The “me, me, me” generation now have its own monument among the great and the good in Trafalgar Square. The empty Fourth Plinth is being used by Anthony Gormley for his ‘One & Other’ exhibition. This excellent idea has been high jacked by the legion of Big Brother devotees who are only interested in fifteen minutes of fame (make that an hour for One & Other) by standing on the plinth and ‘showing off’. Sorry but there is no other word for it. Trafalgar Square is a place where Londoners congregate for political rallies and national celebrations. The plinth now offers a freak show in the name of art.
Perhaps it’s fitting. At the south east corner of the square is Britain’s smallest Police Station located in a lamp post. It is also home to a bronze statue of Charles I, which was ordered to be destroyed by Parliament in 1649 and the metal used for armaments. Instead of melting it down, brazier John Rivett buried it in his garden. The statue was later acquired by Charles II and placed in its present position in 1675. The Royal Stuart Society place a wreath beside it on 30 January each year, the anniversary of Charles I execution.
At the base of Nelsons column are bronze reliefs. They depict scenes from famous Nelson victories and are cast from captured French cannons. I’m all in favour of a little antigallican sentiment but this seems to be “rubbing it in”.
From Trafalgar Square walk down Whitehall to the Women At War Memorial, which was designed by sculpture John Mills and opened by the Queen on 9 July 2005 . It commemorates the contribution made by seven million women during the Second World War. The £1 million, 22 foot high monument depicts uniforms and working clothes worn by women during the war.
Further down Whitehall is the Cenotaph, London’s memorial to the War dead. The Cenotaph, a word meaning empty tomb, was designed by Edwin Lutyens and built at the end of the First World War. Carved in Portland stone it is decorated with only two simple wreaths and contains no religious motifs whatsoever.
The Design Museum is just to the east of Tower Bridge in South London, an area that was once known as Jacob’s Island. In Oliver Twist, Dickens described it as “ a part of the Thames where the buildings on the banks are dirtiest and the vessels on the river blackest with the dust of colliers and the smoke of close-built low roofed houses, there exists the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London, wholly unknown, even by name, to the great mass of inhabitants… windows guarded by rusty iron bars that time and dirt have almost eaten away, every imaginable sign of desolation and neglect….every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot and garbage….they must have powerful motives for a secret residence, or be reduced to a destitute condition indeed, who seek a refuge in Jacob’s Island.”
The area has changed somewhat and is no longer the disease-ridden slum where Bill Sikes lived. It is now full of desirable apartments and Conran Restaurants such as Pont de la Tour, where back in 1990 Tony Blair dined with Bill Clinton. The Design Museum opened in 1989 as the first museum in the world devoted to the art of design.
Walking west along the river, and under Tower Bridge, brings you to Norman Fosters London Assembly, the home of the elected Mayor of London. Here the buildings are all new and uninteresting but provides great views north, across the river of the Tower of London, old Billingsgate Market and the city of London skyline.
Since 1971 this stretch of the Thames has been home to HMS Belfast, a former Royal Navy cruiser and now a floating museum and conference centre. You will also find Hays Galleria, which is a soulless shopping area built into a former enclosed wharf. The dock was filled in and warehouses closed in 1969. A glass roof has been added to enhance the shopping experience to an area that was once known as “London’s larder” due to the amount of large ships that daily unloaded cargo here. This is the Pool of London the furthest a large ship can sail up the Thames due to the access provided by Tower Bridge and the restriction imposed by the low arches of London Bridge.
