CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE

A Walk Along the Embankment: Cleopatra’s Needle

by contributing essayist – Malcolm Gough, Headmaster of Sutton Valence Preparatory School, Kent, England.

One of my favorite things to do on a sunny day when I am in London is to have a little stroll along the Embankment and perhaps cross over the Westminster Bridge to the other side. Most people at some point will take a quick look at Cleopatra’s Needle and then their gaze will return to the many other visual distractions of that lively area.

Cleopatra’s Needle

The other day I used the Needle as a meeting place for a friend and while I was waiting my eyes began to pick apart the detail of it. It is far older than London itself. London was first established by the Romans roughly 2000 years ago; the Needle is 3500 years old and has nothing to do with Cleopatra; indeed it was already 1000 years old when she lived. It was given to the United Kingdom in 1819 by the ruler of Egypt in commemoration of the victories of the British at the Battle of the Nile and the Battle of Alexandria. Originally it was going to be placed outside the Houses of Parliament, but they were worried that the great weight of it would damage the tunnels underneath and so they settled on the Victoria Embankment instead.

If you look at the monument closely, you will see little holes all over it and you will notice damage to one of the two sphinxes which flank the Needle.

War World One damage to one of the Sphinx flanking Cleopatra’s Needle

On the night of the 4th September 1917, eleven Gotha bombers reached London and they dumped their explosive loads across the city. Aerial warfare was very new to the world and so this must have been a particularly terrifying night. That evening bombs fell in the East End and on the Strand. Just before midnight one fell on the Embankment next to Cleopatra’s Needle. A hole was blasted in the road alongside and gas mains, electricity and water mains were ruptured.

A Sphynx flanking Cleopatra’s Needle, London

Very sadly, a passing tram driver was killed instantly along with two of his passengers.

When next you are there, spare a thought for whoever those three citizens were, now casualties of war along with so many, but tragedies no less devastating to families as those sustained in the trenches just a few miles away across the Channel. You might also marvel at the little holes in the plinth of the Needle, the damage to the sphinx and remember that it is made of solid granite. The force behind the shrapnel which caused them must have been huge to make such an imprint on 3500 years worth of resilience and is to my mind particularly evocative of the new age of explosive warfare.