Statue of Charles II, Royal Hospital Chelsea Christopher Wren and construction continued from 1682 to 1691. The statue of Charles was commissioned by Tobias Rustat, a member of the king's court and was designed by Grinling Gibbons in about 1682. Gibbon's fee was £500. The statue originally stood elsewhere and was moved to the Royal Hospital after Charles's death in 1685. Annually, on 29 May, Oak Apple Day, the traditional day for the celebration of the Restoration in 1660, the statute is wreathed with oak leaves. The statue is of brass and was originally gilded in bronze. It has been re-gilded subsequently to commemorate the Golden Jubilee
Oak Apple Day some parts of the country as a "shick-shack") or sprigs of oak leaves, in reference to the occasion after the Battle of Worcester in September 1651, when Charles II escaped the Roundhead army by hiding in an oak tree near Boscobel House. Anyone who failed to wear a sprig of oak risked being pelted with bird's eggs or thrashed with nettles. In Sussex, those not wearing oak were liable to be pinched, giving rise to the unofficial name of "Pinch- Day"; similarly it was known as "Bumping Day" in Essex. In Upton Grey, Hampshire, after the church bells had been