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The Mall, London

Looking Down The Mall Towards Buckingham Palace

Ceremonial routes have a long history in representing symbolically the journey through life. Geoffrey Hindley in his book A History of Roads talks of processional ways as splendid roads to the gods. Ceremonial roads represented a journey, a one way trip, and any unfortunate person who got in the way of progress along the route to its promised land would be shown no mercy: "Anyone unfortunate enough to slip before the wheels of the sacred chariot, or juggernaut, would be crushed to death to avoid any delay in the god's progress" (Hindley P20). But ceremonial ways don't always represent a one way journey. Often there is a circle involved in their structure. The Neolithic ceremonial way leading to Stonehenge in Wiltshire has a circle of stones at its end. The Bronze Age ceremonial way at Flag Fen, across marshes in East Anglia, has a circular refuge at its centre. In contrast to the one way journey represented by a linear road, a circle suggests something endless with no destination to which we have to desperately strive. With a circle as part of the picture there is no need to crush people beneath the wheels of your chariot. Processions at Stonehenge, did not end in the kingdom of the gods, but at a vast circle of stones, suggesting an endless ongoing journey. In modern London, the ceremonial way called the Mall, reflects a similar layout. The modern Mall is a lavish road, clearly in the tradition of those splendid roads along which the juggernaut used to travel in India. On this route state journeys of celebration and mourning, marriage and death take place. But like Stonehenge and Flag Fen it also has circles in its layout, two in the case of the Mall. At one end there is the great circular space around the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace. At the other end, after passing through Admiralty Arch, there is the great ceremonial circle of Trafalgar Square, a traditional place of meeting, celebration or protest. Wandering up the Mall it is tempting to reflect on its continuing symbolism, the way the linear Mall is combined with endless roundabouts at each end. It is in Trafalgar Square that the New Year is celebrated, at the roundabout, not on the road. The roundabout suggests an endless journey rather than a one way trip, a comforting thought at New Year.

The Mall was built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries roughly along the course of a muddy track leading through St James's Park. A game called pall mall was played here, similar to croquet, from which the name of today's Mall derives.

The Mall is closed to traffic on Sundays, and during state occasions. It is always open to pedestrians.

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