On Sunday the 10th December 2023 I made my way up to Tower Hill in London for a Team South East group walk. I haven't walked with these since June 2019 on the Pin Mill Walk. Was really good to see my old friends again.
I met David outside Tower Hill Station who is leading the walk, a trial run as he's training to be a Blue Badge London Guide. The rest of the group gradually arrived, ten of us in all, then we made our way over to the Roman wall by the station.
One of the most impressive sections of London's Roman City wall can be found just outside the entrance to Tower Hill Underground Station.
It stands 35 feet (10.6 metres) high, albeit only the first 14 feet (4.4 metres) is, in fact, Roman, the upper 21 feet (6.4 metres) consisting of medieval additions plonked on top of the Roman remains at various stages between the 12th and 17th centuries.
It was the Roman's who founded what is now the City of London - albeit, they didn't actually call it London, preferring, instead, the more exotic sounding Londinium.
In around the year AD200, Londinium had become such an important city that they decided to surround it with a protective wall.
To this end, they shipped more than one million blocks of ragstone, quarried near Maidstone, in Kent - amounting to some 1750 boatloads - up the Thames, and set about building a massive wall around their city.
This wall encircled Londinium for one square mile (almost 3 Kilometers), and for the next 2,000 years it shaped the layout of the City of London - and, to a large extent, it still does.
It was a truly impressive accomplishment, and was easily one of the largest building projects ever undertaken in Roman Britain.
The finished article was 20 feet (96 metres) in height, around 8 feet (2.5 metres) thick, there were 22 towers spaced out at intervals around its circumference, and the outer wall had a ditch, or a fossa, in front of it that was almost 7 feet deep and 16 feet wide.
Anyone approaching the wall with evil intent would have simply taken one look at the mighty bulk looming menacingly before them and decided they're not getting over that and turned to run.
The Roman's departed these shores in the year AD410 and, over the next 1600 years, the wall enjoyed mixed fortunes.
During the Saxon period it fell into decay. The Normans, recognising its strength and importance, rebuilt and heightened large sections of it, adding numerous gates to allow ingress and egress through its mighty bulk, and this pattern of heightening and repairing continued, unabated, between the 12th and 17th centuries, until, from the late 17th century onwards, London began to expand beyond the corset of the old wall, and a period of relative peace and tranquility meant that London no longer needed to be defended from nefarious sorts lurking without the City walls.
Bit by bit, the wall began to disappear and, by the 19th century, very little of it remained; or, to be more precise, very little of it remained visible to the casual stroller going about their everyday business.
If you look at the wall you will notice several layers of red tiles spaced at intervals up the wall.
The highest one of these layers marks the surviving section of the Roman wall. All the stone above this layer is medieval.
So, if you focus on the lower section of the wall, you can see the rough Kentish ragstone that was used on each outer face of the wall.
The core of the wall would have consisted of rubble and mortar, and I do recall reading somewhere that the rubble and mortar would have been mixed with olive oil and/or fats to afford some semblance of waterproofing and to prevent frost forming in the core during the cold winter months.
This inner core would then have been sandwiched between the blocks of ragstone, and the red tiles would have been laid across the completed sections at regular intervals to provide extra strength and stability, and to prevent the ingress of water into the core on those rare occasions when it would have rained in Londinium.
The section above the third layer of red tiles dates from the heightening and repairing of the wall that took place from the medieval period onwards, and this would have continued until, in the 18th century, there being no longer a need for a defensive wall around the City of London, the majority of the wall was either demolished or else incorporated into buildings that were erected around and next to it.
One of the most prominent features of the garden, aside from the wall itself, is the rather splendid statue of Emperor Trajan (AD 98- 117).
The statue is of a more modern (ish) age, and was discovered in a Southampton scrapyard in the 1950's by The Reverend Philip Thomas Byard ("Tubby") Clayton (1885 - 1972), the former rector of the nearby church of All Hallows Barking.
Following his death, in 1972, in accordance with his wishes, the Tower Hill Improvement Trust placed the statue here in 1980.
Trajan presided over the second-greatest military expansion in Roman history, after Augustus, leading the empire to attain its maximum territorial extent by the time of his death. He never himself visited Britain.
From Tower Hill I can see across to The Tower of London.
The Tower of London is an internationally famous monument and one of England's most iconic structures. William the Conqueror built the White Tower in 1066 as a demonstration of Norman power, siting it strategically on the River Thames to act as both fortress and gateway to the capital.
Our group walk on from the station passing Trinity House.
Trinity House is the official authority for lighthouses in England, Wales, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar.
Trinity House is also a maritime charity, disbursing funds for the welfare of retired seamen, the training of young cadets and the promotion of safety at sea; for the financial year ending in March 2013 it spent approximately £6.5 million in furtherance of its charitable objectives.
Funding for the work of the lighthouse service comes from "light dues" levied on commercial vessels calling at ports in the British Isles, based on the net registered tonnage of the vessel. The rate is set by the Department for Transport, and annually reviewed. Funding for the maritime charity is generated separately.
Just over the road on Trinity Square is Four Seasons Hotel. This was formerly the Headquarters of The Port of London Authority.
Steps from the River Thames, the gentle hillside where Ten Trinity Square now stands was first populated more than 2,000 years ago by the Romans, who formed the settlement of Londinium. This was the centre of the city, around which the great capital has grown.
Recognising the significance of this point on the river, William the Conqueror built the Tower of London nearby after his invasion of England in 1066. Today there is a sign in the lobby marking the distance of an arrow’s flight – the boundary where people had to stop or risk being shot by archers on the Tower.
During the Middle Ages, this became one of London’s most important neighbourhoods. As a royal residence, the Tower attracted the nobility and gentry to the surrounding area. With the city’s ongoing growth, this riverside location became the province of medieval merchants who set up their guilds to look after the interests of tradesmen and their families.
In 1666, much of the city was destroyed by the Great Fire of London, which started just west of the Ten Trinity Square site. The fire was witnessed by Samuel Pepys, the great diarist, who worked in the Navy Office adjoining the property and lived in the adjacent street, now Pepys Street. It is said that he rushed outside to bury his highly prized Parmesan cheese to protect it from the approaching fire, while Sir William Penn (later the founder of Pennsylvania) buried a bottle of wine. The location was the site now occupied by Seething Lane Gardens.
After the fire, London was rebuilt and the port extended downstream to the east. By the 19th century, London had become the beating heart of world trade, as ships offloaded their cargo. The docklands grew into a major source of wealth and power. Tea and pottery arrived from China, silks from Arabia, and coffee and spices from the East Indies.
