Spring has Sprung!
Waterloo St Community Garden is going from strength to strength! City Parks Department has donated five large planters with holm oak trees to Waterloo St. Once they’ve had some feeding, watering and TLC, they will make an excellent addition to the greening of the neighbourhood. We collected £50 from local residents and will invest this is some fertiliser, compost and summer bedding to make the planters look absolutely fabulous!
City Park also donated a rather forlorn headless statue that used to live in Preston Park until it was beheaded many years ago. It has been languishing the the Council’s depot in Stanmer Park - until the WSCG expressed an interest in giving him a new home. The original plan was to place the statue in the garden but it proved impossible to lift him over or through the arch - so his new home is in the corner by the Waterloo St entrance to The Old Market.
There has been a suggestion that we might run an annual competition for local artists and/or schools to ‘give him a head for a year'. a bit like the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Sq. in London.
The Headless Statue
(Captain Bill)
Our Headless Statue is Captain William (Bill) Henry Cecil George Pechell (1830 - 1855) he was killed at Sebastopol on 3 September 1855. Second Brigade, Light Division 77th Regiment was killed whilst gallantly doing his duty in advance of the fifth Parallel before Sebastopol 3rd September 1855."
He was 25 years old. Pechell was the only son of Vice Admiral Sir George Brooke Pechell, Bart., and the Hon. Lady Katherine Anabella Pechell. His father was the M.P. for Brighton for over 25 years and an important figure in the local community.
The death of Pechell had a significant impact on both the men of his regiment and on the people of Brighton who went into a period of mourning. In response to the collective grief, a statue was commissioned and erected by public subscription. In Portland stone by the sculptor Mathew Noble and the pose shaped by the stirring narrative of his gallantry, the statue was suitably monumental, standing at over four metres high.
In February 1859, the statue was erected in prominent position 'amongst the worthies', dominating the entrance hall of The Royal Pavilion at Brighton, as testimony to the great heroism of the young Pechell. It was so heavy that the floor area on which it stood had to be specially reinforced. Over time, a series of Museum Committee decisions resulted in its displacement far from the important position it originally held both physically and in the memory of the local community. In 1914, the statue was moved to the entrance hall of Brighton Museum; in 1930 to the southern end of the permanent art gallery and in 1940;
Pechell made his final journey far outside of the city centre, to Stanmer Park and ‘storage’. This once monumental statue now lies abandoned and severely damaged inside the Rangers Yard at the Park. He was given to the Waterloo Street Community Garden March 2015 and now stands at the Arch end of the Garden.
The statue of William Pechell at it's present resting place outside Waterloo Street Arch (April 2015)
Left: William Pechell on display at the Brighton Pavilion (1859)
Above: An illustration of the statue as it looked before it was vandalised. Reproduced with the kind perrmission of Look & Learn. www.lookandlearn.com
A crane depositing a very heavy statue of William Pechell from a flat truck to it's final position outside Waterloo Street Arch.
