51�Թ�

"David and I went and sat at one of the benches across the river, very early in the morning and watched the sun rise. And it really looked like Boudicca was welcoming the London Eye on to the London skyline."

Juvenal’s disdain is a patriarchal shudder that has been repeated throughout history, aimed even at clothed woman warriors — Boudicca in the first century, Hua Mulan in the fourth, Tomoe Gozen in the 12th, Joan of Arc in the 15th and Ronda Rousey in the 21st.

Suzie Hookes owns Boudicca ladies clothes shop in Abersoch and said the plan was "absurd" and "outreageous".

It sheds light on Iron Age Norfolk in the centuries before and during the era of the Iceni tribe, whose queen Boudicca led a failed revolt against the Romans in about AD60.

He was speaking as he power-washed the statue of another queen - Boudicca - who led a revolt by Celtic Britons against the Roman Empire and whose statue overlooks the Houses of Parliament.