The Angel of Mons and St John's Wood

On 29 September, 1914  Arthur Machen, a writer who lived in Melina Place, off Grove End Road, published a fictional short story called The Bowmen.

It told the story, in first person style, how ghostly archers from the Battle of Agincourt fought off a German attack while the British retreated from Mons.

Soon after this the story of the Angel of Mons became one of the most famous myths of the First World War, comforting people with the idea that God was on the side of the English.