london091 Temple Bar Monument Temple Bar is the barrier (real or imaginary) marking the westernmost extent of the City of London on the road to Westminster, where Fleet Street (extending westwards) becomes the Strand. Until 1878 this boundary was demarcated by a stone gateway. In the Middle Ages, the authority of the Corporation of London reached beyond the city's ancient walls in several places (the liberties of London); to regulate trade into the city, barriers were erected on the major roads wherever the true boundary was a substantial distance from the old gatehouse. Temple Bar was the most famous of these, since traffic between London (England's prime commercial centre) and Westminster (the political center) passed through it. Its name comes from the Temple Church (an old complex once owned by the Knights Templar but now home to two of the legal profession's Inns of Court), which is located nearby. It has long been the custom that the king or queen stop at Temple Bar before entering the City of London, so that the Lord Mayor may offer him or her the City's pearl-encrusted Sword of State as a token of loyalty. This picturesque ceremony has often featured in art and literature. The relief at the base of the monument depicts Queen Victoria during this ceremony in 1837. However, the popular view that the monarch requires the Lord Mayor's permission to enter the City is incorrect. Today Temple Bar (like other major entrances to the City of London) is marked by a stone monument in the middle of the roadway, topped by a statue of a heraldic dragon, (commonly described as a "griffin"). The dragon comes from the City's arms, where two of them feature as supporters. The original Temple Bar was a thick stone archway designed by Sir Christopher Wren, which straddled Fleet Street. In summer, Temple Bar used to get so hot that Charles Dickens described it in Bleak House, chapter 19, thus: "Temple Bar gets so hot, that it is, to the adjacent Strand and Fleet Street, what a heater is to an urn, and keeps them simmering all night." Temple Bar was moved in 1878 to Sir Henry Bruce Meux’s estate in Waltham Cross. For many years it has been forgotten, and a monument was built that replaced it, in 1880. This stands at the entrance to the City of London. Appropriately, the Griffon (a mythical beast, half eagle and half lion that is said to guard treasure and is the symbol of the City of London) keeps guard from the top of the monument.