This serene patch of green, north of what was once London's General Post Office, contains the unusual Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, a loggia with 54 ceramic plaques commemorating deeds of bravery by ordinary people who died saving the lives of others, unveiled in 1900. It was the brainchild of artist George Frederic Watts (1817–1904). His wife, Mary, oversaw the project after his death, but the memorial was all but abandoned when she died in 1938.
Only one plaque has been added since then, dedicated to Leigh Pitt, who died in 2007 while trying to rescue a nine-year-old boy from drowning in a canal in southeast London.
