3-021-478 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Eleanor Cross restored, in front of the Charing-Cross Hotel and Railway Station, [London], 1865. Fanciful reconstruction of the medieval cross. 'The very beautiful cross...is designed as a restoration of a most interesting historical memorial...the last...of the twelve crosses which marked the resting-places of the funeral procession which conveyed the body of Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I...to her tomb in Westminster Abbey...The cross at Charing, like so many other precious monuments of the art of the Middle Ages, was swept away by iconoclastic Puritan bigotry in 1647...Mr. Edward M. Barry, A.R.A., was intrusted with the difficult task of restoration. It is, however, a restoration only in name; the authorities are so extremely scanty that an exact reproduction, even if desirable, was impossible...Its height to the top of the gilt copper cross by which it is surmounted is about 70 ft. The structure is of Portland stone; but the panels and shields of the lower story and the diapered tracery of the upper story are of red Mansfield stone. The gables, also, over the lower story are panelled with red Mansfield stone and Aberdeen granite...The sculpture has been ably executed from the architect's designs, by Mr. Thomas Earp'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.