I was in London again on Friday, happened to be walking from Waterloo station through the cut and down Union Street to London Bridge. On the way you pass this rather odd looking sculpture, it's a golden dog and a pot, I discovered what it's all about by reading the plaque underneath the statue. This junction of Blackfriars road and Union Street was immortalised in the autobiography of none less than celebrated author, Charles Dickens, in it he writes..
"My usual way home was over Blackfriars Bridge and down that turning in the Blackfriars Road which has Rowland Hill’s chapel on one side, and the likeness of a golden dog licking a golden pot over a shop door on the other."
The statue on the post is a replica made recently from Elm wood by carpenter Michael Painter, the original being housed in the Cuming Museum in Southwark. Interestingly the route being described by Dickens was one that he took to work every day aged 12 (yes 12!) what a difference a couple of hundred years make!
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