The head of one of four huge bronze lions guarding Nelson's Column sculpted by Sir Edwin Square London
Trafalgar Square is a square in London, England that commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), 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 today 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, a popular site for political demonstrations, is the site of Nelson's Column as well as other statues and sculptures of note. Nelson's Column is in the centre of the square, surrounded by fountains designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1939 (replacing two earlier fountains of Peterhead granite, now at the Wascana Centre and Confederation Park in Canada) 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 Horatio, Viscount Nelson, the admiral who commanded the British Fleet at Trafalgar.
Size: 5200px × 3387px
Location: Trafalgar Square, London, England, UK
Photo credit: © Stuart972-Photography / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: lion, london, sculpture, squarebronze, trafalgar