The docks were being run by private enterprises, leading to many conflicting interests. In 1908, full control of the River Thames and docking management was given to the Port of London Authority, created by Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
The headquarters of the Port of London Authority was opened in 1922 at Ten Trinity Square. Designed by renowned architect Sir Edwin Cooper – who won the project through a design competition – the building was constructed at a then-astronomical cost of EUR 1 million.
Built in the Beaux-Arts style, which was fashionable for civic buildings in the Edwardian era, the quality of Ten Trinity Square represented the status of the organization. Its majestic façade hints at trade links going back to Roman times, while the original central rotunda was topped by a magnificent glass dome, created to emulate that of nearby St. Paul’s Cathedral. Rising atop the building at the front entrance, a sculpture of Old Father Thames stands proudly, holding his trident and pointing east, paying homage to the trade between nations.
In the peak days of the Port of London Authority, more than 1,200 people each day came to the rotunda to pay port dues for all the boats that were arriving in London. Such was the importance of the building that, in 1946, the General Assembly of the United Nations held its inaugural reception here, in what is now known as the UN Ballroom.
A key feature of the building is its view of the lush greenery of Trinity Square Garden, laid out in 1795 as the setting for Trinity House. Ringed with pieces of the wall from the ancient Roman settlement, the garden was preserved as open space under a Special Act of Parliament in 1797. This unique sunken garden now features the Tower Hill War Memorial, including the WWI Mercantile Marine Memorial and the WWII Merchant Seamen’s Memorial.
During the Blitz in World War II, Ten Trinity Square was badly damaged by enemy bombing and the domed rotunda was destroyed. In the 1970s, after the Port of London Authority moved to its current location in Tilbury, the building was renovated and the central courtyard was filled in with office space. The building was then occupied by the European headquarters of the insurance broker Willis Faber Limited and continued to serve as offices until 2008. When Willis Faber moved on to a new location, the building lay vacant for several years.
Walking around the square a little further we come across the site of the Tower Hill Scaffold Site.
Visitors to the Tower of London can vary from several hundred to well into the thousands. Many come seeking to get a glimpse of the Crown Jewels or perhaps they desire to witness the location of where executions took place first-hand. What the latter may not be aware of, is the vast majority of public executions took place outside the walls of the tower, just a few yards away, on a grassy knoll near Tower Hill Underground Station.
Less than two dozen individuals met their maker at the end of the executioner’s axe on Tower Green. These included the two wives of King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Catherine Howard, as well as Lady Jane Grey, who was Queen of England for only nine days. As compared to the estimated 125 mortals who lost their lives across the road on Tower Hill. The disparity in numbers is because executions at the Tower of London were reserved for individuals of high rank or who possessed popular support.
At the western edge of a green space known as Trinity Square Gardens, a scaffold was erected from the 15th century to dispatch of individuals who held an air of status and were found guilty of high treason or other offenses against the crown. It operated for nearly four hundred years, with the last public execution taking place in 1747, that of Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, a supporter of the Stuart family’s right to the throne.
Today, visitors can find a small cordoned-off area, just to the left of the Grade I-listed Merchant Navy Memorial, First World War Section. Here, you’ll find a list of names, beginning in 1381 and ending in the mid-1700s. These include participants in the following rebellions: Peasants’ Revolt, War of the Roses, English Reformation, as well as the Jacobite Uprising. Thousands of eager onlookers would gather to witness these public displays of execution.
Here is also the Merchant Navy WWI memorial and in front of that a memorial to WWII.
We cross Tower Hill and over to All Hallows by the Tower.
It is "the oldest church in the City of London" and was founded in AD 675, although recent research has questioned these claims. The church survived the Great Fire of London in 1666, but was badly damaged during the Blitz in World War II. Following extensive reconstruction, it was rededicated in 1957. From 1922 until 1962 the vicar was Tubby Clayton, and the church is still the guild church of Toc H, the international Christian organisation that he founded.
The origin and early history of All Hallows-by-the-Tower church are obscure. At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 the church belonged to Barking Abbey, a wealthy Benedictine nunnery in Barking, Essex, originally established in the 7th century. The association with Barking was a long one, and All Hallows church was already known as "Berkyncherche" in the 12th century. According to Domesday Book in 1086, Barking Abbey possessed "28 houses and half a church" in London: although the church is not named, it is usually identified with All Hallows.
The original Anglo-Saxon abbey of Barking was founded by Earconwald or Erkenwald, along with Chertsey Abbey, before he became Bishop of London in 675, and it has been claimed that the land on which All Hallows stands was granted to the abbey, under Abbess Æthelburh (Ethelburga), Erkenwald's sister, at that time. A charter dated to 687, listing properties belonging to Barking Abbey, includes two pieces of land in or near London. One of these was simply described as "iuxta Lundoniam", near/next to London, the other as "supra vicum Lundoniae", that is, in "Lundenwic", the Anglo-Saxon town that had grown up in the area of the Strand, a mile to the west of the old Roman city of Londinium; neither of these, though, accurately describes the location of All Hallows church, inside the wall of the Roman city on the eastern side.
In 1940, during World War II, the clearance after destruction caused by bombing revealed an archway built of reused Roman tiles and stonework, set in a surviving wall of the medieval church. The reuse of Roman building materials, and comparison with arches in the early Anglo-Saxon church at Brixworth, Northamptonshire, suggested that the All Hallows arch was very early in date, and that an original church could have been built as early as the 7th century. This seemed to confirm the belief that the church had been founded as a daughter church of Barking Abbey at about the same time as the abbey itself was established, although it is doubtful that the first construction on the site would have been in stone. It is more likely that the stone church, of which the arch is a remnant, superseded an earlier wooden building. Recent research, and archaeological evidence that Roman tiles and stone were being used in the construction of other London churches as late as the 11th century, suggest that the arch could have been constructed at any time between the 7th century and the arrival of the Normans. Fragments of three 11th-century stone crosses also found during archeological work in the 1930s and clearance works after the bombing, now displayed in the crypt, also date from this first church.
The church was expanded and rebuilt several times between the 11th and 15th centuries, with various elements of the Norman, 13th-century and 15th-century constructions still visible today.Its proximity to the Tower of London meant that it acquired royal connections, with Edward IV making one of its chapels a royal chantry and the beheaded victims of Tower executions being sent for temporary burial at All Hallows, Sir Thomas More being one of the most eminent of these.
