Place name
Riverside road between Westminster and Blackfriars, constructed to the designs of engineer Sir Peter Bazalgette between 1864 and 1870, and named, like so many streets of the time, in honour of the reigning monarch, Queen Victoria (May 24, 1819 – January 22, 1901) or Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India. She was, at the time of her death, the longest serving monarch in British history, a title only surpassed by Elizabeth II. Despite her father Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn being King George III’s fourth son, she took the throne aged 18 after his three elder brothers died without any surviving legitimate children. She married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. Their children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning her the sobriquet “the grandmother of Europe”. When Albert died in 1861 she plunged the nation into a period of national mourning and was the embodiment of a strict moral code. Her reign saw a period of a vast expansion of the British Empire that spanned across the globe and a period of almost unrivalled innovation at home. This street gives its name to Embankment station. In earlier times, the Strand ran along part of this stretch of the river bank.
