King Louis Philippe's wall plaque
Introduction
The photograph on this page of King Louis Philippe's wall plaque by John Goldsmith as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
King Louis Philippe's wall plaque
Image: © John Goldsmith Taken: 3 Mar 2012
There cannot be many places in the UK that have been the main residence of the monarch of another country, like this building next to the Angel Hotel on Bury's Angel Hill. In fact the tale of Louis Philippe and his Queen Amalie (spellings vary) is little known. The British Government paid them a retainer while Napoleon was in power, but it was the French people that put them in power in 1830. Philippe and Amalie operated as constitutional monarchs with an elected parliament but eventually in 1848 the French people decided they really didn't want a king, and the pair were sent into exile. For no obvious reason they finished up in Bury St. Edmunds, where they made friends with the Marquess of Bristol. He lived at nearby Ickworth House, which still has a pair of vases carrying the couple's portraits. Later the couple moved south and stayed in the Marquess' Brighton house for a while.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
52.244258
Longitude
0.71595