Apple butter, sightseeing and puppets: How UK is marking US independence milestone
Key takeaways
- US-UK relations have come a long way since the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill - as painted by John Trumbull.
- The sculpture depicts America as an indigenous female figure - holding a bow and arrow, and wearing a headdress.
- The figure goes some way to showing how those far-flung lands fuelled the imaginations of people at the centre of the British empire, as tour guide Mark Grant explains at the start of a guided walk through the area.
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US-UK relations have come a long way since the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill - as painted by John Trumbull. The forecourt of St Paul's Cathedral in London feels like an unlikely place to embark on an exploration of American independence - but a lesser-known statue in that very spot has a tale to tell within one of history's most infamous breakup stories.
The sculpture depicts America as an indigenous female figure - holding a bow and arrow, and wearing a headdress. There's been a statue here that looks like this one since 1712 - well before the United States went its own way as a nation.
The figure goes some way to showing how those far-flung lands fuelled the imaginations of people at the centre of the British empire, as tour guide Mark Grant explains at the start of a guided walk through the area.