Encyclopedia
Trafalgar Square is a square in central
London that commemorates the
Battle of Trafalgar , a
British naval victory of the
Napoleonic Wars. The original name was to have been "
King William the Fourth's Square", but George Ledwell Taylor suggested the name "Trafalgar Square".
The northern area of the square had been the site of the
King's Mews since the time of
Edward I, while the southern end was the original
Charing Cross, where the Strand from
the City met
Whitehall, coming north from
Westminster. As the midpoint between these twin cities, Charing Cross is to this day considered the heart of London, from which all distances are measured.
In the 1820s the
Prince Regent engaged the landscape architect John Nash to redevelop the area. Nash cleared the square as part of his Charing Cross Improvement Scheme. The present architecture of the square is due to Sir
Charles Barry and was completed in 1845.
The square is a popular site for political demonstrations, is the site of
Nelson's Column, and related sculptures of note.
Overview
The square consists of a large central area surrounded by roadways on three sides, and stairs leading to the
National Gallery on the other. The roads which cross the square form part of the busy
A4 road, and prior to 2003, the square was surrounded by a one-way traffic system on all sides.
Underpasses attached to
Charing Cross tube station still allow pedestrians to avoid traffic. Recent works have reduced the width of the roads and closed the northern side of the square to traffic.
Nelson's Column is in the centre of the square, surrounded by fountains designed by Sir
Edwin Lutyens in 1939 and four huge
bronze lions sculpted by
Sir Edwin Landseer; the metal used is said to have been recycled from the
cannon of the French fleet. The column is topped by a
statue of
Lord Nelson, the admiral who commanded the British Fleet at Trafalgar.
On the north side of the square is the
National Gallery and to its east the
St Martin's-in-the-Fields church. The square adjoins The Mall via
Admiralty Arch to the southwest. To the south is
Whitehall, to the east
Strand and
South Africa House, to the north
Charing Cross Road and on the west side is
Canada House.
At the corners of the square are four
plinths; the two northern ones were intended to be used for
equestrian statues, and thus are wider than the two southern. Three of them hold
statues:
George IV ,
Henry Havelock , and Sir
Charles James Napier . Mayor of London
Ken Livingstone controversially expressed a desire to see the two generals replaced with statues that "ordinary Londoners would know".
In 1888 the statue of General
Charles George Gordon was erected. In 1943 the statue was removed and, in 1953, re-sited on the
Victoria Embankment.
The Square has become an enormously important symbolic social and political location for visitors and Londoners alike, developing over its history from "an
esplanade peopled with figures of national heroes, into the country’s foremost
place politique," as historian Rodney Mace has written. Its symbolic importance was demonstrated in 1940 when the
Nazi SS developed secret plans to transfer Nelson's Column to
Berlin following an expected
German invasion, as related by Norman Longmate in
If Britain Had Fallen .
The fourth plinth
The fourth plinth on the northwest corner was intended to hold a statue of
William IV, but remained empty due to insufficient funds. Later, agreement could not be reached over which monarch or military hero to place there.
In 1999, the
Royal Society of Arts conceived the idea of the
Fourth Plinth Project, which temporarily occupied the plinth with a succession of works commissioned from three contemporary artists. These were:
- Ecce Homo, by Mark Wallinger
- Regardless of History, by Bill Woodrow
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Wallinger's
Ecce Homo — whose title, in
Latin, means "behold the man", a
Biblical reference — was of a life-sized man. Atop the huge plinth, designed for larger-than-life statuary, it looked minuscule. Some commentators said that, far from making the man look insignificant, his apparent tininess drew the eye powerfully; they interpreted it as a commentary on human delusions of grandeur.
Whiteread's
Monument, by an artist already notable for her controversial
Turner Prize-winning work "House" and the Judenplatz
Holocaust Memorial in
Vienna, was a cast of the plinth in transparent
resin, and placed upside-down on top of the original. Following the exhibition project, some wished to see it continue in this role.
Various companies have used the plinth as a platform for publicity stunts, including a model of
David Beckham by
Madame Tussauds. The London-based American
harmonica player Larry Adler jokingly suggested erecting a statue of
Moby Dick, which would then be called the "
Plinth of Whales".
The best use of the fourth plinth remains the subject of debate. On March 24, 2003 an appeal was launched by Wendy Woods, the widow of the anti-
apartheid journalist Donald Woods, hoping to raise £400,000 to pay for a nine-
foot high statue of
Nelson Mandela by Ian Walters. The relevance of the location is that
South Africa House, the
South African
high commission, scene of many anti-apartheid demonstrations, is also located on Trafalgar Square.
A committee convened to consider the RSA's late-
1990s project concluded that it had been a success and "unanimously recommended that the plinth should continue to be used for an ongoing series of temporary works of art commissioned from leading national and international artists" . After several years in which the plinth stood empty, the new
Greater London Authority assumed responsibility for the fourth plinth and started its own series of temporary exhibitions:
- Marc Quinn: Alison Lapper Pregnant
- Thomas Schutte: Hotel for the Birds
Quinn's
Alison Lapper Pregnant is a 3.6m marble
torso-bust of
Alison Lapper, an artist who was born with no arms and shortened legs due to a condition called phocomelia.
