VICTORIA DEI GRA, BRITANNIAE REGINA, FIDEI DEFENSOR, IND IMPERATRIX.
Posted by: 
greysman
N 50° 49.479 W 000° 10.156
30U E 699362 N 5634144
At the seaward end of Grand Avenue in Hove stands this monument erected by the citizens of Hove.
Waymark Code: WM9WZK
Location: Southern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/07/2010
Views: 6
A life-size standing statue of Queen Victoria wearing royal regalia, facing south on a grey marble plinth, it is probably bronze. The dado is embellished with 4 low relief bronze panels with allegorical figures representing Empire, Education, Science and Art, and Commerce, captioned below in incized lettering. Above these panels are the words:
VICTORIA DEI GRA, BRITANNIAE REGINA, FIDEI DEFENSOR, IND IMPERATRIX.
reading from the south face anti-clockwise.
An inscription on the south front reads:
ERECTED
BY THE INHABITANTS OF HOVE
TO COMMEMORATE THE SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE ACCESSION OF
QUEEN VICTORA
JUNE 20 AD 1897
It was commissioned to commemmorate the Queen's Jubilee in 1897 but was not completed until the year of her death, and on the lower north face there is the inscription:
BORN.24.MAY.1819 DIED.22.JAN.1901
It is said that the sculptor was Thomas Brock (1847-1922), but the name NEWBURY.A.TRENT.SC. appears on the steps below the plinth. This is very likely the same Newbury Abbott Trent (1885-1963) who was commissioned to make the Peace Statue in memory of Edward VII which is further west along the Kingsway/Kings Road in Brighton. Thomas Brock did, however, design and make the Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace in London, so this may be where the confusion arises.