Google Street View London
Stone
You can drag the map with your mouse, and double-click to zoom.
View Larger Map
Address: 109 Cannon St, London EC4N 5AD, United Kingdom
Phone: +44 20 7626 8246
Hours: Closed on Sunday
London Stone
London Stone is a historic landmark at 111 Cannon Street in the City of London. It is an irregular block of oolitic limestone measuring 53 x 43 x 30 cm (21 x 17 x 12 inches), the remnant of a once much larger object that had stood for many centuries on the south side of the street. The name "London Stone" was first recorded in about 1100. The date and the original function of the Stone are unknown, although it is possibly of Roman origin, and there has been speculation about it since at least the 16th century. Modern claims that it was formerly an object of veneration or has occult significance are unsubstantiated.
History London Stone: London Stone was originally situated on the south side of medieval Candlewick Street (since widened to create modern Cannon Street) opposite the west end of St Swithin's Church, and is shown in this position on a copperplate map of London, dating to the 1550s, now in the Museum of London,[10] and on the slightly later woodcut map of London sometimes attributed to Ralph Agas. It was described by the London historian John Stow in 1598 as "a great stone called London stone", "pitched upright... fixed in the ground verie deep, fastned with bars of iron".[11] Stow does not give the dimensions of this "great stone", but fortunately a French visitor to London had twenty years earlier recorded that the Stone was three feet high, two feet wide, and one foot thick (90 x 60 x 30 cm).[12] Thus, although it was a local landmark, London Stone, at least that part of it standing above ground, was not particularly impressive.
When London Stone was erected and what its original function was are unknown, although there has been much speculation, discussed below under Interpretations and myths.
The earliest reference to it is usually said to be that noted by John Stow, in his Survey of London (1598). Stow says that in a list of properties in London belonging to Christ Church, Canterbury (Canterbury Cathedral), one piece of land was described as lying "neare unto London stone".[11] This list, he says, had been bound into the end of a Gospel Book given to the cathedral by "Ethelstane king of the west Saxons", usually identified as Æthelstan, king of England (924-39). But it is impossible to confirm Stow's account since the document he saw cannot now be identified with certainty. However, the earliest extant list of Canterbury's London properties, which has been dated to between 1098 and 1108, does contain a reference to a property given to the cathedral by a man named "Eadwaker æt lundene stane" ("Eadwaker at London Stone").[13] Although not bound into a Gospel Book (it is now bound into a volume of miscellaneous medieval texts with a Canterbury provenance (Ms Cotton Faustina B vi) in the British Library), it could be that it was this, or a similar text, that Stow saw.....Wikipedia >>
1. Bengali Wikipedia
2. Hindi Wikipedia.
