Temple Bar
Temple Bar is the barrier (real or imaginary) marking the westernmost extent of the City of London on the road to Westminster, where Fleet Street becomes the Strand. Until 1878 this boundary was demarcated by a stone gateway.In the middle ages, the authority of the Corporation of London reached beyond the city's ancient walls in several places (the liberties of London); to regulate trade into the city, barriers were erected on the major roads wherever the true boundary was a substantial distance from the old gatehouse. Temple Bar was the most famous of these, since traffic between London (England's prime commercial center) and Westminster (the political center) passed through it. Its name comes from the Temple (an old complex once owned by the Knights Templar but now home to two of the legal profession's Inns of Court), which is located nearby.
It has long been the custom that a king or queen entering the City of London stop at Temple Bar and request permission to enter. The Lord Mayor meets the monarch there and offers the city's Sword of State in loyalty before inviting him or her in. This picturesque ceremony has often featured in art and literature.
Today Temple Bar (like other major entrances to the City of London) is marked by a stone monument in the middle of the roadway, topped by a statue of a griffin (two of which feature in the City's arms as supporters).
The Bar itself
The earliest Temple Bar may have been no more than a turnpike; but by the late middle ages a wooden archway (with a prison above) stood on the spot. Badly damaged in 1666 by the Great Fire of London, it became necessary to rebuild the structure. It is believed that Sir Christopher Wren designed the fine arch of Portland Stone which was constructed in 1672.
The other seven principal gateways to London (Aldgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Ludgate, Moorgate and Newgate) had all been demolished by 1800, but Temple Bar remained as an impediment to the ever-growing traffic. In 1878 the City, eager to widen the road but unwilling to destroy so historic a monument, dismantled it piece-by-piece and stored its stones carefully. In 1888, the brewer Sir Henry Meux bought the stones (at the instigation of his wife) and reerected the arch as a gateway at his house, Theobalds Park (near Enfield).
It remained there, incongruously sitting in clearing in a wood, until 2003 when it was dismantled and returned to London with the intention of to rebuilding it on the site of the Paternoster Square redevelopment just north of St Paul's Cathedral.
External Links:
- http://www.thetemplebar.info