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The Short Guide to the City of London
The City of London contains the historic centre and main financial business district of London. Rather confusing for visitors but it is easier to understand the City of London as a city within a city. It was within the boundaries of the City of London that London developed from the Roman settlement in the 1st century AD to the Middle Ages.
Since then London has grown dramatically and now the City forms a small part of the capital. Due to its development the city has a number of unusual rules and regulations and has its own mayor and police force.
The City of London is often referred to as the City or by its nickname the Square Mile, the City is a major business and financial centre which grew dramatically in the 19th century into one of the world’s main business centres. Although the City has a very small resident population of around 10,000, over 300,000 people commute to work here every day. Around three-quarters of the jobs in the City of London are in the financial, professional, and business services sectors. There is a large legal profession presence in the Temple and Chancery Lane areas where the Inns of Court are located.
The City of London is not considered a major tourist destination, many of the bars, restaurants and shops close at the weekend. However there are a large number of free attractions and buildings like The Bank of England, Mansion House, The Royal Exchange and the Guildhall that can make a visit to the City, a worthwhile experience.
The ancient City was defended by a London Wall, parts of which can be seen in various locations and the names of streets and roads offer clues to their previous use. The City suffered a disaster with the Great Fire of London in 1666 which destroyed great parts of the City.
After the fire of 1666, there were a number of plans to modernise the City but generally the medieval street pattern still exists. The original St Paul’s was destroyed in the fire and it was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren and is considered to be one of the finest cathedrals in Britain.
From the late 16th century, London became a major centre for banking, international trade and commerce. The Royal Exchange was founded by Sir Thomas Gresham and the Bank of England moved to its present site in 1734.
Like many areas of London, the City suffered considerable damage from bombing raids during World War II and the resulting fires. In the second half of the 20th century, the City changed dramatically with the construction of modern and larger-scale developments.
After the 1970s, saw the construction of tall office buildings including the Natwest Tower, 30 St. Mary Axe (“the Gherkin”‘), Leadenhall Building (“the Cheesegrater”), 20 Fenchurch Street (“the Walkie-Talkie”), the Broadgate Tower and the Heron Tower. Another skyscraper, 22 Bishopsgate the tallest of all has just finished its construction.
These skyscrapers have changed the character of the City but it remains a fascinating mix of old and new.
The City of London is a wonderful place to explore with small green spaces, hidden alleyways, old and modern churches, historic buildings and modern sculptures.
London Visitors is the official blog for the Visiting London Guide .com website. The website was developed to bring practical advice and latest up to date news and reviews of events in London.
Since our launch in January 2014, we have attracted thousands of readers each month, the site is constantly updated.
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Gladiator Games return to Londonium : Roman fun at the Guildhall – 25th to 28th August 2017
Photo © Museum of London
Beneath the historic Guildhall in the City of London is the site of London’s only Roman amphitheatre whose remains were uncovered by archaeologists over 30 years ago under the courtyard.
In August, new gladiatorial battles will commence at the very location where Roman gladiators fought 2,000 years ago. Eight thrilling afternoon and evening events will take place across the August Bank Holiday Weekend, Friday 25-Monday 28 August 2017.
Photo © Museum of London
Gladiators in full, magnificent battle dress will enter the arena before packed crowds and fight a series of powerful battles – intense clashes of steel swords, brightly decorated shields, spears and shining armour. The audience will become a big part of the action, taking sides and encouraging the emperor to save or spare each stricken fighter.
Photo © Museum of London
The Gladiator Games are performed by Britannia, the collective renowned for its work on the BAFTA-nominated CBBC programme, Horrible Histories, and the celebrated Ridley Scott film, Gladiator. Each performance is the result of research into events in the 1st century A.D., using images drawn from Roman coins, paintings, sculpture and mosaics, surviving commentaries and archaeological finds.
Photo © Museum of London
Accompanying the main event will be a special Roman festival, which will bring the audience closer to life in Londinium, the largest city in Britannia from around AD50 to 410 and a major international port. Musicians will perform, Roman clothes and equipment will be made, crafts demonstrated and explained, and the Museum’s experts will invite the audience to examine and handle real Roman artefacts. Below ground, close to the ruins of the amphitheatre, there will be a special small display of artefacts from the Museum of London that looks at representations of gladiators in Londinium.
Photo © Museum of London
The Games form part of a three-month festival that will celebrate the unique Roman heritage at the heart of the capital, hosted by the City of London Corporation. The festival, called Londinium, is made up of exhibitions, walks, talks, theatre, film and special events, taking place from 28 July – 29 October 2017.
