Monuments and memorials to Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson

A number of monuments and memorials were constructed across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to honour his memory. The period of British dominance of the seas that his victories were considered to have ushered in led to a continued drive to create monuments in his name across the British Empire. These have taken many forms.

Locations

The monumental

In October 1809,

The 44 m (144 ft) tall columnar Monument in Great Yarmouth to Nelson was started before his death but only completed in 1819. Properly called the Norfolk Naval Pillar, it is generally known as the "Britannia Monument" as it is topped by the martial female personification of the UK rather than a statue of Nelson; a statue of Nelson is, however, in the grounds of Norwich Cathedral alongside the other Napoleonic hero, the Duke of Wellington, near the school he attended. Another columnar monument is situated on Castle Green, Hereford. Nelson was made a freeman of the city in 1802, and he reportedly spent a lot of time at Ross-on-Wye. The column was erected in 1809, four years after Nelson's death, but has no statue at the top as there was insufficient money left to commission one.^[7] Over the border into Wales, Nelson's Seat, in the now restored Nelson Garden in Monmouth, commemorates his visit to the town in 1802.^[8]

One of the most unusual monuments was constructed on Salisbury Plain, within cannon shot of Stonehenge, on land then owned by the Marquess of Queensberry. The monument consists of a series of clumps of trees in otherwise arable farmland. Known as the

There is also a memorial to Nelson on the banks of the

A small memorial to Nelson is located in the small County Antrim town of Dervock, Northern Ireland. In the Allen Memorial Hall belonging to St Coleman's Church of Ireland, a large stained glass triptych depicts the moment on the poop deck of the Victory when Nelson ordered the flying of the ‘England Expects’ signal just before the Battle of Trafalgar. The connection with Dervock is seen in the panel portraying the red-jacketed Captain William Adair, from Ballymena, in County Antrim, the commander of the marine force on the Victory, who was to die alongside Nelson. A smaller window in the hall shows the Victory locked in conflict with the French ship Redoubtable.^[11]

Although it does not bear his name, Paxton's Paxton's Tower near Llanarthney in Carmarthenshire, Wales was built in Nelson's honour. It once bore the following inscription: "To the invincible Commander, Viscount Nelson, in commemoration of the deeds before the walls of Copenhagen, and on the shores of Spain; of the empire every where maintained by him over the Seas; and of the death which in the fulness of his own glory, though ultimately for his own country and for Europe, conquering, he died; this tower was erected by William Paxton." (see British Listed Buildings)

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 funerary hatchment is displayed at St. Mary's Church of England, also in Merton Park, London SW19.

There is a Nelson's Monument on

The perhaps most recent monument to Nelson is a statue erected in 1951, sculpted by F Brook Hitch to a lifelike design by Dr H J Aldous. It originally stood in Pembroke Gardens, Southsea but was moved in 2005 onto Grand Parade at Portsmouth near the point where he boarded Victory for his last journey, as part of the Trafalgar bicentenary commemorations.^[13]

In 1995, in honour of Nelson, The Admiral Lord Nelson School was built in Portsmouth. The school has established and maintains strong links with the Royal Navy and was involved in the bicentennial commemoration of the Battle of Trafalgar.

Throughout October,

Several places overseas have been named after Nelson. The city of

A small monument was erected to Nelson in County Cork, Ireland. It is claimed that it was erected within four days of the news of the admiral's death reaching London on 6 November 1805. The monument consisted of a large rough stone arch on a hilltop near Castletownshend. It was destroyed 150 years later by Irish republicans. This Nelson Arch, as it was known, was the work of Captain Joshua Rowley Watson RN, then commander of the Sea Fencibles based in Castletownshend. One of the few surviving images of the arch dates from 1896. It is a photograph reproduced in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, and shows the arch largely intact, but with vegetation sprouting from it. The first mention of politically motivated damage to the arch comes in 1920, when according to some accounts it was ‘destroyed’ during the War of Independence, and re-erected two years later. It was again attacked in 1966, this time so seriously that the Townshend family, who whose land it stood, could do little more than erect a much smaller version from the wreckage. That in turn was demolished in 1976.^[15]

On the island of

On the island of Antigua, West Indies, there is a house at Nelson's Dockyard that is historically taught to be Nelson's house while he was stationed in the Caribbean.

On 28 October 2005, a statue of Nelson was unveiled in Gibraltar 200 years after Nelson's death.

In 1813,