The Queen's Tower

I had an interesting day with Adam visiting Imperial College. This is the only photo that I took all day - it really is not cool to have your mum taking photos like a tourist when walking on a university tour!

The Queen's Tower is all that remains of the Imperial Institute, which  was founded upon Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert's vision to build an area encouraging the sciences and arts, encompassing the Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum and Royal Albert Hall. It was built in 1887 and its partial demolition began in 1957. The tower itself would have been demolished along with the rest of the Institute, had it not been for a public campaign led by the then Poet Laureate, and supporter of 19th century architecture, John Betjeman. He warned that tastes in architecture change and that the destruction of this building (at a time when Victorian architecture had fallen out of favour) would be a loss.

It stands today at the heart of Imperial College, one of the best science universities in the world.

Then I went out to a work related dinner with Gavin...it's been a long day.