File:Building the First Charing Cross - 51674674469.jpg

English: David Gentleman. 1930

Wood engravings 1979 Northern Line Platform, Charing Cross Underground Station.

At risk of walking backwards over the platform edge, I managed to get some shots of my own. No apologies for chopping off their feet - I wasn't going to back up any closer to the edge!!

Eleanor's bier spent the final night of its journey, 16 December 1290, in the Royal Mews at Charing, Westminster, a few hundred yards north of Westminster Abbey. The area subsequently became known as Charing Cross. The cross here was the most expensive of the twelve, built of Purbeck marble from 1291 onwards by Richard of Crundale, the senior royal mason, with the sculptures supplied by Alexander of Abingdon, and some items by Ralph de Chichester. Richard died in the autumn of 1293, and the work was completed by Roger of Crundale, probably his brother. The total recorded cost was over £700. The cross stood outside the Royal Mews, at the top of what is now Whitehall, and on the south side of what is now Trafalgar Square. John Norden in about 1590 described it as the "most stately" of the series, but by this date so "defaced by antiquity" as to have become "an old weather-beaten monument". It was also noted by William Camden in 1607. It was ordered to be taken down by Parliament in 1643, and was eventually demolished in 1647.

A 100-metre-long (330-foot) mural by David Gentleman on the platform walls of Charing Cross underground station, commissioned by London Transport in 1978, depicts, in the form of wood engravings, the story of the building of the medieval cross by stonemasons and sculptors.