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Charing Cross

So called from one of the crosses which king Edward I. caused to be erected to the memory of his queen, Eleanor, and Charing, the name of the village in which it was built. The cross remained till the civil wars in the reign of Charles I., when it was destroyed, on the foolish pretence that it was a monument of popish superstition: but after the restoration an equestrian statue of Charles I. was set up in its stead. This, which is of brass, continues to be an ornament to the place. It was made in 1633, at the expense of the Howard-Arundel family. The parliament sold it to a brazier in Holborn, with strict orders to break it to pieces; but he concealed it under ground till the restoration, when it was set up in 1678.

Source: Leigh's New Picture of London. Printed for Samuel Leigh, 18, Strand;
by W. Clowes, Northumberland Court. 1819