Tour around the Albert Memorial

Websites:
http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/kensington_gardens/tours
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Memorial

Yesterday ABJ and I went on the a tour around the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens. The tours are held on the first Sunday of each month from March to December and are £5 per adult.

We turned up for the 2pm tour and paid our money to the blue-badged tour woman who gave us a hand-written ticket from her ticket-book. There were around 20 people waiting for the tour - the group had an average age of around 60.

Unfortunately the start of the tour was a bit shambolic. The tour guide was in a panic because she had been unable to get through on the phone to the park security to tell them to turn off the alarm on the memorial. Her worry was that when she went to unlock the railings around the memorial a loud alarm would go off and chaos would ensue. She therefore spent the first 5-10 minutes on and off her mobile phone desperately trying to get through to the park security or find the correct number for them. This fiasco led one German man to lean to his wife and say "Ah, English administration..."

Anyway, at length the tour began and we were ushered in front of the memorial. This was built after the death of Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, to honour his memory. The original plan was to build a giant obelisk on the site of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. As it turned out, however, nowhere in the British Empire could quarry a large enough piece of stone. When the planners told this to Queens Victoria she said "Oh, that's good - I didn't like that design anyway..." After that a competition was opened for designs for the memorial. Most of the designed entered were classical - lots of columns and pillars - but the design that was chosen was more "medieval", inspired by the Eleanor Crosses.

The memorial itself is extravagantly detailed and the tour spent a lot of its time explaining the meaning of the different statues, mosaics etc. The mosaics on each of the four sides represent Literature and Music, Painting, Architecture and Sculpture. The statues at the four corners of the base represent the continents Europe, Asia, Africa and America. There's also a host of other statues representing things like chemistry, agriculture, humility etc. The continents were illustrated with one animal (there were lots of arguments about which animal should represent Europe - in the end a cow was chosen).

There was elephant for Asia:a camel for Africa:and a bison for America:We heard that underneath the base of the memorial is lots of concrete as well as numerous supporting brick arches. The stone for the memorial came from all over the British Isles and we heard where the different coloured stone for the base came from (something I'd never thought about whenever I've walked across them):The group was led further around the base and shown more details on the statues and the mosaics. It was interesting to learn that the north face focusses on architecture and the mosaic shows someone holding up the plans to the memorial itself!The group were now allowed to go beyond the railings and up the steps of the memorial.
This was the best bit of the tour because it meant that we could have a close-up look at the detailed carvings. Around the base of the memorial there was an intricate series of carvings depicting famous artists, architects, sculptors, musicians and writers. This carving was performed on site over a period of 4 years! Here's an example of the series of famous architects:
Being closer also allowed us a closer look at the centrepiece - the statue of Albert himself. This was made of bronze and covered in gold-leaf. It was added to the monument years after the building work was completed because there was such a debate over what the statue should look like. It was chosen that he'd wear the uniform of the Order of the Garter which is why he has a prominent garter on his leg:
He is also holding a catalogue of the Great Exhibition which he organised (you can even read the title on the front):
After a few more explanations about statues etc our hour long tour ended. We all felt we had a much better appreciation of this amazing memorial.

Summary: Lots of detail to see if you know what you're looking at.