The Albert Memorial

So many delightful things to do in London.... We went to the V&A (Victoria & Albert) Museum to see the exhibition "Grace Kelly: Style Icon" (which is well worth a visit if you love clothes, Grace Kelly or fantasise about being a princess).

The V&A is situated in South Kensington, in the area known as "Albertopolis". The land was purchased with the proceeds of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (Prince Albert was the driving force behind the Great Exhibition) and is home to many museums and wonderful Victorian buildings, including the Royal Albert Hall and this astonishing memorial to Prince Albert. Commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband, who died of typhoid in 1861, it was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott (who also designed the wonderful St Pancras Station in London, now the Eurostar terminal). The memorial is 176 feet tall, took over ten years to complete, and cost £120,000.

Its decoration includes the Frieze of Parnassus (which shows 169 individual composers, architects, poets, painters, and sculptors) and allegorical sculptures depicting the four continents and Victorian industrial arts and sciences. The Memorial was extensively restored and regilded in the late 1990s.