Historic significance of Lahore’s famous Charing Cross

LAHORE: Famous for venue of historic rallies, eventful corner meetings, impressive sit-ins, candle-lit vigils and anti-government protest for decades, Lahore’s historic Charing Cross is situated in the middle of the eight-kilometre long Mall Road and is just metres away from the 1935 Punjab Assembly Building, Punjab Chief Minister’s office, the 1914 Shahdin Building, the Lahore Zoo, the Al-Falah Building and the Wapda House etc.

By the way, the Punjab Chief Minister’s office is housed in the 1914 Lahore Masonic Temple building, which was once formally known as the Lodge of Hope and Perseverance. The Lodge was closed in 1972 by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had dubbed the Freemason Movement "anti-Islamic."

A grand statue of Queen Victoria had also stood at the Charing Cross once, but it was removed and shifted to the Lahore Museum during General Ziaul Haq's regime and was replaced by a wooden model of the Holy Quran.

The statue of Queen Victoria was cast in London in 1900, just a year before the legendary British monarch's death in 1901. In Imperial India, Charing Cross was a place where the fashionable and the rich moved about, and it still continues to bask in the afterglow of the British Empire.

The area around the Charing Cross was earlier known as the Donald Town, which was named after Sir Donald Friell McLeod (1810-1872), who had served as Punjab's Lieutenant Governor between 1865 and 1870.

Lahore's busy McLeod Road is also named after Lieutenant Governor Donald McLeod. Son of Lieutenant General Duncan McLeod, Donald McLeod was appointed the Commissioner of Jalandhar in 1849 and Judicial Commissioner of the Punjab in 1854.

According to historians, Lahore's Charing Cross shares its name with the Charing Cross in London, which is situated just south of the Trafalgar Square, and London's Charing Cross Railway Station that was built in 1864. By the way, a village by the name of "Charing" is also located near River Thames in London.