Barnsbury
The name bury derives its origins from burh or burg meaning a fortified settlement. In the 9th century, raids by Vikings prompted Alfred the Great to develop a network of burhs to protect against such attackers. Barnsbury is a syncopated form of Bernersbury after the Berners family: powerful medieval manorial lords who gained ownership of a large part of Islington after the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Barnsbury is close to the City of London, and had strong local trade in its position as the first staging post for travellers making the journey from London to the north, and with considerable agricultural traffic and cattle driving to the nearby Smithfield cattle market in the City. Barnsbury along with its easterly neighbour Canonbury in London has seen a transfiguration in the years gone by that few could have imagined possible. Home to the Blairs when New Labour swept to victory in the 1997 election, today Barnsbury is among Islingon and indeed London's most affluent and desirable areas.
Perhaps the most outré of all neighbourhoods in Barnsbury is Richmond Avenue. You will notice miniature sphynixs, pyramids and obelixes proudly sitting outside Georgian and Victorian houses. The reason why these incongruous structures exist is rooted in a Frank-Indian pact forged between Napoleon Bonaparte and the tiger of Mysore - Tipu Sultan. Napoleon's victories in northern Italy over the Austrian Empire meant that the only power to challenge the French Republic was Great Britain. Naploeon believed that, by establishing a permanent presence in Egypt (nominally part of the neutral Ottoman Empire), the French would obtain a staging point for future operations against British India. Tipu Sultan on the other hand was unable to recover Mangalore from the British, although he managed to re-capture it after a 10-month siege in 1784. He finally made peace with the British in the spring of 1784. A formal alliance was formed between by Louis XVI's France during the late 18th century in an attempt to oust Great Britain from the Indian subcontinent. Later, numerous proposals of alliance were made by Tipu Sultan, leading to the dispatch of a French fleet of volunteers to help him, and even motivating an effort by Napoleon to make a junction with India, through the 1798 Campaign of Egypt and Syria.
The Campaign was mutually beneficial with potentially immense dividends in the offing for both Napoleon and Tipu Sultan. As for Napoleon, he looked to defend French trade interests, seek further direct alliances with India through Tipu Sultan and enfeeble Britain's chokehold on India, and finally to establish scientific enterprise in the Indian subcontinent. Whilst an ambitious Tipu Sultan stood to gain abundantly with French military and economic support as an empowered juggernaut ensconsing his legacy as a conqueror in the annals of history. According to a 13 February 1798 report by Talleyrand, "Having occupied and fortified Egypt, we shall send a force of 15,000 men from Suez to the Sultanate of Mysore, to join the forces of Tipu Sultan and drive away the English."
What followed was the climax of one of the most prolific Anglo-French naval wars of the 18th century. The British Royal Navy and the Navy of the French Republic fought at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast off the Nile Delta of Egypt. A large French convoy sailed from Toulon to Alexandria carrying an expeditionary force under General Napoleon Bonaparte. The British fleet was led in the battle by Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson.
The British decisively defeated the French under Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers.
The Battle of the Nile was touted as one of "the most splendid and glorious success which the British Navy gained". The legacy of the war swiftly shifted the strategic advantage in favour of the British giving the British supremacy at sea that they maintained for the remainder of the war. What followed was that the British emboldened by the victory marched into Mysore in 1799 and besieged the capital Srirangapatna in the Fourth Mysore War killing Tipu, looting his prized possessions; his sword, robe and one of his enduringly famous and fascinating objects Tipu's tiger. All of which now are housed in London's Victoria and Albert Museum.
Such was the sense of euphoria following the Battle of Nile that tales of conquest and British victory from the days of yore roused a wave of Egyptmania in London. Joseph Kay — surveyor for Barnsbury's Thornhill Estate decided to create and instal miniature sphinxes and obelisks 1841, 43 years after Nelson's victory. The structures still stand to this day.
The name bury derives its origins from burh or burg meaning a fortified settlement. In the 9th century, raids by Vikings prompted Alfred the Great to develop a network of burhs to protect against such attackers. Barnsbury is a syncopated form of Bernersbury after the Berners family: powerful medieval manorial lords who gained ownership of a large part of Islington after the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Barnsbury is close to the City of London, and had strong local trade in its position as the first staging post for travellers making the journey from London to the north, and with considerable agricultural traffic and cattle driving to the nearby Smithfield cattle market in the City. Barnsbury along with its easterly neighbour Canonbury in London has seen a transfiguration in the years gone by that few could have imagined possible. Home to the Blairs when New Labour swept to victory in the 1997 election, today Barnsbury is among Islingon and indeed London's most affluent and desirable areas.
Perhaps the most outré of all neighbourhoods in Barnsbury is Richmond Avenue. You will notice miniature sphynixs, pyramids and obelixes proudly sitting outside Georgian and Victorian houses. The reason why these incongruous structures exist is rooted in a Frank-Indian pact forged between Napoleon Bonaparte and the tiger of Mysore - Tipu Sultan. Napoleon's victories in northern Italy over the Austrian Empire meant that the only power to challenge the French Republic was Great Britain. Naploeon believed that, by establishing a permanent presence in Egypt (nominally part of the neutral Ottoman Empire), the French would obtain a staging point for future operations against British India. Tipu Sultan on the other hand was unable to recover Mangalore from the British, although he managed to re-capture it after a 10-month siege in 1784. He finally made peace with the British in the spring of 1784. A formal alliance was formed between by Louis XVI's France during the late 18th century in an attempt to oust Great Britain from the Indian subcontinent. Later, numerous proposals of alliance were made by Tipu Sultan, leading to the dispatch of a French fleet of volunteers to help him, and even motivating an effort by Napoleon to make a junction with India, through the 1798 Campaign of Egypt and Syria.
The Campaign was mutually beneficial with potentially immense dividends in the offing for both Napoleon and Tipu Sultan. As for Napoleon, he looked to defend French trade interests, seek further direct alliances with India through Tipu Sultan and enfeeble Britain's chokehold on India, and finally to establish scientific enterprise in the Indian subcontinent. Whilst an ambitious Tipu Sultan stood to gain abundantly with French military and economic support as an empowered juggernaut ensconsing his legacy as a conqueror in the annals of history. According to a 13 February 1798 report by Talleyrand, "Having occupied and fortified Egypt, we shall send a force of 15,000 men from Suez to the Sultanate of Mysore, to join the forces of Tipu Sultan and drive away the English."
What followed was the climax of one of the most prolific Anglo-French naval wars of the 18th century. The British Royal Navy and the Navy of the French Republic fought at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast off the Nile Delta of Egypt. A large French convoy sailed from Toulon to Alexandria carrying an expeditionary force under General Napoleon Bonaparte. The British fleet was led in the battle by Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson.
The British decisively defeated the French under Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers.
The Battle of the Nile was touted as one of "the most splendid and glorious success which the British Navy gained". The legacy of the war swiftly shifted the strategic advantage in favour of the British giving the British supremacy at sea that they maintained for the remainder of the war. What followed was that the British emboldened by the victory marched into Mysore in 1799 and besieged the capital Srirangapatna in the Fourth Mysore War killing Tipu, looting his prized possessions; his sword, robe and one of his enduringly famous and fascinating objects Tipu's tiger. All of which now are housed in London's Victoria and Albert Museum.
Such was the sense of euphoria following the Battle of Nile that tales of conquest and British victory from the days of yore roused a wave of Egyptmania in London. Joseph Kay — surveyor for Barnsbury's Thornhill Estate decided to create and instal miniature sphinxes and obelisks 1841, 43 years after Nelson's victory. The structures still stand to this day.
