Trinity Square Gardens, including the Merchant Navy Memorial

To the north of the garden are the buildings that recall maritime history, Trinity House and the former Port of London Authority headquarters. The Corporation of Trinity House, responsible for lighthouses, seamarks and ballastage, the safety of shipping and welfare of seafarers, was established in 1514 in Deptford. It moved to Stepney in 1670 where its almshouses at Trinity Green (q.v.) still stand, and later to a building off Lower Thames Street. Trinity House was built at Tower Hill in 1792-4 and designed by Samuel Wyatt, who laid out the garden as the setting for the building. Although the façade remains, the interior was destroyed during WWII in 1940 and later reconstructed in 1952-4 by Sir Albert Richardson. Overlooking the garden to the west of Trinity House is Sir Edwin Cooper's exuberant Port of London Authority (PLA) headquarters built in 1912-22 following the establishment of the PLA in 1908. In 1970 the PLA moved to Tilbury and the building was then sold.

Trinity Square was preserved as open ground under the Great Tower Hill Act, a Special Act of Parliament of 1797 and a plaque in the public garden records 1795 as the date it was first laid out. In 1931 the garden was scheduled in the London Squares Preservation Act, listed under the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney.

In the garden is the Tower Hill Memorial, a small railed area with a stone set in the paving that indicates the site of the former scaffold for those who were beheaded outside the walls of the Tower of London (q.v.). Executions took place here between 1381 and 1780, principally of members of the nobility who had usually been imprisoned in the Tower. Although beheading was the customary means of public execution, burning at the stake as well as hanging, with or without drawing and quartering, also took place. It is said that 100,000 spectators were typical on these occasions. Executions arose from causes that  included the Peasants’ Revolt; the Wars of the Roses; Lollardism; claims to the throne by Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel; the Reformation; Pilgrimage of Grace; Monmouth Rebellion; Jacobite Rising and the Gordon Riots. Some 120 executions are chronicled,  including those of Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor, and Thomas Cromwell, Lord High Chamberlain, beheaded for treason in 1535 and 1540 respectively. Lord Lovat’s execution for high treason in 1747 was the last judicial beheading in England, the final executions here being hangings in 1780. The Memorial’s present form is thought to date from 1955. 

Within the garden are two important War Memorials that together make up the Merchant Navy Memorial. The Merchant Navy Memorial, First World War section was built in 1926-8 to commemorate those who died in WWI of the Merchant Navy and the Fishing Fleet. The title Merchant Navy was conferred on the Mercantile Marine on 14 February 1928 by HM King George V to recognise its service in peace and wartime. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens the Memorial is in the form of a white stone classical pavilion, inside which are metal plaques inscribed with names of the dead. It was unveiled in December 1928 by HM Queen Mary, the King being ill, and its inscription refers to the Merchant Navy, a title under which the 12,000 men and women commemorated in having no grave but the sea thus did not serve but had earned. 

After WWII, Sir Edward Maufe was invited by the Imperial War Graves Commission to design the Merchant Navy Memorial, Second World War section. His brief was to complement the earlier Memorial and also the setting of Trinity House. His design took the form of a sunken garden that is reached via steps from the First World War section, with flanking over life-size figures of an officer and a merchant seaman. It commemorates the merchant seamen who served in ships registered in ports of the British Commonwealth or in ships on charter to these governments, who lost their lives in enemy action and have no known grave. The sunken garden is surrounded by 8ft Portland stone walls into which bronze plaques are set, inscribed with the names of 23,765 men, including 80 pilots and lighthousemen and 832 fishermen. A plaque near the entrance bears the following inscription: 'The Twenty-four Thousand of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets whose names are honoured on the Walls of this Garden, gave their lives for their Country and have no grave but the sea'. Seven allegorical figures representing the seven seas by sculptor Charles Wheeler are at intervals along the walls and at the centre is a Mariner's compass in the form of a bronze pool. The Memorial was unveiled by HM Queen Elizabeth II on 5 November 1955.

A more recent memorial in the garden was erected 'In Memory of those Merchant Seafarers Who Gave Their Lives to Secure the Freedom of the Falkland Islands in 1981'. The Red Ensign, the official flag of the UK’s Merchant Navy, flies permanently over The Memorial.

The importance of Trinity Square in relation to maritime history is paramount; when the Merchant Navy Memorial, First World War section was unveiled in 1928, it was described in The Times as being ‘at the hub of maritime England’. At the 1955 unveiling of the Merchant Navy Memorial, Second World War section, the Queen echoed that with the words:  ‘…this place, which for centuries has been at the very heart of the maritime life of our nation...’. Two Acts of Parliament testify to the importance of the Memorials. The Mercantile Marine Memorial Act 1927, and the Merchant Navy Memorial Act 1952. Section 1 of the latter grants that the two ‘…may be cited together as the Merchant Navy Memorial Acts 1927 and 1952.’. To improve the setting of the Merchant Navy Memorial, newspaper bins and other street furniture by the eastern gate of the garden square have been removed, at the suggestion of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners.  

In 2002 the gardens were renovated in a joint project by Tower Hill Improvement Trust and LB Tower Hamlets, with donations from numerous bodies including MPGA who donated a bench. The garden was officially re-opened by the Duke of Gloucester on 2 December 2005, and a plaque erected in the garden marks this. The garden has lawns, mature trees and ornamental planting.

A number of annual events take place at the Merchant Navy Memorial: Merchant Navy Day (3rd September), is commemorated with a service held on the nearest Sunday, organised by the Merchant Navy Association. Armistice Day (11th November) is also commemorated at the Memorial with the Remembrance Day service, organised by the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, taking place prior to or after the 11th, depending on the nearest Sunday. Members of the public are welcome to both services.