Some of you may be aware of the BBC Sherlock episode “The Six Thatchers” in which six plaster busts of our former PM are hunted for a hidden message.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Thatchers
What a surprise for me to learn that there are two hidden images of Mrs Thatcher in the middle of the City of London, if you look closely enough. This photo is from Matt Brown (the Londonist)
The first is at Tower Hill station in a sundial, secretly added by the sculptor Edwin Russell for a commission for London Transport.
The second I only discovered yesterday, on a bench in a garden belonging to a church that was never rebuilt after being destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. The church was called St Pancras and was just next to No 1 Poultry and the Golden Fleece pub in Queen Street, and here is the bench:
The centre of it is detailed here:
All I could find to identify the artist was a signature (google provided nothing)
Luckily when I contacted the artist, Sarah Liptrop I was extremely pleased to get this reply from her:
Yes, this is my work, although it has aged somewhat since I did it in 2011. It was part of a commission given to me by City & Guilds of London Art School when I graduated. I was given several benches to do there for Pancras Lane. I designed and carved the benches to fit into a brief that was to create benches in a Romanesque style on the site of the original Romanesque church that was burnt down during the fire of London in 1666.
These photos show the back panel of one of the benches I completed. This panel represents from left to right: the once Governor of the Bank of England – Mervyn King (now Baron King of Lothbury) being thrown into the cauldron by demons. Then in the cauldron there are: the Right Hon. Lord Eric Pickles, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Rupert Murdoch, and Margaret Thatcher. The other side is a reimagination of the city of London skyline in medieval times, complete with peasant huts in the foreground.
I have let her know about the other Mrs Thatcher image (I wonder if she already knew) and am really pleased to have uncovered yet another City secret.
