Temple Bar Gate
I love the merging of history with current life that happens in Britain. One of the best examples of it is in London’s Paternoster Square near St. Paul’s Cathedral. After the blitz, this area was completely destroyed. It was redeveloped in 2003 and became the home of the London Stock Exchange. The addition of Temple Bar which was commissioned by King Charles II and designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the 1670’s. It was originally the marker for one of the main gateways to London. And yes, there is a ceremony involved in this.
Barriers were erected in the middle ages in order to regulate trade into the city of London. Temple Bar was the most famous and regulated traffic between London and Westminster. The name comes from the nearby Temple Church, which is the home of the legal profession’s Inns of Court.
The Temple Bar ceremony is still re-enacted occasionally and consists of the monarch stopping and requesting permission to enter the city of London. The Lord Mayer then presents the Sword of State to show his loyalty to the Monarch.
Temple Bar was dismantled, but stored carefully in order to widen the road in 1878. In 1880 the brewer Henry Meux bought the stones and re-erected the arch as a gateway to his house Theobalds Park. It remained there until 2004 when it was purchased by the Temple Bar Trust and brought back to London and re-erected as the entrance to Paternoster Square. As a side note, heads of traitors were mounted on pikes in the 18th century and exhibited on the roof.-
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Paternoster Square is now filled with shops and restaurants as well as other artworks of note including the Paternoster Column and the Sheep and Shepherd by Elisabeth Frink.