The church was badly damaged by an explosion in 1650 caused when some barrels of gunpowder being stored in a warehouse adjacent to the church exploded; its west tower and some 50 nearby houses were destroyed, and there were many fatalities. The tower was rebuilt in 1658. It only narrowly survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 and owes its survival to Admiral William Penn, father of William Penn of Pennsylvania fame, who had his men from a nearby naval yard blow up the surrounding buildings to create firebreaks. During the Great Fire, Samuel Pepys climbed the church's tower to watch the progress of the blaze and what he described as "the saddest sight of desolation".
Restored once more in the late 19th century, All Hallows was gutted by German bombers during the Blitz in World War II and required extensive reconstruction, and was rededicated in 1957.
Many portions of the old church survived the War and have been sympathetically restored. Its outer walls are 15th-century, with the Anglo-Saxon arch doorway surviving from the original church. Many brasses remain in the interior. (The brass rubbing centre which used to be located at All Hallows is now closed). Three outstanding wooden statues of saints dating from the 15th and 16th centuries can also be found in the church, as too an exquisite Baptismal font cover which was carved in 1682 by Grinling Gibbons for £12, and which is regarded as one of the finest pieces of carving in London. The main-altar's reredos mural is a post-war work by Brian Thomas.
In 1999 the AOC Archaeology Group excavated the cemetery and made many significant discoveries.
The church has a museum in its crypt, containing portions of a Roman pavement which together with many artefacts was discovered many feet below the church in 1926/27. The exhibits focus on the history of the church and the City of London, and include Anglo-Saxon and religious artefacts as well as the 17th-century church plate. Also on display are the church's registers dating back to the 16th century, and notable entries include the baptism of William Penn, the marriage of John Quincy Adams, and the burial Archbishop William Laud. Laud remained buried in a vault in the chapel for over 20 years; his body was moved during the Restoration to St John's College, Oxford. The crypt also houses the church's chapels dedicated to St Francis (14th century) and St Clare (early 17th century) as well as the columbarium, created in 1933.
The altar in the crypt is of plain stone from the castle of Richard I at Athlit in The Holy Land.
As it was Sunday a service was about to start and we weren't able to visit the museum in the Crypt. Another time maybe!
We leave All Hallows and walk up Lower Thames Street and cross the road into Cross Lane and arrive at St Dunstan in The East Garden.
The church was originally built in about 1100. A new south aisle was added in 1391 and the church was repaired in 1631 at a cost of more than £2,400.
It was severely damaged in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Rather than being completely rebuilt, the damaged church was patched up between 1668 and 1671. A steeple was added in 1695–1701 to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. It was built in a gothic style sympathetic to main body of the church, though with heavy string courses of a kind not used in the Middle Ages. It has a needle spire carried on four flying buttresses in the manner of that of St Nicholas in Newcastle.The restored church had wooden carvings by Grinling Gibbons and an organ by Father Smith, which was transferred to the abbey at St Albans in 1818.
In 1817 it was found that the weight of the nave roof had thrust the walls seven inches out of the perpendicular. It was decided to rebuild the church from the level of the arches, but the state of the structure proved so bad that the whole building was taken down. It was rebuilt to a design in the perpendicular style by David Laing (then architect to the Board of Customs) with assistance from William Tite. The foundation stone was laid in November 1817 and the church re-opened for worship in January 1821. Built of Portland stone, with a plaster lierne nave vault, it was 115 feet long and 65 feet wide and could accommodate between six and seven hundred people. The cost of the work was £36,000. Wren's tower was retained in the new building.
The church was severely damaged in the Blitz of 1941. Wren's tower and steeple survived the bombs' impact. Of the rest of the church only the north and south walls remained. In the re-organisation of the Anglican Church in London following the War it was decided not to rebuild St Dunstan's, and in 1967 the City of London Corporation decided to turn the ruins of the church into a public garden, which opened in 1971. A lawn and trees were planted in the ruins, with a low fountain in the middle of the nave. The tower now houses the All Hallows House Foundation.
The parish is now combined with the Benefice of All Hallows by the Tower and occasional open-air services are held in the church, such as on Palm Sunday prior to a procession to All Hallows by the Tower along St Dunstan's Hill and Great Tower Street. The ruin was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.
Moving on we leave the peace and quiet of the garden and walk on down St Dunstans Lane and turn left into St Mary at Hill.
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| View back to the Walkie Talkie building and its Sky Gardens up top that we visited on a walk we had done previously. |
At the end of the road is a building that used to be the Coal Exchange from 1769 to 1963.
Across the road from here is what was the original Billingsgates Fish Market.
Old Billingsgate Market is the name given to what is now a hospitality and events venue in the City of London, based in the Victorian building that was originally Billingsgate Fish Market, the world's largest fish market in the 19th century.
The first Billingsgate Market building was constructed on Lower Thames Street in 1850 by the builder John Jay, and the fish market was moved off the streets into its new riverside building. This was demolished in around 1873 and replaced by an arcaded market hall designed by City architect Horace Jones and built by John Mowlem & Co. in 1875, the building that still stands on the site today.
In 1982, the fish market itself was relocated to a new site on the Isle of Dogs in east London. The 1875 building was then refurbished by architect Richard Rogers, originally to provide office accommodation.
Now used as an events venue, it remains a major London landmark and a notable Grade II listed building.
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| Old Billingsgate Market |
We walk on up Monument Street and in front of us is the Monument to the Great Fire of London, which started on 2nd September 1666.
The splendid free-standing column was designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke to commemorate the blaze. It became one of London's earliest tourist attractions, and still opens its door to any visitors willing to climb the 345 steps to the viewing gallery.
At 62 metres (202 feet) the Monument was briefly London's tallest structure (if the burned out shell of Old St Paul's is excluded). The height is deliberate. If laid down flat, the column would reach precisely to the place where the Great Fire started.
The plaque in Pudding Lane says only that it's "near" the spot. Taking measurements from the Monument and using old maps, historians now think that Farriner's oven was just around the corner on what is now Monument Street. Look carefully in the roadway and you'll find this newer plaque, which corresponds more closely to the deduced location.
We walk back down to Lower Thames Street and cross to visit the Church of Saint Manus-the-Martyr.
St Magnus lies on the original alignment of London Bridge between the City and Southwark. The ancient parish was united with that of St Margaret, New Fish Street, in 1670 and with that of St Michael, Crooked Lane, in 1831. The three united parishes retained separate vestries and churchwardens. Parish clerks continue to be appointed for each of the three parishes.
