Dunedin's Queen Victoria statue to get a nose job after being targeted by vandals

The Queen Victoria statue in the Queens Gardens lost the tip of its tiara when a cone was placed on its head. Photo / Gerard O'Brien

A stony demeanour has not been enough for Queen Victoria to ward off the latest ill-treatment by Dunedin vandals.

The tip of the tiara was knocked off when an orange road cone was placed on the head of the Queens Gardens statues this month. However, the thoughtful actions of a member of the public means the damage can be fixed.

The cone was removed last weekend.

Dunedin City Council parks manager Lisa Wheeler said ''a wee piece'' of the statue, the very top of the tiara, was handed to the council last Thursday.

It had ''obviously got knocked off when somebody put that cone up''.

''It's certainly valuable to get that back.''

Ms Wheeler said the ''tiny wee square piece - it looks like an upside-down tooth'' - was now sitting on her desk in the council offices.

Placing the cone on the head of the 110-year-old statue, the work of the British sculptor Herbert Hampton, and the only one of its type in New Zealand to be carved from marble, was ''stupid and senseless'', she said.

The council would also look at repairing the statue's nose.

The nose appears to be separating from the face, although Ms Wheeler said there had been no change since the statue was defaced with black paint.

The nose was smashed and the statue damaged with graffiti in the mid-1990s.

Ms Wheeler said she would work with council heritage policy planner Glen Hazelton to put together a restoration plan for the statue and have both issues repaired properly.

The state of the nose had fallen through the gaps at some point, she said.

''Our monument maintenance budget does allow for restoration of monuments, so I need to just assess where this is on the priority list, and reassess the urgency of it, with what's happened.''