Answer: a gun that sits on the North Terrace of Windsor
Castle, pointing towards Eton College, the old school of Princes William and
Harry.
A nearby plaque records it was part of the armament of HMS
Lutine, lost off the coast of Holland on Oct 9 1799. The wreck was later handed
over by the Dutch government to Lloyds,
where the treasure it had been carrying was insured. The gun and the ship’s
bell – along with some of the gold - were salvaged many decades later. The bell
now hangs from the rostrum at Lloyds of London and is still rung: once for bad
news, twice for good. Presumably Lloyds didn’t need the gun, which was rather
the worse for wear after almost a century underwater. So it was presented to
Queen Victoria and to this day decorates Windsor Castle’s North Terrace, once
described as “the noblest walk in Europe”.
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