84 ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW 
The Ruined 
Arch. 
bust of George III., which was taken to Windsor. The inner walls 
are decorated with iron tablets bearing the names and dates of battles 
fought by British soldiers between 1760 and Waterloo. Sir William 
Thiselton-Dyer remarks that, according to local tradition, the work- 
man was cutting the King’s initials on the pediment of this temple 
when the great bell of St. Paul’s began to toll the announcement of 
his death. The two marble statues standing on the pedestal of the 
eastern front originally came from Frogmore. They are by Pietro 
Francavilla, who was a native of Cambrai, in northern France. He 
was born in 1548, and is said to have been a pupil and follower of 
John of Bologna. 
About midway between the Unicom Gate and the Lion Gate, and 
close to the North Gallery, the walk which runs almost parallel 
to the Kew Road is crossed by an antique-looking 
structure known as the “ Ruined Arch.” It was 
designed by Sir William Chambers and built in 1759- 
60. His idea was to imitate a Roman antiquity, but the structure 
had to serve a practical purpose as well. It was erected to make 
a roadway over “ one of the principal walks ” by means of which 
carriages could enter the garden from what is now the Kew Road. 
It consists of three arches, the two side ones of which were at one 
time closed, and thus transformed into a pair of cells entered by 
means of doors in the sides of the middle arch. The doorways 
still remain, but all the three arches are now open. They were built 
of brick faced with stone, but much of the latter has fallen away 
or been removed. The air of antiquity which the architect sought 
to obtain by strewing the vicinity of the arch with fragments of stone 
supposed to have broken away from it, and by similar means, has 
now largely accrued from the hand of Time. Many decades 
have elapsed since it was built, and during the interval the 
surrounding trees have grown to great size ; their branches now 
overhang the arches, old ivy trails down from the top, and a 
luxuriant shrubby growth surrounds the base. 
About one hundred yards north-west of the Pagoda there is a 
mound on which once stood the Mosque, erected by Chambers in 
The Mos ue I 7 ^ 1, This moun d is still known locally as “ Moss 
4 ' Hill.” The Mosque consisted of three rooms — a large 
octagonal one flanked by two square ones. The octagon was covered 
by a dome surmounted by a crescent, and each of the side rooms 
