Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain

Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain stands on the southeastern side of Piccadilly Circus in London’s City of Westminster, surrounded by theatres, shops and bright city lights. The outdoor monument brings Victorian public art into one of London’s busiest meeting places, where people pause on its steps and gather around the fountain.

Built between 1892 and 1893, it commemorates Lord Shaftesbury, whose campaigns addressed factory conditions, child labour and the treatment of people in asylums. Alfred Gilbert designed the sculpture above the basin as Anteros, the Greek god of requited love, though many visitors know it as the Angel of Christian Charity or mistake it for Eros. After the Second World War, the fountain moved from the centre of Piccadilly Circus to its present position, and its Grade I listing protects the structure.

The figure’s silvery appearance comes from aluminium, an unusual material for sculpture in the late nineteenth century. Anteros was the world’s first sculpture made from aluminium, giving this familiar London landmark a distinctive place in the history of public art.