Trafalgar Square - heart of the capital!

Trafalgar Square is a place of celebration, street entertainment and protest but is also where all distances from London are measured. It's at the heart of the capital. Once home to the King's Horses (the Whitehall palace stables were on the site of the current National Art Gallery), it's now a tourist mecca with the focus on Nelson's column and the fabulous lions by Edwin Landseer. It is named after the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and was designed by architect Charles Barry (also responsible for the Houses of Parliament) and opened to the public in 1844. Nelson's Column was completed in 1843 and the lions in 1867.

The statue of Charles I on the southern side of the square at the top of Whitehall shouldn't be forgotten. It is the oldest equestrian statue in London, dating from 1633, it was hidden during the Cromwell years. Re-instated in the 1670's on the present site, it's only a few hundred yards from the spot on Whitehall where Charles I was executed in 1649 in front of a crowd who couldn't quite believe what they were seeing.

The original medieval Eleanor Cross at Charing stood where the King Charles I statue is today and a small brass plaque in the pavement commemorates this. King Edward I built it in 1290 to honour his wife, Eleanor of Castile. Parliament destroyed the original cross in 1647, but a detailed Victorian replica was built nearby on the forecourt of Charing Cross station in 1865 designed by architect E.M. Barry (Charles's son).