Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
Charing Cross is located at the junction of the Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street in Central London, England. The name originates from the Eleanor cross put there by King Edward I as as a memorial to his wife, Eleanor of Castile at the former hamlet of Charing. Since 1675 the site of the cross has been occupied by a statue of King Charles I mounted on a horse. That original position of the cross is recognised by modern convention[1] as the centre of London for the purpose of indicating distances by road in favour of other previous measurement points (such as St. Paul's Cathedral which remains as the root of the English and Welsh part of the Great Britain road numbering scheme). Charing Cross is marked on contemporary maps as a road junction, though it was previously also a postal address denoting the stretch of road between Great Scotland Yard and Trafalgar Square. Since 1 January 1931 this section of road has been designated as part of the Whitehall thoroughfare.[2]
[edit] Official use as central point
Legislation from the early 19th century used Charing Cross as a central point for defining its scope. Its later use in legislation waned in favour of providing a schedule of local government areas and became mostly obsolete with the official creation of Greater London in 1965.
| Use | Scope |
|---|---|
| Metropolitan Police District | The Metropolitan Police Act 1829 made provision that all parishes within 12 miles could be added. This was expanded to 15 miles by the Metropolitan Police Act 1839. |
| Metropolitan Buildings Office | The London Building Act 1844 allowed that any place within 12 miles could be added to the area of responsibility. |
| The Knowledge | Streets within a six-mile radius are included in taxi driver training. |
[edit] Charing Cross arches
Since the railway was built, the arches beneath Charing Cross railway station have provided refuge for some of London’s marginal groups, wary of a hostile public reaction to their way of life. In the early twentieth century, the arches and Charing Cross station concourse were notorious cruising sites.[3] They also provided shelter for many of London’s single homeless people drifting between hostels and the streets and sleeping rough in cardboard boxes.[4][5] In 1979 the arches became home to Heaven, one of the best known gay nightclubs in Central London.[6]
The Charing Cross arches were the inspiration for the popular song "Underneath the Arches" performed by the famous duo Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen. They were also the focal point for the influential radio documentary Underneath the Arches (named after the song), which alerted public attention to the plight of homeless people.[7]
[edit] Nearest places
[edit] Nearest tube stations
- Charing Cross tube station
- Embankment tube station
- Leicester Square tube station
- Waterloo station
- Westminster tube station
[edit] Nearest railway stations
[edit] References
- ^ There is an absence of official definition in the UK Statute Law Database but Charing Cross is overwhelmingly used as an official reference point.
- ^ Harold P. Clunn (1970) The Face of London: 254
- ^ [1] Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918-1957. Google book reviews. URL accessed October 15, 2007.
- ^ [2] The Blackburn Citizen website. URL accessed October 15, 2007.
- ^ [3] Oxford Journals website. URL accessed October 15, 2007.
- ^ [4] Out in London website. URL accessed October 15, 2007.
- ^ Radio Times March 5 - 11 1977
Annotations
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The original location of Charing Cross is now occupied by a statue of Charles I, and it is the point from which all distances to London are measured.
http://www.worldsquares.com/history/development/h_d_charing.htm -
Charing Cross was one of 12 “Eleanor Crosses”
Charing Cross was one of 12 “Eleanor Crosses” erected by a disconsolate Edward I when his wife Queen Eleanor of Castile died in 1290. [..] Her body was [..] carried in a somber procession to Westminster Abbey in London.
At each place where the procession stopped for the night, Edward had built a memorial cross in her honour. Today only the crosses at Waltham Cross (Hertfordshire), Geddington, and Hardingstone (both Northamptonshire) remain, and the cross at Charing is remembered only in the name Charing Cross.
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“Charing Cross was demolished in 1647, and in its place the equestrian Statue of Charles I, made for a site at Roehampton but never put up there, appeared in 1675.”
