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Shakespeare statue, Leicester Square

The marble Shakespeare at the centre of Leicester Square, leaning on a stack of books.

ShakespeareStatues & memorialsFree

Photo by Ethan Doyle White, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Giovanni Fontana's statue of 1874 is a copy of the Scheemakers Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey, put here when the square was laid out as a public garden. Shakespeare rests an elbow on a pile of books and points to a scroll reading 'There is no darkness but ignorance', a line from Twelfth Night. Dolphins spout at his feet, and around the garden are busts of Newton, Reynolds, Hunter and Hogarth, who all lived on the square when it was a place people lived.

Where
Leicester Square, WC2H 7NA
Nearest station
Leicester Square · 2 min walk

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