London Trivia #2 - Where is the centre of London?

Photo courtesy of Cheezburger.com

To celebrate London 2012, in this second post of historical trivia I attempt to answer the question: where is the centre of the capital? I had some vague notion that the statue of Eros at Piccadilly Circus marked the spot, but it turns out I am wrong! Neither is it Buckingham Palace or St Paul's Cathedral…so where is it?

Buckingham Palace from the air- photo Thomas Nugent.

The actual spot is marked by a brass plaque in what was medieval Charing Cross (more of this later), near the currentTrafalgar Square and the equestrian statue of King Charles I.

Statue of Charles I , southern corner of Trafalgar Square.

To find out why this spot is defined as the centre of London we need to go back to the 11th century and the time of Edward the Confessor. Edward was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings (reigning 1042 - 1066) and he pledged to go on a pilgrimage to Rome, but civil unrest meant he couldn’t leave his kingdom. In recompense for breaking his vow he decided to build a large church. He chose an area of high ground  near the marshes of the Thames, demolished the existing monastery and started building that which later became Westminster Abbey.

Edward the Confessor, depicted in the Bayeux tapestry.

However merchants in the old city of London considered it an unreasonable distance to travel to Westminster and the new seat of authority, and so when traders wanted to hear the latest government policy they met at a half way point -  Charing Cross. It is this spot, marked by the brass plaque and is still the official centre of London, so much so that people working within a 6 mile radius can claim London-weighting for their expenses and are entitled to extra payments.


Westminster Abbey - built of the site of Edward's church. Photo Karen Matthews.

And finally, I mentioned medieval Charing Cross, near Trafalgar Square, a short distance from the modern Charing Cross. The original spot was marked by the memorial cross erected by King Edward in 1290, to mark the route of his beloved wife's, Queen Eleanor, funeral procession. The giant cross became such landmark that when the new Charing Cross railway station was opened in 1865, to drum up publicity the original monument was removed and a new and grander memorial erected beside the station to establish a landmark.

Charing Cross station - from the London Eye. Photo Mike McMillan.

London Trivia - #1 - Pavements.

Craig's Court, London - photo courtesy of R Sones.

To celebrate the arrival of the London Olympics 2012,  I'm starting a short series of blog posts about the more unusual aspects of London's history. Let's start with the story of how pavements came to become common place in the capital.

Before the mid 1750's the pedestrian was much neglected! Roads occupied the total width of the street between the buildings on either side. Most of the roads were also very narrow and it was incredibly dangerous for anyone on foot because on coming vehicles could crush them against a wall. Like a lot of things, it took someone of power and influence to be inconvenienced before anything was done to solve the problem.

Widget says: "Do what I say or the toy gets it!"

This person was the Speaker of the House of Commons, Mr Speaker Onslow. One day in the early 1760's he set off to visit the Earl of Harrington at home in his large house in a small square just off Craig's Court, London. Harrington's house was approached by a narrow alleyway (see header photo) and as Onslow pushed on in a large, stately carriage, the wheels stuck fast to the houses on either side. It was jammed so tightly that the coach's doors couldn’t be opened and Mr Speaker Onslow became a prisoner inside his own vehicle. After many fruitless attempts to move the vehicle the humiliated Speaker was rescued by cutting a hole in the roof of the carriage and pulling him out that way.

Carriage photo courtesy of John Lloyd.

            On his return to parliament Onslow helped institute a bill decreeing that all householders must pay for a row of kerbstones in front of their property, to warn and thereby stop drivers progressing before they got stuck.

Once the kerbstones marked a boundary to show the limit of a road's width, pavements evolved on the building side as a safer place for pedestrians to walk.

The modern day House of Commons, as seen from the Thames.

And finally, a black market in kerbstones developed with the unscrupulous stealing them to use themselves in front of their home or to sell on. Since the Admiralty was also duty bound under the pavement act of 1762 to provide kerb stones, they marked them with an arrow to discourage theft. The arrow was a traditional mark introduced by Elizabeth I to denote army and navy property, and apparently is still used today for this purpose.

Kerbstone marked with an arrow - courtesy of Roger Templeman.