Temple Bar

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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 (extending westwards) becomes the Strand. Until 1878 this boundary was demarcated by a stone gateway.

A statue of a heraldic dragon tops the present-day Temple Bar marker in front of the Royal Courts of Justice.

In the Middle Ages, the authority of the City of London Corporation 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 centre) and Westminster (the political centre) passed through it. Its name comes from the Temple Church (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 the monarch stop at Temple Bar before entering the City of London, so that the Lord Mayor may offer him or her the City's pearl-encrusted Sword of State as a token of loyalty. This picturesque ceremony has often featured in art and literature. However, the popular view that the monarch requires the Lord Mayor's permission to enter the City is incorrect.

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 dragon, (commonly described as a "griffin"). The dragon comes from the City's arms, where two of them feature as supporters.

[edit] The structure

Wren's Temple Bar reopened at its new location in Paternoster Square on 10 November 2004.

The earliest Temple Bar may have been no more than a turnpike; there was a gate of some kind from 1293. One was badly damaged during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.

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. Commissioned by King Charles II, and designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the fine arch of Portland stone was constructed between 1669 and 1672. During the 18th century, the heads of traitors were mounted on pikes and exhibited on the roof.

The other seven principal gateways to London (Ludgate, Newgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Bishopsgate and Aldgate) had all been demolished by 1800, but Temple Bar remained as an impediment to the ever-growing traffic. In 1878 the City of London Corporation, eager to widen the road but unwilling to destroy so historic a monument, dismantled it piece-by-piece in an 11-day period and stored its 2,700 stones carefully.

In 1880, the brewer Sir Henry Meux bought the stones (at the instigation of his wife, a barmaid he married amid much scandal) and re-erected the arch as a gateway at his house, Theobalds Park, between Enfield and Cheshunt in Hertfordshire.

It remained there, incongruously sitting in a clearing in a wood, until 2003. By then it had been purchased by the Temple Bar Trust from the Meux Trust for £1 in 1984. It was carefully dismantled and returned on 500 pallets to the City of London where it was painstakingly re-erected as an entrance to the Paternoster Square redevelopment just north of St Paul's Cathedral. It opened to the public in late 2004.

Temple Bar at night

[edit] See also

• Temple Bar, Dublin — district of the same name in Dublin, Ireland

[edit] External links

• The Return of Temple Bar to the City of London website
• City of London website with history of Temple Bar

Coordinates: 51°30′49″N, 0°06′43″W

This text was last fetched from this Wikipedia page (where you can edit it) on
15 May 2008, 4:05pm under the terms of the GFDL.

Annotations

• N Phil on Mon 10 Feb 2003, 06:59pm

  According Latham’s Companion volume, Temple Bar was a gate and gate-house that marked “the end of the city’s jurisdiction and the beginning of that of Westminster.”

• N Glyn on Tue 11 Feb 2003, 10:29am

  The emblem of the City of London has always been the Griffin (half eagle, half lion), and you will see it all around the borders of the City of London defending its territory.

  Here is a picture of a Griffin at Temple Bar:

  http://www.myk.mcmail.com/london/the_city/other_views/
  

• N Phil on Tue 8 Jul 2003, 09:20pm

  This 7 July 2003 article describes how the original gatehouse building was moved to Hertfordshire and is now destined to be moved, brick by brick, back to London: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,992823,00.html

• N Michael Robinson on Fri 13 Feb 2004, 02:56am

  Believe the article Phil cites concerns Christopher Wren’s post great fire Temple Bar, completed in 1672.

• N Michael Robinson on Fri 13 Feb 2004, 02:56am

  Believe the article Phil cites concerns Christopher Wren’s post great fire Temple Bar, completed in 1672.

• N Alan Burkitt-Gray on Fri 13 Feb 2004, 11:29pm

  It *is* Wren’s gate that is being returned to the City — not in its original position, which was across the road where Fleet Street, in the City of London, turns into the Strand, in the City of Westminster, but about 50 metres north of St Paul’s Cathedral, close to the Chapter House, as part of the new Paternoster Square development — on a site closely associated with Pepys, as the development is on the site of Paternoster Row, where until the fire of 1666 was the centre of the London book trade.
  The scaffolding is now up on the site and work is starting on the rebuilding — I work about five minutes’ walk away.

  Here is a City of London Corporation site about the scheme: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/leisure_heritage/architectural_heritage/temple_bar.htm
  and here is a site with up to date pictures of the project: http://www.thetemplebar.info/index.htm

• N Alan Burkitt-Gray on Fri 13 Feb 2004, 11:29pm

  It *is* Wren’s gate that is being returned to the City — not in its original position, which was across the road where Fleet Street, in the City of London, turns into the Strand, in the City of Westminster, but about 50 metres north of St Paul’s Cathedral, close to the Chapter House, as part of the new Paternoster Square development — on a site closely associated with Pepys, as the development is on the site of Paternoster Row, where until the fire of 1666 was the centre of the London book trade.
  The scaffolding is now up on the site and work is starting on the rebuilding — I work about five minutes’ walk away.

  Here is a City of London Corporation site about the scheme: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/leisure_heritage/architectural_heritage/temple_bar.htm
  and here is a site with up to date pictures of the project: http://www.thetemplebar.info/index.htm

• N I.Mazzara on Sat 27 Mar 2004, 11:29pm

  The “emblem” of the City is in fact an Heraldic Dragon not a Griffin.
  You can verify this with the Corporation of London and the College of Arms.
  I only learned this on the City of London Guides course where calling it a Griffin is an automatic fail

• N Glyn on Wed 10 Nov 2004, 04:24pm

  The reopening of Temple Bar in London in November 2004: http://www.thetemplebar.info/

• N Keith Hogburn on Thu 11 Nov 2004, 10:31am

  I know the where abouts of a wine cask decorated with vines and grapes, with etched writing which reads temple bar,wonder if there is any connection, or history.
  look forward to any information.

• N Terry F on Mon 23 Jan 2006, 11:29pm

  Temple Bar, clearly marked, stands athwart the west end of Fleet Street, on the left margin at 10:00 (S of the NW cornet) of this segment of the 1746 map. http://www.motco.com/map/81002/SeriesSearchPlatesFulla.asp?mode=query&title=Temple+Street+White+Fryers%28%3F%29&artist=384&other=316&x=11&y=11

References in the diary

1660

Feb: 9, 10, 11

1661

Feb: 12
Mar: 14

1662

Aug: 17
Dec: 8

1663

Jan: 23
Apr: 13
Dec: 21

1665

Feb: 1