Place Name
Landseer Villas, named in honour of the great artist and the country’s foremost animal painter, was built sometime around 1852. It was originally connected with Stanley Road which dated from 1855. But in 1875, shortly after Landseer’s death both roads were given their present name. Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (March 7, 1802 – October 1, 1873) was a painter and sculptor who is probably best known for his lion sculptures at the base of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. He was a favourite of Queen Victoria who greatly admired his 1851 oil-on-canvas painting The Monarch of the Glen, a stunning portrayal of a red deer stag. Landseer, for all his apparent Victorian strait-lacedness was something of a bad boy. In 1823, he was commissioned to paint a portrait of Georgiana Russell, Duchess of Bedford. Despite her being 20 years older than he was, they began an affair. He later turned down an invitation to be president of the Royal Academy, and is thought to have had a substantial nervous breakdown in his late 30s – often aggravated by alcohol and drug use. In the last few years of his life Landseer’s mental stability was problematic, and at the request of his family he was declared insane in July 1872.
