Monuments & Ruins

Not every statue in London. The ones worth crossing the road for: Roman wall, medieval ruins, and the monuments that earn a detour.

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South Bank Lion

A thirteen-ton lion in artificial stone, which nobody can make any more, saved by a king.

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Photo by Christian David, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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It was made in 1837 in Coade stone, the ceramic stoneware from the Lambeth factory that has survived two centuries of weather better than any real stone and whose recipe was lost when the firm closed. It stood on the roof of the Lion Brewery on the riverfront until the brewery was demolished for the Festival of Britain in 1949, and George VI asked that it be kept. It went first to Waterloo station and in 1966 to the end of Westminster Bridge, where it faces County Hall painted the colour of stone rather than the red it wore on the brewery. Its twin is at Twickenham.

Where
Westminster Bridge Road, SE1 7PB
Nearest station
Westminster · 5 min walk

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

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