27 NOVEMBER 2004, Page 34

Arch error

From Mark Palmer Sir: Many of us will share Danny Kruger's enthusiasm for the 'Quadriga' atop Wellington Arch (Diary, 20 November) but he is quite wrong to describe it as the work of Decimus Burton. Burton designed the arch, but the sculpture was created by Adrian Jones. Indeed, Burton never got to see the `Quadriga'. Instead he went to his grave knowing that a hideous statue of Wellington sat on top of his arch, which later, on the instructions of Queen Victoria, was removed. The 'Quadriga' itself would not have come about without the efforts of Edward VII, but sadly the King also never witnessed it in place. 'I am sorry, for I shall never see it,' he said in 1910 after visiting Jones in his studio, Ile died a few weeks later.

Mark Palmer