Monday, October 17, 2005
Trafalgar Square (2): The fountains
The fountains were a late addition to Trafalgar Square, installed in 1845. There are two of them - one to the northwest and one to the northeast - and they're both enormous. Their size was deliberate, designed to reduce the amount of standing room in the square and thereby prevent crowds of excessive size from congregating here. Their shape is officially described as "lobed quatrefoiled basins" (which is posh for 'holds water and looks like a flower from above'). The central stone fountains we see today were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and date from the late 1930s, as do Charles Wheeler's surrounding figures of mermaids, tritons and dolphins. Just my luck to turn up with my camera on a day when the fountains had been drained for cleaning, so there were no tourists dipping their hands in the water, no gushing jets of spray and no drunken lager louts splashing across the pool with beergut aloft.
<< click for Newer posts
click for Older Posts >>
click to return to the main page
The fountains were a late addition to Trafalgar Square, installed in 1845. There are two of them - one to the northwest and one to the northeast - and they're both enormous. Their size was deliberate, designed to reduce the amount of standing room in the square and thereby prevent crowds of excessive size from congregating here. Their shape is officially described as "lobed quatrefoiled basins" (which is posh for 'holds water and looks like a flower from above'). The central stone fountains we see today were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and date from the late 1930s, as do Charles Wheeler's surrounding figures of mermaids, tritons and dolphins. Just my luck to turn up with my camera on a day when the fountains had been drained for cleaning, so there were no tourists dipping their hands in the water, no gushing jets of spray and no drunken lager louts splashing across the pool with beergut aloft.
