We are not done with the Dukes of Buckingham – see MoreFamily History. When you have read that you will know George Villiers is the 1st Duke of Buckingham of the second Creation.
His master mason was Nicholas Stone – I wonder if he chose him because of his name or if the Stone family adopted the surname to reflect their trade? In any event this is something Stone built in Portland stone for George Villiers in 1626.
It is, or was, a watergate giving access to York House, home to George Villiers, to and from the Thames. Today it is more than a hundred yards from the north bank of the river leading one to reflect on how wide the river was until Joseph Bazalgette built the Victoria Embankment in the 1860s, channelling and taming the river. Here is what it looked like around 1850.
Today it is noticeably lower than the land surrounding it revealing the extent to which Bazalgette built up the shores of the Thames. Take a closer look.
In the centre are the Duke’s Arms, either side a pair of weather-worn lions and the structure is supported by columns that have been likened to half shaved poodles’ legs. So much of Restoration London architecture has been pulled down that it is remarkable the watergate survived. An adjacent plaque explains.
This gateway marks the position of the north bank of the River Thames before the construction of the Victoria Embankment in 1862. It was built in 1626 by Nicholas Stone, master mason, for George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, to serve as the watergate to York House which the Duke had acquired from the Archbishop of York in 1624. The arms on the river front and the motto “Fidei cotucula crux” (the cross is the touchstone of faith) on the land side, are those of the Villiers family. York House was demolished in 1675 and streets were laid out on the site. In 1893 the gate having fallen into decay, the London County Council obtained parliamentary powers to acquire and preserve it as an object of public interest.
Its future seems assured as it is Grade I Listed.
Mélanie Hélène Bonis (1858 – 1937) was a prolific French late-Romantic composer. She used the pseudonym Mel Bonis in her professional life.
The Watergate Hotel and Apartments in Washington, DC, got their name from a water gate: the steps leading down to the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial. (Well, from the streets in front of the one to the street in front of the other.) Seventy years ago or so locals could sit on the steps of this water gate and listen to musicians playing from a barge moored on the river; the noise of airplane traffic has long made that impractical. I believe that somebody in the government once had the notion of distinguished visitors arriving at the foot of the stairs to be greeted by local or federal officials.