Manual Ref* | NFklKL002 Show 8 images | 292 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Title* |
Statue of King Edward VII |
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County | Norfolk | District Council | King's Lynn | |||||||||||||||||||||
Civil Parish or equivalent | King's Lynn | Town/Village* | King's Lynn | |||||||||||||||||||||
Road | Gaywood Road | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Precise Location | South side of the Gaywood Road beyond King George V Avenue | |||||||||||||||||||||||
OS Grid Ref | TF629204 | Postcode | PE30 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Setting | On a small green facing the entrance to the school | Access | Private | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Commissioned by |
Governors of the School with the assistance of Sir William Lancaster | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Design & Constrn period |
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Date of installing |
1906 |
Exact date of unveiling |
05-Nov-06 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Work is |
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Owner/Custodian |
King Edward VII School | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Listing status |
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Surface Condition |
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Structural Condition |
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Vandalism |
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Overall condition |
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Risk |
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Signatures/Marks | W.R. Colton ARA (Colton was elected ARA in 1903 and a full RA in 1919) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Inscriptions | His Majesty King Edward VII 1906 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Description (physical) |
Larger than life-size seated statue of King Edward VII on a raised stone pedestal. The statue is set facing the entrance to the King Edward VII High School in Gaywood – a suburb of King’s Lynn, which was designed by Basil Champneys in 1903 and completed in 1906, the date of the statue. By 1903 the school was in need of a new building, which was provided by a former pupil of King’s Lynn grammar school, W.J. Lancaster, on a site provided by the Council. At the opening Lancaster was knighted in the great hall by Edward VII. The façade includes under life-size statues of students, one in Tudor costume on the left and the other in contemporary ca. 1905 clothes with a bag of books, presumably a copy of the original now housed just in the doorway, perhaps by R. Bridgeman of Litchfield, the stonemason working on the school. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Description (iconographical) |
The statue shows Edward VII turning slightly towards visitors coming through the original gates, now closed and replaced by gates which allow cars in. he wears an unusual composite costume. Like the earlier statue of Prince Albert at Framlingham College he is shown as the Great Master of the Order of the Bath, a role he held from 1897 until his accession in 1901, with the mantle draped over the coronation throne. There are two cherubs above: one wearing a cap indicating the title Emperor of India- the other bare-headed representing the Commonwealth Realms. His hat, however, is not part of the Regalia of England, and is a version of an academic cap, chosen to underline his role at a school founded in his name The composite crown signifies the monarch's authority over the United Kingdom. Of all this symbolism the choice of Sceptre with the Dove is probably the most significant reflecting public affection for a monarch popularly known in the wake of the entant cordiale of 1904 as Edward the Peacemaker. The monument reflects Colton’s French heritage both in the activity behind the seated king, suggested by Jules Dalou’s monuments, and in the enormous weight of the robes, treated with a combination of realism in the detail of the hem and freedom in the body of the robe, draped over the throne to suggest a response the deeply modelled abstract cloak with which Rodin enveloped Balzac in the plaster cast for his monument, exhibited in 1898 but only cast much later. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Photographs |
Date taken:
23/2/2007
Date logged: 27/2/2007 |
Photographed by: |
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On Site Inspection |
Date: 23/2/2007 |
Inspected by: |
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Sources and References |
The Builder 17/11/1906, p. 573; M. Walker (2004) King Edward VII School: A Centenary Celebration, Sussex / http://www.heraldicsculptor.com/Garters.html accessed 23-Feb-07; www.moma.org/collection/Rodin accessed 04/08/2009 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Database |
Date entered: 14/2/2007 |
Data inputter: |