One of London’s most famous landmarks, whose name is almost synonymous with London itself, is Charing Cross. This is a medieval-appearing stone monument in the forecourt of the Charing Cross Railway Station at the western end of the Strand. As many of the troop trains bound for France left from here during both World Wars, it had a particularly sentimental connotation during those periods. The monument seen today is a reproduction done in the nineteenth century. But behind it is a story that has very much to do with Christian London.
In medieval times there were in Cheapside (the main commercial or market street of old London) and at the hamlet of Charing, about half way along the road between London and Westminster, beautiful crosses of stone set atop carved monuments. These were originally erected by the great warrior-king Edward I as memorials to his beloved queen, Eleanor, who died in 1290. A series of these crosses, thirteen in all, were placed along the way from Nottingham to Westminster, wherever Eleanor’s bier rested. In London the crosses (which were reconstructed several times over the years) became familiar landmarks. Like all market crosses, which still may be seen today in many English towns and in the ancient parts of European cities, they were symbols of the centrality of the Christian faith in the medieval community.
During the Reformation, however, London’s crosses became the targets of the more extreme Puritans, who wanted to do away with all Catholic ‘objects of superstition and idolatry’. Cheapside Cross was first attacked and mutilated as early as 1581. Eventually it was rebuilt, but in 1641 the new cross was defaced, and this attack was followed by a series of pamphlets denouncing it. Finally in 1643 Parliament authorised its destruction, which was accomplished by ‘a troop of horse and two companies of foot’. We are told that ‘at the fall of the top cross drums beat, trumpets blew, and multitudes of caps were thrown into the air, and a great shout of people with joy’.
Charing Cross, which was said ‘to have been more elegant than any of the other crosses erected to Queen Eleanor’s memory’, was also sentenced by Parliament to be taken down in 1643, but the order was not carried out until 1647. Some of the stones were then used for paving in front of Whitehall. In 1679 an equestrian statue of Charles I, that had been hidden during the Commonwealth period, was set up on the site of the old cross. It still stands at the top of Whitehall, and is recognized as one of London’s finest outdoor sculptures.
The area never ceased to be known as Charing Cross, however, and in the nineteenth century the Charing Cross Railway Station and Hotel were built just east of the original site, replacing the old Hungerford Market. In 1863 a new Charing Cross was built and set up outside the station facing the Strand. It is seventy feet high in the decorated Gothic style of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, reproducing as near as possible the old one. In its upper storey are eight crowned statues of Queen Eleanor, four representing her as queen with the royal insignia, and the other four with the attributes of a Christian woman. Its presence beside the bustling traffic of the Strand is a pleasant reminder of piety and devotion of a bygone age.