The Maiwand Lion

Reading's best known statue - the Maiwand Lion (also known as the Forbury Lion), by sculptor and brewer George Simonds (see also yesterday's blip). At over 9 1/2 meters long it is one of the world's largest cast iron statues.

The statue was named after the Battle of Maiwand and was erected in 1886 to commemorate the deaths of 329 men from the 66th Berkshire Regiment during the campaign in Afghanistan between 1878 and 1880.

Local myth has it that Simonds committed suicide on learning that the lion's gait was incorrectly that of a domestic cat, and that a lion adopting this stance would fall over. In fact, he made careful observations on lions and the stance was anatomically correct despite various African ex-pats disagreeing; he also lived for another 43 years, so if true it was a spectacularly slow suicide!