Where to spot camels in London.
Have you ever woken up of a morning and thought "I know what I'm going to do today. I'm going to walk around London spotting camels"? We've all been there. So to help with the task, we've put together a selection of dromedaries and bactrians for you to track down in the capital.
1. Actual living camels
London's only living camels (so far as we know) are of course in London Zoo. The Regent's Park attraction is home to a pair of domestic Bactrian camels named Genghis and Noemie. Their enclosure is right up against the southern perimeter of the zoo, so you can get a good view without having to pay the entrance fee.
2. A camel memorial
Embankment Gardens revels in more public statues and sculptures than pretty much any other open space. One of the more eye-catching is this monument, featuring a spindly legged camel. It remembers the Imperial Camel Corps, a brigade who saw action in the Middle East during the First World War. At its peak, the Corps maintained a stable of 4,800 camels. The beasts were not, of course, used for cavalry charges, but proved useful for transporting infantry across the desert. The Imperial Camel Corps was disbanded in 1919.
3. A camel bench
The Victoria Embankment boasts many an impressive bench. Some are sculpted by great swan heads. Others, near Cleopatra's Needle, are adorned with Sphinx heads. On the City of London's side of the boundary can be found these delightful camel-borne seats. The benches are replicas of ones installed in 1877, just before the Needle was erected.
4. London's largest camel?
The Albert Memorial in Kensington is guarded by four sculptural groups each representing a continent. Africa's stone ambassadors include this magnificent camel, sculpted by William Theed. It is, quite possibly, the only Grade-I-listed camel in existence.
5. A fanged camel
London's most sinister camel (among an admittedly small pool) is surely this beastie in the British Museum's Asian galleries. The fanged camelid is part of a hoard of tomb figures from China, and dates back to the Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907). Terrifying.
6. A Kentish camel
Less monumental, but much more colourful, is this unexpected humpster in Kentish Town. Known as 'Sami', the camel has sat outside the Orientalist carpet shop since the 1980s. Camels famously store fat in their humps as an energy source in lean times. Sami, however, is filled with concrete to prevent theft.
7. Camels in relief
A caravan of camels decorates Peek House on Eastcheap in the City of London. The camels are a reminder of the Peek Brothers company, which imported tea, coffee and spices in the 19th and 20th century. As well as a symbol of exotic trade, the camels are three in number to represent the three Peek brothers. The same family would also found Peek Freans biscuit manufacturers in Bermondsey. The camels were sculpted by William Theed, who also crafted the camel on the Albert Memorial.
8. A lost mounted camel
We've already seen the memorial to the Imperial Camel Corps, but London once possessed a much larger mounted camel. As London Remembers notes, a camel-mounted statue of Charles George Gordon briefly stood outside the National Portrait Gallery, where today we find the statue of Edith Cavell. It only lasted a few months before getting shipped off to Khartoum. It is now at Gordon's School near Woking — a much-travelled camel. The one shown in the photo above is another casting, which stands at Brompton Barracks, Chatham.
9. Camel pubs
London is Bactrian when it comes to camel-related pubs: there are two of them. The Camel in Bethnal Green is charming backstreet boozer, old-fashioned, community focussed, and big on its pies. The gloriously named Camel and Artichoke, meanwhile, sits beside the Leake Street tunnel in Waterloo (and is a much more tempting prospect that the massive, overbearing BrewDog at the other end of said tunnel). The latter pub also spawned one final London camel...
10. The golden camel of King's Cross
Many odd things can be encountered on the backstreets south of King's Cross station, but a rooftop camel is surely the most unexpected. The resting animal is perched high on a wall behind the Skinners Arms pub, contemplating the edge of the adjacent building. This is a camel with some back-story, as told on the Skinners' website. In short, it migrated north from the Camel and Artichoke after the landlords vacated in 2016.
