The Griffins surrounding the City of London

[Red Faction]

I dont know if anyone has noticed that there are statues of Griffins surrounding the city of london
when i google it- i get the same results- just an acknowledgement that they exist
but WHY are they there?
they look fairly recent
does anyone know anything about them?

[miss minnie]

these things?

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/a/ae/200px-Citylondonarms.jpg

The City of London adopted what are usually described as griffins as supporters for its coat of arms, and it marks its boundaries with statues of a single "griffin" carrying the City coat of arms at each road leading into the City of London. However, the City of London griffins are, in fact, heraldic dragons, with scaly bodies and wings, no feathers, and no eagle's beak.

[Red Faction]

no- the big fucking statues
that have those attached to them
there are 2 ive seen opposite london bridge
1 up by moorgate, and i believe there are others on the edges of the city

just read the quote in ur post :o
yeah the statues it mentions

[Psychonaut]

on judgement day they will come alive and wreak bloody retribution on the sinful cityfolk.

[DrRingDing]

There's fucking loads of them.

I always presumed that they were to mark out the border of the Square Mile.

Either that or summit to do with masons and lizards.

[Tricky Skills]

THESE (http://www.mondaysmusings.blogspot.com/pictemps/northb.html) things?

Sorry - can't provide you with an answer though...

[Mrs Magpie]

Try googling for gryphons instead of griffins....

[bluestreak]

if no-one has found out by tomorrow i'll check ackroyd. if anyone knows, he'll know!

[1927]

I dont know exactly what it is you want to know,but Griffins have been the adopted as a symbol of the city of London since the fourteenth century,The large griffins mounted at the entrance to the square mile are merely meant to protect the city.They have been there for years and are in fact listed,dont know the exact dates tho!

Edited to add: Will this (http://www.geocities.com/laxaria/eyrie2d.html) do you

[lang rabbie]

They mark out the boundaries of the City.

The enormous one on Fleet Street dates from 1880. It is on the site of Temple Bar (http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/leisure_heritage/architectural_heritage/Buildingswithinthecity/temple_bar.htm) - the former gateway into the city from the west which had been demolished in 1878. According to the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association (http://www.pmsa.org.uk/sos/gallery/citydragon.htm), the dragon sculpture is by CB Birch and the monument underneath it was designed by the City architect, Sir Horace Jones

http://www.pmsa.org.uk/gallery/gallery_files/citydragon-15cmh.jpg

I had forgotten that the other dragons have only been in their present locations for 40 years. They were salvaged from the former Coal Exchange on Lower Thames Street when it was demolished in 1963.

Because the City's Bridge House Estates owns the city bridges, they are on the southern approaches of London Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge but there are none on Southwark Bridge IIRC :confused: ).

As Miss Minnie notes - they are dragons. Every reference book (including Pevsner's Buildings of England :eek: ) that describes them as griffins (or gryphons, gryphins etc) is wrong :mad:. Gryphons (as any fule nos) have the body of a lion and the head of an eagle.


The City Arms (http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/ 65DC8039-12C4-4AC4-8DAD-16F1608E99B7/0/cityarms.PDF)
The full heraldic description of the arms is as follows:
Arms Argent a cross gules, in the first quarter a sword in pale point upwards of the last.
Crest On a wreath argent and gules a dragon's sinister wing argent charged on the underside with a cross throughout gules.
Supporters On either side a dragon argent charged on the undersides of the wings with a cross throughout gules.
Motto Domine Dirige Nos - Lord Direct Us.

Back in the days when William Walworth was Mayor of London and suppressing the peasants' revolt, the arms of the city had lions (which looked a bit more gryphon-like as not many Londoners had seen a Lion in the 1380s!)as the heraldic supporters.

[JTG]

If you want Gryphons/Griffins, go west. There's loads round Brentford way

[Red Faction]

If you want Gryphons/Griffins, go west. There's loads round Brentford way
loads around brentford way you say?
whereabouts?

see the reason im asking is
the gryphon (sp?)
is the mascot of the medical school of the royal london hospital
while Queen Mary's university (mile end) have a leopard
and the London School of Economics have a beaver as their mascots,
ours is a gryphon,
but unfortunately we dont have an actual 3-D one
we've just got 2-D what look like cardboard cut-outs

anyway
i was just thinking about finding where these giant ones (that look like dragons) happen to be around london

you never know, maybe the RLH may find itself with a real 3-D mascot during RAG week ;)

[JTG]

Fullers Brewery at Chiswick have a Griffin as their symbol. Brentford FC play at Griffin Park. I'm sure there's loads of others, can't remember the backfround/legend though.

[lang rabbie]

i was just thinking about finding where these giant ones (that look like dragons) happen to be around london

IMHO Anyone who can confuse a dragon with a gryphon deserves to fail the cardiorespiratory, metabolism and locomotor modules of any modern medicine or physiology course. ;)

[Donna Ferentes]

Fullers Brewery at Chiswick have a Griffin as their symbol. Brentford FC play at Griffin Park. I'm sure there's loads of others, can't remember the backfround/legend though.http://img01.beerintheevening.com/43/43dc623c59a25ee295357d3d284c2206.jpg

[drag0n]

they're a bit rubbish for dragons. :)

[boohoo]

they're a bit rubbish for dragons. :)

I don't know about that. I wouldn't like to meet one on a dark night!

[Donna Ferentes]

I've been in the Griffin on many a dark night.

[rennie]

how did it feel Donna?

[Donna Ferentes]

Dry. Except the beer.

[Groucho]

If you hit the nose of these heraldic dragons and then twist the nose anti-clockwise it will release a doorway to the secret underground caverns beneath the city.


Everyone knows that!

[lang rabbie]

If you hit the nose of these heraldic dragons and then twist the nose anti-clockwise it will release a doorway to the secret underground caverns beneath the city.

Oh dear. :( It was nice drinking with you on Saturday. However, I'm afraid that a member of the London Forum Illuminati* will now have to be drawn by lot and obliged to kill you for letting that one out.

*(Unlike Mods they dont have avatars)