Recently I’ve blogged about images of women and men on buildings and in our streets.  What I haven’t quite come out and said before is: the images of women are more varied and interesting. A reason for the men’s poor showing is that those lazy guys are using surrogates: lions! What’s more manly and noble and comforting than a BIG cat.

This pair is in front of the Memorial Tower at the Dingle; colonial size versions of the Landseer lions in Trafalgar Square.

And because they are only wild animals, the sculptor can slip in some manly bits. Ouch!

Another little sculptor trick is to give their lions eyes that are more human shaped. Does this lion on the Dentistry building at Dal look like he’s from Oz?

Most of these photos were taken in the early 1970s when I thought they would make a swell little booklet. That didn’t happen. Later someone did produce a poster of city lions, and I suspect folks have been regularly putting together little collections over the decades. Some of the 40 year old photos demonstrate how the city has been cleaned up and fixed up: consider this goofy lion on the Art Gallery, for example.Because there is a lion in the British coat of arms they do turn up on old government buildings like Province House.

The lions that greet you at the entrance to the Granville Street mall had lost visibility in the 70s. They were originally on the long forgotten Customs House that was at the bottom of George Street (the sunken parking lot next to the Dominion Building). For a while they were next to the Art College when it was at the corner of Coburg and LeMarchant. It was exciting to see them resurface.

Some of the strangest lions emerge, almost flower-like, out of the Court House on Spring Garden.

Now you’ve been cued, I’m sure you’ll start noticing lions (I’m not showing every one I know). Here is a little group to get you started. Tell me if you recognize them or know of others.

And to return to the lion/man idea for a moment, consider the wonderful 1859 lion on the Crimean War Memorial. It looked familiar and then I realized – Roger Daltry from The Who. (Substitute me for him. We won’t be fooled again!)

Post Script

This post is dedicated to @NSMoggsy who assured me that I was correct: the Roger Daltry thing IS hilarious.