London 1870s and now - 3: Temple Bar, Fleet St

This is the third in a series of posts comparing photos of London taken by Henry Dixon in the 1870s and 80s with the same view today.

Temple Bar was a gateway to the City of London, marking its western edge on Fleet St. Wren's construction was taken down in 1878, shortly after the top photograph was taken. A zoomable version of the image is on our Online Gallery.

Writing in 1880, Alfred Marks commented: "The photograph shows the west side of Temple Bar... shored up with timber to counteract the effects of the excavations for the New Law Courts...The Bar as we saw it till it was replaced by the 'Memorial' and its famous 'Griffin,' was built from Wren's designs in 1670...The statues on the west side, shown in our photograph, were of Charles I and Charles II in Roman habits."

The photograph beneath shows same view as it appeared in August 2009, with the griffin - the symbol of the City, which also appears at other boundary points round London - in silhouette. The northern (left) side of Fleet St was radically changed after the removal of the Bar, with the building of the new Law Courts.

Temple Bar was not destroyed, and in fact survives today intact. After its 1878 dismantling, it was bought by brewing magnate Sir Henry Meux and reconstructed in his Theobalds Park home in Hertfordshire. In 2003 it was moved piece by piece to Paternoster Square (below), next to St Paul's Cathedral, where it was restored and re-reconstructed. It opened in 2004.

[RA]

Comments

[gp witteveen]

I really like the "then and now" approach. I remember an exhibition from the US Civil War (1861-65) with old pix on the scene, then more recent revisits to battle sites and so on - some enshrined, some overgrown, others turned to housing estates. Please consider mapping the location of the exhibit pix (e.g. maps.google.com) so online visitors can go to the place, either in person or online.

[Web Editor]

Hi and thanks.

I had thought of a Google map for these and might yet do so, but too busy with other projects just at the moment. On the other hand, I rather like maintaining the element of mystery: i.e. you don't know what's coming next Tuesday! Anyone else out there want to build one and add to it week by week?