[f. TEMPLE sb.1 5 (because of its position close to the Temple buildings) + BAR sb.1 13.] The name of the barrier or gateway closing the entrance into the City of London from the Strand; removed in 1878.
[1314–15. Rolls of Parlt., I. 302/2. Le pavement du chemyn par entre la Barre du Novel Temple de Lundres.] Ibid. (1354), II. 262/1. Qe l’Estaple de Westmr. comence sa bounde a Temple-barre.
c. 1400. Brut, 238. Seynt Clementis cherche wiþout Temple-Barr.
1467–8. Rolls of Parlt., V. 579/2. A Tenement withoute the Temple Barres of London.
1598. Stow, Surv. (1908), I. 193. The Queenes Maiestie … entered the citie by Temple Barre, through Fleetstreete, Cheape [etc.].
1727–41. [see TEMPLE sb.1 5].
1773. Johnson, 30 April, in Boswell, Life (1887), II. 238. When we got to Temple-bar he [Goldsmith] stopped me, pointed to the [rebels’] heads upon it, and slily whispered me ‘Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.’
1851. London as it is To-day, i. (1855), 9. At [the] extremity [of Fleet St.], separating the cities of London and Westminster, stands Temple Bar, the only one of the city boundaries now remaining.
1864. Chambers’ Bk. Days, II. 233/2. The heads of these two [Jacobites executed in 1746] were … stuck over Temple Bar, where they remained till 1772.
