Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square is a square of the center of London, constructed to commemorate Trafalgar's Battle in which the British navy won to the navies French and Spanish opposite to the coasts of Cadiz, Spain. The original name was a square of Guillermo IV, but George Ledwell Taylor suggested to change the name.

In the north zone of the square the royal stables placed from the epoch of Eduardo I, whereas in the southern part the original Charing Cross was. Nowadays Charing Cross is considered to be the heart of London and from her all the distances measure up. In 1820, the king Jorge IV entrusted to John Nash the urbanization of the zone. The current architecture of the square owes Charles Barry to itself and it was finished in 1845.The square is a habitual place of political manifestations and is the place on the one that raises Nelson's column.

The square is formed by a great central area surrounded with streets in three of four sides, and by the stairs that lead the National Gallery for other one. Nelson's column is placed in the center of the square, surrounded by the sources designed by sir Edwin Lutyens in 1939 and for four enormous lions of bronze esculpidos for sir Edwin Landseer. It is said that the metal used for esculpirlos comes from a cannon of the French fleet. The column is crowned by a statue of the admiral Nelson.

In four corners of the square there place four plinths, the placed ones in the north zone they established themselves to use as support to equestrian statues and they are of major width that the two placed in the south zone. Three of them shelter statues: Jorge IV, Henry Havelock and sir Charles James Napier.

Opposite to the National Gallery two statues place, that of Jacobo II to the west of the entry of the portico and that of George Washington in the eastern part. The latter statue, gift of Virginia's condition, is placed on soil imported from the United States in order to fulfill the declaration of Washington of which nevermore the foot would put in soil Britisher 2 En 1888 the statue of the General Charles George Gordon got up. In 1943 the statue moved back to return to be re-placed in 1953 in Victoria Embankment. The square has turned into a symbol of enormous social and political importance for the Londoners and the visitors.

His symbolic importance was demonstrated in 1940, when the Schutzstaffel elaborated secret plans to move Nelson's column to Berlin after a supposed German invasion.