Trafalgar Square

18 Oct

Known as a central meeting place and often called the centre of London.

Always known as a place to meet and even hold protests, this square has seen many changes, yet has stayed relatively the same. Decorated by a statue in each corner, Trafalgar Square has definitely stood the test of time and continues to be a place of interest.

Before the Square

When work was being carried out in the 1950s in the square, workers were fortunate enough to uncover deposits left over from the last interglacial period. These remains included cave lion, rhino, straight-tusked elephants and even hippos. And some of the bones found can be seen on display at the Natural History Museum.

Between the 14th and 17th centuries, most of the area was part of the Great Mews Stabling, which served Whitehall Palace. The site itself was known as Charing, and after the formation of the memorial cross, it was, and is still, known as Charing Cross.

By the time 1812 rolled around, architect John Nash, of Buckingham Palace fame, had begun to develop a new street between Charing Cross and Portland Place. His initial idea was to create a cultural space open to the public.

The square was originally built to be an open space with no name, but later acquired one when it was decided that the square would commemorate a battle. And was later officially named Trafalgar Square.

Construction on the National Gallery began in 1832, and was completed on the north side of the square in 1838. The gallery was originally designed by William Wilkins, he even submitted plans for the whole square, but Wilkins had the unfortunate event where he died. So it was our old mate, whom we met back at Highclere Castle, Charles Barry, who took up the fallen reins.

Sir Charles Barry presented a plan to develop the whole square in 1838, which included a Nelson memorial statue and two fountains. In his plans, he included an upper terrace next to the National Gallery and a lower level square that would be linked by a grand staircase.

The Column

In 1837, a letter to The Times suggested a permanent commemoration to Admiral Nelson, and the Nelson Memorial Committee was formed.

Nelson’s column itself was designed by William Railton and was erected in 1843. The column was 56 metres tall with a 5 metre statue of Nelson on the top. When it was first unveiled, it was known as ‘The Monument to Lord Nelson’.

The column was designed by Railton to honour Admiral Nelson after his victory in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It was on the 21st October that the Royal Navy fought the combined forces of the French and Spanish at The Battle of Trafalgar. Admiral Lord Nelson was on the HMS Victory and even though his side won, he famously died in action, which no doubt immediately elevated him to hero status.

The granite statue itself was sculpted by E.H. Baily from three pieces of Craigleith sandstone. The five metre Nelson statue stands on a bronze platform that is made from old guns out of the Woolwich Arsenal Foundry.

The four bronze panels that decorate the pedestal of the column depict some of Nelson’s previous battles: St Vincent, Copenhagen, The Nile, and his death scene on The Victory. Each panel is about 18 foot square and they were cast from captured French guns. The bronze reliefs were each sculpted by a different artist; Watson, Woodington, Ternouth and Carew.

The column itself is made from granite sourced from Devon. And is built in the Corinthian style, which is characterised by slender fluted columns and decorated with leaves and scroll. This style is inspired by Greek and Roman architecture. The column is also Grade 1 listed which means that it’s of significant national importance, and is therefore inspected every two years to asses its condition.

Nelson’s Column was restored not too long ago. The restoration included repairs to the stonework, clearing areas of corrosion, protecting the bronze with wax and general cleaning to remove pigeon guano and pigeon proofing minor areas. The restoration team were actually able to repair damage to the statue using the original stone. The Craigleith quarry in Scotland closed quite a while before the restoration took place, making it practically impossible to get hold of the stone. So previous restorers had patched up bits of Nelson with a mixture of mortar and cement. But when some leftover Craigleith stone was found during a restoration of Donaldson’s School for the Deaf (which in itself is an A-listed building in Edinburgh), it was donated to the Nelson’s Column restoration.

Whilst the restoration process was underway, they actually discovered that the column and statue are shorter than was previously believed. Nelson, old mate, was almost 4.5 metres shorter. The whole column, from the bottom of the pedestal to top of the gentleman’s hat is just over 51 metres.

Nelson’s Column was such a statement of Britishness that if Hitler had successfully invaded Britain, his plan was to take Nelson back with him to Berlin as a spoil of war. Not that he didn’t have enough stolen art already.

The Fountain

The fountains in the Square were added in 1845, but the mermaids, dolphins and tritons were installed later. The fountains themselves were supposedly added by Charles Barry in order to reduce the space for public gatherings. So a public space with limited public gatherings. Interesting vision.

Originally both the fountains were supplied by two wells on Orange Street in front of the National Gallery. But when the water flow became unreliable, new fountains were installed and the wells were replaced with modern pumps. The old original fountains were actually given to Canada, because they could always do with a couple more fountains. If you find yourself in the Canadian area, you can see the fountains in Ottawa and Regina.

