nelson.co.ukHoratio Nelson - Monuments
The monumental Nelson's Column and the surrounding Trafalgar Square are notable locations in London to this day, and Nelson's tomb can be found in the south transept of St Paul's Cathedral. There are three great collections of items that belonged to him, or were made to commemorate him that are still visible today: at the Royal Naval Museum in HMNB Portsmouth, at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and in the Lloyd's building in the heart of London.
The first large monument to Nelson was a 43.5 m tall pillar on Glasgow Green erected less than year after his death in 1806. Nelson's Monument was later constructed atop Calton Hill in Edinburgh. The first monument funded by popular subscription, sculpted by Richard Westmacott, was erected in Birmingham in 1809 and the statue is currently a Grade II* listed building. Westmacott also sculpted memorials in Liverpool and Barbados.
The officers and men who fought at Trafalgar erected a column to the North of Portsmouth atop Portsdown Hill. The 36.5m high obelisk features the inscription 'Consecrated to the memory of Viscount Lord Nelson. By the zealous attachment of all those who fought at Trafalgar to perpetuate his triumph and their regret 1805. Foundation stone laid July 1807'.
A columnar Monument in Great Yarmouth to Nelson was started before his death but only completed in 1819. This is sometimes known as the "Britannia Monument" as it is topped by that martial female rather than a statue of Nelson; a statue of Nelson can however be found in the grounds of Norwich Cathedral alongside the other Napoleonic hero, the Duke of Wellington, near the school he attended.
One of the most unusual monuments was constructed on Salisbury Plain, within cannon shot of Stonehenge, on land then owned by the Marquess of Queensbury. The monument consists of a series of clumps of trees in otherwise arable farmland. Known as the "Nile Clumps" they have been arranged to represent the positioning of French and British ships at the Battle of the Nile, considered as Nelson's greatest tactical victory. Some clumps still survive, and work is underway to replant some of those that have "sunk". They stand on land owned by the National Trust, forming part of the Stonehenge Historic Landscape estate.
There is also a memorial to Nelson on the banks of the Menai Straits in North Wales. This memorial stands at an out-of-the-way site on the shore below Plas Llanfair, in Llanfairpwll on the Anglesey shore. It was created by Admiral Lord Clarence Paget, who lived in the mansion and who was an enthusiastic amateur sculptor. There is also the Nelson memorial in Swarland, Northumberland which was raised as a private memorial of Nelson by his friend and sometime agent, Alexander Davison. A column topped with an urn exists on Castle Green in Hereford, where the sunken nature of the Green means the column 'suddenly' appears to the unsuspecting tourist or walker as they turn a corner within 100 yards of the Green.
Although his country house at Merton no longer exists and his estate was broken up and built over, Nelson's association with the area is commemorated in the names of a number of local roads, a trading estate on part of his former lands and Nelson Hospital in Merton Park. Nelson's funeral hatchment is displayed at the parish church of St. Mary.