The Queen's Tower - Imperial College Road, London, UK
N 51° 29.896 W 000° 10.619
30U E 695942 N 5709015
The Queen's Tower is on the north side of Imperial College Road and is all that remains of the Imperial Institute. The Institute was built to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee and was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt RIBA medal winner.
Waymark Code: WMHV41
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/14/2013
Views: 2
The
Scottish Architects website tells us about Collcutt:
Thomas Edward Collcutt was born in
Oxford on 16 March 1840. He was educated at the Oxford Diocesan School at
Cowley and at Mill Hill.
In 1856 Collcutt was articled to Richard Armstrong, an Edinburgh-born
London-based architect who had been an assistant with Edward Blore and had
some connection with David Bryce. At the end of his articles he became an
assistant first to Mills & Murgatroyd and then to George Edmund Street,
subsequently spending some time with the cabinetmakers Collinson & Locke
which gave him experience in high-quality woodwork. In 1867 he moved to
Brighton as assistant to its burgh surveyor P C Lockwood, working on the
conversion of the Pavilion stables riding school into assembly rooms.
Collcutt commenced independent practice in London in 1869, one of his
earliest private clients being his former employers Collinson & Locke whose
Fleet Street premises he designed in 1873-4. In 1872, when briefly in
partnership with the obscure H Woodzell, Collcutt won his first competition,
the Public Library and Museum at Blackburn, Lancashire. In 1877 he won that
for the Town Hall at Wakefield with a Gothic design in deference to the
assessor, his former master G E Street, but in execution redesigned it in a
predominantly English early Renaissance manner which was to become
characteristic of his work in the 1880s and 1890s, increasingly infused with
refined French and Hispanic detail, frequently executed in terracotta.
These successes resulted in him being admitted FRIBA on 13 January 1879, his
proposers being Street, James Brooks and Edward Robert Robson. By 1886 he
had acquired sufficient standing to be nominated for the limited competition
for the Imperial Institute in South Kensington, which he won, the building
being completed in 1893: his refusal to shorten the tower is said to have
cost him the knighthood usually conferred for such buildings. The story may
be apocryphal, but no other major government commission came his way and the
remainder of his career was spent on a flourishing practice of private and
commercial client work, notably for Richard D'Oyly Carte at the Royal
English Opera House (1891) and at the Savoy, where a bold High Renaissance
treatment in white faience was adopted. In his domestic work an accomplished
English Arts and Crafts manner was adopted from about 1900.
Collcutt was awarded the Royal Gold Medal in 1902. From 1906 he was in
partnership with Stanley Hinge Hamp, born 1877, who had been both pupil and
assistant and had briefly left to establish his own practice in 1904.
Collcutt retired in 1920, devoting his time to writing 'London of the
Future' (published in 1923), a book which discouraged open fires and
advocated central heating to improve the atmosphere. He died at Southampton
on 7 October 1924. The Buenos Aires architect Bertie Hawkins Collcutt
(1883-1937) was his nephew.
The cornerstone on the tower is inscribed:
This stone was laid
by
Her Majesty Queen Victoria
Empress of India
on the 4th day of July
in the 51st year of her reign
President
His Royal Highness Albert Edward
Prince of Wales
The information boards, at the base of the tower, tell us:
The Queen's Tower
The Queen's Tower is all that remains of the Imperial Institute, which was
built to mark Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1897. It was 700 feet long
with a central tower (the Queen's Tower) and smaller towers at the east and
west ends. When it was to be demolished in the early 1960s, the Victorian
Society and John Betjeman, (Poet Laureate 1972-1984) campaigned against
total demolition and the Queen's Tower was saved.
The Queen's Tower is 287 feet tall, clad in portland stone and topped by a
copper covered dome. The internal wooden structure of the dome is an
interesting example of Victorian craftsmanship. Near the entrance to the
tower are two large stone lions. These are two of the four lions which
flanked the entrance to the Imperial Institute. The other two are now at the
Commonwealth Institute in Holland Park.
The belfry contains the Alexandra peal of 10 bells. Each bell is separately
named after members of the Royal family - Queen Victoria, her three sons,
her daughter-in-law and her five Wales grand-children. The bells are now
rung on Royal Anniversaries between 1 and 2pm.
The tower is Grade II listed with the entry at the
English Heritage website telling us:
Queen's Tower GV II Surviving tower
of the demolished Imperial Institute 1887-1893. Thomas E Collcott. Portland
stone with red brick bands; copper dome. Eclectic Renaissance manner. Four
main stages with balustraded balconies between. Tall square shaft with
pilaster strips; archway near base. Small arched windows at intervals,
paired towards top. Dome with octagonal stage beneath having semicircular
turrets and flying buttresses above four corners of tower. Cupola and gilded
finial.