Event    From /5/1951  To /9/1951

Festival of Britain

'A tonic for the Nation', The Festival was intended to cheer us all up after WW2, and incidentally to celebrate the centenary of the 1851 Great Exhibition. The symbol for the Festival was designed by Abram Games.

All the Festival buildings on the south bank except the Royal Festival Hall have since been demolished and replaced by other buildings forming the much-loved (British irony) arts complex known as The South Bank. The Festival of Britain was a nationwide event with two other sites in London: the Pleasure Gardens in Battersea and the Live Architecture Exhibition in Poplar, originally 'Neighbourhood 9' but then renamed the 'Lansbury Estate', after George Lansbury. Diamond GeezerCaroline's Miscellany and A London Inheritance have all done good posts about this Estate. The City of London laid out a garden beside St Paul's, Festival Gardens.

The Festival Pleasure Gardens were installed in the northern part of Battersea Park. These included a water-garden and a tree-walk. There was also a fun fair on the section between Central Avenue and what is now the children's zoo. The BBC has photos of many of the items.

2019: Ian Visits spotted a Festival of Britain bench in an Essex village.

2019: In the 1957 film 'The Key Man' / 'Life at Stake' (not be be confused with the 1955 film with the same two titles), at about 57 mins, two characters meet in the Thameside Restaurant under Waterloo Bridge, left over from the Festival. This nice piece of modernist architecture remained until 1962.

2023: An email from 'Londonist: Time Machine' reminded us that the recreation of Sherlock Holmes’s study, now to be found upstairs at The Sherlock Holmes pub near Charing Cross, was created for the Festival of Britain. The catalogue of the "Exhibition on Sherlock Holmes" states that it was held at "Abbey House, Baker Street, London NW1, May - September 1951". Often described as Holmes's study, the recreated room is described in the catalogue as his living room.

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Festival of Britain

Commemorated ati

Dome of Discovery

{The plaque is laid flat on the ground.} This commemorative plaque was set i...

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Festival of Britain - Arts

The relief shows the Royal Festival Hall, surrounded by a violin, saxophone, ...

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Festival of Britain - Churchill Gardens

See a similar plaque in N7 for information about them.

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Festival of Britain - London Pride

London Pride. Frank Dobson CBE, RA. 1886 - 1963. Commissioned for The Festi...

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Festival of Britain - N16

Festival of Britain, 1951, Award for Merit.

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Show all 19

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Geoffrey Webb

Geoffrey Webb

Geoffrey Fuller Webb was a stained-glass artist and designer of church furnishings, based for most of his career in East Grinstead. Nephew of the architect Sir Aston Webb and a pupil of Charles Eam...

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6 memorials
Led by Donkeys

Led by Donkeys

From their Facebook page: "Art, activism and accountability. All our work is funded by the public, no big donors."

Group, Art, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
Cicely Mary Barker

Cicely Mary Barker

Illustrator. Born at West Croydon. An epilepsy sufferer, she was housebound for most of her youth. In this time she showed a talent for drawing, and the first of her many books 'Flower Fairies of t...

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1 memorial
Glyn Philpot

Glyn Philpot

Glyn Warren Philpot. Artist, known for his portraits. Born Clapham but brought up in Kent. It's fixed now, but when we first did the research Wikipedia had Philpot "married" to Vivian Forbes long b...

Person, Art

1 memorial
Dave Bangs

Dave Bangs

Mural artist, active in 1984.

Person, Art

1 memorial