Suggestion for a Temporary Gatehouse at Temple Bar
By Walter Crane
One consistent colour scheme, say the heraldic colours of the township (with Chinese lanterns strung across for night effect) for each street or section of the town, with an arch or gateway to mark the entrance to each ward or district, would be a means of obtaining unity, as well as striking and harmonious decorative effect.
Something of this kind was in the mind of a deputation which waited on the Lord Mayor at the time of the coronation to offer a suggestion to the City, which would have lent itself well to such a treatment.
Starting from Temple Bar, the existing Griffin—or City dragon (which we whispered might be temporarily removed!)—might have made way for a fanciful Gothic gatehouse with gilded portcullis and gates, built of timber and plaster of course, but substantial enough to support warders and trumpeters, and a gallery of fair ladies who might shower roses or gilded oak leaves upon the King when he passed, as our Richard II was greeted at his coronation from the tower in Cheapside, which bore a golden angel upon its top. St. Paul and St. George should occupy niches on such a gateway, which should also display the banners and badges of the City and the Temple, and the arms of the City guilds, while Gog and Magog personified should stand at the gates.
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Fleet Street should be arcaded by a series of simple timber supports upholding a balcony, or tier of seats, at the height of the first-floor windows. The timbers might be whitewashed and decorated with chevrons or other simple patterns in black or red, but the construction not concealed. And at regular intervals, upon piers, a bold heraldic beast (say the dragon of St. George) might support the City banner; Pegasus and the Lamb those of the Inner and Outer Temple to mark their boundaries, with the Red and the White Rose. At Clifford’s Inn the Art Workers’ Guild could hang out their badge, an’ it liked them; while St. Dunstan, and the White and Blackfriars might appear further on.
I would drape the fronts of the houses in white and red, the St. George’s Cross might run from end to end of Fleet Street, and on the parapets of the houses there should be a hedge or cresting of green boughs connected across the street at intervals by light, arching trellises surmounted by crowns, to be illuminated at night, and covered with green leaves and hung with the shields and badges beforenamed (which in the able hands of Mr. Barron, of the Society of Antiquaries, would not be the tame things to which we are too much accustomed).