• To continue the plaque walk cross back over Whitehall to the entrance to the  Banqueting House…               

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Here you will see a bust of the ‘martyred’ King and a plaque above the doorway. Begun in 1619 and designed by Inigo Jones in a style influenced by Andrea Palladio, it was completed in 1622 at a cost of £15,618. This is the only remnant of the Palace of Westminster. For a time it was used by Charles 1 and his courtiers for drinking parties, but on 30 January 1649, it was the location of the king’s execution — on a scaffold outside one of the main windows close to where you are now standing.   ///class.serve.early

• Turn left down Whitehall passing a group of three statues on your left…

Field Marshall William ‘Bill’ Slim was a man of humble origins who rose to the highest rank in the British Army. He saw active service in both the First and Second world wars and was wounded in action three times. During the Second World War, he led the 14th Army, the so-called "forgotten army" in the Burma campaign. After the war, he became the first British officer who had served in the Indian Army to be appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff. From 1953 to 1959 he was Governor-General of Australia.

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The second Statue is of another Field Marshall, Sir Alan Brooke, (shown in his office above). Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), the professional head of the British Army, during the Second World War he was the foremost military advisor to Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In his diary, Brooke wrote of Churchill “Without him England was lost for a certainty, with him England has been on the verge of disaster time and again...... Never have I admired and despised a man simultaneously to the same extent. Never have such opposite extremes been combined in the same human being.”  Alan Brooke played a pivotal role in directing Allied strategy, but after the war he was badly treated by Churchill and seldom receives the recognition he deserves.   ///voter.tone.reap

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The third statue of this group is of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery known as ‘Monty’. Like Slim and Alan Brooke he had seen service in the First World War and was badly wounded. He served successfully under Brooke during the retreat to Dunkirk  and was later promoted to command in the North African and Normandy campaigns. A controversial figure, he was not popular with the American Generals or the American press.