CHARING CROSS GARDENS, which are sometimes called the Embankment Gardens, are planted on the soil reclaimed from the river when the Embankment was built by the Metropolitan Board of Works. The utmost possible use has been made of a rather limited space, illustrating the skill for which English landscape gardeners are celebrated throughout both hemispheres. Charing Cross is the centre of London, and the point from which distances are measured, all localities within four miles of it being said to be within the radius. Of the original cross nothing remains, but it is reproduced in front of the Charing Cross Hotel, and not on its original site, now occupied by the equestrian statue of Charles the First.

George Birch, The Descriptive Album of London, c.1896