Leonard Bentley
Temple Bar
This is a Magic Lantern Slide showing a colourised view of Temple Bar Gate looking west towards the Strand from Fleet Street in the City of London. The border between Westminster and the City had been marked by this arch since 1672, it was reputedly designed by Sir. Christopher Wren and has four statues in niches. The statues shown are Anne of Denmark and her husband King James I, on the other side are the statues of their son King Charles I and his son King Charles II, the statues celebrate the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660 after the Civil War. In the middle of the 18th Century Temple Bar was the only City gate left standing and it was not popular with travellers, it was a bottleneck and caused long traffic jams and there were many calls for the gate to be removed. However, the gate remained becoming more and more tumbledown as the years passed until in 1874 the keystone of the arch dropped and was supported by baulks of timber both vertically and horizontally as can be seen in the photograph further restricting traffic flow. On the right through the arch is the building site of the future Royal Courts of Justice, the work started in 1871 and it was beset by strikes from the beginning, foreign workers were employed to break the strikes, mostly from Germany and the project succeeded in Bankrupting the contractor and killing the architect, George Street who died from overwork and didn’t see its completion. The building took eight years to build and was opened by Queen Victoria in December 1882. The actual date of the photograph is difficult to pin down, I think this may be 1874 or 1875 due to the stage in the building work. The poster on the right which says, “Doré’s Great Work, Christ Leaving the Praetorium” refers to an exhibition at the Doré Gallery at 35 New Bond Street which you could see for one shilling. The painting was started by Gustave Doré in 1867 at his studio in Paris, due to the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war he buried it. He resumed painting after the peace and completed it in 1872 and sent it to London for exhibition. The painting measures 33 feet by 22 feet and was on exhibition in London until 1880 when it was sent to America where it was lost. In 1987 the painting was discovered in a warehouse and it was acquired by the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Strasbourg was the birthplace of Gustave Doré. Temple Bar was removed in 1878 by the City of London Corporation and the stones were stored until they were bought by Henry Meux of the Brewery family who re-erected it at his country home, Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire. In 1938 the home was sold but the sale did not include Temple Bar, in 1984 the Temple Bar Trust bought Temple Bar from the Meux family for £1.00, it was dismantled again in 2003 and re-erected at the entrance to the Paternoster Square redevelopment just north of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It looks much better now.
Temple Bar
This is a Magic Lantern Slide showing a colourised view of Temple Bar Gate looking west towards the Strand from Fleet Street in the City of London. The border between Westminster and the City had been marked by this arch since 1672, it was reputedly designed by Sir. Christopher Wren and has four statues in niches. The statues shown are Anne of Denmark and her husband King James I, on the other side are the statues of their son King Charles I and his son King Charles II, the statues celebrate the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660 after the Civil War. In the middle of the 18th Century Temple Bar was the only City gate left standing and it was not popular with travellers, it was a bottleneck and caused long traffic jams and there were many calls for the gate to be removed. However, the gate remained becoming more and more tumbledown as the years passed until in 1874 the keystone of the arch dropped and was supported by baulks of timber both vertically and horizontally as can be seen in the photograph further restricting traffic flow. On the right through the arch is the building site of the future Royal Courts of Justice, the work started in 1871 and it was beset by strikes from the beginning, foreign workers were employed to break the strikes, mostly from Germany and the project succeeded in Bankrupting the contractor and killing the architect, George Street who died from overwork and didn’t see its completion. The building took eight years to build and was opened by Queen Victoria in December 1882. The actual date of the photograph is difficult to pin down, I think this may be 1874 or 1875 due to the stage in the building work. The poster on the right which says, “Doré’s Great Work, Christ Leaving the Praetorium” refers to an exhibition at the Doré Gallery at 35 New Bond Street which you could see for one shilling. The painting was started by Gustave Doré in 1867 at his studio in Paris, due to the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war he buried it. He resumed painting after the peace and completed it in 1872 and sent it to London for exhibition. The painting measures 33 feet by 22 feet and was on exhibition in London until 1880 when it was sent to America where it was lost. In 1987 the painting was discovered in a warehouse and it was acquired by the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Strasbourg was the birthplace of Gustave Doré. Temple Bar was removed in 1878 by the City of London Corporation and the stones were stored until they were bought by Henry Meux of the Brewery family who re-erected it at his country home, Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire. In 1938 the home was sold but the sale did not include Temple Bar, in 1984 the Temple Bar Trust bought Temple Bar from the Meux family for £1.00, it was dismantled again in 2003 and re-erected at the entrance to the Paternoster Square redevelopment just north of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It looks much better now.