Buxton Memorial Fountain

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Fountain with the Victoria Tower in the background

The Buxton Memorial Fountain (Eng. Buxton Memorial Fountain ) is an out of order drinking fountain in London. Client was the MP and philanthropist Charles Buxton in memory of his father Sir Thomas Buxton , also MP and social reformer as well as his contemporaries and others. a. William Wilberforce , Thomas Clarkson , Thomas Macaulay , who all played their part in the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834 through the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 .

Emergence

The hobby architect Charles Buxton created the neo-Gothic design himself with the support of the architect Samuel Sanders Teulon. It was inaugurated in Parliament Square in 1866 . The cost was around £ 1200 . In the course of the redesign of the square after the Second World War , the fountain was dismantled in 1949 and only rebuilt in 1957 at its current location in Victoria Tower Gardens .

The fountain was restored from 2006 and returned to the public on March 25, 2007. The date was the 200th anniversary of the Slave Trade Act 1807 , which did not abolish slavery itself, but it did abolish the slave trade .

layout

Enamel elements and tracery

The floor plan of the pavilion is octagonal. The actual fountain is located inside the pavilion, which can be reached via three steps. Four basins are attached to a central pillar made of gray granite . The water came out of four snapdragons.

A tracery made of limestone rests on eight four-part column groups made of red granite . It is decorated with half columns , mosaics, and floral and animal elements. Bronze figures of English rulers from different epochs once stood on eight small plinths between the pinnacles . a. of Caratacus , leader of the southern English Catuvellaunen , the Anglo-Scandinavian King Canute the Great , the Anglo-Saxon Alfred the Great , William the Conqueror and finally Queen Victoria . They have since been stolen several times and are currently missing.

The most striking feature is the roof in the form of an eight-sided pyramid . It is clad in brightly colored enameled iron elements with a neo-Byzantine influence.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Listing of 18 historic buildings amended to highlight their links to the abolition of slavery. September 29, 2009. Retrieved May 27, 2018 .
  2. ↑ protest disrupts slavery service . March 27, 2007 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed May 20, 2018]).
  3. ^ Westminster: King St, Great George St and the Broad Sanctuary | British History Online. Retrieved June 9, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Historic England: BUXTON MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN, VICTORIA TOWER GARDENS, City of Westminster - 1066151 | Historic England. Retrieved May 27, 2018 .

Web links

Commons : Buxton Memorial Fountain  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 29 '46 "  N , 0 ° 7' 29.3"  W.