I had the opportunity of visiting various important places in London within the limited time at my disposal. The Queen Vicotria Memorial is one of them. In Kolkata, India we have the very famous Victoria Memoria where thousands of tourists visit everyday and I may have visited more than thrice.
As per wikipedia The Victoria Memorial is a monument to Queen Victoria, located at the end of The Mall in London, by the sculptor Sir Thomas Brock. Designed in 1901, it was unveiled on 16 May 1911, though it was not completed until 1924. It was the centrepiece of an ambitious urban planning scheme, which included the creation of the Queen’s Gardens to a design by Sir Aston Webb, and the refacing of Buckingham Palace (which stands behind the memorial) by the same architect.
Like the earlier Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, commemorating Victoria’s consort, the Victoria Memorial has an elaborate scheme of iconographic sculpture. The central pylon of the memorial is of Pentelic marble, and individual statues are in Lasa marble and gilt bronze.[5] The memorial weighs 2,300 tonnes (about 2535 short tons)[2] and is 32 m (104 ft) in diameter.[6] In 1970 it was listed at Grade I.[4]
History
Proposal and announcements
King Edward VII suggested that a joint Parliamentary committee should be formed to develop plans for a Memorial to Queen Victoria following her death. The first meeting took place on 19 February 1901 at the Foreign Office, Whitehall. The first secretary of the committee was Arthur Bigge, 1st Baron Stamfordham.[7] Initially these meetings were behind closed doors, and the proceedings were not revealed to the public.[8] However the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Joseph Dimsdale, publicly announced that the committee had decided that the memorial should be “monumental”.[9]
