| Queen Victoria married
Albert, Prince of Saxe Coburg, in 1840; twenty-two years later Albert
died of typhoid, leaving the Queen an "utterly broken-hearted and
crushed widow of forty-two." Soon after the Prince's death, Disraeli
declared: "This German Prince has governed England for twenty-one years
with a wisdom and energy such as none of our kings have ever shown."
The composition has a large
statue of Albert seated in a vast Gothic shrine, and includes a frieze
with 169 carved figures, angels and virtues higher up, and separate
groups representing the Continents, Industrial Arts and Sciences. The
pillars supporting the canopy are of red granite from the Ross of Mull,
and from a grey granite from Castle Wellan Quarries, Northern Ireland.
These latter pillars, of which there are four, are from single stones,
weighing about 17 tons each. Each pillar took eight men about 20 weeks
to finish and polish, and the Albert Memorial was noted at the time of
its completion as being one of the most costly works in granite of the
period. Darley Dale stone was used for the capitals, and the arches are
of Portland stone. Pink granite from Correnac, Aberdeen, appears with
marble in the pedestal on which the statue of Albert sits. |
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