National Heroes Square


National Heroes Square, formerly Trafalgar Square, is located in Bridgetown, the capital and principal commercial centre of the island-nation of Barbados. The square lies along Upper Broad Street and is on the northern shore of the Careenage, found directly in the centre of Bridgetown.

Name

The current name of National Heroes Square was adopted on 22 April 1999 and officially took effect on 28 April 1999. The name refers to the Barbadian National Heroes.
In 2009, the government of David Thompson opened up a proposal to rename the area as "Parliament Square", and to completely redevelop and reconfigure the Square's layout.

Statue of Lord Nelson

A fixture of the Square on the west-end includes a bronze statue of British naval hero Vice Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson. The statue in Bridgetown was erected unveiled on 22 March 1813 to commemorate the anniversary of the British Royal Navy's victory in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The local statue of Lord Nelson in Bridgetown was erected approximately 27 years before the more famous Nelson's Column in London, which serves as the centrepiece of Trafalgar Square.
As a point of reference, the statue of Nelson frequently serves as the geographic centre of Bridgetown. Since the colonial period many distances on the island from Bridgetown have historically been measured from the base of Nelson's statue, such that the statue functions as Barbados' mile zero. The use of the Bajan Nelson statue as a centreing point can be distinguished in this purpose against the London statue: in the British Capital, whilst Trafalgar Square is acutely adjacent to the historic and geographic centre of London, this is actually located immediately to the east in Charing Cross, such that the monument which serves as London's exact centre is therefore not of Nelson, but of Queen Eleanor of Castille.

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