Charing Cross and Charing Cross Station

About Charing Cross and Charing Cross Station

Area of London, England

Charing Cross is a junction in Westminster, central London, where six routes meet just south of Trafalgar Square: the east side of the square leading to Charing Cross Road, the Strand leading to the City, Northumberland Avenue leading to the Thames Embankment, Whitehall leading to Parliament Square, The Mall leading to Admiralty Arch and Buckingham Palace, and two short roads to Pall Mall and St James's. Since the early 19th century it has been the notional "centre of London" and the point from which distances from London to the rest of Britain are measured. The name derives from the medieval hamlet of Charing that occupied the site and from the grand Eleanor Cross that King Edward I erected here, standing from 1294 to 1647 in memory of his wife Eleanor of Castile, the largest and most ornate of the chain of crosses running from Lincoln to this spot. After its removal an equestrian statue of Charles I was placed on the site in 1675 and still stands there today, and until 1931 the name covered a wider area including part of Whitehall. Charing Cross station, a mainline terminus opened in 1864, is now topped by an enormous office and shopping complex in glass and pale stone with a lavish hotel, and on its forecourt stands the Victorian Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross, a taller replica of the original built to mark the station's opening. Neighbouring Charing Cross Road was once famous for its second-hand bookshops, most now gone, but it still houses Foyles, one of London's largest bookshops.

Where:

London, United Kingdom