The Queen Elizabeth Way Monument, also known as the Lion Monument and as the Loring Lion, is an Art Deco memorial originally located at the Toronto end of the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW). The monument was designed by architect W.I. Sommerville, sculptors Frances Loring, and Florence Wyle helped model the royal profiles and crown.
It was dedicated June 7, 1939 during the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the namesake of the highway, in what was the first visit to a British dominion by the reigning sovereign. It consists of a column with a crown at the top and a lion at the base. The monument was moved in August 1975 in order to accommodate widening of the original QEW, and is now located in the nearby Sir Casimir Gzowski Park along Lake Ontario, on the east side of the Humber River. It was re-dedicated in 1989 by Queen Elizabeth, by then known as the Queen Mother.
Also along the QEW is the decorative stone pillar on the eastern approach to the Henley Bridge in St. Catharines, Ontario. It was also dedicated by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1939. There are two monuments of the bridge (east and west approach) consisting of four regal lions and each bearing a unique shield. A pillar is located on the opposite side of each monument with a sailboat motif on the west pillar.
Famous quotes containing the words queen and/or monument:
“And thus Snow White became the prince’s bride.
The wicked queen was invited to the wedding feast
and when she arrived there were
red-hot iron shoes,
in the manner of red-hot roller skates,
clamped upon her feet.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)