TEMPLE BAR:LAST GATEWAY INTO THE OLD CITY OF LONDON

Temple Bar, was the westernmost gateway to the City of London, where the Strand takes over from Fleet Street on its direct march to Westminster.

Commissioned by King Charles II, it was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and has been written about on numerous occasions, noteably by Charles Dickens, who had been moved to write when criticising the abject poverty of late eighteenth century London, that in matters of crime and punishment, "putting to death was a recipe much in vogue," and illustrated the horror caused by severed heads," exposed on Temple Bar with an insensate brutality and ferocity."

It must be noted however, it is not the gateway through the defensive wall of London. That honour on the western approach belongs to Ludgate, which is situated at Blackfriars, past the eastern end of Fleet Street and across Ludgate Circus.

Nowadays,the site is occupied by a heraldic dragon, sitting atop the present day marker, which had replaced the older stone gateway in and out of the city, to allow the traffic to flow more easily on either side.

But it had not always been so.

For thankfully, as at the time of writing, we are not greeted as we enter the city, by severed human skulls being exposed for all to see as a warning for any would be miscreant, to seriously "THINK AGAIN!"

Until the eighteenth century, Temple Bar, which was surmounted by a fine arch made of Portland Stone and designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was used along with all the other gateways into the city, as a place where the heads of anyone who had been tried, found guilty and subsequently executed, for anything as trivial as stealing a loaf of bread, to the most serious crimes such as murder and treason, were to be taken and exposed for everyone to see.

The last heads to be exhibited in such a way were participants of the Stuarts Rebellion of 1745 led by "Bonnie Prince Charlie."

When the congestion finally became just too great, the decision to remove the gateway and arch was finally taken. Nobody however, wanted to lose such an important monument, for it was the only gateway into London left standing.

All the other seven gateways, in a clockwise direction, Ludgate, Newgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Bishopsgate and Aldgate had all been demolished before 1800.

The City of London therefore made sure that it was carefully demolished in 1878. Each and every stone was painstakingly removed, numbered and meticulously recorded. They were then placed in safe storage until a decision could be made as to what the future held for them.

Two years passed by without a decision being made, when along came the Brewer, Sir Henry Meux who, took the stones to his estate at Theobald's Park, situated between Cheshunt and Enfield, when his offer for them was accepted in 1880.

They were then put to use by building an entrance to his estate and mansion in 1889. This then was to be the new home of London's last gateway into the city.

For many a long year it stood there, unused and neglected,just another piece of London History in danger of drifting off into memory.Was this to be the end of The Temple Bar.

Thankfully,the answer was no.

The Temple Bar was finally returned to its rightful home.

In 2001, The City of London, during one of its better moments, agreed a decision to fund its return.

It now stands, not at its original site on Fleet Street, but in a new position in Paternostre Square alongside St. Pauls' Cathedral.

Its erection as a gateway to the new Stock Exchange in November 2004, was a fitting culmination to the development, which at long last, had brought tumbling down, that most unsightly and uhholy mess, an insult to the sensitivities of any passerby, the old Paternoster square.Amen.

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