I’m sure that most tourists who have visited London have taken the opportunity to go and see the Marble Arch, which sits at the end of Oxford St in London’s West End, next to Hyde Park. I imagine that most of them assume that it is just another of London’s war memorials (similar to the Arc De Triomphe in Paris), but its history is actually a lot more complex than it at first appears.
In actual fact, it’s not where it should be. It was initially designed as the gateway to the newly rebuilt Buckingham Palace by John Nash in 1828, so at that time it sat on The Mall, in approximately the same position as the large monument to Queen Victoria which now sits in front of the building. When further changes were made to the Palace in 1855 which added a fourth side facing out onto the Mall (in front of which you’ll regularly see the Changing of the Guard these days) it was moved piece by piece over to its present position. Of course it also gives its name to the local tube station which, if it had never been re-sited, would probably have been called Cumberland Gate station, or perhaps Edgware Road South?