Memorial Landscapes
Early in 2014, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, set up a Holocaust Commission, to “ensure that the memory and the lessons of the Holocaust are never forgotten and that the legacy of survivors lives on for generation after generation“. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/398645/Holocaust_Commission_Report_Britains_promise_to_remember.pdf
The brief was threefold: to create a striking and prominent new national memorial, to collect and record the testimony of the diminishing numbers of holocaust survivors, and to create a world class learning centre to enable others to understand and learn from that legacy.
Led by Mick (Sir Michael) Davis, the Commission’s report was published in 2015 and suggested three potential locations for a memorial and learning centre. These were The Imperial War Museum London, Potters Field (a site between Tower Bridge and the former London City Hall) and a site on Millbank, close to Tate Britain. The blue touch paper had been lit. The debate on where and what the new national memorial should be, has been raging ever since.
In 2016, and seemingly out of nowhere, Victoria Tower Gardens, immediately to the south of the Houses of Parliament, was put forward as a possible Holocaust Memorial site.
After an international design competition, the commission was awarded, unanimously, to a team led by Adjaye Associates and Ron Arad Architects. This was in September 2017.
The design - a massive line up of 23 bronze fins - was heavily criticised for, amongst other things, its size, its dominance over its setting and also because it looked remarkably similar to the design Adjaye Associates had submitted for Canada's National Holocaust Monument (it didn’t win).
Above - visualisation of Adjaye Associates’s design in situ at Victoria Tower Gardens
The idea of placing the monument in Victoria Tower Gardens (a mere 2.5 ha of well used public park) created a veritable storm of comment and criticism from all quarters.
As you can imagine, the planning process was a nightmare. A planning application was submitted at the end of 2018, followed by revisions in 2019. The application was subsequently ‘called in’ for a public inquiry, immediately before Westminster City Council’s planning meeting - where the application was unanimously refused. The public inquiry was held (remotely) in 2020 and, following the Inspector’s recommendation, planning permission was finally granted by Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick MP, in July 2021. By the September, The London Gardens Trust had launched a challenge on the basis that decision-makers failed to properly consider the impacts of the development (https://londongardenstrust.org/campaigns/victoria-tower-gardens/). The resulting Judicial Review will take place next week on the 22nd and 23rd of February.
Let’s take a look at the Gardens. Victoria Tower Gardens are designated Grade II on the Historic England Register of Parks and Gardens (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000845?section=official-listing). After construction of the Houses of Parliament, the site of the park was ‘occupied by wharves, a cement works, an oil factory, and flour mills’. Terroir can imagine that this was felt to be an inappropriate neighbour to Barry and Pugin’s Parliamentary construction and, by 1879, money had been found to lay out a public park.
Both images reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland' https://maps.nls.uk/index.html
Let’s take a walk. At around 2.5 ha (6 acres) it is extraordinary what elements are contained within it, and what socially valuable functions it provides.
From a distance, and dwarfed by Parliament’s Victoria Tower, it appears to be small, flat and grassy. Perhaps the ideal space for a physically large memorial of international and historic significance.
But approaching over Lambeth Bridge towards the south end of the park, its true values begin to unfold.
First up is the playground, in use even on a chilly, February, term time weekday morning. From the play equipment (see right hand images below) this is, obviously, Horseferry Playground!
Beyond the slide and half submerged horses, the Gardens open out onto a wide, grassy space, framed by statuesque plane trees and book-ended by stunning vistas of Parliament. Surely the perfect spot for a memorial? The size of the proposed memorial structure is such that this ‘space’ and the views to it, from it and within it, would be dominated by the giant bronze fins. Terroir suggests that the Victoria Tower Gardens would become the Holocaust Memorial Apron, no longer a park in its own right, and cut off from the symbol of democracy which gave birth to the park. In other words, a piece of green heritage would be destoyed to create an, albeit very significant, memorial. Which should take priority? Well, the Holocaust Memorial doesn’t have to go here. Victoria Tower Gardens, by definition, does.
The first three images (above) reveal the Victoria Tower and Houses of Parliament in all their glory. Already the view has been compromised by the low level Education Centre, with its station platform outline - alien to the pattern and shapes of the architecture behind it and only slightly mitigated by its green roof. The fourth view (right) look south towards the Buxton Memorial and the apex of the triangular park. All views would be obliterated or radically changed if the Holocaust Memorial was built here.
