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This statue of John Bunyan holding a copy of The Pilgrim's Progress stands on the corner of the former headquarters of the Baptist Union, built by the Union's architect Arthur Keen in 1901-3. It was carved by Richard Garbe, one of those sculptors whose career spanned the cataclysmic changes in taste between the Victorian and modern eras - he was born in 1876 and died in 1957.
There is something of a mystery over the dating of this particular image.
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Added to which, Garbe also contributed a couple of statues to a building just round the corner in High Holborn that was also designed by Arthur Keen and dates from about the same time. Clearly they had a professional relationship.
I believe a date has been misread somewhere and it was carved not in 1953 but 1903, when Garbe was a young man and would have been glad of a bit of work for the Baptists.
Kingsgate House is currently empty and down-at-heel. Its likely fate is yet another hotel.
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