The "Archer" sculpture at East Finchley tube station

Image: © Mike Quinn Taken: 3 Jul 2019

The sculpture is by Eric Aumonier (1899-1974) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Aumonier and was unveiled in July 1940. In 1929, Aumonier was commissioned, along with five others, to carve one of a set of relief sculptures of the four winds for 55 Broadway, the headquarters of London Transport above St. James's Park tube station . [The other sculptors were Eric Gill, Henry Moore, Allan G Wyon, A H Gerard and Samuel Rabinovitch; Jacob Epstein was also commissioned to carve sculptures of Day and Night – see http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=96518330 .] The figure of the archer is said to link to East Finchley's surroundings: the station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Finchley_tube_station on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_line is on the edge of the site of the Royal Forest of Enfield, where the court and commoners used to hunt. The sculpture is made of beech over a steel support, covered with lead http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/ltm-1998-86924 . The station is Grade II listed https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1359150 and the listing includes the archer sculpture. There is a story that there was also an arrow - at Morden station, at the far southern end of the Northern Line – but this is not true https://richardosley.com/2013/02/08/a-slice-of-history-what-happened-to-the-east-finchley-archers-arrow/ .

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