But, I hear you cry, it’s just a small area of lawn, with hardly anyone using it. Remember this a February morning. Think about spring lunchtimes; sunny after school time; sun bathing weekends; evening promenades; a space for tourists, workers, local inhabitants, politicians, school children, teenagers, the retired, dog walkers, strollers. It’s not just the London Gardens Trust which is opposing this proposal. Take a look at the Save Victoria Tower Gardens Park website (https://www.savevictoriatowergardens.co.uk/), or the Thorney Island Society (https://thethorneyislandsociety.org.uk/ttis/). This is a much loved and well used park. Sufficient size for its current community? A tranquil space? Think what it would be like with the addition of the significant number of visitors likely to be attracted to a Holocaust Memorial of the proposed scale and significance.
The adjacent Thames (above) adds much to the Gardens. The waterscape becomes an intrinsic part of the park itself - including the views outward to London landmarks - but also makes the open space feel larger and the Embankment, with its mature plane trees, provides a seductive promenade and sitting area.
The park planting, although not ‘in your face’ spectacular, no doubt provides all round seasonal delight. A glimpse of February’s charms (below) was very welcome.
But wait a minute - isn’t this a Memorial Park already? Indeed it is. There are three memorials located here and all touch on human rights and democracy.
The Buxton Memorial Fountain (left) commemorates the emancipation of slaves and the contribution of some key anti-slavery campaigners. Designed by Samuel Sanders Teulon, it was first installed on the edge of Parliament Square in 1865, removed in 1949 and finally reinstated in Victoria Tower Gardens in 1957. The base is granite and limestone, and the mosaic decoration and enamelled roof are, in Terroir’s view, particularly attractive.
The Burghers of Calais (right), a cast of Rodin’s powerful 1889 sculpture, despicts the six leading citizens of Calais who agreed, in 1347, to surrender the keys of the town, and their own lives, to Edward III in return for an end to King Edward’s 11 month siege, and sparing the lives of the rest of the town’s people.
The story goes that the Burghers’ lives were also spared by the intervention of Edward’s Queen, Philippa of Hainault. The original scupture is in Calais, of course, but this is one of four subsequent castings, which was bought by the National Art Collection Fund in 1911. Rodin is said to have visited London to advise on where it should be placed (https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/victoria-tower-gardens/things-to-see-and-do/burghers-of-calais).
Tucked in a corner, under the shadow of British democracy, stands the memorial to Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel. Surprisingly - perhaps suspiciously - modest, it is, nethertheless, a place to pause, to consider the treatment of the suffragettes, and to honour their achievements.
There are two possible ways forward in this Memorial siting dilemma. One is to move the Memorial site elsewhere, and a prime location would seem to be the Imperial War Museum London. The other is to significantly reduce the above ground impact of the Memorial and continue at the same site. This will not solve all the problems, nor will it satisfy many protestors, but Hal Moggridge, who gave evidence at the public inquiry, regarding the potential harm of the proposal, has drawn up an alternative scheme to demonstrate that a lighter touch is possible. The scheme is illustrated below.
Both images © H Moggridge
Having more than one alternative to a disputed proposal can often inspire greater confidence when searching, or fighting, for a better option.
Downing or Drowning?
As political open spaces go, the garden behind 10 Downing Street must currently one of the most infamous. Access is extremely limited, of course, but the number of images on the internet does make a digital visit remarkably easy.
Gardens are powerful allegories and have always played a role in politics and the search for influence and control. What does this one in London SW1A tell us?
Originally, the garden had power stamped all over it. But prior to becoming the haunt of our political leaders, Sir Anthony Seldon’s history of Downing Street suggests a more modest inauguration. (https://www.gov.uk/government/history/10-downing-street). Apparently the Romans created their Londinium settlement on Thorney Island, a marshy piece of land in an area now called Westminster. No one made much of a go of the new community and Seldon suggests it was ‘prone to plague and its inhabitants were very poor’.
But lo, a series of kings arrived (Canute, Edward the Confessor and William I), and a great abbey was built. Government and the Church had arrived, and this section of Thames-side was now ‘on the map’.
Seldon also reports that the first building known to be on the Downing Street site was the medieval Axe Brewery. What glorious irony.
Then Henry VIII got involved and, via various political manoeuvrings, created the spectacular Whitehall Palace immediately adjacent to what is now Downing Street. Of course Henry needed a place to hunt and the area which later became St James’ Park, was laid out and enclosed.
From Van der Wyngarde’s View of London, 16th Century, British Library
Remnant walls have been discovered embedded in the dining room of No 10 and in the garden. (https://londongardenstrust.org/conservation/inventory/site-record/?ID=WST027a). With this shift of royal influence to Whitehall, domestic residences were soon being constructed around the Park and the Palace, for those wishing to live close to the power source.