“The cross was removed by Parliament in 1647 as an idolatrous object and its site is now occupied by the statue of Charles I. by the Huguenot sculptor Hubert le Sueur [..] cast in 1633. [..] It was removed during the Commonwealth and sold to a brazier named Rivett to be melted down. He sold knives and other souvenirs supposedly from the metal but actually hid the statue in his garden and produced it for triumphal re-erection at the Restoration in 1660. Although only 5 feet 4 inches tall, the king obviously have liked to be taller, for the specification for the statue ran:
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Re: ‘Charing Cross was one of 12 “Eleanor Crosses” ‘
There was also an Eleanor Cross at Cheapside that may have been familiar to Pepys as a child, as it was demolished in 1643 when he was aged 9 or 10 (some of its decorative stonework can be seen at the Museum of London). The Encyclopaedia of London (edited by Weinreb & Hibbert, 1983 edition) has this to say on the subject:
“At the corner of Wood Street was the Cheapside Cross built in 1290 by order of Edward I at one of the resting places of Queen Eleanor’s coffin. It was three storeys high and was decorated with statues of the Pope, the Virgin and Child and the Apostles. In the 16th century it was constantly attacked by Puritans; and in 1643 it was demolished by workmen protected by soldiers ‘to cleanse that great street of superstition’.”
(This Cross is shown in the picture attached to Stuart Woodward’s annotation listed under ‘Cheapside’ on 11th January.)
Incidentally, I have heard it suggested that the name ‘Charing’ is derived from ‘Chere Reine’, i.e., ‘dear Queen’ (see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/lj/churchlj/popup_eleanor.html). More prosaically, however, but probably more realistically, Helen Bebbington in her book ‘London Street Names’ (1972) says that the name came from the old English word for turning or bend, ‘cierring’, referring to the Thames nearby.
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It is incorrect to say that there’s no longer an Eleanor Cross at Charing Cross. Certainly it’s not the original but a replica - but that’s true of a lot of things in London - and it’s a very accurate one. I think it was put up in Victorian times and you’ll see it outside the railway station.
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But the fact it isn’t one of the original Eleanor Crosses, is a couple of hundred years newer, and is in a different location means it’s correct to say that one of the 12 crosses is not at Charing Cross.
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A Cavalier Ballad
“The Lawyers’ Lamentation
For the Loss of Charing-Cross”1. “Undone! undone! the lawyers cry,
They ramble up and down;
We know not the way to Westminster
Now Charing-Cross is downCHORUS:
“Now fare thee well, old Charing-Cross,
Then fare thee well, old stump;
It was a thing set up by a King,
And so pull’d down by the rump.”
…
5. “The Whigs they do affirm and say
To Popery it was bent,
For what I know it might be so,
For to church it never went,”
Chorus:For the entire ballad:
http://www.acronet.net/~robokopp/english/undoneun.htm -
Contemporary drawing from the 1630s of what may be an Eleanor Cross: the caption says it’s a monument erected by Edward I to his wife, but this was in Cheapside and I don’t know if any Eleanor Crosses were erected there. You can find further info about this illustration under the entry for “Cheapside”:
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Sigmund Freud in a series of lectures at Clark University, Massachusetts in September 1909 suggests that the Eleanor Cross was for Chere Reine relying on Dr Ernest Jones. He described it as a mnemonic symbol and if you still want to feel sorry about Eleanor you may be experiencing hysteria as Barrristers do in wearing black robes to mourn Queen Anne who by statute made them scholars and gentlemen
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Charing Cross’ cachet also is used for a cross-roads (and the neighborhood) shown with a central marker (Charles I’s statue?) on the left (west) side at navigational 9:00 of this segment of the 1746 map: http://www.motco.com/map/81002/SeriesSearchPlatesFulla.asp?mode=query&title=Charing+Cross&artist=384&other=337&x=11&y=11
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Chequer Inn at Charing Cross.
Each regiment (army) maintained an “orderly man” at the Chequer Inn for the purpose of transmitting orders from London to the regiments.
(Childs…Army of Charles II)
