Akroydon village and Statue
"The Akroydon model housing scheme is a Victorian era model village at Boothtown, Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It was designed in the Gothic style by George Gilbert Scott in 1859 for the workers at the mills of Colonel Edward Akroyd, who had bought, in 1855, the 62,435 acres (252.67 km2) of land on which the houses were to be built.
As Scott's original plan to have dormer windows in the cottages was unacceptable to members of the Akroyd Town Building Association, Akroyd employed a local architect – W. H. Crossland – under the supervision of Scott, to come up with an acceptable design. The plan was for a quadrangular arrangement of 350 houses, but only 90 were actually built.
In the middle of the quadrangle, known as The Square, Akroyd had a monument called the Victoria Cross built in 1875 and dedicated to Queen Victoria. The monument, similar in style to an Eleanor Cross, has been described as "a monument to the British constitution"
According to Walter L Creese, this "suburb on the moors" was Akroyd's attempt "to justify contemporary upheaval, to rationalize for himself and others the improvement and purpose of the factory system as it was replacing the cottage industries".
It was to be a model village not only in the architectural sense but also in a social sense as well as the houses were built in various sizes for people from all economic classes, who were offered low cost mortgages to buy them. The village was to be managed by a committee of residents. There was a working men’s college for self-improvement."
link
Eleanor Crosses
"The Eleanor crosses were a series of twelve lavishly decorated stone monuments topped with tall crosses, of which three survive nearly intact, in a line down part of the east of England. King Edward I had the crosses erected between 1291 and 1294 in memory of his wife Eleanor of Castile, marking the nightly resting-places along the route taken when her body was transported to London."
link
In this structure the statue shows a young Queen Victoria, although at the moment someone has placed a cloth over the statue's face.
There is an inscription underneath the statue.
ERECETED AS A MONUMENT
OF CHRISTIAN REVERENCE FOR
THE EMBLEM OF THE CROSS AND
OF LOYALTY TO OUR SOVEREIGN
LADY QUEEN VICTORIA BY
EDWARD AKROYD THE FOUNDER OF
AKROYDON MDCCCLXXV
FEAR GOD
HONOUR THE KING
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria is associated with Britain's great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and, especially, empire. She was awarded the title of The Empress of India in 1877. At her death, it was said, Britain had a worldwide empire on which the sun never set.
She had 9 children during her marriage to Prince Albert. Their nine children and 26 of their 34 grandchildren who survived childhood married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe"
Victoria had been a much loved figure before and after she became queen, but after he died in 1861 aged only 42, she fell into a state of depression and largely withdrew from public life. However after 20 years or so, she slowly re-entered public life and after her jubilees was fully restored to public favour.