In 1682, one George Downing obtained the lease and engaged Christopher Wren to build a cul-de-sac of terrace houses. Seldon comments, ‘It is unfortunate that he [Downing] was such an unpleasant man. Able as a diplomat and a government administrator, he was miserly and at times brutal.’ Seldon continues, ‘In order to maximise profit, the houses were cheaply built, with poor foundations for the boggy ground. Instead of neat brick façades, they had mortar lines drawn on to give the appearance of evenly spaced bricks. In the 20th Century, Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote that Number 10 was: “Shaky and lightly built by the profiteering contractor whose name they bear”’. You just couldn’t make it up.
And here comes the exciting bit. Thanks to the London Gardens Trust, we can report a first mention of a Downing Street garden: ‘a piece of garden ground scituate in his Majestys park of St. James's, & belonging & adjoining to the house now inhabited by the Right Honourable the Chancellour of his Majestys Exchequer’. https://londongardenstrust.org/inventory/picture.php?id=WST027a&type=sitepics&no=1 Even more exciting, there is a picture, painted by one George Lambert at around the time of Walpole’s residency.
© Museum of London
As you can see, the image depicts the formal, rectilinear, controlled expanse of a fashionable, early 18th century garden. Two be-wigged gentlemen stand amongst straight lines – railings, paths, steps, lawns, trees – all backed by a substantial brick wall which clearly separates politics from St James’s Park. The only light relief as a classical looking statue, set into the wall, and a small black dog. This is a garden in corsets; the rolling English Landscape tradition has yet to happen and 20th century domestic gardens are not even a twinkle in anybody’s eye.
From then on, the houses on Downing Street were constantly remodelled, joined together, improved and extended, a process which continues today.
George II tried to give the house to First Lord of the Treasury Sir Robert Walpole. Sir Robert turned him down but suggested it become an official residency and actually moved in, in 1735.
Extract from ‘A New Pocket Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster 1797’ British Library
But what about the gardens? Looking at the Google image below, there have been radical changes. The Downing Street grounds have been cut off from St James’s Park and have, to some extent, embraced informality. The whole area behind house numbers 9 - 12 Downing Street has been combined into a single unit of about a quarter of a hectare. Earl Mountbatten has his own space, overlooking the Park.
Google Imagery © 2022
The ‘front garden’ is visible – just - to all and sundry, and goes for the formal, short grass, bedding plants and hanging baskets combination. Perfect for that sweeping shot from television cameras. No chance of Terroir getting in to get some more attractive shots.
This back garden is no longer a statement of power and influence in its own right but a utility which has been forced to cater for a multitude of functions. These functions include the garden as play area for young families (Blairs, Browns, Camerons, Johnsons), as a place to grow vegetables (Michelle Obama’s influence on Sarah Brown), a setting for important visitors (including the Barak Obama/Cameron barbeque for military personnel), as stage for state visits and formal events, asan occasional venue for London Square Open Gardens Weekend, as a resource for the increasing numbers who work there and, now, as a Covid facility for fresh air, meetings, explanations, apologies, thanks and other forms of showing appreciation to the in-house team.
As a result, it is appears that the garden has a bit of everything except a cohesive design. From recent internet images, we have spotted a mix of small trees, large shrubs, whole shrubberies, herbaceous planting, perennial planting, bedding plants, hedges, bulbs in beds, bulbs in grass, raised beds, urns, yards of Wisteria, mounds of roses, lots of close mown lawns, assorted path surfaces and two ghastly municipal style lighting bollards. Oh and a huge terrace for, err, sitting out on.
It also appears that the garden sports some massive plane trees but this is actually a ‘borrowed landscape’ and these classic Londoners lean in and peer down from outside the garden walls.
View from Horse Guards Road of the ‘borrowed plane trees’ and the back of 12 Downing Street Google Imagery © 2022
It’s all maintained by the Royal Parks. Do look at this YouTube video (https://youtu.be/RMwL3GYtqjo) to get a real taste of what it takes to keep the space immaculate for any ocasion, with or without warning.
What does this horticultural jumble tell us? I would suggest:
A lack of respect for open spaces; you can take a virtual tour of the inside of 10 Downing Street (https://artsandculture.google.com/u/0/story/twXxuEIPr4FZJA) but not of the garden.
A failure to demonstrate good design.
An own goal for lack of sustainable management and biodiversity.
A lost opportunity for British horticulture.
A return to a good old fashioned head gardener.
Are we too harsh?