Parliament Square

Parliament Square in 1980

Parliament Square in 1911

Demonstration against the Iraq war in Parliament Square on March 20, 2003, photographed from the roof of the Palace of Westminster

The Parliament Square is a square in London , immediately northwest of the Palace of Westminster , the seat of the British Parliament . In the middle of the square there is a large green area, the traffic flows in the form of a roundabout .

location

In addition to the Palace of Westminster, there are other important buildings around the square. These are Westminster Abbey , St Margaret's Church , Middlesex Guildhall , the British Treasury ( HM Treasury ), Westminster Central Hall and Portcullis House . Below Portcullis House is Westminster Station, the London Underground .

The following streets lead from the square: South St Margaret Street , West Great George Street , Southwest Broad Sanctuary , North Parliament Street (which leads into Whitehall ), East Bridge Street (to Westminster Bridge ).

history

Parliament Square was built in 1868 when the Palace of Westminster was being rebuilt. The terrain should be loosened up and the flow of traffic improved. Numerous properties had to be cleared for this purpose. The architect in charge was Charles Barry . A special feature was the world's first traffic light , which was set up on the square on December 10, 1868 and operated with gas light . There used to be a fountain in the square ; the Buxton Memorial Fountain , however, was removed in 1940 and re-erected in 1957 in the nearby Victoria Tower Gardens . In 1950 architect George Gray Wornum redesigned the square.

The east side of the square has long been a popular place for protest rallies due to its proximity to Parliament. Due to ongoing protests against the Iraq war , which the government increasingly found disruptive, parliament passed a controversial restriction on the right to demonstrate in November 2004. After August 1, 2005, demonstrating within a radius of one kilometer without the permission of the Metropolitan Police chief was prohibited . Most of these regulations were repealed in September 2011 after a new police law came into force.

Statues

Twelve statues of well-known British and foreign statesmen stand around the square . They are listed counterclockwise in the list below, starting with the Winston Churchill statue directly opposite Parliament. With the Millicent Fawcett statue , the first memorial for a woman and the first statue created by a woman were erected on April 24, 2018.

photo	motive	sculptor	Revealed	Remarks	Monument protection
	Winston Churchill Prime Minister 1940–1945 and 1951–1955	Ivor Roberts-Jones	1st November 1973	Revealed by Clementine Churchill . Winston Churchill himself had expressed a wish for a statue on this site when Parliament Square was remodeled in the 1950s. Roberts-Jones had to create multiple versions because the first ones looked too much like Benito Mussolini .	Grade II
	David Lloyd George Prime Minister 1916–1922	Glynn Williams	November 25, 2007	Unveiled by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall . Stands on a slate plinth from Penrhyn Quarry, North Wales.	-
	Jan Smuts Prime Minister of South Africa 1919-1924 and 1939-1948	Jacob Epstein	November 7, 1956	Winston Churchill wanted a statue in honor of Smuts, but was unable to carry out the unveiling due to illness. The granite base comes from South Africa.	Grade II
	Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston Prime Minister 1855-1858 and 1859-1865	Thomas Woolner	February 2, 1876	Palmerston is portrayed in middle age before becoming Prime Minister. Granite pedestal designed by Edward Mittleton Barry .	Grade II
	Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby Prime Minister 1852, 1858–1859, and 1866–1868	Matthew Noble	July 11, 1874	Lord Derby is portrayed in his robes as Chancellor of Oxford University. The bronze reliefs around the base show scenes from his life and are by Noble's assistant Horace Montford.	Grade II
	Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield Prime Minister 1868 and 1874–1880	Mario Raggi	April 19, 1883	The statue was a "shrine" of the Primrose League , a conservative association founded in the name of Disraelis, which laid wreaths every year on the anniversary of his death, Primrose Day .	Grade II
	Robert Peel Prime Minister 1834–1835 and 1841–1846	Matthew Noble	1877	Carlo Marochetti originally created a statue of Peel in 1853, but it was felt to be too big. Marochetti then created a smaller statue that stood at the entrance to the New Palace Yard, but was removed in 1868 and melted down in 1874.	Grade II
	George Canning Secretary of State 1807–1809 and 1822–1827, Prime Minister 1827	Richard Westmacott	May 2, 1832	Originally erected in front of the New Palace Yard, at its current location since 1949. The statue is based on the portrait bust created by Francis Chantrey .	Grade II
	Abraham Lincoln President of the United States 1861–1865	Augustus Saint-Gaudens	July 1920	Replica of the statue in Lincoln Park in Chicago . Originally the statue was supposed to be created in 1914, but this had to be postponed until 1917. Another design by George Gray Barnard was also under discussion ; this was finally implemented in Manchester .	Grade II
	Nelson Mandela statue of the President of South Africa 1994–1999	Ian Walters	August 29, 2007	Westminster City Council previously refused permission to place the statue in Trafalgar Square . Unveiled by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the presence of the widow of anti-apartheid activist Donald Woods and his longtime friend Richard Attenborough .	-
	Mahatma Gandhi statue Nobel Peace Prize candidate 1948	Philip Jackson	March 14, 2015	The statue of the leader of India's independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi, was unveiled on March 14, 2015 by Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley . The statue is dedicated to the centenary of Gandhi's return to India. British Prime Minister David Cameron was one of the speakers at the unveiling .	-
	Millicent Fawcett statue women suffrage activist	Gillian Wearing	April 24, 2018	Millicent Garrett Fawcett was president of the umbrella organization of women's suffrage. The banner that her statue holds is figuratively: "Courage brings new courage". The statue was dedicated to the centenary of the Representation of the People Act . British Prime Minister Theresa May was one of the speakers at the unveiling .	-

