View of Trafalgar Square
View of Trafalgar Square
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View of Trafalgar Square
SC_PHL_01_537_76_11367 (Collage 141233)
The London Archives: LCC Photograph Library
View of Trafalgar Square, City of Westminster, looking southeast. Trafalgar Square was planned as part of the redevelopment of the West Strand Improvements by John Nash following the passing of the Charing Cross Act of 1826. Although it was to be another 30 years before the square was completed, it occupies the area of the former Great Mews of the Crown Stables. Charles Barry was the architect, although he opposed the decision to erect Nelson's Column on the site - he was overruled. The whole square is Grade I listed, number 1001362. Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson's memorial column and sculpture was built 1839-1842, to the design of William Railton with a fluted granite column and Corinthian capital. The statue was by E. H. Baily and the bas-relief panels around the base depicting Nelson's famous naval battles by J. E. Carew, J. Ternouth, M. L. Watson and W. F. Woodington. The four lions by Sir Edwin Landseer were cast by Baron Marochetti and added 1867. The monument is Grade I listed, number 1276052. The fountains were remodelled in 1939 to the designs of Sir Edwin Lutyens with sculpture by Sir Charles Wheeler and W. McMillan. The north terrace is balustraded and stone bollards enclose the open space of the square. These features are Grade II* listed, number 1066235. On the eastern side of the square is Morley's Hotel. Designed by the architect George Ledwell Taylor, and originally developed as apartments, it was built by Atkinson Morley in 1831. In 1850, Peter Cunningham in his 'Hand-Book of London' described it as "well-frequented, and is good of its kind". Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stayed there for some time in 1900, while he was writing The Hound of the Baskervilles, and the fictional Northumberland Hotel of that book may have been based on Morley's. It was demolished in 1936 and replaced with South Africa House. At the corner of the Strand and Northumberland Avenue is The Grand Hotel building, built on the site of Northumberland House. Designed by F. & H. Francis and James Ebenezer Saunders and built between 1882 and 1887, the hotel had seven floors, 500 rooms, a large ballroom and was decorated with Antonio Salviati mosaics. The building was taken over by the British government in World War I to house military officers, and in the 1930s it became a retail headquarters. By 1972, not only had the stone facade weathered, but the whole building was damaged by the new Jubilee Underground line. It was demolished in 1986 and replaced with the similarly styled Grand Buildings designed by the Sidell Gibson Partnership. Originally built on the site of Northampton House which had been built in 1605 by Henry Howard 1st Earl of Northampton on the site of a former nunnery. It was sold to the Earl of Northumberland in the 1640s when it became Northumberland House. Although no longer a fashionable address in the nineteenth century, the Duke of Northumberland of the day was reluctant to leave his ancestral home, despite pressure from the Metropolitan Board of Works, which wished to build a road through the site to connect to the new roads along the Embankment, now Northumberland Avenue. After a fire, which caused substantial damage, the Duke accepted an offer of £500 000 and the building was demolished in 1874. On the corner of Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall, 1-9 Northumberland Avenue is the ‘Second Empire’ hotel block built 1881-82 by F. and H. Francis in stone, with slate roofs. Five storeys and a dormered mansard with two Trench square dome pavilion-roofs. It is now known as Trafalgar Buildings offices with shops on the ground floor and is Grade II* listed, number 1266434. Adjacent, 3 Whitehall is a two-storey building with a dormered pavilion roof with a balustrade, and awnings over the first-floor windows. Built in the late-nineteenth century of Portland Stone and polished granite. It is Grade II* listed, number 1224053. In the northwest corner of the square is an empty plinth. It was originally intended for an equestrian statue of William IV, but insufficient funds were raised so it remained bare for 150 years. Since 1998, the Fourth Plinth Project (now Commission), commissions modern art works to occupy the plinth on a temporary basis. Between the fountains is a bronze statue of General Charles George Gordon by Hamo Thornycroft. Gordon was lauded as a British war hero after his death at the end of the Siege of Khartoum in January 1885. Unveiled in Trafalgar Square on 16 October 1888 it was moved from Trafalgar Square in 1943 to the grounds of Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire. In a speech in the House of Commons on 5 May 1948, Winston Churchill (then Leader of the Opposition) advocated a return of the statue to its original location. It was restored in 1953, on the Victoria Embankment. Walking along the north terrace are several pedestrians including a policeman.
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