Camden New Journal-news - Society wants statue of poet for square

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

Camden New Journal - by ROISIN GADELRAB
Published: 31 May 2007

Society wants statue of poet for square

THE Highgate Society want to put up a statue to Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Pond Square and has been backed by the writer’s biographer and fans.
The civic group, who discussed the future of the Highgate Village square at their annual meeting last week, heard a number of proposals, including a plan to build the statue.
Coleridge lived for 20 years in two Highgate homes, one of which overlooked the square and it was from there he wrote some of his best-known pieces.
The society’s Brendan Nolan said: “We asked members what they wanted to see and this was what came up.
“The society would raise some of the funds and we are putting together a working party to look at this. There is a lot of enthusiasm for bringing the square back to the centre of Highgate life.”
Dartmouth Park-based biographer of the poet Richard Holmes said it would be a fitting site for a tribute.
He said: “It is a marvellous idea and long overdue.”
Mr Holmes added that the move coincided with Coleridge becoming famous.
He added: “It was the beginning of his fame – he had just had published his poems Christabel and Kubla Khan, and he wrote Youth and Age, Limbo and the sonnet Work Without Hope there.
“This was how he earned the name the Sage of Highgate.”
And Mr Holmes said Coleridge’s fame drew others to the area.
He said: “A number of people visited him there – he became a guru. John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle and Harriet Martineau all visited – and John Keats took a stroll with Coleridge down Millfield Lane to the Heath, which he wrote about afterwards.
“He is so identified with Highgate and there is little to say this. A statue would help remedy this.”
Currently there is a plaque on his South Grove home, and at the churchyard in his birthplace in Ottery St Mary’s in Devon, as well as a statue of the Ancient Mariner – one of his most famous works – looking out on the beach at Watchet, Somerset.
But Mr Holmes added that a Highgate statute would underline Coleridge’s importance in the canon of English literature.
He said: “He is one of two of the great pillars of Romanticism, along with Wordsworth.”
The plan has been backed by The Friends of Coleridge, a society established to promote his work, who said they could help raise funds.
The society’s Paul Cheshire said: “Highgate was an immensely important place for him. It was after a period of real unhappiness when he moved there.”
Coleridge moved in with Dr Gillman in April 1816 as a paying guest and had planned to stay for a year. He ended up living the last 18 years of his life with the family in both their Highgate homes.
Mr Cheshire added: “I walked around Highgate two years ago and you do not get much of a sense of Coleridge. Both of his homes are privately owned. We are interested in making this a reality.”

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment:

Your Comments: