There has been a christian community on this site for over 1300 years. It has had a turbulent history over that period but the structure of the Minster as we see it today was completed around 1420, although there have been many other changes inside since then.
In the nineteenth century during the time that Canon Nolloth was vicar many improvements were made to the Minster including Sixty nine of the statues were carved life size in stone by ‘Mr Smith’ and John and Bryant Baker. They were placed in niches on the outside of the minster that were at that time vacant.
The statue of Queen Victoria
The statue was carved around the end of the 19th century and although Queen Victoria became queen in 1837, the statue depicts her as a much younger woman.
She his wearing a crown, is dressed in regal robes and holds a sceptre in her right hand.
The statue is in a niche on the left of the north tower buttress. On the right hand side of the tower at the same level is a statue of her son Edward who became King Edward VII in 1901 after she died.
Queen Victoria
"Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than any previous British monarch. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.
Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Though a constitutional monarch, privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.
Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. Their children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe" and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism in the United Kingdom temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. She died on the Isle of Wight in 1901. The last British monarch of the House of Hanover, she was succeeded by her son Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha."
Wikipedia