Photos

When he was commissioned to design murals for the platforms of Charing Cross underground station, artist David Gentleman (born 1930) chose as his theme the building of the medieval Charing Cross, one of the twelve memorial crosses commemorating Queen Eleanor (who died in 1290). He devised a scheme to take into account the architecture of the station, allowing spaces for entrances and exits and litter bins. He collaged together nearly 50 wood engravings which were then screen-printed onto melamine sheets by Perstorp Waterite Limited. This was the first large-scale application of wood engraving

The mural is divided into 6 roughly equal sections that tells the story of the construction of the cross. This narrative is plotted from left to
right on each platform, so it progresses from south to north on the south platform and from north to south on the north platform. This means that the mural is, liken to Brown's paintings, conditioned by an idea of linear narrative progression. And, again as in Brown's work, the narrative never reaches a conclusion: Gentleman refrained from including an image of the completed cross. The only image of the whole design is found in a maquette held by one of the stonemasons in section three.

1st section:
Depicts the stone being quarried and transported to London. Stonemasons measure and cut the stone, and carpenters construct a scaffold to enable work at Charing.

2nd section:
Displays the travel information and is decorated with small illustrations of animals and clouds.

3rd section:
Begins with images of laborers and masons transporting lime to the building site with wheel barrows and on the horseback before presenting images of the construction of the early stages of the cross

4th section:
Is dominated by the image of Queen's statue. A mason is pictured working on the statue while Edward and his children watches on.

5th section:
Tells the story of the erection of the queen's statue

Last section:
Illustrates the process of placing the terminal cross at the top of the statue.

The pic that i have taken should be 4th-5th section.

The information is extracted from the book "Medievalism and Modernity" starting page 145

What a nice story on the wall

Cheers,
Ral