For more information and tickets , visit the City of London website here
London Visitors is the official blog for the Visiting London Guide .com website. The website was developed to bring practical advice and latest up to date news and reviews of events in London.
Since our launch in January 2014, we have attracted thousands of readers each month, the site is constantly updated.
We have sections on Museums and Art Galleries, Transport, Food and Drink, Places to Stay, Security, Music, Sport, Books and many more.
There are also hundreds of links to interesting articles on our blog.
To find out more visit the website here
Unseen City : Photos by Martin Parr at the Guildhall Art Gallery – 4th March to 31st July 2016
Lord Mayor’s Show, Guildhall, City of London, 2013. © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos
Speaking to a packed audience at The Hepworth Wakefield last week at the ‘in conversation with Anne McNeill, Director of Impressions Gallery at his major exhibition of 400 works, “The Rhubarb Triangle and other Stories : Photographs by Martin Parr”, Parr, in jest remarked that being from Surrey partly explained his critique on taking photographs.
Parr also said that he felt guilty about the fact that he had done so well during the government of 80’s Britain for much of his work he is known but added that the intent of his social documentary photography was and is equally as “questionable” and polemical in intent and subject matter as that of photojournalists who photograph hard-hitting humanitarian subjects.
Lord Mayor’s Show, Guildhall, City of London, 2014. © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos
The connoisseurship of Parr’s critical acclaim and photographic credentials as a world-leading photographer and President of Magnum can be seen at three major venues. “Unseen City : Photos by Martin Parr” at the Guildhall Art Gallery (London), which is one of three major exhibitions of Parr’s work in the UK this year is a culmination of Parr’s two-year photographer-in-residence at the City of London Corporation (COLC), where he was commissioned to photograph a ‘behind-the-scenes’ view of the City of London across three mayoralties.
Cart Making, Guildhall, City of London, 2015. © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos
Featuring 120 photographs, (20 of which have been acquired by the Guildhall Art Gallery for the contemporary permanent collection), it represents Parr’s atypical witty and questionable take on British institutional life. Showing a ‘behind the scenes’ view of livery companies, ritual, tradition and high-profile occasions and open democracy where guests have included Her Majesty the Queen, Lord Mayors and city dignitaries the works portray the character, traditions, and people who make up the City to which Parr delivers a contemporary perspective of British institutional life in idiosyncratic style, posing questions on institutional life, open democracy and the nature of British identity with wit, brilliance, humour and laconic surprise.
Silent Ceremony, swearing-in of new Lord Mayor, Fiona Woolf, Guildhall, City of London, 2013. © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos
“Unseen City : Photos by Martin Parr”, Guildhall Art Gallery of London, (4 March – 31 July 2016) will run parallel with “Strange and Familiar : Britain as Revealed by International Photographers” curated by Martin Parr Barbican Art Gallery, Barbican Centre, (16 March-19 June 2016). “The Rhubarb Triangle and other Stories : Photographs by Martin Parr”, The Hepworth Wakefield, (4 February-12 June 2016).
Lord Mayor’s Show, City of London, 2013. © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos
An Artist’s Platform : A Q&A with Martin Parr will be held on 26 April 2016 between 6-8 pm and lunchtime curator’s talks will be held one Thursday per month at 1 pm on the 10 March, 7 April, 5 May, 2 June, 7 July 2016.
Opening Times: Monday–Saturday, 10 am – 5 pm and Sunday, 12 noon – 4 pm. Admission: £5.00 (concessions available).
Contributor : Pippa Jane Wielgos
For more information and book tickets, visit the City of London website here
London Visitors is the official blog for the Visiting London Guide .com website. The website was developed to bring practical advice and latest up to date news and reviews of events in London.
Since our launch in January 2014 , we have attracted thousands of readers each month, the site is constantly updated.
We have sections on Museums and Art Galleries, Transport, Food and Drink, Places to Stay, Security, Music, Sport, Books and many more.
There are also hundreds of links to interesting articles on our blog.
To find out more visit the website here
The Remarkable Story of the Temple Bar
Standing near to St Paul’s Cathedral, mostly ignored by visitors is an arch that has a remarkable history. The arch is known as the Temple Bar and was commissioned by King Charles II, and designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Constructed from Portland Stone between 1669 and 1672 it occupied one of the most important locations in London, separating the City of London and the City of Westminster.
