A sign says VICTORIA OUR QUEEN
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Pubs, parks and pavilions: Queen Victoria in public places

Queen Victoria was born on 24 May 1819 and to celebrate the bicentenary of her birth we’re looking at some of the historic places named after her.

Queen Victoria was born on 24 May 1819 and to celebrate the bicentenary of her birth we’re looking at some of the historic places named after her; from pubs to parks, streets to statues and even a phantom city.

 The Victorian age

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A crowd in Abingdon, Oxfordshire celebrating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 with her freshly unveiled statue © Historic England cc97_02110

Perceptions of Queen Victoria’s legacy change with each generation and historians are frequently busting cliché’s about her. Whatever your views on Victoria and her era, particularly in the latter part of her reign, she was held in great affection by large swathes of her subjects. From publicans to peers, those empowered to express their loyalty did so by naming places and things after her or to mark milestones in her reign.

Stately Statues

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Victoria surveying a very 21st century scene. This monument by Edward Onslow Ford was completed in 1901 as the centrepiece to Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester © Historic England DP220614

Aside from the prominent Victoria Memorial near Buckingham Palace, statues were raised in towns up and down the country: there are at least 45 statues of Queen Victoria on the National Heritage List for England but there are many more unlisted ones.

Streets ahead of a station

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A late Victorian or Edwardian view of Victoria Station © Historic England c9701138

Victoria Station in London has many listed historic features, but it was actually named after Victoria Street, which in turn was named for the queen,

Around 218 miles  north, Manchester’s Victoria station was named after the young queen in 1843.

Pubs & Pavilions

Victoria may not have necessarily approved of all that went on inside them but scores of pubs were named after Victoria, 46 of which are listed.

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The gilt and velvet interior of the Listed Victoria public house, Strathearn Place © Historic England DP138616

Perhaps the most famous one is the fictional (but as of yet, unlisted) Queen Vic in EastEnders’. Based on the former College Park Tavern in London’s Harlesden, it has survived several fires and witnessed a number of births, deaths and dramatic exits.

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The Queen Vic © Matt Pearson

Now a pub but originally an Edwardian concert hall and assembly rooms, the Royal Victoria Pavilion graces Ramsgate’s Harbour Parade. Amazingly this listed example of seafront architecture was designed in just a week – to be ready in time for the 1903 season.

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The Royal Victoria Pavilion and ‘Pleasurama’, Ramsgate, 1932 Britain from Above Image © Historic England EPW039325

Public Parks

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Postcard showing a view towards a bridge in Queens Park Crewe, Cheshire © Historic England pc06235

Not everything ran so smoothly: Queen’s Park in Crewe, intended to be fully open for Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, had to be dedicated unfinished. This didn’t prevent a festive ‘Grand Procession’ and ceremony, combining the jubilee with the 50th anniversary of the railway arriving at this important junction. The event was a quintessentially Victorian coupling of patriotism and progress.

Eponymous parks were built throughout Victoria’s life: the Royal Victoria Park in Bath was named after (and opened by) an 11 year old princess, whilst Queen’s Park in Crewe opened nearly 60 years late.

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A historic postcard showing the fountain in Victoria Park, east London © Historic England PC06763

Parks also highlight Victoria and Albert’s love of horticulture and concerns over conditions in England’s rapidly growing cities. Victoria Park in East London was opened in 1840 to provide a green space in an area that otherwise had dire living conditions. The park was initially funded by a Royal Grant and was intended to be “a memorial to the sovereign”.

The city that never was

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Crowds watch Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee procession, here with the Royal princes and foreign representatives, passing under Wellington Arch, London in 1897 © Historic England cc97_01161

Parks and statues are great, but what bigger memorial could there be than an entire city?

There are many places in the former British Empire or Commonwealth named after Victoria, but you may not have heard of Victoria, ‘the first capital of New Zealand’, and with good reason: it was never built.

James Busby, the first governor of the area, planned the township to surround his residence – but today his former home stands alone in splendid isolation, overlooking the Bay of Islands.

Jubilee Jamboree

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A detail of the jubilee tower at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings, Shropshire © Historic England DP235658

“How kind they are…No one ever has met with such an ovation as was given to me” [Victoria’s response to her reception by the public on a Diamond Jubilee procession through London].

Popular affection for Victoria reached new heights at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, prompting a surge in commemorative naming and monument building to mark the occasion.

A good way to reach ‘new heights’ was to build a tower, either a completely new one like Darwen Jubliee Tower in Lancashire, or to decorate existing structures, as at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings.

The latter building is famed as the eighteenth century ancestor of all modern skyscrapers. But what you may not know is that in 1897 a wooden hoist tower was topped by a beautiful cast-iron work crown symbolically marking the jubilee.

You can contribute to a project to restore the jubilee crown to its former glory here.

Further reading

2 comments on “Pubs, parks and pavilions: Queen Victoria in public places

  1. The Happy Book Blog.

    Loved this, I find Queen Victoria and the Victorian era really interesting.🙂

  2. Reblogged this on keithbracey and commented:
    In Birmingham there is a prominent statue of Queen Victoria outside #Birmingham Council House in the eponymously named #Victoria Square

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