Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square, London. It honours Horatio Nelson, the greatest of English naval heroes, and commemorates Britain's triumph over France. Lord Nelson was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, in which the Royal Navy defeated a combined force of 33 French and Spanish ships, destroying about 20, without itself losing a single ship. The monument, designed by William Railton, was built between 1840 and 1843. Lord Nelson's statue, 18 feet (5.5 m) high and sculpted of sandstone by Edward Hodges Baily, surveys Trafalgar Square from the top of a fluted granite column, and the entire monument measures 169 feet (51.59 m). The column is capped by bronze sculptural elements cast from melted cannon from the wreckage of an 18th-century British warship.