Between Aldwych and the Embankment is a corner of London you might pass by without noticing. Yet the area holds plenty of interesting sights, including a unique bit of London’s history and one of its most expensive buildings.
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Temple Place
Strand (Aldwych)
Closed in 1994, when the lifts became uneconomic to fix, this station first opened in 1907. It was soon renamed Aldywich as Charing Cross was then also known as Strand. Very popular with film-makers, it has featured in Patriot Games and the All Saints’ Honest, as well as various pop videos.
Strand WC2
Tube: Charing Cross
The ‘Roman’ Bath
This lane, down a flight of steps just off Surrey Street, is said to be where Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder plotters met. The bath was once used by Charles Dickens. There’s also the watch house to look out for grave robbers in St Clement Danes church yard. The water comes from St Clement’s holy well.
Strand Lane WC2
Tube: Temple
Sand Bin
Used to keep the streets clean of manure, or deaden the sounds of iron-shod cart-wheels outside the home of the sickly, these boxes were a common fixture in the horse-drawn 19th-century. This last surviving example was restored in 1945 - some sources say after being hit by a bomb in World War II.
Temple Place WC2
Tube: Temple
Cabman’s Shelter
The Cabmen's Shelter Fund was create in 1874 when, in the horse-drawn Hansom cabs, the cabbie sat outside in all weathers. These tiny cafés offering hot food must have been a godsend. There are 13 left now - all Listed buildings. [Is it true the cabbies motto is: ‘He was a stranger, and I took him in’?]
Temple Place WC2
Tube: Temple
Isambard Kingdoｍ Brunel
Britain’s greatest engineer is immortalised by Baron Carlo Marochetti RA, who worked on the Arc De Triomphe in Paris and the Albert and Victoria tomb. Clutching a compass, one quizzical eyebrow raised, Brunel stands forlornly in a quiet corner of the Embankment.
Temple Place WC2
Tube: Temple
Two Temple Place
A beaten copper wind-vane of Christopher Columbus’ Santa Maria tops this ornate office building. William Waldorf Astor gave architect John Loughborough Pearson a blank cheque to create this beautiful structure in 1895. Look for the two cherubs on the phone at the front door.
Temple Place W2
Tube: Temple
www.twotempleplace.co.uk
Samuel Johnson
England’s most famous writer of the 18th century -and creator of the first English dictionary - looks very cuddly and amusing company in this statue, hidden behind St Clement Dane's church. Outside his house, nearby in Gough Square, is a statue of his cat, Hodge.
Strand WC2
Tube: Temple
Hodge The Cat
A cat - and an oyster - two ‘animals’ for the price of one. Johnson’s ‘very fine cat indeed’ sits on a volume of the great doctor’s English Dictionary, with his favourite snack. Gough Square still boasts three old gas lamps, as well, of course, as Johnson’s house.
Gough Square EC4
Tube: Blackfriars/Temple
