Step onto Clapham Common from the eponymous tube station and looming in front of you is a large drinking fountain.
By the German sculptor August von Kreling with a plinth designed by the architect Charles Barry Jr (whose father, the architect of the Houses of Parliament) lived and died in a house just a couple of hundred yards away, it depicts a woman providing a draught of water to a beggar.
A plaque on the side reads ”The Gift Of The United Kingdom Temperance & General Provident Institution”
Like the statue of William IV that now stands in Greenwich, this is a work that has been moved from its original location, as it was first erected outside the City offices of the Institution on what was then called Adelaide Place, but which is now on the north approach to London Bridge (and where Adelaide House now stands).
You can see the fountain (labelled ‘D.F.’) on the 1890s ordnance survey map below (a screengrab from the ever-useful Layers of London).
It ended up in Clapham because the weight of the fountain was such that there began to be structural damage to the roof vaults of the warehouses of the nearby London Bridge wharf that were beneath the road. The fountain was removed and gifted to the London County Council, who re erected it on the Common in 1895.
Sadly, the water no longer flows, the bronze lion heads from which the water used to issue are now completely dry.
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