The area's main sculptural showcase is Parliament Square, conceived in the 1860s to improve the setting of the rebuilt Palace of Westminster, to ease traffic flow and as a site for commemorating politicians of note.
[1] Statues of the engineers Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel by Carlo Marochetti were initially considered for the square, but were rejected as not fitting in with the political theme.
)[2] The square took on its present configuration in a refurbishment of 1949–1950 by the architect George Grey Wornum, though four statues of twentieth-century figures have since been added.
[3] Another two political memorials (one of which, the Buxton Memorial Fountain, was moved by Wornum from Parliament Square) and The Burghers of Calais, a work on a historical theme by Auguste Rodin, are to be found in Victoria Tower Gardens.
Inscribed to Buxton, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Macaulay, Brougham, Lushington, et al.