A public square built around a naval victory
Trafalgar Square in central London occupies the site of the former King's Mews, royal stables cleared in the 1820s. Opened to the public on 1 May 1844, it was named not for King William IV but for Nelson's 1805 victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, and is dominated by Nelson's Column, built between 1840 and 1843.
Royal hawks and horses occupied this ground for centuries
Trafalgar Square is a public square in central London, now one of the city's best-known gathering spots. For centuries before it existed, this ground held the King's Mews, the royal stables for hawks and later horses. Kings kept falcons here under Edward I, and the name "mews" comes from the old word for the cage where hawks molted their feathers. After a fire in 1534, the mews were rebuilt as stables for royal horses. They stayed here until George IV moved them to Buckingham Palace in the 1820s, freeing up the land.
Nash cleared the old mews for a new square
In 1826, Parliament passed the Charing Cross Act, giving official backing to a redevelopment plan by the architect John Nash. Nash wanted to clear the old stable buildings and open up the whole area between St. Martin's Lane and the Strand. His plan reserved a central block for a new Royal Academy building, though the National Gallery was built there instead. Workers began demolishing the old mews soon after the act passed. Nash died in 1835, before his square was finished.
A naval victory replaced a king's name here
The square was first meant to be named after King William IV, marking his accession to the throne in 1830. Around 1835, the architect George Ledwell Taylor suggested a different name instead: Trafalgar Square, honoring Nelson's 1805 naval victory over the French and Spanish fleets. The name stuck. Construction dragged on through the late 1830s, and the square did not open to the public until 1 May 1844, with Charles Barry's design for its terraces and staircases finally complete.
A column rose to honour Admiral Nelson
In 1838, a group of 121 peers, members of Parliament, and other gentry formed a committee to raise money for a monument to Admiral Horatio Nelson. The government agreed to give them a site in the new square, right in front of the National Gallery. The architect William Railton won the competition with a design for a tall stone column. Workers built Nelson's Column between 1840 and 1843, topping it with a statue of Nelson carved by Edward Hodges Baily. It cost £47,000, a huge sum at the time.
A plinth stood empty for over a century
The architect Charles Barry designed the square's fourth plinth, in the northwest corner, meaning it to carry an equestrian statue of King William IV. The statue never came. Some accounts say the money simply ran out. Others say the plan was dropped for other reasons. Either way, the plinth stood empty for more than a century.
Captured French cannon became bronze battle scenes
Bronze lions and carved battle scenes came later, but the column itself stood finished first. Between 1849 and 1852, workers added four bronze relief panels to its base, showing Nelson's great victories and his death at Trafalgar. They cast the bronze from captured French cannon. The lions guarding the column's foot did not arrive until 1867, designed by Edwin Landseer and modeled by Baron Marochetti.
Protest and defiance both found a stage here
The square has drawn protest as often as it has drawn tourists. In 1887, a demonstration against unemployment and Irish coercion turned violent when police charged the crowd, an event remembered as Bloody Sunday. In 1940, the French general Charles de Gaulle gave his Appeal of 18 June here, rallying support for Free France against Nazi occupation.
A Norwegian tree and tourists share the same ground
Since 1947, the city of Oslo has sent London a Christmas tree every December, a thank-you gift for British support to Norway during the Second World War. It still goes up each year near the square's north side. The square today is ringed by Nelson's Column, the four plinths, and Fountains and terrace walls with lampstandards, steps and stone bollards enclosing the Square Charles Barry designed. The National Gallery stands behind it to the north, with Canada House and South Africa House facing each other across the open space. Tourists, pigeons once famous and now mostly gone, protestors, and New Year's Eve crowds all still pass through the same ground where royal hawks once molted their feathers eight centuries ago.
Rotating sculptures turned an empty plinth into theatre
In 1999, the Mayor of London began commissioning rotating artworks for the empty plinth. A giant blue cockerel stood there. So did a dollop of melting whipped cream topped with a cherry and a drone, called The End (sculpture), installed in 2020. In 2019, ahead of a presidential visit, a temporary statue called Dump Trump (statue) showed Donald Trump seated on a golden toilet.
Nelson still looks out over the square from the top of his column, above the lions and the crowds below.
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