The Royal Borough of Westminster is home to the most important sites of the British state. This walk entails the most recognisable aspects of our royal and political establishment including the royal church of Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall, where our great departments of state are located and the Cenotaph, our memorial to the fallen of armed conflict. It also takes in Trafalgar Square, the geographic centre of London and site of Nelson’s Column and the National Gallery. This is where we collectively celebrate and occasionally protest!

This visible manifestation of the British State bore witness to over 200 statues being erected in London throughout the 19th Century. These statues were statements of an image that the authorities wanted to project to the world at the time. We will examine some of these statues on our walk in the context of what they meant then and why that context is being re-evaluated now.