Royal London

The best of royal London: the palaces and the parades, and the places where the last hundred years of the story happened, from where Elizabeth II was born to where Diana lived to the balcony itself. Filter by monarch or by kind.

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Charles I bust, St Margaret's

The martyr king in lead on a church wall, facing the man who signed his death warrant.

Churches & chapelsStatues & memorialsFree

Set high on the east wall, easy to walk under without seeing.

Also in Power & Politics.

The Church of England kept 30 January, the day Charles I was beheaded in 1649, as a day of fasting for two centuries, and a devotional society still marks it. That society, the Society of King Charles the Martyr, gave this lead bust to St Margaret's, the Commons' own parish church, and in 1956 it went up above the east porch facing the statue of Oliver Cromwell across the road. It is the only place in London where the two of them look at each other.

Where
St Margaret's Church, Parliament Square, SW1P 3JX
Nearest station
Westminster · 3 min walk

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