So my first official stop as a tourist in London a couple of weeks ago was Trafalgar Square to check out those fountains.

After consulting a guidebook or two before I got there, I saw that the standard tourist information states the square was put together in the mid 1800s, with the fountains added to the design a few years after Nelson’s column was erected. They were possibly added (according to one tourist brochure I saw) in order to prevent crowds from massing at the base of Nelson’s column, but it’s not clear to me if that’s based on fact, or retrofitted as fact.

There’s usually little additional information about the fountains in those tourist guides, aside from a note that the lighting on the fountain now changes colors after dark. That feature was added in the past few years in conjunction with the London 2012 Olympic celebration.

Anyway, I took a bunch of new photos of the fountains this time, a sample of which are in the gallery below. I then compared them again to the one taken by Imogen Cunningham in 1910, and looked around the square to see if I was missing anything.

As I looked around, I saw that — as I had remembered — there are only 2 fountains on that square; the one she took a photo of in 1910 is isn’t there any more.

I then hunted around the square for plaques with information about the stuff in the square, but oddly enough I didn’t see anything in any obvious place.

So, I decided to head over to the Museum of London, which is over by St. Paul’s Cathedral. I figured they might have someone there who knew the history of the square, and/or have a book the would explain what had happened to the original fountains.

In the museum’s gift shop, I did finally unconver some basic information: the original fountains were replaced in the late 1930s.  The book had a photo of the original fountains, side-by-side with the newer (circa 1939) ones. So far, so good.

Then, searching online last week for more information, I discovered that the 2 original fountains were given (or sold) to Canada, and now sit in parks in two Canadian cities. Further, I stumbled across a blog that has a nice summary that includes what the original ones look like, and how they were replaced in the 1930s. That blog speculates that the fountains were replaced because the system that provided the water wasn’t efficient, and the resulting plumes of water weren’t sufficient.

So the original mystery  of why Imogen’s Trafalgar Square fountains were different from mine has been solved.

However, I have yet to find an explanation of why the original ones were sent all the way over to Canada. Surely there would have been cheaper way to get a fountain added to a park in Canada? That remains a mystery to investigate the next time in London.

Actually, maybe somebody at that Museum will know. Although I did make it into the bookstore there, I never had a chance to visited the Museum displays. I ran out of time, since I had been distracted by – and spent a bunch of time – with Carmen.

But that’s a story for another day… In the meantime, hope you enjoy a few fast photos of the fountains in Trafalgar Square.

BTW, unlike the ones in this other post, the photos below are pretty much as they came out of the camera, so they aren’t as stylized as those earlier ones.