Historic Buildings

THE HOLLY LODGE POND

At the heart of the Holly Lodge Estate in Highgate, London, lies a pond with four inscriptions and a statue of a young woman reading a book. The inscriptions are fading, becoming illegible; the statue is discoloured and covered in moss. Yet what they speak of is unique in the true sense of the word. They memorialise that here, exactly one hundred years ago, on the estate that used to belong to that great Victorian philanthropist, Angela Burdett-Coutts, were built some 500 "Lady Workers' Homes", sheltered housing for single working women. We wish to restore the fading inscriptions and statue for our centenary so the memorial stands for another hundred years. The interior of the pond was restored two years ago, so it no longer leaks and its wildlife flourishes. Now we need to restore the pond's meaning, its heritage, the inscriptions and the lovely statue on its classical plinth.