Location and etymology 's map of Westminster, 1593. The map is oriented with north to the top right, and Whitehall to the bottom left. {{Blockquote|Erect a rich and stately carved cross, Whereon her statue shall with glory shine; And henceforth see you call it Charing Cross. The name of the lost hamlet, Charing, is derived from the
Old English word
ċierring, a river bend, in this case, referring to a bend in the
Thames. A debunked
folk etymology claimed the name is a
corruption of
chère reine ("dear queen" in French), in reference to Queen
Eleanor of Castile, but the name pre-dates Eleanor's death by at least a hundred years. The suffix "Cross" refers to the
Eleanor cross made during 1291–94 by order of King
Edward I as a memorial to his wife, Eleanor of Castile. This place latter comprised little more than wayside cottages serving the
Royal Mews in the northern area of
Trafalgar Square, and built specifically for the
Palace of Whitehall (much of the east side of
Whitehall). A variant from the hazy
Middle English orthography of the late fourteenth century is
Cherryngescrouche. It was destroyed in 1647 on the orders of the purely Parliamentarian phase of the
Long Parliament or
Oliver Cromwell himself in the
Civil War. A -high
stone sculpture in front of
Charing Cross railway station, erected in 1865, is a reimagining of the medieval cross, on a larger scale, more ornate, and not on the original site. It was designed by the architect
E. M. Barry and carved by
Thomas Earp of Lambeth out of
Portland stone,
Mansfield stone (a fine sandstone) and
Aberdeen granite; and it stands 222 yards (203 metres) to the north-east of the original cross, focal to the station forecourt, facing the
Strand.
St Mary Rounceval , showing
Northumberland House. The two projecting garden wings had not yet been added. At some time between 1232 and 1236, the Chapel and Hospital of St Mary Rounceval was founded at Charing. It occupied land at the corner of the modern Whitehall and into the centre of
Northumberland Avenue, running down to a wharf by the river. It was an
Augustinian house, tied to a mother house at
Roncesvalles in the
Pyrenees. The house and lands were seized for the king in 1379, under a statute "for the forfeiture of the lands of schismatic aliens". Protracted legal action returned some rights to the prior, but in 1414,
Henry V suppressed the 'alien' houses. The priory fell into a long decline from lack of money and arguments regarding the collection of tithes with the parish church of
St Martin-in-the-Fields. In 1541, religious artefacts were removed to
St Margaret's, and the chapel was adapted as a private house; its almshouse were sequestered to the Royal Palace. . The statue of Charles I is at the right of the painting. At the left is the Golden Cross Inn, with signboard outside. In 1608–09, the
Earl of Northampton built
Northumberland House on the eastern portion of the property. In June 1874, the duke's property at Charing Cross was purchased by the
Metropolitan Board of Works for the formation of Northumberland Avenue. The frontage of the Rounceval property caused the narrowing at the end of the Whitehall entry to Charing Cross, and formed the section of Whitehall formerly known as Charing Cross, until road widening in the 1930s caused the rebuilding of the south side of the street which created a wide thoroughfare.
Civil war removal replacement of the original
Eleanor Cross 200 metres (200 yards) away, along the Strand in front of Charing Cross Station/Hotel. The area derives its name from the original monument destroyed by Parliament in the 1600s; the memorial replacement dates from the 1800s. The Eleanor Cross was pulled down, by order of Parliament, in 1647, at the time of the
English Civil War, becoming the subject of a popular
Royalist ballad: {{Blockquote|Methinks the common-council shou'd Of it have taken pity, 'Cause, good old cross, it always stood So firmly in the city. Since crosses you so much disdain, Faith, if I were you, For fear the King should rule again, I'd pull down
Tiburn too. At
the Restoration (1660) eight of the
regicides were executed here, including the notable
Fifth Monarchist, Colonel
Thomas Harrison. A statue of Charles I was, likewise in Charles II's reign, erected on the site. This had been made in 1633 by
Hubert Le Sueur, in the reign of Charles I, but in 1649 Parliament ordered a man to destroy it; however he instead hid it and brought it back to the new King, Charles II (Charles I's son), and his Parliament who had the statue erected here in 1675. and
Thomas Rowlandson for
Rudolph Ackermann's
Microcosm of London (1808–11). A prominent
pillory, where malefactors were publicly flogged, stood alongside for centuries. About 200 yards to the east was the
Hungerford Market, established at the end of the 16th century; and to the north was the
King's Mews, or Royal Mews, the stables for the Palace of Whitehall and thus the King's own presence at the Houses of Parliament (Palace of Westminster). The whole area of the broad pavements of what was a three-way main junction with private (stables) turn-off was a popular place of street entertainment.
Samuel Pepys records in his diaries visiting the taverns and watching the entertainments and executions that were held there. This was combined with the south of the mews when Trafalgar Square was built on the site in 1832, the rest of the stable yard becoming the National Gallery primarily. A major London coaching inn, the "Golden Cross" – first mentioned in 1643 – faced this junction. From here, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, coaches linked variously terminuses of:
Dover,
Brighton,
Bath, Bristol,
Cambridge,
Holyhead and
York. The inn features in
Sketches by Boz,
David Copperfield and
The Pickwick Papers by
Charles Dickens. In the latter, the dangers to public safety of the quite low archway to access the inn's coaching yard were memorably pointed out by
Mr Jingle: "Heads, heads – take care of your heads", cried the loquacious stranger as they came out under the low archway which in those days formed the entrance to the coachyard. "Terrible place – dangerous work – other day – five children – mother – tall lady, eating sandwiches – forgot the arch – crash – knock – children look round – mother's head off – sandwich in her hand – no mouth to put it in – head of family off." The story echoes an accident of 11 April 1800, when the Chatham and Rochester coach was emerging from the gateway of the Golden Cross, and "a young woman, sitting on the top, threw her head back, to prevent her striking against the beam; but there being so much luggage on the roof of the coach as to hinder her laying herself sufficiently back, it caught her face, and tore the flesh in a dreadful manner." The inn and its yard, pillory, and what remained of the Royal Mews, made way for Trafalgar Square, and a new Golden Cross Hotel was built in the 1830s on the triangular block fronted by
South Africa House. A nod to this is made by some offices on the Strand, in a building named Golden Cross House.
Cross memorial The railway station opened in 1864, fronted on the Strand with the Charing Cross Hotel. In 1865, a replacement cross was commissioned from
E. M. Barry by the
South Eastern Railway as the centrepiece of the station forecourt. It is not a replica, being of an ornate
Victorian Gothic design based on
George Gilbert Scott's Oxford
Martyrs' Memorial (1838). The Cross rises in three main stages on an octagonal plan, surmounted by a spire and cross. The shields in the panels of the first stage are copied from the
Eleanor Crosses and bear the arms of England,
Castile,
Leon and
Ponthieu; above the 2nd parapet are eight statues of Queen Eleanor. The Cross was designated a
Grade II* monument on 5 February 1970. The month before, the bronze equestrian statue of Charles, on a pedestal of carved Portland stone, was given Grade I listed protection. The rebuilding of a monument to resemble the one lost under Cromwell's low church Britain took place in 1864 in Britain's main era of medieval revivalism. It was intertwined with deeply philosophical movements associated with a re-awakening of "High Church" or
Anglo-Catholic self-belief (and by the Catholic convert
Augustus Welby Pugin) concerned by the growth of religious nonconformism. ==Official use as central point==