Prince Albert memorial set for resurrection at Swanage

The Purbeck Stone obelisk, constructed in Swanage in 1862, the year after Albert's death, has lain in St Aldhem's Quarry for the past fifty years.

However, a group from Swanage Museum has been working to return the memorial back to its glory days, by installing it in the town once again, close to Durlston Bay.

The memorial to Queen Victoria's consort was built at the top of Court Hill, which was at that time the entrance to the town.

According to Bob Field, of The Swanage Museum, this site was chosen because it was at that spot that the young Princess Victoria and her party were greeted by officials and town residents when she visited in August 1833.

In 1881 The Great Blizzard twisted the upper part of the memorial out of alignment. Then between 1925 and 1931, for reasons that remain unclear, the top 13 sections were taken down by a local builder and put into storage.

The remainder of the memorial was removed in 1971, and despite planning conditions stipulating it should be re-erected, this was never enforced.

In the following years all attempts to get the memorial reinstated came to nothing.

But in 2017 the campaign to get the memorial resurrected in Swanage started once more – and this time it seems to have paid off.

Mr Field said: "The Swanage Albert Memorial, which has lain in a local quarry for the last fifty years, is going to be re-erected and will be in place by the end of May if things go according to plan.

"A group from Swanage Museum has been instrumental in achieving this helped by the Swanage and Purbeck Development Trust and a benefactor. "It is important to the country as a whole as it was the first memorial to Prince Albert to be erected in the country, in 1862."

The site chosen for the re-erection of the memorial is close to Durlston Bay where Prince Albert landed from the Royal Yacht in 1849, climbed the zig-zag path and went to Peveril Point in the company of the respected naval officer Sir George Biddlecombe.