Qualla: Temple Bar https://qualla.com/temple-bar-london en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/temple-bar-london-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Temple Bar https://qualla.com/temple-bar-london Temple Bar: Introduction https://qualla.com/temple-bar-london/ Photo credit Steve Cadman from London, U.K., CC BY-SA 2.0. There used to be a place in London where a monarch had to stop and ask permission to enter. Halfway along Fleet Street, where the City of London met the City of Westminster, a Portland-stone gateway built by Sir Christopher Wren spanned the road. The arched structure had statues of four Stuart monarchs on top and a long history of severed heads on pikes above. When the king or queen approached from Westminster, the procession halted at the gate. The Lord Mayor of London came out to meet them, carrying the City's pearl-encrusted Sword of State, and offered it as a token of loyalty. Only then could the sovereign pass through. The ceremony went out of regular use after the gate was dismantled in 1878, but the gate itself survived. It was carted off in 400 pieces, stored in a Hertfordshire forest for the next 125 years, and finally brought back to London in 2004 to stand by St Paul's Cathedral - the only Wren gateway to the City of London still in existence.

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Image: Steve Cadman from London, U.K. | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/temple-bar-london-wp/gcpv-temple-bar-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Temple Bar: The Bar at the Temple https://qualla.com/temple-bar-london/ Photo credit AlanFord, Public domain. The first Temple Bar was a chain. By 1293 the City of London Corporation had stretched its jurisdiction beyond the ancient defensive walls, and at the most important crossing - where Fleet Street to the east of the bar met The Strand to the west, near the precinct of the Knights ...

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Image: AlanFord | Public domain

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/temple-bar-london-wp/gcpv-temple-bar-the-bar-at-the-temple.mp3 0:06 2 full Temple Bar: Wren's Stone Replacement https://qualla.com/temple-bar-london/ Photo credit Eluveitie, CC BY-SA 3.0. The medieval timber gate escaped destruction in the Great Fire of London in 1666 - the fire stopped just short, after sweeping across nearly all of the City. But as part of the great rebuilding programme, the City Corporation decided the old gate had to go. Charles II commissione...

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Image: Eluveitie | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/temple-bar-london-wp/gcpv-temple-bar-wrens-stone-replacement.mp3 0:06 3 full Temple Bar: Exile to a Hertfordshire Wood https://qualla.com/temple-bar-london/ Photo credit Mnewnham, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the 1870s the gate had become a serious obstruction to London traffic. The other seven main gates of the City - Ludgate, Newgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Bishopsgate and Aldgate - had all been demolished in the 1760s. Temple Bar held out the longest, but in 1878 the...

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Image: Mnewnham | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/temple-bar-london-wp/gcpv-temple-bar-exile-to-a-hertfordshire-wood.mp3 0:06 4 full Temple Bar: The Dragon That Marks the Spot https://qualla.com/temple-bar-london/ Photo credit Elliott Brown from Birmingham, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. The original location on Fleet Street did not stay empty. In 1880 the City Corporation commissioned its surveyor Horace Jones to design a memorial to mark where the bar had stood. The result is a neo-Renaissance pedestal in the middle of the road, crowned by a bronze dragon by Ch...

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Image: Elliott Brown from Birmingham, United Kingdom | CC BY 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/temple-bar-london-wp/gcpv-temple-bar-the-dragon-that-marks-the-spot.mp3 0:06 5 full Temple Bar: Behind the Gate Today https://qualla.com/temple-bar-london/ Photo credit Kaihsu Tai, CC BY-SA 3.0. Walk through the rebuilt Wren arch today and you step into Paternoster Square, the modern commercial development that replaced a bomb-flattened Blitz site north of St Paul's. The London Stock Exchange occupies one corner. A 23-metre column by Whitfield Partners stands at the cent...

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Image: Kaihsu Tai | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/temple-bar-london-wp/gcpv-temple-bar-behind-the-gate-today.mp3 0:06 6 full