Buxton Memorial Fountain
**This cache is located within an area frequently patrolled by Police. Please avoid acting suspiciously whilst searching for it, and if challenged, explain about geocaching. It may be worth pointing out that it is not a physical box you are looking for.**
The Buxton Memorial Fountain is a memorial and drinking fountain in London that commemorates the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834. Buxton campaigned against slavery in parliament and helped to found the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to abolish slavery throughout the world.
The monument was first installed on the edge of Parliament Square in 1865 by Buxton's son, Charles. It was moved to the gardens in 1957. The designer was Samuel Sanders Teulon.
Have a real good look at all the lovely details this fountain has, it is just stunning.
PARK INFORMATION: https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/victoria-tower-gardens
Opening time: Victoria Tower Gardens : Dawn - Dusk
(More information further down. BUT first the earth lesson.)
Rocks found on the Earth's surface actually come from inside the Earth - so they tell us a lot about the Earth's interior. They are classified (organised) into three main groups: igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks.
Igneous rock
Igneous rocks are formed by magma from the molten interior of the Earth. When magma erupts it cools to form volcanic landforms. If magma cools inside the Earth it forms intrusive rock, which may later be exposed by erosion and weathering.
Metamorphic rock
Metamorphic rocks have been subjected to tremendous heat and/or pressure, causing them to change into another type of rock. They are usually resistant to weathering and erosion and are therefore very hard-wearing.
Granite
Granite is a felsic, generally equigranular, relatively light coloured intrusive rock. It comprises some of the oldest known rocks on Earth, and is the most abundant basement rock underlying the relatively thin sedimentary rock cover of the continents. Granite is produced in volcanic arcs, and more commonly in mountain building resulting from the collision of two continental masses. The earliest continental masses were products of the accumulation of volcanic arcs, and this is why granite lies in the cores of all of the continents. Granite is the plutonic equivalent of rhyolite.
Group – plutonic.
Colour - variable but typically light-coloured.
Texture - phaneritic (medium to coarse grained).
Mineral content – orthoclase and plagioclase-(up to 65%) and quartz-(at least 20%) (generally more orthoclase than plagioclase), often with smaller amounts of biotite, muscovite or amphibole (hornblende).
Silica (SiO2) content - 69%-77%.
Uses - can be used as aggregate, fill etc. in the construction and roading industries (often not ideal for concrete aggregate because of high silica content); cut and polished for dimension stone for building facings, foyers etc; cut and polished for bench tops and counters; cut and carved into monuments, headstones, statues etc.
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock formed when limestone is exposed to high temperatures and pressures. Marble forms under such conditions because the calcite forming the limestone recrystallises forming a denser rock consisting of roughly equigranular calcite crystals. Marbles formed from pure calcite limestones are white, with a sugary texture, and they effervesce when tested with dilute (~10%) hydrochloric acid. Impurities in the limestone may lead to the formation of new minerals, giving the marble a variety of colors.
While marble can appear superficially similar to quartzite, a piece of marble will be able to be scratched by a metal blade, and marble will fizz on contact with dilute hydrochloric acid.
Texture – granular.
Grain size - medium grained; can see interlocking calcite crystals with the naked eye.
Hardness - hard, although component mineral is soft (calcite is 3 on Moh's scale of hardness).
Colour - variable - pure marble is white but marble exists in a wide variety of colours all the way through to black .
Mineralogy - calcite.
Other features - generally gritty to touch.
Uses - building stone; dimension stone for building facings, paving etc; cut into blocks and cut for monuments, headstones etc (wears over time due to softness of calcite, prone to acid rain damage [calcite is soluble in acid]); whiting material in toothpaste, paint and paper.
To log this cache.
To get to log this cache you will have to visit and answer the questions which are related to the coordinates given the earthcache.
When answers are collected, send them to CO for verification.
As I own 400+ earthcaches there are MANY mails/messages to answer back on, and I will not always be able to answer right-back, BUT I READ ALL SENT ANSWERS AND LOGS, so if anything is not correct or need an upgrade, you will indeed hear back from me.
Thanks for your understanding, and for picking one of my caches.
You can log immediately answers are sent CO. If there are any questions about your answers CO will contact you.
Logs without answers to CO or with pending questions from CO will be deleted without any further notice.
Please do not include pictures in your log that may answer the questions.
Questions
1. Answer the questions under by visiting the Coordinates.
A. You have above been introduced to Granite and Marble, by looking at the fountain at gz, can you describe what parts that is in granite stone and what parts that is in marble? How do you know what is what?
B. Do we find more than one color for the granite stone that has been used for the fountain? (take a walk around the fountain).
C. On the base of the central shaft inside of the fountain you will find four carved lion heads, what can you say about the stone that is below each lion? And what are the minerals to be seen?
D. The marble stone used for the fountain is a rosso marble, so it is not white as you often see. Marble stone is often seen not all pure, clean or fine, this is because impurities are frequently present in the stone and causes color changes. What is it that causes this?
E. While you had your walk around the fountain and gz, could you spot two other types of stone used for the fountain. These are not mentioned in the text above!
2. Take a photo of yourself, the group or your GPS when logging the cache.
Without revealing any answers!