Pigeons
The square is a popular tourist spot in London, and used to be particularly famous for its
pigeons . Feeding the pigeons was a popular activity with Londoners and tourists. The National Portrait Gallery displays a 1948 photograph of
Elizabeth Taylor posing there with bird seed so as to be mobbed by birds. The desirability of the birds' presence has long been contentious: their
droppings look ugly on buildings and damage the stonework, and the flock, estimated at its peak to be 35,000, was considered to be a health hazard. In 1996, police arrested one man who was estimated to have trapped 1500 birds for sale to a middleman; it is assumed that the birds ended up in the human
food chain.
In 2000, the sale of
bird seed in the square was controversially terminated and other measures were introduced to discourage the pigeons, including the use of trained
falcons. Supporters of the pigeons and some tourists continued to feed the birds, but, in 2003,
Ken Livingstone enacted by-laws to ban the feeding of pigeons within the square . There are now relatively few birds in Trafalgar Square and it is used for festivals and hired out to film companies, in a way that was not feasible in the
1990s.
Redevelopment
In 2003 the redevelopment of the north side of the square was completed. The work involved demolishing part of the wall and building a wide set of stairs. This construction includes two Saxon scissor lifts for disabled access, public toilets, and a small café. Plans for a large staircase had long been discussed, even in original plans for the square. The new stairs lead to a large terrace or
piazza in front of the
National Gallery, in what was previously a road. Previously access between the square and the Gallery was via two busy crossings at the north east and north west corners of the square. The pedestrianisation plan was carried out in the face of protests from both road-users and pedestrians concerned that the diversion of traffic would lead to greater congestion elsewhere in London. However, this does not seem to have happened; the reduction in traffic due to the
London congestion charge may be a factor.
Christmas ceremony
There has been a
Christmas ceremony every year since 1947. A
Norway Spruce is given by
Norway's capital
Oslo and presented as London's
Christmas tree, as a token of gratitude for Britain's support during
World War II. As part of the tradition, the Lord Mayor of
Westminster visits Oslo in the late autumn to take part in the chopping down of the tree, and the Mayor of Oslo then goes to London to light the tree at the Christmas ceremony.
Political demonstrations
Since its construction, Trafalgar Square has been a venue for political demonstrations, though the authorities have often attempted to ban them.
By March of the year
Nelson's column opened, the authorities had started banning
Chartist meetings in the square. A general ban on political rallies remained in effect until the 1880s, when the emerging Labour movement, particularly the Social Democratic Federation, began holding protests there.
On "Black Monday" , protesters rallied against
unemployment; this led to a
riot in
Pall Mall. A larger riot occurred in the square on 13 November 1887.
One of the first significant demonstrations of the modern era was held in the square on 19 September 1961 by the Committee of 100, which included the philosopher
Bertrand Russell. The protesters rallied for peace and against war and
nuclear weapons.
Throughout the
1980s, a continuous anti-apartheid protest was held outside of South Africa House. More recently, the square has hosted the Poll Tax Riots and
anti-war demonstrations opposing the
Afghanistan war and the
Iraq war.
The Square was also scene to a large vigil held shortly after the terrorist bombings in London on Thursday 7 July 2005.
Sports events
In recent years Trafalgar Square has become the location to the climax for
victory parades for the
England national rugby union team in the
2003 Rugby World Cup on the 9th December 2003 and on the 13th September 2005 was also the climax of the victory parade for the
England national cricket team victory against the Australia national cricket team in
The Ashes.
VE Day celebrations
Victory in Europe Day was May 8, 1945, the date when the Allies during the
Second World War formally celebrated the defeat of
Nazi Germany and the end of
Adolf Hitler's
Third Reich.
Trafalgar Square was filled with British subjects wanting to hear the formal announcement by Sir
Winston Churchill that the war was over: it was packed to bursting point. Trafalgar Square was used as a place of celebration and people from all over the country came there. A diary extract told how a father took his three children and wife to Trafalgar Square, and they all held on to a piece of washing line so they didn't get lost in the massive crowd.
On Sunday 8 May 2005 the BBC held a concert to celebrate the 60th anniversary of
VE Day which was hosted by
Eamonn Holmes and
Natasha Kaplinsky. Many people who lived during the war attended, and many of the much younger generation, but most importantly many old veterans came and told the stories of their hardships during the six years of war.
New Year events
For many years, revellers celebrating the start of a New Year have gathered on the square, despite a lack of civic celebrations being arranged for them. The lack of official events in the square was partly because the authorities were concerned that actively encouraging more partygoers would cause overcrowding.
Hogmany at
Edinburgh,
Scotland has instead been the focus for British New Year celebrations, although in recent years, a firework display from the
London Eye and the banks of the Thames, near the square, has given spectators a fitting start to the New Year.
Access
Nearest
London Underground stations:
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See also
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Other Trafalgar Squares
National Heroes Square in
Bridgetown,
Barbados was originally named Trafalgar Square in 1813, before the better known
British throughfare, with another statute of Admiral Horatio Nelson featured. The name change occurred on April 28, 1999.
External links
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- The Guardian is a British [i] newspaper [i] owned by the Guardian Media Group [i]. ...
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Further reading
- Rodney Mace, Trafalgar Square: Emblem of Empire .
