Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square Review

This is literally the center of London: a plaque on the corner of the Strand and Charing Cross Road marks the spot from which distances on U.K. signposts are measured. Nelson's Column stands at the heart of the square (which is named after the great admiral's most important victory), guarded by haughty lions designed by Sir Edwin Landseer and flanked by statues of two generals who helped establish the British Empire in India, Charles Napier and Henry Havelock. The fourth plinth is given over to rotating works by contemporary sculptors. Great events, such as New Year's Eve celebrations, political protests, and sporting triumphs always see the crowds gathering in the city's most famous square. Although Trafalgar Square is known to Chinese tourists as Pigeon Square, feeding the birds is now banned and the gray flocks have flown.

The commanding open space is built on the grand scale demanded by its central position. From the 13th century, the site housed the royal hawks and falcons until 1530, when these buildings were replaced by stabling for royal horses. This "Great Mews" was demolished in 1830 as part of John Nash's Charing Cross Improvement Scheme. Nash, who envisioned the square as a cultural space open to the public, exploited its natural north-south incline to create a succession of high points from which to look down imposing carriageways toward the Thames, the Houses of Parliament, and Buckingham Palace. Upon Nash's death, the design baton was passed to Sir Charles Barry and then to Sir Edwin Lutyens, and the square was finally completed in 1850.

At the southern point of the square, en route to Whitehall, is the equestrian statue of Charles I. After the Civil War and the king's execution, Oliver Cromwell, then the leader of the "Commonwealth," commissioned a scrap dealer, brazier John Rivett, to melt the statue. The story goes that Rivett buried it in his garden and made a fortune peddling knickknacks wrought, he claimed, from its metal, only to produce the statue miraculously unscathed after the restoration of the monarchy—and to make more cash reselling it to the authorities. In 1767 Charles II had it placed where it stands today, near the spot where his father was executed in 1649. Each year, on January 30, the day of the king's death, the Royal Stuart Society lays a wreath at the foot of the statue.