(It’s voluntary to post a photo in your online log)
Buxton Memorial Fountain
The Buxton Memorial Fountain is a perfect little Victorian Gothic shrine, situated next to the Houses of Parliament in the small riverside open space called Victoria Tower Gardens. It is of interest here for its artwork: indeed, it is an example of how the Victorians sought the Renaissance ideal, combining many arts in one complete creation: we have in the Buxton Memorial a work combining mosaic, tile, sculpture, different coloured marbles, and serious Gothic architecture including vaulting. And all on a base just 12 ft wide.
History, Significance
The Buxton Memorial Fountain was erected by the MP Charles Buxton, in memory of his father, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, and, so the stone panel on one side notes, those others associated with him who fought against slavery: ‘Wilberforce, Clarkson, Macaulay, Brougham, Dr Lushington, and others’. Their ultimate success was the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, and the emancipation of slaves which followed in 1834 is commemorated on the plaque. The panel also says that the fountain was erected in 1835, but this is obviously wildly incorrect for what is a seriously High Victorian construction. The date is in fact 1865. The architect was the Victorian church designer, Samuel S. Teulon, but Charles Buxton was himself an amateur architect of distinction, and the work is a collaboration between the two: I am inclined to think the overall architectural structure is Teulon’s, as he was a forceful and distinctive Gothicist architect, and Buxton’s efforts would have been more in the detail: perhaps the mosaics, and the designs on the spire. It is not quite complete: there were eight small bronze statues, whose bases can still be seen, but these were stolen
The Buxton Memorial Fountain originally stood in Parliament Square, but with the redesign of the Square before the Festival of Britain, the fountain was taken down at the end of the 1940s, and put up in Victoria Tower Gardens – only a couple of hundred yards away – in 1957. The Parliamentary debates of the time – all available in the Hansard record from the Parliamentary website, give an interesting account of the reasons for and against the move and the feelings towards Victorian art at the time.
Those seeking to keep the Buxton Fountain in Parliament Square felt it unfair that the statues in the Square were allowed to stay, but the Fountain was singled out for removal, and keenly felt the historical symbolism and significance of the piece: that a monument to the abolition of slavery really should be in Parliament Square, with its other symbols of democratic struggle (which continue to this day with the recent erection of statues of Mandela and Gandhi). Other reasons given in the debates before and around the passage of the Bill to redesign the Square were more esoteric:
The Bishop of Lichfield noted that he himself was related to ‘that clan of Buxtons and Barclays and Hoares and Gurneys’, and on behalf of the clan, said that ‘Families and relatives have a natural dislike to having their tombstones and memorials moved about hither and thither’ and the monument should stay.
Viscount Bledisloe, one-time proconsul for New Zealand, said he ‘could imagine nothing that would more profoundly shock the people of all classes and all political Parties in the Dominion of New Zealand...if it were to to go out that the memorial to Fowell Buxton, one of the great English champions of freedom, was to be removed from the place where alone it ought to be, in the precincts of this Parliament.’
The main reason given for the move was that Parliament Square was being redesigned along Classical lines (despite the Gothic buildings of Westminster Palace and Westminster Abbey dominating two sides of the Square), so a Gothic structure did not fit in the new design.
Other Parliamentarians were far more critical of the Fountain. Viscount Swinton thought the fountain ‘revoltingly ugly’ Earl Jowett opined that ‘Though we all desire to commemorate the great work of Buxton, it seems to many of us that it is an appalling way to commemorate a great man and his great work by re-erecting such an appallingly ugly structure.’ Edward Keeling, a particular opponent of the Buxton Fountain, felt that the local council might simply remove the Fountain quietly one night, and ‘if that can be done, I am sure nobody would complain if the Buxton Memorial Fountain were seen no more’. One debater is recorded as saying that ‘I am very glad that it is to be removed from the Square. I hope it will also be destroyed, unless somebody comes forward with an offer to take it away and re-erect it.'
Lord Rea was one of several objecting to the Fountain being moved to Victoria Tower Gardens and felt it should be further away. ‘As one who, like many others of your Lordships, enjoys these gardens, and lives rather near to them, I hope the noble Earl will see to it that this open space is not filled up with a large number of memorials. If this fountain is to be placed in a valuable open space I hope it may be placed at the far end, near Lambeth Bridge, where it will not impinge on the valuable open spaces in the centre of the gardens.’
However, Ministers agreed with the highly vocal Anti-Slavery Society that the Fountain should at least stay close to the Palace of Westminster, given the importance of the Parliamentary battle for abolition of slavery, and that the Fountain ‘was erected by a Member of this House to other Members of the House who had taken part in and had won one of the greatest battles in Parliamentary history’ and hence the Victoria Tower Gardens site was confirmed.
The final word must be given to Lord Winster:
‘This memorial is not a statue. It is a memorial fountain which commemorates a noble deed, the reversal of a system which was very negation of humanity. It is associated with the name of a great man, the name of Fowell Buxton, and with the names of the Gurneys, the Hoares, the Barclays — names which have always been honourably associated with philanthropy and with the ideals of reform and humanity. It seems to me an extraordinary instance of our apathy to the part we have played in these questions that this Bill should provide specifically for the re-siting of the statue of Lincoln and forget the man whose act preceded the action of Lincoln.’