St Magnus is the guild church of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers and the Worshipful Company of Plumbers, and the ward church of the Ward of Bridge and Bridge Without. It is also twinned with the Church of the Resurrection in New York City.
Its prominent location and beauty have prompted many mentions in literature. In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens notes how, as Nancy heads for her secret meeting with Mr Brownlow and Rose Maylie on London Bridge, "the tower of old Saint Saviour's Church, and the spire of Saint Magnus, so long the giant-warders of the ancient bridge, were visible in the gloom". The church's spiritual and architectural importance is celebrated in the poem The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, who wrote, "the walls of Magnus Martyr hold/Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold". He added in a footnote that "the interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of the finest among Wren's interiors". One biographer of Eliot notes that at first he enjoyed St Magnus aesthetically for its "splendour"; later he appreciated its "utility" when he came there as a sinner.
There have been many reincarnations of London Bridge since the original Roman crossing in AD50. The most famous and longstanding of these was the “Old” Medieval bridge, finished in 1209 during the reign of King John.
For over 600 years this bridge was the key crossing point of the Thames in London, ferrying people, goods and livestock across the river. With its shops, houses, churches and gatehouse, it was an iconic feature of the City of London.
Unfortunately, by the early 19th century the bridge was showing serious signs of wear and tear. Although the buildings that had once adorned its top had long been demolished, the crossing was still far too narrow and the arches that supported the bridge were a serious hindrance for ships passing underneath.
It was therefore decided in 1799 that a new, larger bridge should be built in its stead. To minimise any disruption to traffic, the new bridge was to be build 30 metres upstream of the old crossing, therefore allowing the Medieval bridge to function until the latter was opened in 1831.
Once this was completed, the old bridge was quickly dismantled and lost into the annals of history.
There are, in fact, a few lasting remnants of the old London Bridge, and one of which is built into the tower of St Magnus the Marytr’s Church on Lower Thames Street.
Again the church was busy with a service, so visit to the inside!
Piling from the Roman river wall dating to about AD 75
We walked on up Upper Thames Street and crossed over into Laurence Poultney Lane.
We walked up and turned left into Laurence Poultney Hill.
This is a side alley that includes an old church, a Roman palace, and enough stucco carving to fill a small mansion house.
St Laurence Pountney was a Church of England parish church in the Candlewick ward of the City of London. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, and not rebuilt.
St Laurence's was destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666. An eye-witness told the Government inquiry into the fire that he "saw the Fire break out from the inside of Lawrence Pountney Steeple, when there was no fire near it", implying the possibility of arson. The church was not rebuilt. Instead the parish was united to that of St Mary Abchurch. The old churchyard, which lay to the south side of the church continued to be used for burials; in the 1850s it was converted into the garden of a neighbouring house, then occupied by the architect Edward I'Anson. This 17th century building, which still exists, is now numbered as 7a Laurence Pountney Hill. The site of the church itself, which became known as the "Church Ground", was used as an additional burial ground following the Great Fire, and is now also a privately owned garden.
Much of the area to the south was badly damaged during WW2, but the building that occupies the site today, Governors House, is more recent, dating to the mid-1990s. Sadly, the construction of that building also demolished an alley that ran through the middle of the site – the marvellously named Ducks Foot Lane.
The demolition of the old buildings though uncovered more of the remains of the Roman Governor’s palace including Roman flooring, walls, and an area of Roman painted wall plaster hence the name of the current building. The ground level of Governor’s House is collonaded in a mock classical manner with Portland Stone fitted over pre-cast concrete.
We walk on turning right into what was once called Green Lettuce Lane.
Green Lettuce Lane is nothing to do with grocery, and a misspelling of Green Lattice Lane, after an ornamental gate that used to close the alley off from Cannon Street.
Here are some marvellous buildings with ornate decoration on the outside.
We walk out into Cannon Street and we pass the remains of the London Stone.
The present London Stone is only the upper portion of a once much larger object. The surviving portion is a block of oolitic limestone approximately 53 cm wide, 43 cm high, and 30 cm front to back (21 × 17 × 12 inches). A study in the 1960s indicated that the stone is Clipsham limestone, a good-quality stone from Rutland transported to London for building purposes in both the Roman and medieval periods. More recently, Kevin Hayward has suggested that it may be Bath stone, the stone most used for monuments and sculpture in early Roman London and in Saxon times.
The Stone is located on the north side of Cannon Street, opposite Cannon Street station, in an aperture in the wall of 111 Cannon Street (EC4N 5AR), within a Portland stone casing.
When London Stone was erected and what its original function was are unknown, although there has been much speculation.
The Stone was originally located on the south side of medieval Candlewick Street (afterward widened to create modern Cannon Street) opposite the west end of St Swithin's Church, and is shown in this position on the "Copperplate" map of London, dating to the 1550s, and on the derivative "Woodcut" map of the 1560s.
In 1940 St Swithin's church was burnt out by bombing in the Blitz. However, the outer walls remained standing for many years, with London Stone still in its place in the south wall. In 1962 the remains of the church were demolished, and replaced by an office building, 111 Cannon Street, which originally housed the Bank of China; London Stone was placed without ceremony in a specially constructed Portland stone alcove, glazed and with an iron grille, in the new building. Inside the building it was protected by a glass case. The stone and its surround, including the iron grille, were designated a Grade II* listed structure on 5 June 1972.
We walk on a bit further along Cannon Street we reach installation by artist Cristina Iglesias, ‘Forgotten Streams’ which is located at Bloomberg’s new European Headquarters in London. The revelatory landscape is woven through three different plaza spaces, evoking the Lost Rivers of London, namely the Walbrook.
The Walbrook is a subterranean river in London. It gives its name to the Walbrook City ward and to a nearby street. It played an important role in the Roman settlement of Londinium.
We turn right up Walbrook and pass London Mithraeum museum which was still closed.
We walk up passing St Stephen Walbrook Church and stop at the top of the road, where we contemplate going back to the museum and would they let all ten of us in?
The original church of St Stephen stood on the west side of the street today known as Walbrook and on the east bank of the Walbrook, once an important fresh water stream for the Romans running south-westerly across the City of London from the City Wall near Moorfields to the Thames. The original church is thought to have been built directly over the remains of a Roman Mithraic Temple following a common Christian practice of hallowing former heathen sites of worship.
