Temple Bar in Fleet Street, 1879, Engraving on Paper

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This antique engraving of Temple Bar shows Sir Christopher Wren's great stone gateway at the boundary of the City of … Read more This antique engraving of Temple Bar shows Sir Christopher Wren's great stone gateway at the boundary of the City of London and Westminster, with coaches, omnibuses and pedestrians crowding through its arches and a church spire rising behind. The plate is lettered "Temple Bar (1879)" and "Cassell's Old and New London, Plate 17". Temple Bar, built in the 1670s after the Great Fire, stood where Fleet Street meets the Strand and marked the ceremonial entrance to the City, where the sovereign traditionally paused to be admitted by the Lord Mayor. By the Victorian period it had become an obstacle to the heavy traffic of one of the busiest streets in London, and it was dismantled in 1878 and 1879, which is probably the significance of the date lettered on this plate. The stones were later re-erected at Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire and eventually returned to the City in 2004, beside Saint Paul's Cathedral. This engraving therefore records the gateway in its original setting at the very end of its life there. The plate comes from Cassell's Old and New London, the celebrated illustrated history of the capital begun by Walter Thornbury and completed by Edward Walford, first issued in parts by Cassell, Petter and Galpin in the 1870s and reissued in several editions. The separate full page plates, lettered with their plate numbers, were published with the work from circa 1879 to 1885, and this impression belongs to that series. The print is an uncoloured engraving in upright format, clearly and crisply printed, with lively detail in the vehicles and figures. As a record of a lost landmark of Victorian London it will appeal to collectors of London topography, to lawyers and to anyone with a connection to Fleet Street and the Temple. It would look well framed in an office, chambers or study, perhaps alongside other plates from Old and New London. The sheet is in good condition for its age, with toning, a small brown stain at the upper left edge and a faint smudge in the lower margin; the engraved street scene itself is clean. This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed. See less