Marble Arch to be moved?

01.03.05

Long marooned on one of London's busiest roundabouts, there is talk (again) of moving Marble Arch to a more dignified location.

Transport for London, keen to improve pedestrian access between Oxford Street and Hyde Park, believes that the arch should again serve as a grand entrance to Central London's largest green space.

They want to move the 45 feet high, 180-year-old arch, which currently can only be reached only through a warren of dirty, dingy subways, about 100 yards away southwest towards Speakers' Corner, to become an entrance to Hyde Park again.

Marble Arch was designed by John Nash in the style of Rome's Constantine Arch and built in 1827 as the chief entrance to Buckingham Palace. However, it was too narrow for ceremonial processions and was moved in 1851 to its present location.

For the next century it served as the northeastern entrance to Hyde Park. But early last century the monument was surrounded by roads which gradually became more choked with traffic, as Park Lane became a six-lane highway. The arch is now the centre of one of London's busiest traffic circulars, used by almost 6,000 vehicles an hour at peak times.

TfL, like many Londoners, believe that the arch, isolated on an island, serves no real purpose. It is a fine monument and it ought to be in a place where it can be seen and admired. If it were moved closer to Speaker's Corner, it would return to being the entrance to the park.

Moving the arch is one of the options being considered by a working group which includes TfL, Westminster Council, the Royal Parks and the Grosvenor and Portman estates. One reason the arch has languished so long on a traffic island is that the land around it falls under so many jurisdictions.

A spokeswoman for English Heritage, which owns Marble Arch, said: 'We would be interested in exploring any options to improve access and setting of the arch.'

The move would also require the delicate renegotiation of a royal prerogative which states that only senior members of the Royal Family and the Royal Horse Artillery can pass through the central span.

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