Albert Gate, Hyde Park, London

The French Embassy is on the left and the Kuwati Embassy is on the right in this picture of one of the Hyde Park gates - Albert Gate.

They were built in 1840 by the great British builder Thomas Cubitt.

Cubitt was the son of a Norfolk carpenter. Before the age of 22, he went on a trip to India as ship's carpenter and earned enough to set up his own building firm in the Gray's Inn Road in central London.

Cubitt went on to be one of the most successful builders of the Victorian age, building vast areas of housing including Belgrave Square and Tavistock Square, and the Eastern Front of Buckingham Palace. When he died, Queen Victoria said "In his sphere of life, with the immense business he had in hand, he is a real national loss. A better, kindhearted or more simple, unassuming man never breathed."