Sometimes I talk almost complete rubbish and this happened on Saturday at Holland Park. I was talking to somebody who works at Kew Gardens and she feigned interest that the ten Queen’s Beasts outside the Palm House had been designed by my great-uncle to stand outside Westminster Abbey at the Queen’s coronation.
I had always believed this to be the case but it is wildly inaccurate. But we must digress. The last time I went to the Royal Institute of British Architects HQ in Portland Place was for a birthday party and I did not pay sufficient attention to the vast doors. Each weighs one and a half tons and depict the Thames and various London buildings in deep relief. The sculptor is James Woodford (RA, OBE) and it was to him that the Ministry of Works turned to create the Queen’s Beasts. Ten heraldic beasts had been created for Henry VIII at Hampton Court but they were not appropriate for Queen Elizabeth II, hence the commission. My godson may be interested that three of the King’s Beasts deemed unsuitable are: the Seymour Black Lion, the Seymour spotted Panther and the Seymour Unicorn.
The Queen’s Beasts outside the Abbey were: the Lion of England, the White Greyhound of Richmond, the Yale of Beaufort, the Red Dragon of Wales, the White Horse of Hanover, the White Lion of Mortimer, the Unicorn of Scotland, the Griffin of Edward III, the Black Bull of Clarence and the Falcon of the Plantagenets. All likely names for public houses. Each beast is about six feet high and weighs some 700 pounds. They are made of plaster and after the coronation they were offered to Canada where they are displayed at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatinau. The Beasts outside the Palm House at Kew are Portland stone replicas commissioned by a rich businessman in 1958.