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On the Move
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be. Douglas Adams."
St Antholin's Spire.
In the leafy suburbs of Upper Sydenham, is a very unusual and unexpected garden ornament consisting of the spire from the Wren church of St Antholin. Originally dedicated to St Anthony, although from very early years known as St Antholin's, the Church was rebuilt after the Great Fire of London by Sir Christopher Wren and completed in 1682. It bore a lofty spire, and stood proudly in the City of London close to Budge Row and Sise Lane, opposite the Lord Mayor of London’s Mansion House. The Church was demolished during 1875, to make way for the construction of Queen Victoria Street. The spire was preserved and sold for five pounds, the buyer having it transported by horse and cart for its long final journey to Sydenham, where it was soon re-erected in his rear garden at Round Hill House, which has long since disappeared. However this remarkable Wren spire still remains where it has stood for over one hundred and forty years. Now the garden has made way to a small housing development. Unfortunately there is no sign placed on the base of the spire to tell this story, thus most of the local residents remain unaware of their historic curiosity.
The Black Bull.
This life sized Black Bull has moved around quite a lot since first being modelled by Obadiah Pulham at Woodbridge, Suffolk during the early 19th century. It was transported to London from the North Sea, by barge along the River Thames, to where it stood for nearly a century as the sign outside the ‘Black Bull Inn’ on the corner of Leather lane and Holborn, until the inn was demolished in 1904. The Black Bull was saved from destruction by Sir William Bull, M. P for Hammersmith. It was taken for its next journey across London to King Street Hammersmith, where it stood guard above the entrance to the offices of Messrs. Bull & Bull, a firm of solicitors, until that building too was demolished. It was then taken for another journey just a few hundred yards along King Street to adorn the front of the Ravenscourt Arms pub, where it has stood ever since - without causing too much attention.
Temple Bar.
Temple Bar was one of the gates through which people and traffic had to pass coming into London and it originally stood where Fleet Street now meets the Strand. The bar was first mentioned in 1293 and stood outside the Temple law chambers being always associated with the "Bar." It is the only surviving gateway to the City and was removed and re-erected in Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire, where it remained neglected for many years. The Temple Bar was finally returned to the City of London, funded by the corporation of London to the tune of over three million pounds. The reconstruction of Temple Bar on an empty site next to St Paul's Cathedral was completed in November 2004. There are four statues - Charles I, Charles II, James I and Anne of Denmark, which were carved by John Bushnell and have now been restored in the main alcoves of Temple Bar. Now the only traffic that passes through the gateway is on foot.
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