Parliament Square

Parliament Square was designed in 1868 by Sir Charles Barry, the same architect who built the Houses of Parliament towering to your east. Entire neighbourhoods were demolished to create it: old shops, crowded homes, and winding alleyways swept away to reveal something quietly remarkable. The square sits at the meeting point of four pillars of British power. Parliament to the east makes the laws. Whitehall stretches north, where the government runs the country. The Supreme Court stands to the west, dispensing justice. Westminster Abbey rises to the south, representing the church.

That same year, 1868, the world's first traffic lights were switched on right here, borrowing technology from the railways to control the flood of horse-drawn carriages. They lasted barely a month. A gas leak caused an explosion in January 1869, injuring the police constable who operated them by hand. The experiment was quietly abandoned.

The square recovered. In 1926, it became Britain's first roundabout, and today 12 bronze statues of world leaders fill the green, from Winston Churchill to Nelson Mandela.

In 2018, suffragist Millicent Fawcett became the first woman honoured here, after 150 years of men only.