The only area the old and new square have in common is a small strip outside Warwick Court, where part of the building is set further back.

Buildings on Paternoster Row, housing the publishing companies Simpkin & Marshall, Hutchinsons, Blackwood, Longman and Collins were destroyed.

[2] In 1956, the Corporation of London published Sir William Holford's proposals for redeveloping the precinct north of St Paul's Cathedral.

Robert Finch, the Lord Mayor of London, wrote of it in The Guardian in 2004, that it was made up of "ghastly, monolithic constructions without definition or character".

In 1990, architect John Simpson developed a scheme, sponsored by a newspaper competition and championed by the Prince of Wales.

[12] It is a Corinthian column of Portland stone topped by a gold leaf covered flaming copper urn, which is illuminated by fibre-optic lighting at night.

[5] At the north end of the square is the bronze Paternoster (also known as Shepherd and Sheep) by Dame Elisabeth Frink.

[13] Contractors were paid £3,000,000 to restore it and move it from a site in Theobalds Park by the Corporation of London, which received donations from the Temple Bar Trust and more than one livery company.