A close connect

The sphinxes are among the more impressive remnants that survived from the Victorian era and can still be seen in London’s neighbourhoods, writes Anirudh Rao

Lockdown has meant taking long strolls in North London with my wife, seeking an escape from cabin fever. Every borough and indeed every turn in London never ceases to amaze us with unique stories richly steeped in history.

Britain’s position as a global hegemonic power controlling 10 million square miles of territory and around 400 million of the world’s population with London at its epicentre has meant that places as far afield as my hometown of Mysuru have unlikely connections with London’s neighbourhoods. Our most recent spring saunter around the leafy suburb of Barnsbury, dipping in and out of its parks, took me back to Mysuru’s Kuvempunagar and Saraswathipuram and its quiet bylanes with a slice of history thrown in for good measure.

The name bury derives its origins from burh or burg meaning a fortified settlement. In the 9th century, raids by Vikings prompted Alfred the Great to develop a network of burhs to protect against such attackers. Barnsbury is a syncopated form of Bernersbury after the Berners family: powerful medieval manorial lords who gained ownership of a large part of Islington after the Norman Conquest in 1066.

The most outré of all neighbourhoods in Barnsbury is Richmond Avenue. You will notice miniature sphinxes, pyramids and obelisks proudly sitting outside Georgian and Victorian houses. The reason why these incongruous structures exist is rooted in a Franco-Indian pact forged between Napoleon Bonaparte and the Tiger of Mysore — Tipu Sultan.

As the British decisively defeated the French, the Battle of the Nile was touted as one of “the most splendid and glorious success which the British Navy gained.” The legacy of the war swiftly shifted the strategic advantage in favour of the British giving the British supremacy at sea that they maintained for the remainder of the war. Emboldened by this victory they marched into Mysore in 1799 and besieged the capital Srirangapatna in the Fourth Mysore War killing Tipu, looting his prized possessions: his sword, robe and his enduringly famous — Tipu’s tiger. All of which are now housed in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

Such was the sense of euphoria following the Battle of Nile that tales of conquest and British victory from the days of yore aroused a wave of Egyptomania in London. On the scientific front, the expedition eventually led to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, creating the field of Egyptology. Joseph Kay — surveyor for Barnsbury’s Thornhill Estate decided to create and instal miniature sphinxes and obelisks in 1841, 43 years after Nelson’s victory. The structures still stand to this day.

History is written with the victors controlling the narrative. Had circumstances been different with Tipu and the French emerging victorious, Srirangapatna’s Fort perhaps would not have fallen into the state of dereliction and miniature pyramids may have adorned the streets of Paris and Mysuru.