Room over Temple Bar, gateway to City of London (illustration) - stock illustration

"Scanned directly from 'Old and New London - Its History, its people and its places', published by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. 1878. Illustration of room over Temple Bar, London. Temple Bar is the only surviving gateway to the City of London, where it once stood at the junction where the Strand meets Fleet Street for more than 200 years. A bar is first mentioned here in 1293, at which time it was probably no more than a chain (or bar) between wooden posts. Due to its vicinity to the Temple, an area where the guilds of lawyers organised into what would become the Inns of Court in an area that is now considered aLegal Londonai, it was commonly referred to as Temple Bar. A little over a century later however, this was replaced by a handsome gateway, which was built from timber and had the addition of a prison above it."