Cast in honour of Lord Byron, this statue has witnessed generations of change - celebrated, forgotten, and now rescued. After decades of isolation, it will stand once more as a powerful tribute to Byron’s life, poetry, and enduring spirit.
Erected in 1882, the statue was created by sculptor Richard Claude Best, who won an international competition run by an organising committee chaired by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Belt was inspired by George Sanders’ famous portrait depicting the poet in his early twenties dressed as a sailor.
The statue shows Byron seated on a rock and accompanied by his favourite dog Boatswain. It reflects Byron’s deep connection with the natural world, echoing a line from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: “To sit on rocks and muse o’er flood and fell.”
Byron died in Greece in 1824 while supporting the Greek War of Independence and the statue’s striking red marble base was a gift from the people of Greece offered in gratitude for his life and work.
"But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."
Lord Byron – Don Juan (Canto III, stanza 88), published in 1821.
Rescuing the Statue
By the early 1960s, the statue’s setting had dramatically changed. Once part of the open landscape of Hyde Park, it became marooned on a traffic island following the expansion of Park Lane, cut off from public access and largely overlooked.
In 2025, a successful international appeal led by the Byron Society brought renewed attention to the monument. Supported by hundreds of individual donations and a significant grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the campaign made it possible to restore the statue to prominence.
The statue will, this year, be carefully relocated to a new position in the northern area of Hyde Park, where it can once again be freely accessed and appreciated by visitors from around the world.
"She walks in beauty, like the night. Of cloudless climes and starry skies"
Lord Byron, She Walks in Beauty, 1814
