Gluttony and grave robbing – Pye Corner in Smithfield

the golden boy of pye corner

Stroll up Giltspur Street towards Smithfield Market and look up to your left at the building on the corner of Cock Lane. In an arched niche in the wall of a late 20th century office building is a golden statue of a chubby little boy.

This is the ‘Golden Boy of Pye Corner’, a 17th century wooden sculpture (gilded in the 1800s, but previously painted naturalistically) which, according to the Historic England listing also formerly had wings, making the young chap something of a cherub.

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