Charing Cross, SW1A

Charing Cross denotes the junction of Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in central London. It gives its name to several landmarks, including Charing Cross railway station, one of the main London rail terminals. It is considered the central point of London.

Charing Cross is named after the Eleanor cross that stood on the site, in what was once the hamlet of Charing. It was the most elaborate of the Eleanor crosses erected by Edward I, which stood for three and a half centuries.

The site of the cross has been occupied since 1675 by an equestrian statue of King Charles I. A loose Victorian replica of the medieval cross, the Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross, was erected a short distance to the east outside the railway station.

The equestrian statue is a work by the French sculptor Hubert Le Sueur, probably cast in 1633. The first Renaissance-style equestrian statue in England, it was commissioned by the Lord High Treasurer Richard Weston for the garden of his country house in Roehampton.  Following the English Civil War the statue was sold to a metalsmith and ordered to be broken up, but he hid it until the Restoration. It was installed in its current location in 1675, and the elaborately carved plinth dates from that time.

Until 1931, “Charing Cross” referred to the part of Whitehall between Great Scotland Yard and Trafalgar Square.

However, the street called Charing Cross no longer exists but two properties still have Charing Cross addresses: Drummonds Bank, on the corner of Whitehall and The Mall, is designated ’49 Charing Cross’. Across the road where Whitehall turns a corner and becomes Northumberland Avenue, a streetsign still marks ’Charing Cross’ and below the sign is a supermarket.





Leave a Reply