ArtiFACTS: The Lion Gargoyles

Winged lions crouch in the shrubbery by the doorways of Person Hall.

Carved from yellow stone in the middle of the 19th century,
the lion gargoyles originally perched high above the streets of London, peering down at the Houses of Parliament from the famous Big Ben clock tower. In the buildings beneath their unblinking gaze, Disraeli, Gladstone, a young Winston Churchill and their colleagues shaped British history.

Exposure to sooty London rain deteriorated the gargoyles so badly that by the 1930s they needed to be replaced. Katherine Pendleton Arrington of Warrenton, a generous patron of the arts in North Carolina, visited London in 1933 and noticed the carvings being removed from the clock tower.

She received permission to purchase two gargoyles and a statue of Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury in the 13th century. The three sculptures were shipped to Chapel Hill as a gift to the University, where they were kept in storage until Person Hall was renovated in the mid-1930s. The renovations, partially funded by Arrington, transformed Person Hall into an art gallery.

The gargoyles and statue were installed outdoors on the south side, just above eye level - a long way from the high clock tower by the Thames.


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