This week another from the archives. This is a montage of individual shots of the ten Queen’s Beasts statues outside the Palm House at Kew Gardens. They’re magnificent statues some 6 feet tall.
In fact these are replicas in Portland stone (commissioned in 1958 by Sir Henry Ross, then Chairman of the Distillers Company) of the original plaster versions. The originals were commissioned by the British Ministry of Works from sculptor James Woodford to stand in front of the temporary western annexe to Westminster Abbey for the Queen’s coronation in 1953. The originals are now in Canada.
Queen’s Beasts at Kew
May 2010; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The ten heraldic beasts represent the genealogy of Queen Elizabeth II. They are (from L to R):
- White Greyhound of Richmond
- Yale of Beaufort
- Red Dragon of Wales
- White Horse of Hanover
- Lion of England
- White Lion of Mortimer
- Unicorn of Scotland
- Griffin of Edward III
- Black Bull of Clarence
- Falcon of the Plantagenet