Trafalgar Square
London's shared living room, built to crow about beating Napoleon's navy in 1805.
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The square pivots around Nelson's Column, a 52 m monument finished in 1843. Free to wander, it's ringed by the National Gallery to the north and St Martin-in-the-Fields to the east — the city's default stage for protests, New Year crowds, and the Norwegian spruce sent every December since 1947.
What to look for
- Landseer's four bronze lions (added 1867, seven tons each): the paws look more feline than leonine because his reference model started decomposing before he finished.
- The Fourth Plinth in the northwest corner, never given its permanent statue and home to rotating commissioned artworks since 1999.
- The two fountains, their Lutyens centrepieces memorials to admirals Jellicoe and Beatty — busts of both, plus Cunningham, sit against the northern retaining wall.
Sit on the wide north-terrace steps below the National Gallery, pedestrianized in 2003; feeding the pigeons is banned by bylaw.
Trafalgar Square is one of 40 sights worth the detour in London, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the London pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in London
- British MuseumThe room where a dead language got its voice back — and you walk in for free.
- Buckingham PalaceThe balcony where a whole country turns up to watch a family wave — with 775 rooms behind it.
- Westminster AbbeyNearly every English monarch since 1066 has been crowned on the same worn patch of floor.
- Big BenThe clang in a thousand establishing shots comes from a cracked bell that's rung slightly off-key since 1859.
- Tower of LondonWilliam the Conqueror's keep turned royal prison, where two queens lost their heads and the Crown Jewels still sit under guard.
- Tower BridgeA Victorian drawbridge dressed as a Gothic castle, its roadway still splitting open for passing ships.