full details and descriptions can be found on our Events/Visits tab at the top of this page.

Plus! Our 2021 Talks can now be viewed on our YouTube channel. 

Please book via our Eventbrite page   CLICK HERE

If you do not wish to book online, please contact us and we will be happy to make your booking (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by cheque and post to 10 Old Pye Street, London SW1P 2DG) 

Autumn/Winter 2021 Newsletter

The Stag Brewery, Palace Street - Collection of Photographs held at the Westminster Archives

(Of course, we know that the Stag Brewery was not in Pimlico, but in Victoria !)  Fascinating photographs and talk.  Click image below:

Thorney Tales (21) - Aphra Behn, playwright, poet, feminist, spy - Ahead of her times (1640-1689)

There are no women poets or playwrights buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey but in the nearby East Cloister lies Aphra Behn. She was a star of Restoration drama, writing 18 successful plays which was more than any male dramatist at the time with the possible exception of John Dryden. She was held in esteem by her peers but not long after sank almost without trace for centuries. This was partly because Restoration drama fell out of fashion but mainly because she wrote in a bawdy fashion which was tolerated in the permissive reign of Charles II but later not thought a fit occupation for a woman. 

In recent years she has made a comeback into fashion partly due to Virginia Woolf’s famous exhortation on her tomb, that “all women together ought to let flowers fall”. Which is what happened in the Summer of 2021, when pupils from Urswick School in Hackney laid  flowers on her grave with personal messages after they had given a - socially distanced - performance of some of Aphra’s work in the hallowed atmosphere of Poets’ Corner. I (Victor Keegan) was delighted to be part of the audience along with others from London Historians. 

She was from a humble background but became an icon and role model way ahead of her time. She is still a fascinating talking point among feminists because while she dealt with gender mixing themes and was a proud libertine at a time when it was fashionable, she was also a Tory and a fierce royalist, which don't always go together. She didn't seem to believe in a God yet she dedicated part of a play to the staunchly Catholic James II before he did a moonlight flit out of the country.

In her time Aphra was a poet, novelist, spy and translator. She was probably the first woman to earn her living from writing even though she was always short of money. Nell Gwynn appeared in one of her plays as did Anne Bracegirdle, the esteemed actress, (in The Widow Ranter in 1689). Anne is buried next to Aphra in the East Cloister, close to Poets’ Corner but not quite in it. 

 

 

 

 

The Victoria Tower Gardens & The National Holocaust Memorial & Learning Centre

29th July 2021 - DECISION !  Government marks its own homework ....

Please CLICK HERE to read today's Press Release

The definitive book on the history of VTG ......

We have just a few copies left of Dorian's book.  Please contact us if you would like to purchase a copy.  Proceeds will now be re-directed to the London Gardens Trust who are continuing the legal battle.