Pall Mall’s odd name comes from the French game of palle maille - a form of crocket or hockey - which was played here and afterwards, once this street became built up, on The Mall. As the game went out of fashion, The Mall became a place for walking and leisure, lined with stalls, eventually giving its name to the shopping mall.
First Gas Lighting
In June 1807, Pall Mall became the first public street in the world to be artificially lit with gas. German inventor Frederick Winsor, using old musket barrels for his piping to withstand the coal gas pressure, lit the way to St James’s Palace to celebrate King George III’s birthday.
93-95 Pall Mall SW1
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Pall Mall
125 Pall Mall
Look for this gilded ship sailing high above the traffic. Now housing Turkish Airlines, among others, this building predates its present occupiers. In 1767, this was the home of the auction firm Christies, established by ex-navy man James Christie - so that might be the nautical connection.
125 Pall Mall SW1
The Athenaeum Club
Built by Decimus Burton in 1828, the freize around the outside is a copy of the Elgin Marbles, taken from the Parthenon in 1812. Dickens and Faraday are among former members, most drawn from the clergy, arts and sciences, with 52 having won the Nobel Prize.
107 Pall Mall SW1
www.athenaeumclub.co.uk
Robert Falcon Scott
Kathleen Scott's statue of her husband, the polar explorer, was set up here in 1915, three years after the death of Scott and his four friends on their return from the South Pole. 'Had we lived I should have had a tale to tell.’ Kathleen trained with Rodin in Paris. Granddaughter Emily Young is also a sculptor.
Waterloo Place SW1
John Franklin
’To The Great Arctic Navigator And His Brave Companions Who Sacrificed Their Lives In Completing The Discovery Of The North-West Passage AD 1847-8.’ Fellow Athenaeum member Charles Dickens grew his famous beard in 1857 to portray one of Franklin’s men on stage in a play by Wilkie Collins.
Waterloo Place SW1
Wellington’s Horse Block
Standing outside the United Service Club, this granite mounting block is often said to have been put here to help Wellington get on his horse in old age. More charitably, the 6’2” Iron Duke had it erected to help shorter men mount their horses. The club was for officers who had fought in the Napoleonic Wars.
Waterloo Place SW1
The Nazi Dog
A tiny gravestone near the top of the Duke Of York steps may be the only Nazi memorial in London. The Nazi Embassy was here until the start of WWII and the grave is of the ambassador’s pet Alsatian. Giro - ‘Ein treuer Begleiter’ (a true friend) - was accidentally electrocuted in 1934 and given a full Nazi funeral.
7-9 Carlton Gardens SW1
Charles De Gaulle
This monument to General De Gaulle was set up outside the wartime headquarters of the Free French movement in 1993. The first president of liberated France, he was the driver behind the European Union. Funding for the statue by Angela Conner was led by Winston Churchill’s daughter, Lady Soames.
Carlton Gardens SW1
Tube: Piccadilly Circus
