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Knightsbridge

& Belgravia

City of Westminster

Apsley House

Apsley House, also known as Number One, London, is the London town house of the Dukes of Wellington. It stands on the south-east corner of Hyde Park, facing south towards Wellington Arch.

The house is ran by English Heritage and is open to the public as a museum and art gallery, exhibiting 83 paintings from the Spanish royal collection.

Coordinates: 51°30'12.4"N 0°09'05.8"W

Rotten Row

Rotten Row is a broad track running for 1,384 metres (4,541 ft) along the south side of Hyde Park in London. It leads from Hyde Park Corner to Serpentine Road. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Rotten Row was a fashionable place for upper-class Londoners to be seen horse riding. Today it is maintained as a place to ride horses in the centre of London, but it is little used. Rotten Row was established by William III at the end of the 17th century. Having moved court to Kensington Palace, William wanted a safer way to travel to St. James's Palace. He created the broad avenue through Hyde Park, lit with 300 oil lamps in 1690– the first artificially lit highway in Britain. The lighting was a precaution against highwaymen, who lurked in Hyde Park at the time. The track was called Route du Roi, French for King's Road, which was eventually corrupted into "Rotten Row".

In the 18th century, Rotten Row became a popular meeting place for upper-class Londoners. Particularly on weekend evenings and at midday, people dressed in their finest clothes to ride along the row and be seen. The adjacent South Carriage Drive was used by society people in carriages for the same purpose. In 1876, it was reconstructed as a horse-ride, with a brick base covered by sand.

The sand-covered avenue of Rotten Row is maintained as a bridleway and forms part of Hyde Park's South Ride. It is convenient for the Household Cavalry, stabled nearby at Hyde Park Barracks in Knightsbridge, to exercise their horses. Members of the public may also ride, although few people have stables close enough to make use of it. Commercial stables nearby, the Hyde Park Stables and 'Ross Nye Stables, offer horse hire and riding lessons to the public.

Michael Crichton's 1979 feature film, The First Great Train Robbery, set in 1855 has a scene in which the character Edward Pierce (portrayed by Sean Connery) escorts Emily Trent (Pamela Salem) on a supposedly romantic ride along Rotten Row.

 

A Royal plaque commemorating 300 years of Rotten Row was erected in 1990.

 

"ROTTEN ROW - The King's Old Road, Completed 1690

This ride originally formed part of King William III's carriage drive from Whitehall to Kensington Palace. Its Construction was supervised by the Serveyor of their Majesties' Roads, Captain Michael Studholme and it was the first lamp-lit road in the Kingdom. Designated as a public bridleway in the 1730's, Rotten Row is one of the most famous urban riding grounds in the world."

Albert Memorial

Situated in Kensington Gardens stands the 54m tall Memorial to Prince Albert (1819-1861). It was commissioned by Queen Victoria and completed in 1872.

The Albert Memorial was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, with a central gilded statue by J.H. Foley and Thomas Brock. The prince is sheltered by a towering Gothic canopy and surrounded by statuary commem­orating his good works and the glories of civil­isation, especially those of the British Empire.

Coordinates: 51°30'08.19"N 0°10'39.61"W

Search for Enlightenment

Source: Halcyon Gallery

The inspiration for Search for Enlightenment came to sculptor Simon Gudgeon while travelling in Africa. Two large human heads cast in bronze stand next to each other in profile, a male and a female. Their faces raised to the sky. The space within each cranium is hollow, through which we can contemplate consciousness from an inside-out perspective, from all angles, within nature, the landscape and sky.

The expressions on these faces are peaceful and accepting; this man and woman are in contemplation, absorbing great knowledge, at a point of realisation about their place in the universe.

“I stood on a 240 million year old mountain in Africa and watched the 4.6 billion year old sun descend below the horizon. As the light diminished, the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way began to glow in the night sky. Our galaxy extends for 100,000 light years and is part of a universe consisting of hundreds of billions of galaxies.

It was at that moment I began to grasp the narrowness of consciousness, the vastness of time and the transience of humanity.” - Simon Gudgeon.

(Image shows the sculpture at Millbank).

Coordinates: 51°30'08.61"N 0°09'41.23"W

Robert Grosvenor Statue

Sat in the middle of a traffic island is a bronze statue of Robert Grosvenor, the developer of Belgravia, shown studying plans of the area, his foot resting on a milestone inscribed CHESTER | 197 | MILES, a reference to his estate at Eaton Hall in Cheshire. On either side sit two talbots, the supporters from his coat of arms, which is shown on the front of the plinth.

Coordinates: 51°30'01.40"N 0°09'13.70"W

Statue of Christopher Columbus

Given by the people of Spain in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage. His birth date is mistakenly given as 1446 on the pedestal. He was really born in 1451.

Coordinates: 51°29'54.43"N 0°09'12.52"W

The Lanesborough Hotel

The Lanesborough is a 5-star hotel on Hyde Park Corner. Operated by the Oetker Collection, the hotel is reputedly the most expensive hotel in London.

St. George's Hospital was opened in the original Lanesborough House in 1733. 
By the 1800s the hospital was falling into disrepair. Lanesborough House was demolished to make way for a new 350-bed facility. Building began in 1827 under architect William Wilkins. The new hospital was operational by 1844, serving continuously as a hospital until transferred to Tooting, south London in the 1970s, leaving the Hyde Park Corner premises vacant in 1980. The Duke of Westminster took up an option to buy the building for £6,000 (its value in the nineteenth century).

Rosewood Hotels & Resorts refurbished and re-opened the building as a hotel in 1991. Furniture was supplied by Arthur Brett and Sons. Ten years later the management contract passed to Starwood's St. Regis operation as its first and only hotel in England. The hotel left Starwood in November 2014 and is currently managed by the Oetker Collection.

Coordinates: 51°30'08.73"N 0°09'09.24"W

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