Duke of York Column
The Duke of York Column is one of London's most dignified and underappreciated monuments, a towering granite pillar crowned with a bronze statue of Prince Frederick, Duke of York, the second son of King George III and a significant figure in British military history. Standing at the head of the steps that descend from Carlton House Terrace to the Mall, the column commands a superb axial view down that great ceremonial avenue toward Buckingham Palace, making it a quietly spectacular landmark even if it receives far less attention than Nelson's Column a short distance to the northeast. For those who seek out London's layered history and grand Regency-era civic ambition, the column offers a fascinating and photogenic destination that feels both central and somehow apart from the busiest tourist circuits.
The monument was erected between 1831 and 1834, designed by Benjamin Dean Wyatt, who was also responsible for the nearby Apsley House and Lancaster House. The column stands approximately 38 metres tall and is built from Aberdeen granite, a material whose reddish-grey hue gives it a subtly warmer tone than the pale Portland stone dominant in the surrounding architecture. The bronze statue of the Duke atop the column was sculpted by Sir Richard Westmacott. The entire project was funded in a notably telling way: the Duke of York had died in 1827 leaving enormous debts, and the monument was paid for by deducting one day's pay from every soldier in the British Army. This sardonic piece of symmetry — the men he commanded paying for his memorial out of their own pockets — was noted with dark amusement by contemporaries, and the column became known colloquially as the place where the Duke had gone up to escape his creditors.
Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, was Commander-in-Chief of the British Army for much of the early nineteenth century and, despite a scandalous episode in which his mistress Mary Anne Clarke was found to be selling army commissions, he left a genuine and lasting positive legacy on the institution. He was responsible for significant reforms to the British military system, professionalising promotion procedures, abolishing many corrupt practices, and establishing the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, which remains the Army's officer training institution to this day. The nursery rhyme about the Grand Old Duke of York who "marched his men to the top of the hill and marched them down again" is widely attributed to him, a satirical reference to a costly and inconclusive military campaign in Flanders in the 1790s, though some historians dispute this precise attribution.
In person, the column occupies a kind of hinge point in the landscape between the grand formal terraces above and the park and Mall below. Standing at its base, you are enclosed by the sweeping cream-coloured facades of Carlton House Terrace on either side, their classical columns and ironwork balustrades framing a backdrop of considerable elegance. The steps leading down from the column to the Mall are wide and shallow, well suited to a slow, contemplative descent, and from partway down them you gain one of the finest unobstructed views in central London: the tree-lined Mall receding in perfect symmetry toward the Victoria Memorial and the pale facade of Buckingham Palace. On clear days, especially in winter when the plane trees are bare, the perspective is genuinely breathtaking.
The immediate surroundings are rich with institutions and landmarks. The Athenaeum Club and the Reform Club stand nearby on Pall Mall. St James's Park stretches immediately to the south and west, offering green respite and often an extraordinary variety of birdlife on its lake. The Institute of Contemporary Arts occupies the ground floor of Carlton House Terrace close by. To the east, the Duke of York Steps connect naturally to a walk along the Mall toward Trafalgar Square, and the whole area sits within a corridor of royal and governmental London that includes Clarence House, St James's Palace, and the grand ministerial buildings of Whitehall.
Visiting the column requires no admission and no booking; it stands in open public space accessible at all hours. The nearest Underground station is Charing Cross, approximately a ten-minute walk, or alternatively Green Park on the Jubilee and Piccadilly lines, from which the column is roughly a similar distance approaching through St James's Park or along the Mall. Buses along Pall Mall also bring visitors close. The area is safe, well-lit, and busy with walkers and cyclists using the Mall at most hours of the day. There are no barriers around the column itself, though you cannot climb it. Morning visits tend to offer softer light for photography and fewer crowds, and the view down the Mall is particularly striking in low winter sun.
One delightful and slightly melancholy detail is that there was originally a staircase inside the column allowing access to a viewing platform at the top, but this was sealed up long ago. The column is also sometimes noted for the practical irony that it is actually taller than Nelson's Column's shaft alone, though Nelson's overall monument including the statue is considerably taller. This comparison pleases those who enjoy the rivalries encoded into London's monumental landscape. The Duke himself is rendered in full military uniform atop his column, gazing southward toward the park and the palace, frozen in bronze vigilance over a street and a city that has changed almost beyond recognition around him while the column itself remains exactly as Wyatt and Westmacott intended nearly two centuries ago.