literature

• Philip Ward-Jackson: Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster: Volume 1 . In: Public Sculpture of Britain . Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2011, ISBN 978-1-84631-691-3 .

Web links

Commons : Parliament Square, London  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Traffic Lights in the UK. h2g2, March 7, 2006, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
2. ↑ Philip Howard: Resolute and defiant as ever, Churchill's statue is revealed. The Times , November 2, 1973.
3. ↑ Winston Churchill's statue 'had a look of Mussolini'. The Daily Telegraph , January 1, 2004, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
4. ^ Statue of Sir Winston Churchill. In: National heritage list of England. National Heritage, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
5. ^ Lloyd George's statue 'is a disgrace'. The Independent , November 26, 2007, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
6. ↑ Philip Ward-Jackson: Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Pp. 206-210.
7. ^ Statue of Field Marshal Jan Smuts. In: National heritage list of England. National Heritage, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
8. ↑ Philip Ward-Jackson: Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Pp. 195-197.
9. ^ Statue of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston. In: National heritage list of England. National Heritage, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
10. ↑ Philip Ward-Jackson: Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. P. 192.
11. ^ Statue of Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby. In: National heritage list of England. National Heritage, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
12. ↑ Philip Ward-Jackson: Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Pp. 200-203.
13. ^ Statue of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. In: National heritage list of England. National Heritage, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
14. ^ Noble, Matthew (bap. 1817, d. 1876), sculptor. In: Your archives. The National Archives, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
15. ^ Statue of Sir Robert Peel. In: National heritage list of England. National Heritage, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
16. ↑ Philip Ward-Jackson: Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Pp. 190-192.
17. ^ Statue of George Canning. In: National heritage list of England. National Heritage, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
18. ^ The statue of Abraham Lincoln in Parliament Square. In: Your archives. The National Archives, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
19. ^ Statue of Abraham Lincoln in the front of Middlesex Guildhall. In: National heritage list of England. National Heritage, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
20. ↑ Nelson Mandela statue is unveiled. BBC News , August 29, 2007, accessed April 30, 2013 . 
21. ^ Gandhi statue unveiled in Parliament Square - next to his old enemy Churchill . The Independent , March 14, 2015, accessed November 14, 2018.
22. ↑ Millicent Fawcett: Suffragist to be first woman with Parliament Square statue after JK Rowling-backed campaign. Evening Standard, April 2, 2017, accessed November 14, 2018 . 

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 2.2 "  N , 0 ° 7 ′ 36.3"  W.