Queen Victoria Memorial

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. The memorial weighs 2,300 tonnes (about 2535 short tons) and is 32 m (104 ft) in diameter. In 1970 it was listed at Grade I.