Wellington Arch

Wellington Arch stands at Hyde Park Corner in London, designed by the architect Decimus Burton and completed around 1830 as part of a scheme intended to create a grand ceremonial approach toward Buckingham Palace, complementing Burton's matching screen of gates at the entrance to Hyde Park nearby. The arch was originally erected on a different alignment closer to the park entrance and was moved to its current position, facing down Constitution Hill, during road widening works carried out in the early 1880s. For several decades after its completion the arch was topped by an oversized bronze equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, a piece widely criticized as out of scale with the monument beneath it, which was removed in 1912 and replaced with the present sculpture, a bronze quadriga titled Peace Descending on the Chariot of War by the sculptor Adrian Jones. The arch's interior now houses galleries operated by English Heritage, reachable by a staircase leading to a viewing balcony near its top.