This location was the point where Fleet Street becomes the Strand, a site now near the Royal Courts of Justice, it was at this spot that a Temple Bar stood from the 13th century. Originally just a wooden structure with a chain, it possessed considerable symbolic importance. Temple Bar was the scene of a large number of historical pageants celebrating coronations and paying homage to dead Kings and Queens, through the Temple Bar passed Henry V, Anne Boleyn, Edward VI and Mary Tudor. Before Queen Elizabeth the first’s coronation, Gogmagog the Albion, and Corineus the Briton, the two Guildhall giants, stood next to the Bar.
In the late Middle Ages a wooden archway stood on the spot and although it escaped damage in the Great Fire of London , it was decided by the City to rebuild the structure.
The Wren designed Temple Bar is constructed in two stories with one wide central arch for the road traffic, flanked on both sides by narrower arches for pedestrians.
During the 18th century, the heads of traitors were mounted on pikes and exhibited on the roof and upper story room was leased to the neighbouring banking-house of Child and Co for records storage.
Temple Bar, London, 1878 by A & J Bool
In 1878 the City of London Corporation decided that the arch was becoming a bottleneck for traffic and decided to dismantle the structure. It dismantled it piece-by-piece over an 11-day period and the Corporation stored the 2,700 stones. In 1880, at the instigation of his wife, Valerie Meux, the brewer Henry Meux bought the stones and re-erected the arch as a gateway at his house, Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire. Lady Meux used it to entertain friends but after she died, it became derelict and abandoned until 2003.
Temple bar at Theobolds Park (Photo M Newnham 1968)
In 1984, it was purchased by the Temple Bar Trust from the Meux Trust for £1. It was carefully dismantled and returned on 500 pallets to the City of London, where it was painstakingly re-erected as an entrance to the Paternoster Square redevelopment just north of St Paul’s Cathedral. It opened to the public on the 10 November 2004.
London Visitors is the official blog for the Visiting London Guide .com website. The website was developed to bring practical advice and latest up to date news and reviews of events in London.
Since our launch , we have attracted thousands of readers each month, the site is constantly updated.
We have sections on Museums and Art Galleries, Transport, Food and Drink, Places to Stay, Security, Music, Sport, Books and many more.
There are also hundreds of links to interesting articles on our blog.
To find out more visit the website here
Security : Illegal gambling scams on London’s bridges
Many of the scams are variations on a particular theme and have been around for years. One of the oldest scams is ‘Find the Lady’ or ‘cup and ball’ where you are invited to bet on where the ball is located under three cups. A recent case involving City of London Police suggest there are still scamsters trying this on London bridges.
Public warned to avoid illegal gambling scams on London’s bridges
The City of London Police are warning Londoners, and particularly tourists, about gambling scams taking place in London on some of our most iconic bridges.
Two men were charged under section 33 of the Gambling Act on Sunday 15 March after off-duty City of London Police officer Insp Harley witnessed a group of men undertaking a ‘cup and ball’ game on Tower Bridge.
The game works by the gang targeting tourists to get them to try and predict which cup the plastic ball will be under.
Community Policing Insp Harley witnessed suspects encouraging members of the public to participate in playing the game. This is done to entice unsuspecting members of the public to gamble money with no chance of winning.
City of London Police Inspector Harley said “These games are not a matter of chance, but are fixed to ensure members of the public do not win.
“Our community policing officers will continue to work with the City of London Corporation and our neighbouring boroughs to target this criminal activity.”
It pays to be extra vigilant on bridges which are often considered safe ground by many beggars, scamsters and musicians because they do not seem to fall within any local authorities jurisdiction, however they are patrolled by police and if you spot suspicious activity, report it to a uniformed police officer.
If you come across suspicious activity, report it to a uniformed officer in the street or in a police station.
101 is the Non emergency number to call when you want to contact your local police in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland – when it’s less urgent than a 999 call.
Non emergency usually include: Stolen car, Laptop, Smartphones and mobile phone, Minor traffic collision , Property damage, Drug dealing.
London Visitors is the official blog for the Visiting London Guide .com website. The website was developed to bring practical advice and latest up to date news and reviews of events in London.
Since our launch , we have attracted thousands of readers each month, the site is constantly updated.
We have sections on Museums and Art Galleries, Transport, Food and Drink, Places to Stay, Security, Music, Sport, Books and many more.
There are also hundreds of links to interesting articles on our blog.
To find out more visit the website here
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