Pomp and Circumstance – The Architecture of St James’s Park

Of all of London's green spaces, St James's is its most stately. Flanked by the great buildings of Whitehall and a suite of royal palaces and monuments, this one time marsh was transformed in the 17th century into a formal European garden, then again in the 19th century as a romantic landscape of meandering walks and hills and again recast as part of the great urban stagecraft and story board of the British Empire. In this walk, The London Ambler traverses the stately green, to reveal the architecture, pomp and circumstance of nationhood. From great avenues and arches to allusionary statuary and pallazo, it charts the transformation of this celebrated and loaded landscape throughs its best buildings and public spaces.

An OnStreet walk by The London Ambler - Mike Althorpe