In March 1817, soon after the Elgin Marbles first went on display in the British Museum, John Keats went to see them with his friend, the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon. Within a week, Keats had written his poem, ‘On Seeing the Elgin Marbles’, and had it published in The Examiner.
There aren’t many material traces of the Anglo-Saxons visible in London, at least within the bounds of the old medieval city.
Under the heading of ‘ANOTHER JUBILEE SUGGESTION’ a letter from the painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts was published in the Times on 5 September 1887.
Wellclose Square is nothing to look at today, dominated as it is by regulation-ugly blocks of council flats, but it was once the smartest address in the East End, the residence of silk traders and sea captains. The square was laid out in 1678 by Christopher Wren as part of his grand design for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire.