Nelson’s Column

Nelson’s Column
Nelson’s Column, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

“Well, I’m a lonesome schoolboy”
“And I just came into town”

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Flash: Off
Film: Pistil

Trafalgar Square, London

From Wikipedia:

Nelson’s Column is a monument in Trafalgar Square in London built to commemorate the death of Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The monument was constructed between 1840 and 1843 to a design by William Railton at a cost of £47,000. The sandstone statue of Nelson is by E. H. Baily and the four bronze lions on the base, added in 1867, were sculpted by Sir Edwin Landseer. The column itself is built of granite from Dartmoor.

The column was built between 1840 and 1843 to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson’s death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The monument was designed by architect William Railton in 1838, and built by the firm Peto & Grissell. Railton’s original 1:22-scale stone model is exhibited at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London. The entire monument was built at a cost of £47,500, or £3.5 million in 2004 terms (roughly $6.1 million US).

The 5.5 m (18 ft) sandstone statue at the top was sculpted by E. H. Baily, a member of the Royal Academy, who also sculpted Earl Grey’s statue on top of Grey’s Monument in Newcastle; a small bronze plaque crediting him is at the base of the statue. The statue faces south looking towards the Admiralty and Portsmouth where Nelson’s & the Royal Navy Flagship HMS Victory is docked, with the Mall on his right flank, where Nelson’s ships are represented on the top of each flagpole.

The statue stands on top of a 46 m (151 ft) column built of granite from the Foggintor quarries on Dartmoor. The top of the Corinthian column (based on one from the Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome) is decorated with bronze acanthus leaves cast from British cannon. The square pedestal is decorated with four bronze panels, cast from captured French guns, depicting Nelson’s four great victories. These panels were undertaken by the sculptors Musgrave Watson, John Ternouth, William F Woodington, and John Edward Carew. Part of the interior base was made from the 29 cannon recovered from HMS Royal George, HMS Victory’s sister ship. The four lions, by Sir Edwin Landseer, at the column’s base were added after much delay in 1867. In 1925 a Scottish confidence trickster, Arthur Furguson, “sold” the landmark to an unknowing American (he also “sold” Big Ben and Buckingham Palace). The column also had some symbolic importance to Adolf Hitler. If Hitler’s plan to invade Britain, Operation Sealion, had been successful, he planned to move it to Berlin.

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