The church was moved to its present higher site on the other side of Walbrook Street, still on the east side of the River Walbrook (later diverted and concealed in a brick culvert running under Walbrook Street and Dowgate Hill on a straightened route to the Thames), in the 15th century. In 1429 Robert Chichele, acting as executor of the will of the former Lord Mayor, William Standon, had bought a piece of land close to the Stocks Market (on the site of the later Mansion House) and presented it to the parish. Several foundation stones were laid at a ceremony on 11 May 1429, and the church was consecrated ten years later, on 30 April 1439. At 125 feet (38 m) long and 67 feet (20 m) wide, it was considerably larger than the present building.
The church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It contained a memorial to the composer John Dunstaple. The wording of the epitaph had been recorded in the early 17th century, and was reinstated in the church in 1904, some 450 years after his death. The nearby church of St Benet Sherehog, also destroyed in the Great Fire, was not rebuilt; instead its parish was united with that of St Stephen.
The present domed building was erected to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren following the destruction of its medieval predecessor in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It is located in Walbrook, next to the Mansion House, and near to Bank and Monument Underground stations.
We walk back and we were asked if we had a booking, but to our surprise the museum let all ten of us in!
The London Mithraeum, also known as the Temple of Mithras, Walbrook, is a Roman Mithraeum that was discovered in Walbrook, a street in the City of London, during a building's construction in 1954. The entire site was relocated to permit continued construction and this temple of the mystery god Mithras became perhaps the most famous 20th-century Roman discovery in London.
The site was excavated by W. F. Grimes, director of the Museum of London, and Audrey Williams in 1954. The temple, initially hoped to have been an early Christian church, was built in the mid-3rd century and dedicated to Mithras or perhaps jointly to several deities popular among Roman soldiers. Then it was rededicated, probably to Bacchus, in the early fourth century. Found within the temple, where they had been carefully buried at the time of its rededication, were finely detailed third-century white marble likenesses of Minerva, Mercury the guide of the souls of the dead, and the syncretic gods Mithras and Serapis, imported from Italy. There were several coarser locally-made clay figurines of Venus, combing her hair. The artefacts recovered were put on display in the Museum of London.
Among the sculptures the archaeologists found was a head of Mithras himself, recognizable by his Phrygian cap. The base of the head is tapered to fit a torso, which was not preserved.
Artefacts found in Walbrook in 1889 probably came from the Mithraeum, according to the archaeologist Ralph Merrifield, although this was not identified at the time. One was a marble relief, 0.53 m tall, of Mithras in the act of killing the astral bull, the Tauroctony that was as central to Mithraism as the Crucifixion is to Christianity. On it Mithras is accompanied by the two small figures of the torch-bearing celestial twins of Light and Darkness, Cautes and Cautopates, within the cosmic annual wheel of the zodiac. At the top left, outside the wheel, Sol–Helios ascends the heavens in his biga; at top right Luna descends in her chariot. The heads of two wind-gods, Boreas and Zephyros, are in the bottom corners.
The Roman temple, when it was originally built, would have stood on the east bank of the now covered-over River Walbrook, a key freshwater source in Roman Londinium. Nearby, in its former streambed, a small square hammered lead sheet was found, on which an enemy of someone named Martia Martina had inscribed her name backwards and thrown the token into the stream, in a traditional Celtic way of reaching the gods that has preserved metal tokens in rivers throughout Celtic Europe, from the swords at La Tène to Roman times. The temple foundations are very close to other important sites in the city of London including the historic London Stone, the Bank of England and London Wall. The original Mithraeum was built partly underground, recalling the cave of Mithras where the Mithraic epiphany took place.
The temple site was uncovered in September 1954 during excavation work for the construction of Bucklersbury House, a 14-storey modernist office block to house Legal & General. As a compromise between redesigning the new building and abandoning the archaeological site, the ruin was dismantled and moved 100 metres to Temple Court, Queen Victoria Street, where in 1962 the foundations were reassembled at street level for an open-air public display. The reconstruction was not accurate and drew criticism for the materials used.
In 2007 plans were drawn up to return the Mithraeum to its original location, following the demolition of Bucklersbury House and four other buildings in the block for the planned creation of a new Walbrook Square development, designed by Foster and Partners and Jean Nouvel Architects. However, redesigns and disputes between freeholders Legal & General and Metrovacesa, who had agreed to buy the project, resulted in the Walbrook Square project being put on hold in October 2008, when Bovis Lend Lease removed their project team. Metrovacesa left the project in August 2009. In May 2010 the Mithraeum remained in situ at Temple Court, though in the same month there was talk of reviving the Walbrook Square project.
The Walbrook Square project was purchased by the Bloomberg company in 2010, which decided to restore the Mithraeum to its original site as part of their new European headquarters. The new site is 7 metres (23 ft) below the modern street level, as part of an exhibition space beneath the Bloomberg building. The temple was moved a little west of its original position to preserve parts of the walls that were not uncovered in 1952–54 and are too fragile to display today.
The ruins are reconstructed as they appeared at the end of the excavation in October 1954, reflecting the first building phase of around AD 240 without any later Roman additions to the site. A large majority of the stones and bricks are original. The wood, render and lime mortar are new, but based on mortar samples from contemporary Roman London structures. The temple is displayed with a selection of artefacts found on the site.
Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centred on the god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity (yazata) Mithra, the Roman Mithras is linked to a new and distinctive imagery, with the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice debated. The mysteries were popular among the Imperial Roman army from about the 1st to the 4th century CE.
Worshippers of Mithras had a complex system of seven grades of initiation and communal ritual meals. Initiates called themselves syndexioi, those "united by the handshake". They met in underground temples, now named Mithraea (singular mithraeum), which survive in large numbers. The cult appears to have had its centre in Rome, and was popular throughout the western half of the empire, as far south as Roman Africa and Numidia, as far east as Roman Dacia, as far north as Roman Britain, and to a lesser extent in Roman Syria in the east.
Mithraism is viewed as a rival of early Christianity. In the 4th century, Mithraists faced persecution from Christians, and the religion was subsequently suppressed and eliminated in the Roman Empire by the end of the century.
Mithraism is viewed as a rival of early Christianity. In the 4th century, Mithraists faced persecution from Christians, and the religion was subsequently suppressed and eliminated in the Roman Empire by the end of the century.
