Lord Byron Statue To Be Moved From Traffic Island

M@
By M@

Last Updated 20 January 2025

Lord Byron Statue To Be Moved From Traffic Island
A statue of Lord Byron
Image courtesy of London Remembers, who plucked up the courage to visit Byron's traffic island.

A statue of Lord Byron is to be rescued from its traffic island.

"What statue of Lord Byron?" you might wonder. The likeness of the poet is not exactly London's most prominent work of art. It languishes on a traffic island at the southern end of Park Lane. The only way to reach the Grade II-listed sculpture it is to dash across three lanes of traffic. There is no pedestrian crossing.

It wasn't always thus. The statue of Byron and his Newfoundland dog, Boatswain, has stood here since 1880, and was sculpted by Richard Claude Belt. For the first half of its life, the memorial was firmly within the perimeter of Hyde Park, close to Achilles. But a road-widening scheme in the 1960s saw it isolated between traffic flows. Subsequent growth of trees have largely hidden the statue from even a distant view.

Now, plans are afoot to move the metal wordsmith back inside the park. Specifically, a spot has been found up by the Victoria Gate, which is on Bayswater Road just east of Lancaster Gate tube.

A statue of Lord Byron hidden in the trees
Spot the Byron. Image: Google Street View

The memorial depicts the poet seated on a lump of rock on top of a slab of Greek marble. Its pose is inspired by one of Byron's lines: "To sit on rocks and muse o'er flood and fell". Isn't it Byronic, don't ya think, that for more than half a century, he's contemplated only a flood of traffic.

His rescue has been made possible by a curiously specific grant of £230,280 from The Byron Society, who in turn secured the money from the The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Further money has come from private donation. The Heritage of London Trust will undertake a restoration to remove "dirt, grease, grime, detritus, and guano".

It's unclear when that statue might be moved. The Byron Society must first secure planning permission from Westminster Council.

In something of a family tradition, Byron's daughter Ada Lovelace is also commemorated with an inaccessible statue. The computer programming pioneer can be spotted high on a building on Horseferry Road.