Apsley House is significant in a number of ways: as a national memorial to the Duke of Wellington and to Britain's triumph over the Napoleonic threat, as a restored historic house, as a celebration of Regency taste and as an important gallery of decorative and fine art.
The layout of Regency London
Apsley House can now be seen to stand in an important location for the landscaping of Regency London. Despite parliamentary and popular support, the construction of memorials was haphazard and slow, but the house’s location north of Buckingham Palace afforded it a pivotal site.
Travellers coming into central London from Regent’s Park first passed John Nash’s Marble Arch (originally designed to stand outside Buckingham Palace as a commemoration of British victories in the Napoleonic Wars, but moved to its current location in 1850–1).
They could then pass through Decimus Burton’s Hyde Park screen abutting Apsley House and past the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner (this was originally directly in line with the screen, but was moved eastwards in 1883 to ease traffic congestion).
Statue of Achilles
Burton’s Wellington Arch was intended to form a grand entrance to Buckingham Palace gardens and Green Park from Piccadilly. The Arch itself should have been decorated with sculpture celebrating the defeat of Napoleon, but this was omitted because of budget cuts.
However, Londoners could appreciate the Duke of Wellington’s martial prowess through Richard Westmacott’s naked bronze statue of Achilles cast from captured cannon.
The statue was raised in Hyde Park, just north of Apsley House in 1822, by the women of Britain in honour of the victorious general. Apsley House at this time stood at the end of a row of buildings on the north side of Piccadilly, and was not the isolated building that it became when the neighbouring houses on Piccadilly were demolished and Park Lane was diverted to Hyde Park Corner in 1961–2.
Rare Regency interiors
As a restored historic building, Apsley House is an important survival of a Regency interior, one of few such properties that can still be visited by the public.
From 1970 onwards, the research and renovation programme undertaken by the Victoria and Albert Museum into the life and times of the 1st Duke of Wellington saw the re-introduction of period features and the re-display of furniture and objects in use during Wellington’s occupation of the house.
Regency taste
The magnificent surviving decorative interiors, including the Waterloo Gallery, State Dining Room and Drawing Rooms were restored, where the Regency taste for decorative effects such as white and gold panelling, ‘scagliola’ (fake marble) finishes and grand, scrolling ironwork can be enjoyed.
Comparable decorative schemes designed by Wellington’s architect, Benjamin Dean Wyatt, can also be seen at Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire and Lancaster (formerly York or Stafford) House, Pall Mall.
