Hubert Fountain

Fountain of c 1862 in the Ecole des Beaux Arts style, cast in France by the foundry of M. Barbezat and Co. at the Val d'Osne and exhibited at the International Exhibition (or Great London Exposition) of 1862 as the Hubert Fountain. It was installed in Victoria Park in July 1912 and the outer pool walls are of that date.

MATERIALS: painted cast iron sculpture set in a pool with concrete walls.

PLAN: a three tier fountain with a circular base.

DESCRIPTION: a monumental fountain of cast iron, with painted figures. Its topmost finial emerges from a vase and the wide circular basin below is supported by four putti representing different continents standing on a moulded plinth decorated by the masks of ancients and bearing decorative panels with the names of continents. The plinth supports four flat circular bowls supported by two seated atlantes and two seated caryatids with attendant cupids with conches and cornucopia. At their sides quadrant-shaped pierced bowls shoot jets and, from the circular base below, grotesque mask waterspouts under acroteria eject water into the basin. The basin is of 1912, circular, and of concrete. A bronze plaque on the wall of the basin records 'ON JULY 23 1912./THIS FOUNTAIN WAS PRESENTED TO/THE TOWN OF ASHFORD BY MR. GEO. HARPER/25 YEARS A MEMBER OF THE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL. CHAIRMAN 1907-10./IT WAS SHOWN AT THE EXHIBITION OF 1862 AS THE HUBERT FOUNTAIN'.