Trafalgar Square's Tiniest Police Station

Britain's smallest police station, located at the southeast corner of Trafalgar Square in London, is a hollowed-out 1826 gas lamp plinth converted in 1927 into a covert police observation post. Designed to spy on striking workers after the 1926 General Strike, the tiny granite column provided a single officer with 360-degree views and a direct telephone line to Scotland Yard. Today, Westminster Council cleaners use the historic structure as a broom cupboard.

London Β· from the walk β€œLondon's Best-Kept Secrets” Β· audio ~3 min Β· Generated

Trafalgar Square's Tiniest Police Station

Trafalgar Square, south-east corner lamppost, London WC2N 5DN

Why was Britain's smallest police station built in London's Trafalgar Square?

Now take a look at that ornate round pillar right here, at the south-east corner of Trafalgar Square. It looks like an ordinary lamppost, doesn't it? Just a granite column topped with an elegant lantern. But step closer... and peer through those narrow slits carved into the stone. You're looking at Britain's smallest police station.......... This structure started life as a gas lamp back in eighteen twenty-six. But a century later, it took on a very different purpose. During the General Strike of nineteen twenty-six, the authorities decided they needed a permanent way to keep a close eye on the striking workers who were gathering in Trafalgar Square. The plan to build an obvious police box was met with howls of public indignation, and it was officially shelved.......... But the police weren't about to give up. In nineteen twenty-seven, the head of the Office of Works came up with a brilliant idea... hollow out the base of this very lamppost plinth so that a single officer could keep watch over the entire square. And that's Exactly what they did! Slits were ingeniously cut into the sides to provide three hundred and sixty degree vision, and a direct telephone line connected it to Scotland Yard.......... Now, imagine being that lone bobby, squeezed into this stone tube while an angry crowd of thousands swirled around you. When the officer lifted the telephone receiver, the ornamental light on top would flash, alerting nearby constables that something was amiss. Think about that for a moment... you're Hiding inside a lamppost, spying on a crowd, and the second you call for help, a great big light starts Flashing above your head. Not exactly the stealthiest design, is it?......... There's a popular legend that the ornamental lamp on top came from Admiral Nelson's flagship, Hms Victory. A wonderful story... but it's actually a Bude light, designed by Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, who also replaced two hundred and eighty candles in the House of Commons with just three of his revolutionary lights... a technology so successful it illuminated that chamber for sixty years.......... Now, here's a detail that true London insiders know. This was Never officially a police station. Some call it a police box, but technically, it was always an observation post. It served that purpose right up through the nineteen seventies, when radio communications finally made it unnecessary.......... And today? This once-secret nerve center of law enforcement is used as a broom cupboard by Westminster Council cleaners. From covert surveillance... to storing mops. That, my friends, is the most London ending to a story you'll ever hear.

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