COSTLY MEMORIALS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 6871, 15 July 1909, Page 5

COSTLY MEMORIALS

After eight years’ -work, the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace is nearing completion, amd it w'ill not he long ©re Londoners and Aiisitors to the British metropolis are able to view one of the finest monuments in the world. Altogether it will cost a quarter of a. million sterling, and 350 tons of marble will have been used in the construction of figures and statuettes which go to make up this memorial to "The Great White Queen." The figure of her late Majesty will be no less than ISJft in height, and will depict her dressed in robes of state, sitting enthroned with, orb and sceptre. Ad the world was ransacked for a 70-tom block of flawless marble from which the statue might be carved. But such, a hlook could not be obtained, and consequently Mr Thomas Brock, the famous sculptor, baa been .compelled to use eeyerall smaller blocks, the largest of which weighs twenty-fivo tons. THE ALBERT MEMORIAL. The Queen Victoria Memorial is probably the most costly in the kingdom, although the famous Albert Memorial must have cost between .£400,000 and £500,000. The cost—provided by public subscription—was given as .£120,000, but it is asserted that Queen Victoria’s private contribution exceeded that amount. The Albert Hall is really part of the Albert Memorial, for it was after the Exhibition of 1851 that Prince Albert proposed the erection oif a great, hall for music, and when he had passed away a national subscription was raised to carry out his wish, £200,000 being obtained.

A grateful natron, too. subscribed -£■25,000 for the • erection of the Nelson Column in Trafalgar square, while the fact should not be overlooked that every penny of the .£IO,OOO spent on the statue of Achilles in Hyde Park was raised hy the women of England, TO A GREAT SOLDIER'S MEMORY. And this was not the only honour do ia to the memory Of Wellington. The statue. In front of the Royal Exchange co-,t £11,500, while among . other memorials to the gteat soldier might be mentioned the arch on the north side of the nave in St. Paul’s Cathedral, which cost £20,000, and the college near Sandhurst for the education of sons of officers, on which £IOO,OOO was spent. Thirteen thousand seven hundred pounds was expended by our forefathers on the monument in Pish street HjII, which was erected to commemorate the Great Eire of London. Strangely enough, one of the most interesting monuments in London cost the nation not a penny piece. In. 1819 Mehemet Ali told the British Government that it might have Cleopatra’s Needle, ivhich had been erected about 1500 years before the time of Christ by Thothmes the Third. But the offer was unheeded, and it lay on the sands of Egypt- until,. by the generosity of Dr Erasmus’ Wilson, it was transported to England' and erected on the Thames Embankment in 1878. It cost him £IO,OOO . and even then ■ the monolith was nearly lost' in the Bay of Biscay. The Marble. Arch, by the way, which originally stood on' the site ’ chosen for' the Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace, cost in. the first place £BO,OOO to build, and a further sum of £II,OOO to take down, remove, and reerect at its present position nearly opposite Edgeware road. 'The other great entrance to the park, Hyde Park Corner, though not so impressive; cost nearly twice as much as Marble , Arch—namely, £171,000. , AMERICAN MONUMENTS.

la Washington Park,- ' Washington, tliera is a huge obelisk, 555 ft high, in memory of the first President of the Republic. It is hnilt of great blocks of crj-stal marble, and was not completed until 1885. Within the monument is nn elevator and also an iron stairway of 900 steps. This, the highest stone structure la the world, cost .£2-10,000. The American statue, however, which never fails to impress the visitor to the States ie that in New York Harbour, representing Liberty Enlightening the Mould. The figure stands upon a pedestal that is 15tft lOin high, and is itself 151 ft lin in' height. In the upraised right, hand .is- a . torch lighted by electricity. , The pedestal and statue cost over 16200,000. j