Obelisk

(lost) St George's Obelisk - lost

St George's Obelisk - lost

Site: St George's Obelisk - lost (1 memorial)

SE1, Lambeth Road

We knew that the obelisk now at St George's Circus spent much of its life in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, from about 1897 - 1998, and now we have a photo of it there.

Wikipedia says the obelisk was at "the north apex of Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, (the remnant of Multon Close) a short distant southwest, in front of the museum .." But where exactly? This map shows something at the entrance to the grounds of, what was then, Bethlem Royal Hospital, but we think that indicates the gatehouse, which is still there.

The photo shows the obelisk at a corner with traffic lights, and the street sign reads "St George's Road". The buildings in the background provide other essential clues. We believe they are/were in Barkham Terrace. This was a Georgian terrace with a chapel in the middle. Upton Chapel is the pedimented building shown in the photo and the modern building with the distinctive banding near the top can be clearly seen in Streetview today. The chapel was damaged in WW2, demolished in 1952 and replaced with an extension to the modern building in exactly the same style. And the white, classical building at the left? This can only be the gatehouse at the entrance to the grounds of the Hospital. We were confused at first since all these buildings seem too close but we assume that's an effect of the lens used in the camera.

We thank Mark Brady for sharing this photo. We'd like to thank the source but Mark found it on the internet a long time ago and can't remember the website (we've all been there). And after we'd done all this photo-examination he sent us a map showing the location of the obelisk - exactly where we'd laboriously deduced it was.

We've marked this memorial as 'lost' which clearly it isn't, but that's our way of indicating that a memorial is no longer at the place marked with our pin. See it at its current location for information about the inscriptions, etc.

Credit for this entry to: Mark Brady

Nearby Memorials

Bellot memorial obelisk

Bellot memorial obelisk

SE10, Five Foot Walk, Royal Naval College

33ft high red granite.  Described in detail at the splendid PMSA.

2 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
Hackney Wick war memorial

Hackney Wick war memorial

E9, Victoria Park

2016: We took a close-up photo of the most legible corner - the rest is just gray mottled lettering on gray mottled marble - to show why ...

2 subjects commemorated
Thomas Paine obelisk

Thomas Paine obelisk

EC1, Angel Square

Erected on the 200th anniversary of the publication of Paine's "Rights of Man", written while Paine lived at the Angel Inn which used to ...

1 subject commemorated, 2 creators
WW1 obelisk - E8

WW1 obelisk - E8

E8, Haggerston Road, Stonebridge Common, Duke of Wellington pub

We found the inscription text at IWM. It's from a report of the unveiling in the Hackney and Kingsland Gazette 23 February 1921.

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
New Zealand obelisk

New Zealand obelisk

SE10, King William Walk

Made of Cornish granite.  We've photoed the stone chain around the monument.  Lower down is a stone rope with knots at the corners. We l...

War dead | Other war
22 subjects commemorated