Historical sketches of old Charing / [James Galloway].

  • James Galloway
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Historical sketches of old Charing / [James Galloway]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Most of the statues of the Queen were carved near Charing, and many of the ornaments so frequently referred to as the “ virgge, capita et annuli,” were also made by the Westminster artists. The cross was built approximately on the plot of ground now occupied by the statue of Charles I, facing the great thoroughfare now known as “ Charing Cross.” Eichard Crundale himself died in 1293, and Eoger Crundale came from Waltham to carry on his work. Nearly d9700 can be traced as being paid to the Crundales for their work at Charing, but this sum obviously includes work done and materials supplied for other crosses. The finer materials used in the construction of the crosses, such as Caen stone, Purbeck stone and marble, seem to have been distributed to the other crosses by way of Charing. Considerable additional sums of money are mentioned as being paid to merchants of stone, such as William Canon, Eobert Blunt, and others who brought the stone from Corfe, and Henry Mauger who supplied stone from Caen. Alexander of Abingdon, the “ Imaginator,” carved the statues of the Queen for Charing; William of Ireland, also working at Charing, carved the statues of the Queen which found their way to the crosses built by John Battle and Eichard Stowe; while Ealph of Chichester carved much of the fine stonework for the crosses. Unfortunately no adequate idea can now be obtained of Charing Cross. It is admitted, however, to have been the finest of the series ; but it must have been subject to the same vicissitudes as its neighbour in Chepe, and the sketches which exist, purporting to be Charing Cross, can only have been obtained from the mutilated structure which sur- vived to the middle of the seventeenth century. The drawing in the Crowle Collection of the British Museum, which has been reproduced by Wilkinson, is one of these. The suggestion of the cross in van den Wyngaerde’s view of London gives, perhaps, a better idea of its probable appearance.* John Norden’s account is that of an eye witness, and tells of its condition about the year 1590. He speaks of it as “ an old weather-beaten monument erected about 1290 by Edward I. Amongst all the crosses which the King caused to be built . . . Charing Cross was most stately, though now defaced by antiquity.”! * Vide fig. 1. + John Norden. MS. Harl. 570 (arc. 1593), quoted by Lethaby; cf. “Speculum Britannise, the first parte,” 1593, p. 45, and the maps of London.
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