The Art Newspaper

Palace of Westminster angel gets its head

Sculpture damaged in World War II finally restored

By Viv Lawes. Web only
Published online: 15 September 2009

London. An angel sculpture from London’s Palace of Westminster will finally get a replacement head after it was damaged by World War II bombing.

Following a two-year joint initiative between the Palace of Westminster and the City & Guilds of London Art School, the head is now being carved from Cadeby limestone by Kevin McKeon, a postgraduate student at the school. He was announced as the winning designer by the Right Honourable Baroness Hayman, Lord Speaker of the House of Lords, resulting from a competition set by the curator’s office at the Palace of Westminster. This followed conservation and cleaning work on the angel’s body by the school’s student conservators.

The angel was originally sited in the Victoria Tower—the square tower at the southern end of the Palace of Westminster—which was partially destroyed by Nazi bombing in 1941 during attacks that annihilated the House of Commons. The Thames Bank Workshop, under the supervision of John Thomas, was probably responsible for carving the angel in the 1840s during the rebuilding of the palace by architects Charles Barry and A.W.N. Pugin—in 1834 fire had destroyed all of the original medieval buildings except for Westminster Hall (the Great Hall).

McKeon took elements of the neo-Gothic style favoured by Barry and Pugin, but modelled the angel’s head from life “to keep vitality”. The carving should be finished early next year, after which conservators will take over to join the head to the torso. Following this the figure will be reinstalled in its original position in the Victoria Tower.