It takes its name from its proximity to the road junction Charing Cross, the notional "centre of London" from which distances from the city are measured.

During the 19th century the station became the main London terminus for continental traffic via boat trains, and served several prestigious international services.

It was badly damaged by a roof collapse in 1905 and extensively rebuilt, subsequently becoming an important meeting point for military and government traffic during World War I.

In the late 1980s, the station complex was redesigned by Terry Farrell and rebuilt to accommodate a modern office block, now known as Embankment Place.

Charing Cross station is located at the western end of the Strand in the City of Westminster, east of Trafalgar Square and northeast of Whitehall.

A number of key bus routes run in the area, and are designated "Trafalgar Square for Charing Cross".

[8] Later in the year, the SER secretary Samuel Smiles looked for potential routes and decided the best location would be on the site of the former Hungerford Market adjacent to The Strand, and that the line should be directly connected to Waterloo, allowing a link with London and South Western Railway services.

[9][15] The Charing Cross Hotel, designed by Edward Middleton Barry, and built by Lucas Brothers,[16] opened on 15 May 1865 and gave the station an ornate frontage in the French Renaissance style.

[20] Distances in London are officially measured from the original site of the cross, now the statue of Charles I facing Whitehall, and not from this replica.

This work included recreating and attaching almost 100 missing ornamental features including heraldic shields, an angel, pinnacles, crockets and finials; securing weak or fractured masonry with stainless steel pins and rods and re-attaching decorative items which had previously been removed after becoming loose.

[22] After opening, Charing Cross became the main terminus of all SER services instead of London Bridge, including boat trains to Continental Europe.

The SER route became the shortest from London to Dover after a diversion at Sevenoaks was built in 1868, and by 1913 it was possible to travel from Charing Cross to Paris in six and a half hours.

[23] Owing to its international connections, Charing Cross played an important part in World War I as the main departure point for both the military and government towards the Western Front.

On 26 December 1918, shortly after the war, the US President Woodrow Wilson met King George V at Charing Cross.

[24] A 70-foot (21 m) length of the original roof structure, comprising the two end bays at the south of the station, and part of the western wall collapsed at 3:57 p.m. on 5 December 1905.

[27] At the Board Of Trade Inquiry into the accident, expert witnesses expressed doubts about the design of the roof, even though the cause of the failure was attributed to a faulty weld in a tie rod.

In 1889, the newly formed London County Council's John Burns proposed that the station and its approach should be demolished, with a road bridge put in place.

The idea gained support within the council as it would allow the Strand to be widened and put a road crossing over the Thames that could bypass Whitehall.

When the SECR went to Parliament asking for an act to strengthen the bridge in 1916, Burns suggested the station was in the wrong place and should be rebuilt on the south side of the Thames.

[30] The following year, an act was passed to reconstruct the bridge, with strict conditions about its appearance and a ban on enlarging the station building itself.

[31] Two years later, a proposal appeared again to build just a road bridge and relocate the station south of the Thames, as it was significantly cheaper.

[33] The proposal was formally rejected in 1936 by the London & Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, which revived the double-deck bridge option.

The new buildings were named Embankment Place, a postmodern office and shopping complex designed by Terry Farrell and Partners.

[13] The rear two spans of this structure – immediately adjacent to the existing concourse roof – were retained as part of an enlarged waiting area.

Almost as soon as work was complete on the station, the SER wanted to build a connection from Charing Cross to the railway terminals further north.

The scheme was revived with the London Central Railway, that proposed to link Charing Cross to Euston and St Pancras, but was again abandoned in 1874.

[52] In May 1927, a trunk was deposited in Charing Cross station's cloakroom that contained the five severed body parts of Minnie Alice Bonati.