Temple Bar: The Gate That Moved

Temple Bar is the only surviving historic gateway to the City of London, designed by Sir Christopher Wren between 1669 and 1672 before being relocated and eventually returned to Paternoster Square in 2004. Originally standing on Fleet Street, the 17th-century Grade I listed stone arch was dismantled in 1878, spent 126 years in Hertfordshire, and was re-erected near St Paul's Cathedral with 95 percent of its original materials.

London Β· from the walk β€œLondon Uncovered: Secrets of the Square Mile & Beyond” Β· audio ~4 min Β· Generated

Temple Bar, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1AA

Why was Temple Bar moved away from London in 1878 and where is it located today?

You're standing right where two cities collide. Not two countries... two Cities. Because this spot β€” right here on Fleet Street β€” is the ancient boundary between the City of London and the City of Westminster. For centuries, Temple Bar was the most heavily used crossing point between England's prime commercial centre and the Palace of Westminster, its political heart.......... And for over two hundred years, a magnificent stone archway stood right across this road. But here's the thing... it vanished. For more than a century, it was simply Gone.......... Let me take you back. A bar is first mentioned here in twelve ninety-three, and at that time it was probably no more than a chain between wooden posts. By thirteen fifty-one, a wooden gateway had been built, complete with a small prison above it. Then, after the Great Fire of sixteen sixty-six, King Charles the Second tasked none other than Christopher Wren to rebuild it in valuable Portland stone.......... And Wren delivered. The fine arch was constructed between sixteen sixty-nine and sixteen seventy-two β€” a two-story structure with one wide central arch for road traffic, flanked on both sides by narrower arches for pedestrians.......... Now... this is where it gets dark. From the seventeenth century, the heads of executed traitors were displayed on spikes on top of Temple Bar. They were boiled in salt or pitch first... to stop the birds eating them. And enterprising Londoners used to hire out spy-glasses for a halfpenny so passersby could get a closer look at the heads.......... But by the eighteen seventies, the gate had a different problem. One writer called it "a bone in the throat of Fleet Street." In eighteen seventy-eight, the City of London Corporation, eager to widen the road but unwilling to destroy so historic a monument, dismantled it piece by piece over just eleven days, carefully storing its two thousand seven hundred stones.......... And then came one of history's more Unlikely rescuers. A banjo-playing barmaid named Valerie Meux, who had married into a very wealthy family of London brewers. Forever trying to convince Victorian high society of her respectability, she decided to rebuild Temple Bar as the grand entrance to her Hertfordshire estate at Theobalds Park. More than two thousand five hundred stones weighing nearly four hundred tons were transported from London to Hertfordshire on flat trolleys pulled by horses.......... And it worked! Lady Meux entertained luminaries such as the future King Edward the Seventh and Winston Churchill in the chamber above the arch.......... For over a hundred years, Wren's masterpiece stood in a woodland clearing in the countryside. Then, in nineteen eighty-four, the Temple Bar Trust bought it from the Meux Trust for the grand sum of... one pound. In two thousand four, it was painstakingly re-erected as an entrance to Paternoster Square, just north of Saint Paul's Cathedral, opening to the public on the tenth of November.......... So the gate you see today at Paternoster Square is Not a replica. Temple Bar is Grade One listed, and ninety-five percent of its gate structure is original seventeenth-century material. The Only surviving gateway to the City of London... and the gate that came home after a hundred and twenty-six years in exile.

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