Lord Nelson Statue

Now this is a dramatic sculpture. Dramatic-​looking itself, with the nautical sweep of the prow of his ship behind him, and Nelson himself looking swashbuckling and proud. It’s also pretty dramatic in terms of its location — bang splat in the middle of the Bullring. Now what, you may ask, has this country’s most famous sea captain got to do with a) shopping and b) the UK’s most land-​locked city? Frankly, I have no idea, but I kind of appreciate the striking incongruity of the positioning.
It’s a bold, atmospheric tribute — cast all in bronze and with plenty of detail and personality. It was actually created by public subscription in 1809, so was the first publically funded statue in Birmingham, as well as being the first statue of Nelson in Britain.

Usually the closest Birmingham gets to dominating the high seas is the hundreds of shipping containers stacked up in the yards on the approaches to the city. Think again…
Situated in the heart of the Bull Ring, the genuinely impressive statue of British naval hero Lord Admiral Nelson makes even Birmingham feel somehow nautical. For a city that sometimes struggles to flaunt its public art, Nelson’s prominence is particularly interesting. Situated next to the iconic Selfridges building, Nelson both dominates and is dominated by his space. The statue itself portrays the contradiction. The plinth makes Nelson and his achievements feel great and lofty, but the black effigy itself feels small and understated — self-​confident without the need for you to know it. Not a bad metaphor for the city itself then, which helps to explain its otherwise incongruous prominence in the city’s public art collection. That and the fact Nelson’s working man made impossibly good image, perhaps serves as an inspiration to us ordinary Brummies no matter how far we live from the sea.
The facts? Nelson was sculpted by Richard Westmacott in 1809, making it one of Britain’s first ever monuments to the hero.