In 2012, the fountains were shut off for the entire summer because of a bad drought. I wonder if they’re idea of a ‘drought’ is the same as a 24 degree heatwave. Apart from the drought, the fountains operate on most days.

In 1960, the good people down at the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain Association installed public drinking fountains to commemorate the organisations centenary. What a way to celebrate, those guys really went all out. The fountains eventually fell out of use, but were restored to working order in 2009. The debate on whether they are still drinkable rages on however.

The Statues

The bronze lions that you see at the base of the column, were designed by Sir Edwin Landseer and placed on guard in 1868. Cased in bronze by Baron Marochetti in his Kensington studio in 1867, real lion corpses and casts of a lion statue in Turin were used by Landseer when creating the design. He did make a pretty big mistake though with the lion poses. In the wild, lions backs are convex (they curve out) when lying down, but Landseer’s lions’ backs are concave (they curve in). Originally Thomas Milner made four stone lions, they did have convex backs but they just didn’t look impressive enough for a memorial to the great Nelson, they were put up for sale at the local Vinnies and were bought by Titus Salt, a UK politician, he sent them home to his village in Saltaire, where if you’re in the area you can see them today.

If you stand in the centre of Trafalgar Square, you may notice some plinths in the square corners. Statues sit stop three of the plinths, with General Sir Charles James Napier sitting in the southwest, Major General Sir Henry Havelock in the southeast and King George IV in the northeast. You might be thinking, um, hellooooo! A square has four corners you absolute Neanderthal. And in reaction to that I would say, um Neanderthal’s actually had bigger brains than us, and were therefore just as smart, so thank you very much for that compliment. Then I would go on to tell you that if you had waited a couple of extra seconds I would have told you that the fourth plinth in the northwest of the square was empty for quite a while. Today the fourth plinth is managed by a Commissioning Group Panel of specialist advisors, and actually displays a rotation of modern art. Pretty cool for a Neanderthal.

Now, the statues that you see in the square today, weren’t always there. There have actually been a couple of statues that used to stand in the Square but have since been removed. The complete list would take too long for a little podcast like this, but some notables were the statues of General Charles Gordon and the vaccine scientist, Edward Jenner. You can now find Gordon outside Whitehall, and Jenner is enjoying the Kensington Gardens.

Standard Imperial Measures

The Imperial Measures could be found in the north terrace wall in 1876, when they were placed there by the Board of Trade. The measures had the official lengths of inches, feet, yards and links. For those longer distances like chains, perches and poles, bronze markers were laid out in the pavement. Ingenious.

The Imperial Measures is where people could come to check the accuracy of their rulers. Usually they would have gone to the Houses of Parliament for a cheeky ruler check, but when a fire destroyed the House of Parliament, and the imperial measures along with it in 1834, they had to find a new place for the measures. Classic London.

The standard measures were created by a Standards Commission. And were chaired by the Astronomer Royal, Sir George Airy, who issued the new official measurements in a series of announcements between 1838 and 1842.

When the north side of the square had a makeover, the measures were relocated in 2003 to behind a new café next to the central staircase that leads up to the National Portrait Gallery. Just in case of another classical London fire, there is a second set of measures in the Great Hall of the Guildhall outside the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.

When the UK adopted metric units in 1995, the imperial measures became just slightly redundant, but they stand proud and true as a reminder to all that even though fire may burn through one of the most famous city in the world, we still need to measure things.

Police Box

The smallest police box ever built can be found in the southeast corner of the square. Originally a lamp post built in 1826, Scotland Yard installed a telephone line and light which the Popo could use to call for back-up in 1926. The smallest police box is know used as storage for the cleaners.

The Square today

July 2003 was a big year for Trafalgar Square, a huge project had just been completed to transform the space. The north terrace was pedestrianised so that the Square is now linked to the National Gallery, as well as adding a café, public toilets and that all important lift for disabled access.

Today the Square is a centre of national democracy and protest with rallies and demonstrations held frequently on the weekends in support of or against various political, religious and general issues.

The largest square in London used to be famous for its pigeons and it was a popular pastime to feed them. Ahhh the time before smartphones. But as the number of birds grew, droppings increased and started to damage the stonework. So it was decided to banish the pigeons from Trafalgar Square. The sale of bird feed is now banned and falcons are used to scare off the pigeons. Now if that isn’t birdism, I don’t know what is.

For a lovely end to this episode, let’s have a look at how Trafalgar Square ends the year. Every year a Christmas Tree is placed in the centre of the Square. A Norwegian Spruce is given as a gift from Norway in honour of Britain’s commitment to Norway during WWII. As part of the tradition the Lord Mayor of Westminster visits Oslo in late autumn to take part in the felling of the tree. The Mayor of Oslo then comes to London to light the tree at the Christmas ceremony, as is the Norwegian tradition, the Christmas lights are hung vertically instead of circular around the tree.