Strength restored, we proceeded to our final scheduled venue for the day: Postman's Park. Earlier this year I read about this park in a book called The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain by Mary Greensted. Last time we were in London, we must have actually passed it without noticing it; it's on the way from St. Paul's to the Museum of London, tucked away just before this street, Little Britain, which made such an impression on us that we took a picture of it:
Postman's Park is a burial ground that was converted into a public park; the old tombstones are stacked around the perimeter of the park:
Here's the view of Little Britain from the park:
Anyway, the thing that sets this park aside from the many lovely squares in London is this:
"G.F. Watts's Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice
Unveiled in 1900, this memorial to heroic self-sacrifice was conceived and undertaken by the Victorian artist George Frederick Watts OM RA (1817-1904).
It contains plaques to those who have heroically lost their lives trying to save another. Watts believed that these everyday heroes provided models of exemplary behaviour and character."
The memorial is a covered walkway with beautiful ceramic tiles, each of which honours a person who gave his or her life to save someone else.
Death by fire or drowning was very commonplace, it seems. Here are a few of the many tiles; most, as you can see, are late 1800s or maybe early 1900s, but we saw one that was dated 2007. I will let the tiles speak for themselves; although some of them are maudlin ("Mother, I saved him but could not save myself") they are nevertheless pretty moving, especially when you see a whole wall of them.
You never know what you'll find tucked away in London.
3 comments:
I now understand where Edward Gorey's Ghastlycrumb Tinies originated. This is amazing. Heartrending and yet funny, in a laughing-during-a-funeral way. Ack! I don't know how to feel about it. But I want one of these tiles for my kitchen.
What a totally cool post...except, um, there's a small spelling mistake (or maybe not).
I quote from your post: "Postman's Park is a burial ground that was converted into a pubic park".
Nothing has been altered, unless you correct it, which means later readers will wonder.
Bless yore heart, Donna, I never noticed it. As a blogger, I depend on people like you to find this stuff. You can read your own things all day long and skip right over the boo-boos, but apparently I can read my friends' stuff too and re-chasten it all.
That said, what a cool park! I lived for a year on a street in S. Kensington that looked a lot like your street picture. I would probably get more out of London if I went as a tourist for a week now than I did living there for a year, when I was mainly concerned with learning how to drink to excess.
Post a Comment