• By Luke Plunkett
    May 1, 2007 2:30 AM 4,683
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    The Mystery Of Lara's Blue Plaque

    IHEARTRHONA.jpgRemember the news that Britain's own Lara Croft was going to be awarded the honour of having a Blue Plaque erected on the building occupying her birthplace? Course you do. Weird story. It's not often the same news involves Tomb Raider and the English Heritage Office.

    Once the story ran, though, we got a little...suspicious. Chiefly because, according to many of the Heritage Office's criteria for the awarding of an "official" Blue Plaque, Lara didn't make the grade.

    The main points of contention were:

  • A figure must have been dead for 20 years, or have passed the centenary of their birth. Neither applies to Lara. Well...the latter doesn't at least, her being fictional and all.

  • Plaques can only be erected on the actual building inhabited by the nominated figure, not the site where the building once stood. The old Core offices are long gone, and the proposed plaque was going to be on the new block of flats occupying the site.

  • "Official" Blue Plaques are, for some reason, only put up by the English Heritage Office in the Greater London area. The site of the old Core offices is in Derby. Which is not London.

    • A spokesperson for the English Heritage Office told us:


    Lara Croft does not fall within our selection criteria and, were a proposal for a plaque to her to be received, we would not be able to accept it.

    However, we are aware that a plaque to Lara Croft may be being erected by another group not associated with English Heritage on the site of the place of her creation.


    What a strange, wonderful world we live in, where people are erecting bootleg monuments to commemorate video game characters. Though it makes you think: why'd they have to go with a Blue Plaque, couldn't they have just put up a regular plaque? Or a statue? Statues are more visual, sure that would have made for a more popular commemmoration/attraction. Luke Plunkett


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