London's smallest public statue.

The Two Mice Eating Cheese

There’s a story behind this curious sculpture.

It varies a bit, but in general, the story is that when the building the mice are on was being built in the 1860s, two men got into a fight after one accused the other of stealing his lunch. In the fight, one of the two fell to his death. They later found two mice eating the lunch having stolen it for themselves. When the building was completed, to remember this fateful accident, the sculpture was added to the side of the building.

There’s also the building itself.

Today this is a classic Victorian building, richly decorated with polychromatic brickwork, but when it was built it was one of the first in this style. So much so that The Builder magazine wrote an architectural review of it. They make no mention of the mice. Now, the Builder was a dry Victorian newspaper and might have ignored the mice if they were just a folly, but it wouldn’t have ignored them if they were a monument to a dead man.

There’s also the nature of the monument — a sculpture of two mice? For a dead man? Monuments would usually be a bronze or stone plaque with the dead man’s name on it. Not a couple of mice.

How the story came to exist. It’s well known and widely repeated. And has been around for decades. In 1975, a reader wrote in to the Daily Mirror asking why the sculpture of the mice was on Philpot Lane.

Generations of Londoners have walked down that short lane with friends, pointed to the two mice up on the wall and told the story.

But, because people keep pointing at the tiny mice, whenever the building is repainted, as happened recently, the mice get a nice new shiny coat and the cheese is made bright and tasty once more.

And all because people tell the story of the Philpot Lane mice.

LOGGING REQUIREMENTS

Take a picture of yourself (as much or as little as you want to display) with the mice in the background.

Take a picture of your caching name with the mice in the background.

Upload your picture with your log.

Logs uploaded without the required pictures will be deleted after 7 days.

Virtual Rewards 5.0 - 2026-2027

This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between February 3, 2026 and February 3, 2027. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 5.0 on the Geocaching Blog.