Mews at Charing, Westminster, a few hundred yards north of Westminster Abbey. The area subsequently became known as Charing Cross. The cross here was the most expensive of the twelve, built of Purbeck marble from 1291 onwards by Richard of Crundale, the senior royal mason, with the sculptures supplied by Alexander of Abingdon, and some items by Ralph de Chichester. Richard died in the autumn of 1293, and the work was completed by Roger of Crundale, probably his brother. The total recorded cost was over £700. The cross stood outside the Royal Mews, at the top of what is now Whitehall, and on the south side of what is now Trafalgar Square. John Norden in about 1590 described it as the "most stately" of the series, but by this date so "defaced by antiquity" as to have become "an old weather-beaten monument". It was also noted by William Camden in 1607. It was ordered to be taken down by Parliament in 1643, and was eventually demolished in 1647. Following the demolition, a contemporary ballad ran: Undone! undone! the lawyers cry, They ramble up and down; We know not the way to Westminster Now Charing-Cross is down. After the Restoration of Charles II, an equestrian statue of Charles I by Hubert Le Sueur was erected on the site of the cross in 1675, and this still stands. The location is still known as Charing Cross, and since the early 19th century this point has been regarded as the official centre of London, in legislation and when measuring distances from London. A new Eleanor cross was erected in 1865 outside Charing Cross railway station, several hundred yards from the original site: see Replicas and imitations below. A mural by David Gentleman on the platform walls of Charing Cross underground station, commissioned by London Transport in 1978, depicts, in the form of wood engravings, the story of the building of the medieval cross by stonemasons and sculptors. Folk etymology holds that the name Charing derives from French (dear queen); but the name "Charing" for the area in fact pre-dates Eleanor's death and probably comes from the Anglo-Saxon word , meaning a bend, as it stands on the outside of a sharp bend in the River Thames (compare Charing in Kent). Replicas and imitations During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries several replica Eleanor crosses, or monuments more loosely inspired by them, were erected.