The open space extending from the entrance to Northumberland Avenue and past Whitehall to the corner of Spring Gardens (from which our view is taken) was the original Charing Cross, and derived its double name from the old village of Charing and the Cross which was set up - where Le Sueur's fine equestrian statue of Charles I. now stands - in memory of Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I.
This cross, originally of wood, was covered in with or replaced by stone soon after its erection, and is said to have been of octagonal shape, richly ornamented. A reproduction of this cross, so far as its design could be recovered was erected by E. M. Barry, R.A., in front of the Charing Cross station.
Connected with the original cross was a small chapel dedicated to St. Catherine. It was removed about 1647, and, according to Lilly, its stones were some of them used for the pavement of Whitehall, and some employed for making knife-handles, which were sold at high prices as relics of an historical monument which had looked down upon many an illustrious sufferer in the pillory, and many a struggle between the royal troops and the upholders of the rights of the free-born citizens of London.
The bronze equestrian statue of Charles I., already mentioned, which now replaces Charing Cross, and enjoys a position exceptionally favourable, underwent a strange experience before it found its present resting-place.
Set up near St. Martin's Church just before the civil war of 1640, it was taken down by the angry Parliament shortly afterwards, and sold to a trader named Rivers, who, foreseeing a change in the political tide, discreetly buried it, and at the same time made a large fortune by selling bronze-handled knives, supposed to have been made from it, to enthusiastic Royalists.
On Charles II.'s restoration, however, his father's statue re-appeared intact, and was placed where it now stands. The fine carvings on the stone pedestal have been ascribed by some authorities to Grinling Gibbons, and by others to Joshua Marshall, a master mason in the service of Charles I., but the balance of evidence is in the favour of the latter.