Paternoster Square

Paternoster Square is a privately owned public square just northeast of St Paul's Cathedral in the heart of the City of London. The name comes from a medieval lane of booksellers who specialised in rosaries and prayer books (Pater Noster). After Blitz destruction in 1940 and a much-disliked Brutalist rebuild in the 1960s, the present neo-classical scheme was laid out 1996-2003 under William Whitfield's masterplan, with office blocks for the London Stock Exchange. At the centre stands the 23-metre Paternoster Column with its gilded flaming urn by Whitfield, echoing the Monument to the Great Fire. On the west side rises the re-erected Temple Bar gate by Christopher Wren (1672), which for centuries marked the City's entry on Fleet Street. Bankers' lunch spot by day, empty in the evening.