Keeping an eye on demonstrations
The usual sight on Trafalgar Square is of tourists eating ice cream or climbing over the bronze lions to take photos. However, the square has a more serious side, and its layout reflects the anxieties of the establishment about the unruly British people. When it was built after 1840, the purpose of the fountains was to make it difficult for large crowds to assemble. The architect, John Nash, planned the square in the 1820s at the same time as the fine new boulevard Regent Street, which deliberately separated high society in the West End from the poor in Soho.
Despite the fountains, Trafalgar Square quickly became a destination for marches and rallies. When 2000 policemen used their truncheons against trade unionists in 1887, 200 people had to be treated in hospital and three died. At a demonstration one year earlier, the commanding police officer, wearing plain clothes, mingled with the 5000 demonstrators, lost contact to his men (and his wallet to a pickpocket) and was helpless to prevent windows from being smashed in the gentlemen’s clubs along Pall Mall.
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Address Trafalgar Square,WC2N 5DN | Public Transport Charing Cross (Bakerloo, Northern Line) | Tip Diners in the upmarket rooftop restaurant in the National Portrait Gallery get a view over the National Gallery to Trafalgar Square. For a cheaper meal, go to the café in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields on the north-east corner of the square.
Better communication was needed. The answer was to construct an ugly police hut with a telephone. When this was renovated in the 1920s, opposition to the eyesore resulted in an ingenious solution. On the south side of the square, two massive granite pillars support lanterns. The eastern pillar was hollowed out, a door and look-out slits were fitted in the curved wall, and a phone was installed. Many protests were observed from this discreet hideaway, from the »Hunger March« in 1936 to anti-war demonstrations in the 1960s. For surveillance of recent events such as the riots against government cuts in 2011, more modern technology was available. The phone has been removed, and the tiny room is empty.
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