The Eyes of March

Yes, you read that title correctly – this is about Horseguards' Parade (where they march) and some intriguing markers I have espied during this month of March.
This first appeared on my Substack feed.

Walking across Horseguards’ Parade (possession or not? I say yes) with Chris, a lady who had attended the walk I had just led around St James’s Park* and, as I glanced down at the ground around my feet, I noticed the hint of a number 2 carved into a stone. Ooh. I cleared away the thin layer of chippings with my shoe and, as we discussed what this might signify, we spotted another marker to the left with a number 3 on it. 

How many times have I walked across here and not seen these before?!I say ‘walked’ but in truth I like marching across like a faux soldier, making that marvellous noise on the gravel. Schlerlump di dum, schlerlump di dum. 

Chris had been telling me that she’s a big fan of pomp and ceremony and often visits for changing of the guard and anything happening on or around the parade ground. She was as intrigued by the markers as I was. We decided they must be for the huge events here and surely there must be more of these markers, and so we scoured the ground to the left and right and forwards and backwards. I’d found a sleuthing partner! Aha! 

We found similarly-spaced markers bearing the numbers 3 and 4: 

This view is across the parade ground looking back to markers 2 and 3, Whitehall to the left, park to the right. 

The two pairs of numbers seem to be equidistant of the central line where we found larger grey stones with carved ruts in them that we summised might be used to park gun carriages, but I forgot to take photos of those. Convinced there surely must be pairs of markers bearing the numbers 1/2 at the southern side and 4/5 on the northern side, we hunted further but found nothing. We asked inside the museum. The staff at the counter also suggested that they were probably parade markers. 

I took Chris into the archway that leads to Whitehall and showed her the scratched graffiti that I wrote about here. We said our goodbyes and I returned to the parade ground to again search for more markers. 

 

A shadow selfie. Looks like I’m a bag lady on a beach. 

After five mins of gravelling I found a lonely 6 near the northern edge where the figure is oriented north to south: 

Despite some meticulous foot sweeping action to the 3&4 and back again, a number 5 was nowhere to be found. It must be there. It must be! 

I have an idea is that these mark the corners of the grandstands rather than stop/start points for the troops. I did spot some other intriguing (metal) things in this vicinity, but that can wait for another day. See you soon. 

 

*tours in The Royal Parks - have I not mentioned this? The St James’s Park tour includes pelican feeding and access to Duck Island, and there’s another walk I lead for them in Ken Gdns that concludes with access to the Albert Memorial. Find them here.

Big, beautiful boot scrapers

I've been wandering around and properly investigating the St. James's area a lot these past few years, yet until earlier this week I hadn't noticed some superb metalwork within the entrance to 50 St. James's Street. Considering that I have quite a large photographic collection of London boot scrapers, I was confused how I'd managed to miss this enormous pair of decorated beauties either side of the door. 

A sign near the entrance says that the building is being renovated. There are remnants of scaffold pole footers and the whole thing needs a wash and brush up. The boot scrapers are sublime. I have never before seen any so opulently decorated. The lanterns at the top of the street level posts are no longer in place, hence why they are cropped out of my phots here, but their gas feeds are still evident below their three-legged struts. I had an inkling that building this would have originally been one of the area's many gentlemen's clubs as per White's, Boodle's, Brook's etc. But what was it more recently? I needed to do some delving.

Well, it turns out that for over 12 years this site has been behind scaffolding or under wraps of some kind which is evidence by looking at Google's retrospective street views. In 2012 the site shows that the building looked like the image above. 

A quick bit of googling and Wikipedia tells us that this is an 1827 Grade II listed building that was has been a gentleman's club (yes!*), a bridge club in the 1920s and then various casinos or gaming institutes. There are plans to convert the building for use as either a hotel or as residential properties. However, the written timeline in that Wiki link doesn't seem to correlate with the google streetview which clearly show that scaffolding was in place by August 2014 so I am a bit confused when the squatters were there.     

This 2012 image show the lovely gas-fired lamps beautifully silhouetted. I suspect that the lanterns were removed for safety reasons during the building works and I am hoping that, going forward, they will be reinstated, complete with the gas feed as per other lamps in this area, rather than retrofitted with LEDs.

* had I applied my brain I could have worked that this was William Crockford 's club – he was an interesting character to say the least!