Numerous archaeological finds, including meeting places, monuments, and artifacts, have contributed to modern knowledge about Mithraism throughout the Roman Empire. The iconic scenes of Mithras show him being born from a rock, slaughtering a bull, and sharing a banquet with the god Sol (the Sun). About 420 sites have yielded materials related to the cult. Among the items found are about 1000 inscriptions, 700 examples of the bull-killing scene (tauroctony), and about 400 other monuments. It has been estimated that there would have been at least 680 mithraea in the city of Rome. No written narratives or theology from the religion survive; limited information can be derived from the inscriptions and brief or passing references in Greek and Latin literature. Interpretation of the physical evidence remains problematic and contested.
We leave the Museum and make our through various streets to The Guildhall.
The current building dates from the 15th century; however documentary evidence suggests that a guildhall had existed at the site since at least the early 12th century. The building has been used as a town hall for several hundred years, and is still the ceremonial and administrative centre of the City of London and its Corporation. It should not be confused with London's City Hall, the administrative centre for Greater London. The term "Guildhall" refers both to the whole building and to its main room, which is a medieval great hall. It is a Grade I-listed building.
During the Roman period, the Guildhall was the site of the London Roman Amphitheatre, rediscovered as recently as 1988. It was the largest in Britannia, partial remains of which are on public display in the basement of the Guildhall Art Gallery, and the outline of whose arena is marked with a black circle on the paving of the courtyard in front of the hall. Indeed, the siting of the Saxon Guildhall here was probably due to the amphitheatre's remains. Excavations by Museum of London Archaeology at the entrance to Guildhall Yard exposed remains of the great 13th-century gatehouse built directly over the southern entrance to the Roman amphitheatre, which raises the possibility that enough of the Roman structure survived to influence the siting not only of the gatehouse and Guildhall itself but also of the church of St Lawrence Jewry whose strange alignment may shadow the elliptical form of the amphitheatre beneath.
The first documentary reference to a London Guildhall is dated 1127 or 1128; archaeologists have also discovered foundations dating to around that time. Legend describes the Guildhall site as being the location of the palace of Brutus of Troy, who according to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (1136) is said to have founded a city on the banks of the River Thames, known as Troia Nova, or New Troy.
The great hall is believed to be on a site of an earlier guildhall (one possible derivation for the word "guildhall" is the Anglo-Saxon "gild", meaning payment, with a "gild-hall" being where citizens would pay their taxes). Possible evidence for this derivation may be in a reference to John Parker, the sergeant of "Camera Guyhalde", London, in 1396.
Lost for centuries, the original circular walls of the Amphitheatre were rediscovered by archaeologists working on the site of the new Guildhall Art Gallery building in 1988. Visitors can now step into these well-preserved Roman ruins in which crowds would once have gathered to watch wild animal fights, public executions and gladiatorial combats.
We leave the Amphitheatre and the Guildhall and walk on and cross London Wall.
Crossing London Wall we reach Cripplegate, one of the seven gates in the Roman Wall.
(Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Moorgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate and Ludgate).
The origins of the gate's name are unclear. One theory, bolstered by a mentioning of the gate in the fourth law code of Æthelred the Unready and a charter of William the Conqueror from 1068 under the name "Crepelgate", is that it takes its name from the Anglo-Saxon word crepel, meaning a covered or underground passageway.
Another unsubstantiated theory suggests it is named after the cripples who used to beg there. The name of the nearby medieval church of St Giles-without-Cripplegate lends credence to this suggestion as Saint Giles is the patron saint of cripples and lepers.
It was initially the northern gate to the Roman city walls, built around AD 120 or 150, eighty years before the rest of the wall was completed. It appeared to have been used as part of the Roman city walls until at least the 10th-11th centuries. Cripplegate was rebuilt during the 1490s and was unhinged and fortified with a portcullis after Charles II became king in 1660. It was eventually demolished in 1760; much of Cripplegate was gone by the 19th century and only small fragments of it survive today.
We walk on passing the remains of St Alphege Church on London Wall.
St Alphege or St Alphage London Wall was a church in Bassishaw Ward in the City of London, built directly upon London Wall. It was also known as St Alphege Cripplegate, from its proximity to Cripplegate. It is now operated as St Alphege Gardens.
The first church was built adjoining the London Wall, with the wall forming its northern side. The churchyard lay to the north of the wall. The earliest mention of this church dates to c. 1108–25, though it is said that it was established before 1068.
The church has had many variations over the years, the remains of the church were designated a Grade II listed structure on 4 January 1950. The surviving remnants of these consist of the ruin of a central tower, built of flint and rubble masonry, with arches on three sides; the south wall is missing.
We then crossed back over London Wall and Andrew took down into a grotty old car park, we were all wondering what's going on here then.
But down in the basement of this car are more remains on the Roman London Wall, we head back up to street level afterwards.
Back up top, we head off down various streets towards The Bank of England.
We stopped outside the Royal Exchange.
The Royal Exchange in London was founded in the 16th century by the merchant Sir Thomas Gresham on the suggestion of his factor Richard Clough to act as a centre of commerce for the City of London. The site was provided by the City of London Corporation and the Worshipful Company of Mercers, who still jointly own the freehold. The original foundation was ceremonially opened by Queen Elizabeth I who granted it its "royal" title. The current neoclassical building has a trapezoidal floor plan and is flanked by Cornhill and Threadneedle Street, which converge at Bank junction in the heart of the city. It lies in the Ward of Cornhill.
The exchange building has twice been destroyed by fire and subsequently rebuilt. The present building was designed by Sir William Tite in the 1840s. The site was notably occupied by the Lloyd's insurance market for nearly 150 years. Today the Royal Exchange contains Fortnum & Mason The Bar & Restaurant, luxury shops, and offices.
Traditionally, the steps of the Royal Exchange are the place where certain royal proclamations (such as the dissolution of parliament) are read out by either a herald or a crier. Following the death or abdication of a monarch and the confirmation of the next monarch's accession to the throne by the Accession Council, the Royal Exchange Building is one of the locations where a herald proclaims the new monarch's reign to the public.
We walk down Cornhill where there is an old Victorian Water fountain and a water pump on a old well.
The Cornhill Water Pump stands at the site of a water pump back in the 18th century before the days supermarket water. Today the pump is just decorative, without a water supply and therefore just for show, albeit as a historical landmark and reminder of the many water fountains, wells, pumps and conduits that helped provide water to the inhabitants of London over the centuries.
Walking on we turn down St Michaels Alley and pass and an old chop shop called Simpsons, dating back to 1757.
London's oldest chophouse could be saved after the City of London passed measures to protect the pub. The Simpson's Tavern near Leadenhall Market has survived fires, wars, and epidemics in its 250-year history. But the pub is now facing the biggest threat to its survival.
