1293: A chain stretches across the road between two wooden posts outside the New Temple at the top of Fleet Street. 1351: A timber gate is now in place, with a central arch, two side arches and a prison above. 1588: Queen Elizabeth I halts at Temple Bar to meet the Lord Mayor on her way to St Paul’s Cathedral for a post-Armada Service of Thanksgiving. 1669: The old Temple Bar is demolished, not because it was damaged during the Great Fire of London (which it wasn't) but because it's a traffic bottleneck. Sir Christopher Wren builds the new Temple Bar (pictured left). Cost £1500. 1746: The last severed head to be dispayed on a spike on top of Temple Bar belongs to Jacobite traitor Francis Towneley. 1878: Temple Bar has become a traffic bottleneck again and so is dismantled. A dragon on a plinth is erected instead, which still stands. 1889: At the request of his wife, Sir Henry Meux buys the stones and reassembles them to form the gateway to his park and mansion house at Theobalds, near Cheshunt. Cost £10000. 1910: Lady Meux dies and the gateway subsequently falls into disrepair, just an old ruin in the woods. Oct 2003 - Oct 2004: Temple Bar is painstakingly dismantled, renovated, transported back to London, and reassembled as part of the new Paternoster Square development north of St Paul's Cathedral. Cost £3000000. (You can read my in-depth report from January here) 10 November 2004 (11:30am): Temple Bar is officially reopened by the Lord Mayor. Shame it's in such a crap location, sandwiched between two tall buildings and totally dominated by modern redevelopment. But it's good to have it back.
1293: A chain stretches across the road between two wooden posts outside the New Temple at the top of Fleet Street.
