CHARING CROSS
This place has been recently greatly improved by clearing away decaying houses, and enlarging the space for the public convenience, and for the display of newly-erected handsome buildings. It derives its name from having been anciently a village detached from London, called Charing, and from a stately Cross erected there by order of Edward I., to commemorate his affection for Eleanor, his deceased queen. The cross occupied the last spot on which her body rested in its progress to sepulture in Westminster Abbey. The other resting-places of her sumptuous funeral were dignified by similar edifices.
Two centuries and a half ago, Charing Cross was within bow shot of the open country, all the way to Hampstead and Highgate. North of the Cross there were only a few houses in front of the Mews, where the king's falcons were kept. The Hay-market was a country road, with hedges on each side, running between pastures. St. Martin's lane was bounded on the west side by the high walls of the Mews, and on the other side by a few houses and by old St. Martin's church, where the present church stands. From these buildings it was a quiet country lane, leading to St. Giles's, then a pleasant village, situated among fine trees. Holborn was a mere road between open meadow-land, with a green hedge on the north side. In the strand opposite to St. Martin's lane, stood the hospital and gardens of St. Mary Rouncival, a religious establishment funded and endowed by William, Earl of Pembroke, in the reign of Henry III. In the middle of the road leading to the Abbey, and opposite to Charing Cross, stood a hermitage and chapel dedicated to St. Catherine.
Charing Cross is represented in the above engraving. It was of an octagonal form and built of stone, and in an upper stage contained eight figures. In 1643 it was pulled down and destroyed by the populace, in their zeal against superstitious edifices. Upon the ground of similar zeal, Henry VIII. suppressed the religious houses of the kingdom, and seized their estates and revenues to his own use: the hospital of St. Mary Rouncival was included in this fate. On its ancient site stands the palace of the Duke of Northumberland. It was built in the reign of James I. by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, and during his life was called Northampton house. In 1642 it came to Algernon, Earl of Northumberland, by marriage, and since then has been called Northumberland House.
The exact spot upon which Charing Cross stood is occupied by an equestrian statue of Charles I. in bronze, executed in 1633 by Le Soeur, for the Earl of Arundel. During the civil wars, it fell into the hands of the Parliament, by whom it was ordered to be sold and broken up. The purchaser, John River, a brazier, produced some pieces of broken brass, in token of his having complied with the conditions of sale; and he sold to the cavaliers the handles of knives and forks as made from the statue: River deceived both the Parliament and the Royalists; for he had buried the statue unmutilated. At the restoration of Charles II. he dug it up, and sold it to the Government, and Grinlin Gibbon executed a stone pedestal, seventeen feet high, upon which it was placed and still remains. It has been customary on the 29th of May, the anniversary of the Restoration, to dress the statue with oaken boughs.