User:Simon the Likable/Temple Bar monument

Temple Bar monument

Preferred term:
 * Temple Bar marker: approx 11,800 Google hits
 * Temple Bar monument: approx 14,900 Google hits
 * Temple Bar memorial: approx 33,000 Google hits; cityoflondon.gov.uk uses this term, but generally capitalizes Memorial

Wren's Temple Bar, which was constructed in the early 1670s, marked the western limits of the City of London. It replaced earlier structures and was itself removed in 1877-1878 when Fleet Street was widened in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion. The present Temple Bar Memorial, designed by Sir Horace Jones in 1880, now marks the ceremonial entrance to the City from Westminster.

The West face carries a medallion portrait of Prince Albert Victor of Wales, the East face that of Lord Mayor Sir Francis Wyatt Truscott. The pilasters of the North and South faces of the plinth are decorated with emblems of Science and Art. The niche on the North side contains a full-length freestanding portrait figure of the Prince of Wales, that on the South side of Queen Victoria.

Birch's strikingly rampant "griffin" (as it is traditionally known) crowning the Temple Bar Memorial is really a dragon, the symbol of the City of London. The mythical griffin, as anyone familiar with Tenniel's illustration of the "Gryphon" in Alice in Wonderland knows, is half-eagle, half-lion, and so has feathery rather than webbed and scaly wings, and a heavy rather than a reptilian body. Dragons feature on the City arms in association with the Cross of St George, and are featured on boundary markers in the City, presumably in their positive role as guardians of the City's treasure. See Philip Ward-Jackson on the Dragon Boundary Markers and their history (422-23).


 * The Griffin at Temple Bar
 * Charles Bell Birch's statue of a heraldic dragon - actually ex Wikipedia! But how is it labelled in the Illustrated London News?
 * View on the Strand, showing the congestion caused by the narrow archway of old Temple Bar

Temple Bar
 * Christopher Wren's Temple Bar, The Victorian Web