1 May: Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square opened to the public on this date in 1844. 10 things you might not know about Trafalgar Square.

1. It’s named after the Battle of Trafalgar, one of Britain’s most famous military victories. However, when the idea of putting a square there was first suggested, it didn’t have a name at all. Later, it was going to be named after William IV. However, it was the king himself who issued a court circular in 1832 saying that he wanted to name it after the battle instead. The name "Trafalgar" is a Spanish word of Arabic origin, which means either “cape of the cave/laurel” or “extremity of the west”.
2. Hippopotamus and Elephants once roamed where the square is now. Building work in the 1950s on the south side of Trafalgar Square uncovered deposits left over from the last interglacial period. Among the findings were the remains of cave lions, Rhinoceros, straight-tusked elephants and hippopotamus.
3. The square was once the location of the royal stables and was the place where the king kept his hawks. In fact, it still belongs to the monarch today, although the task of maintenance was handed over to the Mayor of London. Part of the original reason for turning it into a square was to keep the poor people away from the rich people.
4. The fountains weren’t part of the original design, and were added about a year later to make it harder for the plebs to organise protests there. Originally the fountains were fed by a couple of wells underneath Trafalgar Square, but they were replaced by modern pumps. A more recent upgrade can send a jet of water 24 metres into the sky. The ones that are there now are not the originals. They were given to Canada and now reside in Ottawa and Regin.
5. In the centre of the square is Nelson’s Column, which is 169 ft 3 Inches tall. I’m not going to say too much about that here as Nelson’s column has a page on this blog of its own, HERE. At the base of the column are four bronze Lions designed by Sir Edwin Landseer who used a dead lion donated by London Zoo as a model. It’s said that the paws are less graceful than the rest of the lions as by the time they got to the paws, the model had started to decompose. There’s also a legend which state that the lions will come to life if Big Ben chimes 13 times.
6. The square is home to London’s smallest police box, which dates back to 1926. It’s essentially a hollowed out lamp post with a round black lamp above it. It was put there so the police could have an unobtrusive presence during protests, and once had a telephone in it which was connected to the local police station. Today, it has been decommissioned as a police box and is used to store cleaning materials.
7. Seventeen Bus Routes pass through Trafalgar Square.
8. There are four plinths for statues. One has a statue of George IV, by Sir Francis Chantrey, which was originally intended to be placed on top of Marble Arch; another is General Sir Charles James Napier and a third Major-General Sir Henry Havelock. They never quite got around to deciding who should grace the fourth plinth, and today it is used to display a series of different art installations. Which have in the past included a boy on a rocking horse, a model of the HMS Victory (Nelson’s Ship), a pregnant woman, and a sculpture of a cockerel, intended to symbolise “regeneration, awakening and strength”. There have been other statues in the square which were moved. One of these was a statue of the vaccine scientist, Edward Jenner, which now resides in Kensington Gardens. The statue was moved in 1862, and the British Medical Journal commented on the decision, noting that the military statues to Jenner, and noted that they remained in Trafalgar Square “because they killed their fellow-creatures whereas he only saved them”.
9. Around 200 years ago, Sir Frederick William Trench, an MP and soldier, put forward a plan to erect a giant pyramid in the square which would have been taller than St Paul's Cathedral with a base of around 360 feet along each side. It would have been to commemorate the defeat of the French, not only at the Battle of Trafalgar, but in the whole war. Trench thought the Battle of the Nile was the turning point, which was why he suggested a pyramid.
10. The square was the target of two suffragette bombings in 1913 and 1914, but it narrowly escaped being bombed in WWII. The roads around it were badly hit. The Square was used on several occasions to show off Allied weapons to the public and to raise funds for the war effort, and was one of the major sites for the VE Day celebrations.

Character birthdays

Auriga, a Roman soldier who was brought to the future as part of a time travel experiment. He was offered a place with the Constellations, and, seeing his chance to carry on serving as a warrior, accepted.

Captain Jersey, aka Roger Courdelion, a solo hero based in the Channel Islands. He volunteered to crew lifeboats and on one occasion the floundering vessel he was called to assist turned out to be an alien spacecraft. The aliens were grateful for the help and granted Courdelion superpowers as a thank you gift.