The Saltaire Lions: The facinating tale of the stone lions which never made it to Trafalgar Square

His commissions included the statue of Nelson at Norwich Cathedral and one of Wellington for the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich.

In the 1860s he was asked to carve four lions to be be placed on the pedestal supporting Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square.

His lions were sculpted from sandstone quarried at Pateley Bridge, each one in a different pose.

However, they were deemed unsuitable and the commission was passed to the painter and sculptor Sir Edwin Landseer.

He produced four bronze lions, each weighing seven tons, and legend has it that the corpse of a lion which had died at London Zoo was used as a model but decomposed in Landseer’s studio to such an extent that some parts had to be improvised.

Milnes’ lions remained in his studio until Sir Titus, still in the process of creating his model village, heard about them.

After consulting one of his architects for Saltaire, Henry Lockwood, it was decided the lions should grace the front of two of his public buildings, the Mechanics Institute (now known as Victoria Hall) and factory school (now Shipley College).

Two of the lions were given names to represent Nelson’s qualities, Vigilance and Determination; the others were named Peace and War.

Each is eight feet long, three feet wide and five feet tall.

A biography of Sir Titus by Rev. Robert Balgarnie described the lions as “superior, in the estimation of many, to those at the base of the Nelson monument in Trafalgar Square”.