A new sculpture was officially unveiled yesterday at the corner of Union Street and Blackfriars Road, on the last day of the Charles Dickens bicentenary. As a 12 year old boy, Dickens used to walk past a statue of a dog and pot over a shop as he went to work (yes, work), vowing to one day go back to school and make something of himself. He later immortalised it in his autobiography:
My usual way home was over Blackfriars Bridge and down that turning in the Blackfriars Road which has Rowland Hill’s chapel on one side, and the likeness of a golden dog licking a golden pot over a shop door on the other.
This replica – which has its own Twitter account – is made from elm wood and created by Michael Painter, a carpenter and artist who has worked on Windsor Castle, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Palace of Westminster. If you want to see the original, it's in Southwark's Cuming Museum.