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Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is in central London and commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), a British naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars. The original name was to have been "King William the Fourth's Square", but George Ledwell Taylor suggested the name "Trafalgar Square".
The area had been the site of the King's Mews since the time of Edward I. In the 1820s the Prince Regent engaged the landscape architect John Nash to redevelop the area. Nash cleared the square as part of his Charing Cross Improvement Scheme. The present architecture of the square is due to Sir Charles Barry and was completed in 1845.
Nelson's Column is in the centre of the square, surrounded by fountains designed by Lutyens in 1939 and four huge bronze lions sculpted by Sir Edwin Landseer. The column is topped by a statue of Lord Nelson, the admiral who commanded the British Fleet at Trafalgar.
On the north side of the square is the National Gallery and to its east St Martin's-in-the-Fields church. The square adjoins The Mall via Admiralty Arch to the southwest. To the south is Whitehall, the east South Africa House and on the west side is Canada House. At the corners of the square are four plinths; the two northern ones were intended to be used for equestrian statues, and thus are wider than the two southern.
The square is a popular tourist spot in London, and used to be particularly famous for its pigeons. Feeding the pigeons was a popular activity with Londoners and tourists. But the flock estimated at its peak to be 35,000, was considered to be a health hazard and in 2000 the sale of bird seed in the square was terminated and other measures were introduced to discourage the pigeons, including the use of trained falcons. Supporters of the pigeons and some tourists continued to feed the birds, but in 2003 Ken Livingstone enacted by-laws to ban the feeding of pigeons within the square. There are now relatively few birds in Trafalgar Square and it is used for festivals and hired out to film companies, in a way that was not feasible in the 1990s.
There has been a Christmas ceremony every year since 1947 where a Christmas tree from Norway's capital Oslo is given to Trafalgar Square as a token of gratitude for Britain's support during World War II. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_square)
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