Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Across from Parliament, the cute little church with the blue sundials, snuggling under
the Abbey “like a baby lamb under a ewe,” is
St. Margaret's Church.
Since 1480,
this has been
the
place for politicians' weddings, including Winston and Clementine
Churchill's.
Parliament Square, the expanse of green between Westminster Abbey and Big Ben,
is filled with statues of famous Brits (and sometimes with protesters). The statue of
Win-
ston Churchill,
the man who saved Britain from Hitler, shows him in the military over-
coat he was fond of wearing. According to tour guides, the statue has a current of elec-
tricity running through it to honor Churchill's wish that if a statue were made of him, his
head wouldn't be soiled by pigeons. Most of the other statues are Commonwealth politi-
cians that few Americans would recognize. There are also a few non-Brits, honored not
for their contributions to Britain but to mankind. At the opposite corner of the square from
Churchill, look for the newer statue of the leader who battled South African apartheid,
Nelson Mandela
(erected in 2007). And across the street and a bit to the right stands a
man who opposed American slavery,
Abraham Lincoln
(erected in 1920, patterned after
a similar statue in Chicago's Lincoln Park).