The tavern first got into rent arrears during the Covid pandemic and the venue's locks were allegedly changed by the landlord last month, closing the business. The eatery has had to raise funds to reopen and keep its heritage alive, Sadly its now closed.
We walk around into Castle Court and pass The George and Vulture.
“Mr. Pickwick and Sam took up their present abode in very good, old-fashioned, and comfortable quarters, to wit, the George and Vulture Tavern and Hotel, George Yard, Lombard Street. Mr. Pickwick had dined, finished his second pint of particular port, pulled his silk handkerchief over his head, put his feet on the fender, and thrown himself back in an easy-chair, when the entrance of Mr. Weller with his carpet-bag, aroused him from his tranquil meditation.” Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1836
The George & Vulture is a City institution. This is a Chop House restaurant famous for the best chops and steaks. It is also open for drinks and cold platters in the evening.
Almost opposite is the Jamaica Wine House, known by locals as ‘The Jampot’, The Jamaica Wine House is the historic birthplace of London’s impressive coffee house scene. It has a rich, vibrant history, stretching back hundreds of years - with visits from many important historical figures.
Now, The Jamaica Wine House is a Grade II listed building, hidden away in St Michael’s Alley amid a labyrinth of charming medieval courts and backstreets near Monument, and is one of the Square Mile’s most popular pubs and wine bars.
If you’re looking for one of the best burgers in London, whether you’re just popping in for a drink or are looking for a bite to eat, a warm welcome awaits you at The Jamaica Wine House.
In 1652 the first coffee house in London was opened on St. Michael’s Alley, off Cornhill, set within a warren of medieval streets.
In truth, it was less coffee house and more wooden coffee shack, but it had the enviable advertising distinction of being situated below the spire of St. Michael’s Church, visible all over London.
It was operated by Pasqua Rosee, a servant or possibly valet to the businessman Daniel Edwards, who was an importer of goods from Turkey that included coffee. There are two stories as to how the coffee house came to be established. One is that Rosee had a falling out with Edwards and left his employ to set up the business. Another – and probably the more likely – is that visitors to Edwards’ home to try this new and exotic drink became too many and too frequent, so Edwards helped Rosee set up as a public vendor.
There doesn’t appear to be a definitive name given for Rosee’s establishment. Some accounts refer to it as being called “The Turk’s Head,” while a plaque on display in St. Michael’s Alley today refers to it as being the site of “The Sign of Pasqua Rosee’s Head.” Indeed, it was Rosee’s own profile which graced his coffee house sign. Resplendent in a turban and sporting a twirly moustache, the image of the head of a man of Turkish origin became the default sign for all coffee houses.
It should be noted that the first coffee house to be established in England was located in Oxford. It was opened in 1651 by a Jewish man named Jacob and called the Angel. However, a pamphlet distributed by Rosee extolling the “virtue of the coffee drink” named himself as the first to make and sell the beverage in England.
Sadly, despite Rosee’s being a hugely popular gathering place and a centre for creativity and communication – and spawning hundreds of rival establishments around the capital – it (and he) was short-lived.
There is evidence that he intended to open another coffee house in a permanent establishment on Cornhill, “adjacent Newman’s Court,” but all historical record of Pasqua Rosee ceases from 1658. His intended Cornhill location is now, ironically, a Starbucks. And in another twist of coffee-related fate, the location of the house Rosee shared with Mr. Edwards, at 38 Walbrook, is also now occupied by Starbucks.
The site of Rosee’s original coffee house was re-built after the great fire of London in 1666 and re-opened by another proprietor as the Jamaica Coffee House. Re-built again in the 19th Century, it continues serving drinks to this day under the name of the Jamaica Wine House.
We walk back out onto Gracechurch Street and to Leadenhall.
We walk pass 42 Bullshead Passage. At Leadenhall Market, 42 Bull’s Head Passage, the entrance of the ‘The Leaky Cauldron’ of the Harry Potter movie is located. It is located just beneath the famous Lloyd’s Building.
The scene where Harry Potter and Hagrid go shopping for wands (and where Hagrid buys Hedwig as a late birthday gift for Harry) is one of the most memorable scenes in the first Harry Potter film… and it all happened outside Leadenhall Market.
And not only was Leadenhall Market used to represent the one area of London which secretly leads magical folk to Diagon Alley (in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone), Potterheads should be able to immediately recognize the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron at 42 Bull’s Head Passage (which is now an opticians office), as its blue door was used to film scenes in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as well.
Not just limited to Harry Potter, Leadenhall Market has also been used as a filming location for a handful of other movies over the years, such as Hereafter, Love Aaj Kal, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, as well as for Erasure’s 1991 music video “Love To Hate You”.
Since as far back as the 1300s, local poulterers would venture to Leadenhall Market to sell their produce to the locals, and as a result, countless geese and chickens were slaughtered on a regular basis inside the market.
But during the early 1800s, there was one clever little goose who managed to escape his fate of being killed along with 34,000 other geese, after he somehow managing to make a “dash for freedom” when it was his turn for execution. (Word on
the street was that the goose actually managed to escape capture not just once, but countless times over the course of several days).
Because he was such a hard goose to catch, the market workers eventually gave up and decided to let the goose (who was eventually named Old Tom) live a life of peace and happiness inside the market, and he soon became one of Leadenhall’s most beloved residents; (so much so that market employees would often save a few scraps of food for him as well!)
Old Tom managed to live to the ripe old age of 38; and after his death in 1835, he was featured in the obituary section of a local newspaper, and was even given the proper burial he deserved inside the market.
Today Old Tom’s burial spot is marked by none other than the Old Tom’s Bar (at 10-12 Leadenhall Market) where visitors can enjoy traditional British cuisine and craft beers, but if you’re interested you can also check out two different representations of Old Tom on top of the old Midland Bank building, which is just near the Bank of England by the Bank tube station.
Leadenhall Market is perhaps best known as being one of the most stunning Victorian markets in London (and perhaps even the world), but turns out its history stretches well beyond the Victorian era.
During the Roman times, Leadenhall served an important role in the Roman settlement of Londinium, and apparently the eastern portion of the area where the market now stands once held the basilica and forum of Londinium. Not only that, the area was also an important meeting place and civic administration centre, and even once had a marketplace with stalls lining the walls of an open-air square.
However, even though Rome destroyed the buildings in 300 AD as a punishment to London for supporting Carausius (who had declared himself the Emperor of Britain), the Romans didn’t leave the area until the early 5th century after Britain was declared independent from Rome.
