While many parts of London have a long history of course none can match the City. And there is just so much packed into the winding roads of the City that one cannot easily do it justice in one walk, even though the area is so small. Hence this walk just covered the eastern side (with a lunch break of sushi with my mate Thibault).
Here I started almost at the beginning with a chunk of the old City Wall. While the upper reaches are medieval, the lower courses are Roman and so date back to the 2nd century. If you look down and see the courses with thin red tiles in them, that is a trademark of Roman walls. The Roman wall ran for over 2 miles enclosing 330 acres. This is the best preserved chunk left, and you need to know where to look for it as it is hidden at the back of a hotel around the corner from Tower Hill tube station.
And in front of Tower Hill you have, of course, the Tower of London, founded by William the Conqueror in the 1070s. One feels things that have survived a hundred years have done well. A thousand, well, wow.
This is the Mercantile Marine Memorial designed by Lutyens in Trinity Square Gardens, remembering all the seamen who lost their lives in the First World War, with an extension in front of it the larger numbers lost in the Second World War.
There are memorials too to earlier deaths - those who lost their lives to the executioner, mostly for acts of treason.
Lord Lovat was the last victim in 1747 for his part in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, forerunner of the SNP...
10 Trinity Square, a grand Beaux Arts style building designed by Sir Edwin Cooper as the HQ for the Port of London Authority. It nicely sets off one corner of the Square.
All Hallows by the Tower, London's oldest church in being founded in 675 AD
This neat little park on Seething Lane was where Samuel Pepys worked for the Navy Office.
St Olaves Hart Street was one of the few churches to survive the Great Fire. It was dedicated to Norway's patron saint, King Olav.
On the delightfully named road, Crutched Friars, there is a little statue of two friars. A monastery was founded here 1249.
St Botolph Aldgate
The Hoop and Grapes, only notable as possibly the oldest pub in the City with foundations back to the 13 century, The current building probably predates the Great Fire.
An old police phone box
The Aldgate Pump, once the main water supply for locals, and not a great one since the water once filtered through a local graveyard!
This little marker on a modern office block marks the site of the old Bishop's Gate in the London Wall. The gate was demolished in 1760.
St Botolph Without Bishopsgate
Apparently this is the first WWI memorial, dating to 1916 so before the war finished.
Here is another of the quirky buildings you can find in London that you just wouldn't expect. Its a Turkish Bath built in 1895, the a design inspired by a shrine at the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. (Now a restaurant)
All Hallows London Wall, which indeed used to be attached to London Wall
Drapers Hall
The Dutch Church of Austin Friars. The name derives from the Augustinian monastery that was here before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The land was given to Dutch protestant refugees and a church built, which was then destroyed in the Blitz, hence the new church here.
Behind the church is a little warren of alleyways
The dominant feature around here is the Gherkin, although it is not the tallest skyscraper, but it is the most shapely.
Underneath it is St Helen's Bishopsgate, the slightly odd double nave shape is because there was a nunnery here right next to the parish church. Following the Dissolution they were knocked together.
The skyscrapers around here are quite extraordinary . Cannot easily convey just how huge they are
The Lloyds Building, frankly now rather dwarfed by its neighbours and not really feeling all that iconic.
If you have never visited the Victorian splendour of Leadenhall Market it will surprise you in among all the office blocks.
This is probably the least remarkable of all the shops and bars here, but its claim to fame is it was used in the filming of Harry Potter
To the left below is the unprepossessing entrance to St Peter upon Cornhill. The Roman Basilica stood on this site
St Michael Cornhill
A water pump marking the site of an old prison. (It has recently been repainted having previously been blue)
There is a tiny narrow alley called Ball Court leading to another warren of old alleys.
The Jamaica Wine House, formerly the Jamaica Coffee House when founded in the 1670s for merchants who would have discussed affairs in the West Indies here.
But the Jamaica was not the first Coffee House, which was opened by an Armenian servant in 1652. By 1739 London had over 550 coffee houses. The Starbucks phenomenon has a precedent. London has liked its coffee for centuries.
Lombard Street, London's original banking centre and named after the Italian Lombard merchants who filled the void after England expelled the Jewish money lenders. Labour's commercial anti-semitism isn't new either. (The mercahnts worked on benches - "banco" in Italian, hence the term "bank".)
St Mary Woolnoth, Nicholas Hawksmoor's only City church
The Mansion House, the Lord Mayor's official residence, designed by George Dance in the mid 18th century. The interiors are very grand, trust me.
St Stephen Walbrook, a church rebuilt by Christopher Wren after the Great Fire. The dome could be seen as a prototype for St Paul's. Beautiful interior too.
In this alcove is the London Stone. Not clear what is special about this, although one theory is it was used by the Romans as a measuring point for official distances to other places in Britannia
St Mary Abchurch, also by Wren
The Monument
This inscription is fascinating for many reasons. Note for example the reference to Charles I as Charles the Martyr
Old Billingsgate fish market
The Custom House
St Mary at Hill Street, another Wren church
And finally the very atmospheric ruins of St Dunstan in the East, destroyed in the Blitz and not rebuilt, but turned into a city garden.
