The Nelson Column, Trafalgar Square

Captured by William Henry Fox Talbot, this rare image from 1843 shows Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square still under construction — a moment frozen in time before the iconic statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson was raised to the top. Behind it stands St Martin-in-the-Fields, a church that has stood sentinel over the square since the early 18th century.

This photograph is a testament to the birth of modern Britain: 1843 was the year Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, and the same decade the Great Western Railway reached Bristol, changing the pace of the nation forever.

Trafalgar Square would become one of the most emblematic public spaces in the United Kingdom — a place of celebration, protest, and memory. Here, London's beating heart meets its imperial past, immortalised by the lens of a visionary.

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