If you like your summer walks green and rural, the City of London is not the
obvious choice. But as well as being home to some of the world’s best-known
landmarks, the Square Mile is full of narrow cobbled streets and hidden
churchyards ideal for a summer picnic. This month, the City’s famous skyline
will also be the backdrop for the 45th
City of London festival, with everything from open-air jazz to a
performance of Chopin on a motorised concert piano filling the streets in
June
This month’s London
walk starts and ends at the Monument,
Christopher Wren’s 200 foot monument to the Fire of London. The route first
heads west through quiet back streets to St Pauls, then swings up to the Old
Bailey and the City’s northern boundary before turning east to the heart of
London’s financial centre round the Bank of England and Lloyd’s of London
and down to the Tower of London and finishing with a walk along the Thames
Path.
Highlights: Monument; St Paul’s Cathedral; The Old Bailey; St
Bartholomew’s Hospital; Postman’s Park; Guildhall; Bank of England; Lloyd’s
of London; Bevis Marks Synagogue; Tower of London; Thames Path Walk
Type of walk: circular; Distance: 2.5 miles approx; Time: 3.5
hours approx (excluding visits to museums, churches and other places of
interest). The best time to do this walk is during the week when shops and
restaurants are open, and churches offer lunchtime organ recitals amid
soaring wood carvings and stained glass. Even though more people live in the
City than they used to, the area is quite dead at weekends. That said, a
weekend walk through quiet streets emptied of hurrying City boys and girls
can be very pleasant, as this writer found. But beware: come stocked up with
food and drink rather than expecting to buy it en route as you may have a
long hunt for the nearest open shop.
Start and finish: Monument tube (district and circle line with
pedestrian access to central line and DLR via Bank).
Take the Fish Street Hill exit and turn right into Fish Street Hill to admire
Wren’s Monument, completed in 1677. The views from the top of the tower are
excellent if you can face walking up 311 steps and down again. Those who do
are rewarded with a certificate. Retrace your steps up Fish Street Hill to
the junction of King William Street and Gracechurch Street and turn left,
crossing the pedestrian crossing and continuing up Cannon Street.
On weekdays, Cannon Street is an unpleasant traffic jam so grit your teeth
until you are past the station and concentrate on the dome of St Paul’s
visible ahead, then turn left down Dowgate Hill. This hidden network of
streets is the first of many reminders that the City’s original street
pattern was a maze of narrow streets and alleys rather than orderly grids.
The haphazard layout was thankfully retained despite widespread destruction
in the Great Fire of 1666 and the Blitz nearly three centuries later and a
series of attempts to impose planning order.
Turn right down Cloak Lane, which has a memorial on the right sacred to the
memory of “four centuries of dead” from the graveyard of St John the Baptist
at Walbrook, evicted from their resting place by the arrival of the railway
in 1884. Keep straight on along Great Thomas Apostle and Great Trinity Lane
to emerge onto Queen Victoria Street. Turn left and cross at the zebra
crossing to reach Friday Street. The terracotta brick building on the corner
is Bracken House, former headquarters of the Financial Times, the building’s
colour echoing the FT’s famous pink newsprint. Go round to the left of the
building and up the steps, then follow Distaff Lane round to the right to
come out into Cannon Street almost opposite St
Paul’s Cathedral.
This magnificent 300-year-old building is undergoing a £40 million programme
of restoration and its exterior is beginning to emerge gleaming and free
from hundreds of years of soot and grime. But scaffolding still narrows the
pavements around the cathedral, which are thronged with tourists, so avoid
the crush and go round the back of the cathedral, through up the steps and
through an iron gate into an outer garden, then through another gate into
the rose gardens, where the flowers are in full bloom. Follow the garden
round, with the curve of the cathedral on your left. The simple stone
circular memorial on your right as you come out of the church yard at the
front of the cathedral is dedicated to the people of London who lost their
lives in the second world war.
The inside of St Paul’s is best admired during a service, where you can enjoy
the sound of one of the world’s best cathedral choirs making the vast dome
echo. At other times, the cathedral is restless with tourists and you have
to pay to get in.
The walk continues across the zebra crossing by 1 St Paul’s Churchyard and
turn left down Creed Lane. This takes you back into the alleyways of the
City down cobbled streets with small individually owned shops. Cross Carter
Lane, go straight on down Burgon Street and right into Ireland Yard past the
small churchyard of St Anne Blackfriars. The church itself was destroyed in
the Great Fire but the churchyard still exists as a resting place. Continue
on past a row of Georgian town houses and turn right into Blackfriars Lane,
past Apothecaries’ Hall. This is one of many livery
halls, occupied by City livery companies representing various trades and
guilds. Guilds were originally formed to regulate and restrict entry to City
trades but now carry out a range of charity work.
Continue up to Ludgate Hill, bearing right where the street divides at The
Evangelist café and restaurant. Cross Ludgate Hill. The glass kiosk at the
edge of the road and the chicane slowing down traffic are reminders of the
“ring of steel” built around the City in the wake of IRA bomb in 1992 and
1993 which destroyed the Baltic Exchange in St Mary Axe and other buildings
in Bishopsgate. For a time police stood in these kiosks stationed around the
edge of the City and stopped incoming traffic at random.
though I never been to this city I guess I would take your essay as a map one day
bunny, Kunming, China