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“I think the full tide of human existence is at Charing Cross.” —Samuel Johnson.

If we think of London and all that it has to show, in terms of the routes which are followed by its innumerable motor-buses, it is probably the radial centre of Charing Cross that first comes to mind.

From this centre, with its big hotels and numerous shipping offices, east and west, north and south, we may travel into any part of the far-spreading capital. 5 The centre itself, too, is one of interest. Charing Cross is immediately to the south of Trafalgar Square, and not, as many people think, the railway station of Charing Cross a little to the east along the Strand. In the forecourt of that station is a modern representation of the ancient “Eleanor Cross” which gave to the one-time village of Charing, situate between the cities of London and Westminster, the doubled name by which the immediate neighbourhood is now known. The ancient cross—destroyed by fanatical zealots in the mid-part of the seventeenth century—stood on the spot where now stands the old equestrian statue of Charles the First.

To many people Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square are almost convertible terms. The former marks the junction of half a dozen roads, the most notable of which are the Strand, running to the east, and Whitehall to the south. Many are the changes that have taken place here since the memorial to a devoted queen consort was replaced by the statue of a martyred king. Old Northumberland House was cleared away and the broad Northumberland Avenue cut through to the Thames within living memory. Earlier still, there was a great clearance of small slum buildings in front of the Royal Mews, when Trafalgar Square—“the finest site in Europe”—was laid out close upon a hundred years ago, and the site 6 of the Royal Mews itself became that of the National Gallery which forms the north side of the square. The main feature of the square is the lofty Nelson column—surmounted by a figure of the great seaman, and guarded at the base by Landseer’s four great couchant lions. Other monuments need not be particularized, but by the National Gallery stands a bronze statue to that great Englishman who became the first great American—George Washington. A little to the north, in the roadway between the National Portrait Gallery and the porticoed front of the church of St. Martin’s-in-the-fields, is the over-massive monument to the memory of Edith Cavell, the English nurse martyred in Brussels by the invading Germans in 1915. Northwards from here run the old St. Martin’s Lane, towards the Seven Dials and Bloomsbury, and the new Charing Cross Road, towards Camden Town and the “northern heights”.

Returning to our radial point of Charing Cross, we find that to the four points of the compass bus routes may be followed thence, or at least to other ganglia of that traffic which may be said to be the nerves of our corporate city life. It is indeed, as I have suggested, perhaps the most notable setting-out point from which may be started an exploration of London along its main-travelled routes, and that not only because of its linking with those routes, but also 7 because places of great interest are crowded close around.

Standing on the south side of Trafalgar Square we have before us, looking to the south, the broad way of Whitehall with, at the far end, the clock-tower of “Big Ben” dominating the group of the Houses of Parliament. Though short the distance—Big Ben is just half a mile away—there is much to claim attention along its brief course. Before passing along it glances to the left and right may be made: to the left along Northumberland Avenue—the way of big hotels—towards the riverside and the Embankment; to the right—under the handsome Admiralty Arch—is the processional way of the Mall, leading straight to Buckingham Palace along the north side of the picturesque pleasance of St. James’s Park, with its greenery of turf and trees, its lake lively with various exotic waterfowl, and its picturesque views of Government buildings old and modern.

Short as is the distance from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square, it would provide materials for a considerable volume by itself. We have not gone many yards before, on the right, we see the old Admiralty buildings, surmounted by that new web in which science catches from the air words and signals emitted maybe from ships lonely amid a waste of 8 waters a thousand miles away. This became the head-quarters for Admiralty affairs in the reign of William the Third, and the admired screen shutting off the courtyard from the street was later added by Robert Adams.

A little farther down Whitehall, after passing the handsome new War Office buildings, we have on the right the range of low buildings of the Horse Guards, the mounted sentries at the entrance to which afford one of London’s infrequent touches of military colour. Opposite is the handsome Banqueting House of James the First—designed by Inigo Jones as part of a magnificent new palace of Whitehall, which never materialized further than the existing building. Here are housed the naval and military relics comprised within the Royal United Service Museum. It was from a window in the Banqueting House that Charles the First passed to the scaffold on that momentous day, 30th January, 1649.

Farther along Whitehall, on the right, come a succession of massive modern buildings, housing various Governmental departments. The first turning on the same side, between the Treasury and the Home Office, is perhaps the most famous street of its length in the world. This is Downing Street—where No. 10 has for the past two hundred years been the official residence of successive British Prime Ministers. The pleasant comfortable old residences are dwarfed by the more modern neighbouring offices. Immediately in front is the entrance to the handsome quadrangle of the Foreign Office.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

North-eastern view from Palace Yard, showing part of the beautiful Henry the Seventh’s Chapel.

Just beyond Downing Street, in the centre of Whitehall, rises in dignified simplicity that beautiful Cenotaph to “The Glorious Dead” who fell in the Great War—a monument far more moving and impressive than the most ornate of those memorials scattered up and down the country by which a generation that had suffered so appallingly sought to give lasting witness to its pride and grief.

“Not here they fell who died a world to save;