About the London: Portrait of a City Walk in London
London has a rich 2000 year old history, but much of it is hidden and hard to perceive by the uninitiated. This walk seeks to bring to light much of this history, looking broadly at the story of the city in a three hour walk.
A walk through the history of the City
For the purposes of this walk we will focus on the City itself and see how London developed from a Roman town to the bustling financial centre of an empire.
We will begin at the Tower of London, one of the symbols of London, built in 1078 to protect the city from invaders. From here we will discuss the Norman invasion and separation of City of London from the monarchy, delving into one of the most interesting periods of British history. We will continue the walk to one of the few sites which escaped the fire, but not the Blitz, All Hallows-by-the-Tower. The church is the oldest known in the City of London area and contains remains from the Roman, Saxon, medieval and modern periods. It was also the place where Samuel Pepys w
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London has a rich 2000 year old history, but much of it is hidden and hard to perceive by the uninitiated. This walk seeks to bring to light much of this history, looking broadly at the story of the city in a three hour walk.
A walk through the history of the City
For the purposes of this walk we will focus on the City itself and see how London developed from a Roman town to the bustling financial centre of an empire.
We will begin at the Tower of London, one of the symbols of London, built in 1078 to protect the city from invaders. From here we will discuss the Norman invasion and separation of City of London from the monarchy, delving into one of the most interesting periods of British history. We will continue the walk to one of the few sites which escaped the fire, but not the Blitz, All Hallows-by-the-Tower. The church is the oldest known in the City of London area and contains remains from the Roman, Saxon, medieval and modern periods. It was also the place where Samuel Pepys watched the Great Fire spread across the capital, and where William Penn was christened and where John Quincy Adams was married.
As we leave the church we will pass some of the remainders of the Roman and Medieval wall and fort that was situated in this area. While making our way in the Medieval streets of the City, we will discuss the architectural development of the square mile, from St. Andrew Undershaft which survived the fire, the Blitz, and Victorian refurbishment, to the Lloyds Building and the controversial Gerkin. We will continue our peruse with a visit to the fourteenth century Leadenhall market where we will discuss the importance of trade for the history of the City and flourishing coffeehouses in this London. If time allows, we’ll veer off to the Guildhall, the medieval town hall and the only pre-1666 secular building that survived the fire and the 1940-1 Blitz. This site is also home to a Roman amphitheater situated in the ground level of the structure. In our pursuit and we may examine the remains here. Depending on the day, and the clients’ interest we may take the short walk to the third century AD Roman Mithraeum that was originally situated next to a small river called the Walbrook, which no longer exists
Or we could proceed to walk through the heart of the city through Eastcheap, once part of the area containing London's medieval market, whose memory only remains in the road names. From here we will walk to the Monument, a large monolith, that commemorates the believed starting-point for the Great Fire of London in 1666, which destroyed most of the Medieval city. This included many of the ninety-six churches that existed in this part of London, and the job of their restoration was given to Christopher Wren whose masterpieces are still a feature of London today.