But surprisingly enough, Leadenhall’s Roman roots weren’t discovered until the early 1800s when the market was being remodelled, after workers discovered a section of Roman mosaic artwork about nine feet below street level. It was after this when historians were able to pinpoint that the Roman settlement around Leadenhall was established sometime around 70 AD, and was perhaps expanded to two hectares around 120 AD.
Visitors can see the original Roman mosaic artwork (which features a Bacchus riding a tiger with serpents, drinking cups and a cornucopia) in the British Museum, as well as one of the Roman Basilica arches which was discovered in the market’s north-western foundations in the basement of the Nicholson & Griffin Barber Shop in the market’s Central Avenue.
They were busy filming a Netflix program at the time of our visit.
Leadenhall Market’s Victorian design may be famous all around the world, but what Leadenhall Market looks like today is actually a stark contrast from what it looked like before its redesign during the Victorian ages.
Originally, the market building was a lead-roofed manor house (hence its name), which was once located within London’s Lime Street Ward. Nobody knows the exact date the manor was built, but it is known that by 1309, the owner of the manor (Sir Hugh Neville) opened up the grounds to be used as a marketplace for locals.
This marketplace was eventually redesigned by John Croxton in 1449, when it was decided to expand the market into a large rectangular quadrangle shape with two stories, a small side chapel, and various storage rooms to prepare for food shortages or other types of “social unrest”.
This original Leadenhall Market building was sadly demolished in 1881 before being redesigned yet again by Sir Horace Jones, an English architect who also designed the Smithfield Market, the Billingsgate Fish Market and even the Tower Bridge; (although the bridge wasn’t completed until eight years after his death).
Horace was responsible for designing Leadenhall’s iconic wrought iron and glass roof details, and the project cost a whopping £99,000 to build, with its additional entrances costing another £148,000. It’s thanks to Jones’ redesign that helped Leadenhall Market earn its Grade II heritage-listed status in 1972, and ultimately making it one of the most recognizable architectural structures in London today.
We leave Leadenhall and walk down St Mary Axe.
St Mary Axe is a small street near Bishopsgate in the Square Mile. It's famous as the home of the Gherkin skyscraper — officially called 30 St Mary Axe. But where does this odd street name come from?
The street takes its name from the church of St Mary Axe, which stood just south of the Gherkin site. This medieval relic was pulled down in 1565 (or thereabouts) having fallen into disrepair.
But how did the church get its name? There are various interconnected theories.
The historian John Stow*, writing about the church in 1603, describes "the signe of an Axe, over against the East end thereof". It's unclear whether he is describing a pub sign or that of some other business, but such motifs were common in an age when most people couldn't read names or numbers. So the street may simply refer to a combo of the church and a nearby hanging sign.
Another theory links the church to the Worshipful Company of Skinners. Stow tells us that this trade guild owned land adjacent to the church. It's possible that their skinning knives, which look a little like axe blades, became associated with the area. The church was also known as St Mary Pellipar, a reference to the Manor of Pellipar in Ireland, owned by the Skinners.
A third idea draws on the church's full name of St Mary, St Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins. It's an intriguing, if long-winded dedication. St Ursula was (in legend) a third- or fourth-century British princess who travelled to Rome then Cologne with an unlikely retinue of 11,000 virgin handmaidens. While on her journey, the party was set upon by Huns and massacred.
A document from 1514 links Ursula's legend to the church on St Mary Axe. At that time, the church supposedly possessed one of the axes used in the massacre. Hence, the church and later the street came to be known as St Mary Axe.
So, 30 St Mary Axe may well get its name from one of the most heinous and bloody crimes imagined in all European legend. Perhaps the building's owners might consider calling it the Gherkin like everyone else.
*Who, incidentally, has a unique memorial in the neighbouring church of St Andrew Undershaft.
The Gherkin, formally 30 St Mary Axe and previously known as the Swiss Re Building, is a commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. It was completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004. With 41 floors, it is 180 metres (591 ft) tall and stands on the sites of the former Baltic Exchange and Chamber of Shipping, which were extensively damaged in 1992 in the Baltic Exchange bombing by a device placed by the Provisional IRA in St Mary Axe, a narrow street leading north from Leadenhall Street.
After plans to build the 92-storey Millennium Tower were dropped, 30 St Mary Axe was designed by Foster + Partners and the Arup Group. It was built by Skanska; construction started in 2001.
The building has become a recognisable landmark of London, and it is one of the city's most widely recognised examples of contemporary architecture. It won the 2003 Emporis Skyscraper Award.
We walk on through to 120 Fenchurch Street where we plan to go up onto its roof for amazing views. Four of our group leave early as there is a queue and they have trains to catch back to further afield than the rest of us.
At 15 storeys up, The Garden at 120 offers exceptional 360-degree views of the City and greater London. Dedicated public lifts lead directly to The Garden at 120, which is an oasis in the heart of the City. The Garden, designed by German landscape architects Latz + Partner, is home to 85 Italian wisteria trees, over 30 fruit trees and a 200ft-long flowing water feature, relaxed seating and kiosk selling teas, coffees and snacks on the level below.
A new roof garden has opened in the City of London, and what it lacks in height, it more than makes up for in width — it’s the largest roof garden in London.
What is known as “The Garden at 120” sits on top the newly opened Fen Court office building at, unsurprisingly 120 Fenchurch Street, and is dramatic in size and the views available.
Fen Court is a new office block that was planned in 2008, then revised in 2011 and took over a whole block of smaller buildings, combining them into a single unit. Running through the middle is a large alley, Hogarth Court, which is in fact the same as the old alley that used to run here, and in the centre is the entrance to the roof garden.
Shame all the rain on the glass fence ruined getting great pictures, but still some great views!
A large square space known as the Banking Hall, as it’s based on the banking hall spaces created by Sir John Soane for the Bank of England, and a roof video and audio art that’ll play during the daytime.
Views to 20 Fenchurch Street nicknamed the Walkie Talkie building, where we visited the Sky Gardens up above on a previous walk.
Sky Garden is London’s highest public garden – a vibrant social space with 360-degree views of the city’s iconic skyline.
Here, you can experience London from a spectacular viewpoint. Enjoy lush greenery, exquisitely landscaped gardens, observation decks, and an open-air terrace.
Access to the Sky Garden is free of charge, but spaces are limited.
Siobhan and I left the other four to walk back to Tower Hill and we made our way over to Liverpool Street Station for our journey home. Thanks David for a great walk!