London Uncovered: Secrets of the Square Mile & Beyond

Hidden courtyards, ancient ruins, and stories the guidebooks forgot

London · 16 stops · 9.6 km · ~2.8 h · Generated

  1. 1. Temple Bar: The Gate That Moved

    Temple Bar, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1AA

    You're standing right where two cities collide. Not two countries... two Cities. Because this spot — right here on Fleet Street — is the ancient boundary between the City of London and the City of Westminster. For centuries, Temple Bar was the most heavily used crossing point between England's prime commercial centre and the Palace of Westminster, its political heart.

    And for over two hundred years, a magnificent stone archway stood right across this road. But here's the thing... it vanished. For more than a century, it was simply Gone.

    Let me take you back. A bar is first mentioned here in twelve ninety-three, and at that time it was probably no more than a chain between wooden posts. By thirteen fifty-one, a wooden gateway had been built, complete with a small prison above it. Then, after the Great Fire of sixteen sixty-six, King Charles the Second tasked none other than Christopher Wren to rebuild it in valuable Portland stone.

    And Wren delivered. The fine arch was constructed between sixteen sixty-nine and sixteen seventy-two — a two-story structure with one wide central arch for road traffic, flanked on both sides by narrower arches for pedestrians.

    Now... this is where it gets dark. From the seventeenth century, the heads of executed traitors were displayed on spikes on top of Temple Bar. They were boiled in salt or pitch first... to stop the birds eating them. And enterprising Londoners used to hire out spy-glasses for a halfpenny so passersby could get a closer look at the heads.

    But by the eighteen seventies, the gate had a different problem. One writer called it "a bone in the throat of Fleet Street." In eighteen seventy-eight, the City of London Corporation, eager to widen the road but unwilling to destroy so historic a monument, dismantled it piece by piece over just eleven days, carefully storing its two thousand seven hundred stones.

    And then came one of history's more Unlikely rescuers. A banjo-playing barmaid named Valerie Meux, who had married into a very wealthy family of London brewers. Forever trying to convince Victorian high society of her respectability, she decided to rebuild Temple Bar as the grand entrance to her Hertfordshire estate at Theobalds Park. More than two thousand five hundred stones weighing nearly four hundred tons were transported from London to Hertfordshire on flat trolleys pulled by horses.

    And it worked! Lady Meux entertained luminaries such as the future King Edward the Seventh and Winston Churchill in the chamber above the arch.

    For over a hundred years, Wren's masterpiece stood in a woodland clearing in the countryside. Then, in nineteen eighty-four, the Temple Bar Trust bought it from the Meux Trust for the grand sum of... one pound. In two thousand four, it was painstakingly re-erected as an entrance to Paternoster Square, just north of Saint Paul's Cathedral, opening to the public on the tenth of November.

    So the gate you see today at Paternoster Square is Not a replica. Temple Bar is Grade One listed, and ninety-five percent of its gate structure is original seventeenth-century material. The Only surviving gateway to the City of London... and the gate that came home after a hundred and twenty-six years in exile.

  2. 2. St Paul's Cathedral: The Whispering Gallery

    St Paul's Cathedral, St Paul's Churchyard, London EC4M 8AD

  3. 3. Ludgate Hill & The Old Bailey

    Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, London EC4M 7EH

    Look up at the dome above you... and find the golden woman. On the dome of the Old Bailey stands a gilt bronze statue of Lady Justice, sculpted by F. W. Pomeroy. She holds a sword in her right hand and the scales of justice in her left. But here's what most people miss. Do you notice anything unusual about her face? She is Not blindfolded. The courthouse brochures explain that her "maidenly form" is supposed to guarantee her impartiality... which renders the blindfold redundant. In fact, the blindfold was originally a Satirical addition, intended to show Justice as blind to the injustice carried on before her. So London's Lady Justice keeps her eyes wide open. Make of that what you will.

    Now... the ground beneath your feet tells a much darker story. Newgate Prison stood at this very corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey, just inside the City of London. Built in the twelfth century and demolished in nineteen oh four, it remained in use for over Seven Hundred years.

    For over six centuries the prison was renowned for its appalling conditions. It was said that the floors Crunched as you walked, due to all the lice and bedbugs. And the horror didn't stay behind bars. In May seventeen fifty, something terrifying happened right here. The Lord Mayor, two judges, an alderman, an under-sheriff, and fifty members of the public attending the sessions house Died from gaol fever — typhus — carried straight from the prison into the courtroom. The disease literally leapt from the prisoners in the dock to the judges sentencing them. After that catastrophe, judges were forced to carry nosegays of flowers to hide the unpleasant smells from the cells — it was believed the disease came from horrible smells. And remarkably, that tradition of judges carrying flowers still continues today during formal ceremonies.

    Up to twenty people could be hanged at a time here, attracting up to one hundred Thousand spectators. Local pubs, like the Magpie and Stump, would actually hire out rooms offering views of the executions — front-row seats to death, at a premium price.

    And then there was Jack Sheppard... a celebrated thief whose daring escapes from prison turned him into a folk hero. He broke out of jail Four times, including twice from Newgate itself. The first time, he loosened an iron bar, lowered himself with a knotted sheet, and escaped in women's clothes. The second time was even more audacious — he climbed up the chimney from his cell, then broke through Six locked doors to reach the prison chapel and found the roof.

    In nineteen oh two, the old sessions house and Newgate Prison were demolished to make way for the current building, opened in nineteen oh seven by Edward the Seventh. These oak-panelled courtrooms have been the setting for some of the most notorious cases in criminal history — Oscar Wilde, tried for homosexuality in eighteen ninety-five... Doctor Crippen, for the murder of his wife in nineteen ten.

    In nineteen seventy-three, the Provisional Ira exploded a car bomb in the street right outside, killing one person and injuring two hundred. A shard of glass from that blast is still preserved, embedded in the wall at the top of the main stairs — a quiet reminder that justice, like the golden lady above, keeps her eyes open.

  4. 4. St Bride's Church: The Wedding Cake Steeple

    St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 8AU

    Look up at that steeple... four tiers of octagonal stone, each one smaller than the last, rising like a great layered confection into the London sky. Standing two hundred and twenty six feet tall, this is the second highest of all Christopher Wren's church spires, surpassed only by Saint Paul's Cathedral itself.

    Now here's the delicious part. The story goes that towards the end of the eighteenth century, an apprentice baker named William Rich, who worked at premises on nearby Ludgate Hill, fell in love with his boss's daughter. When he set up his own business and won her father's approval, Rich wished to create a spectacular cake for the wedding feast... but was unsure how, until one day he looked UP at the steeple of the church, and inspiration hit him. A cake in layers, tiered, diminishing as it rose. And just like that, the tiered wedding cake was born! Every multi-layered wedding cake you've Ever seen may trace its origins to this very steeple.

    But here's what most people don't tell you. Despite the romantic claims that his bride was the daughter of his master baker, her father was actually a peruke maker... a wigmaker... from nearby Cheapside. The love story is real, the cake is real, but the details got a little sweetened over time.

    Now, this steeple has also had a Stormy history... literally. The spire was greatly injured by lightning in seventeen fifty, and in seventeen sixty four a storm so wrecked its masonry that it had to be mainly rebuilt. Yet for years after, the authorities refused to attach a lightning rod, even though Benjamin Franklin had already invented one. The clergy believed lightning was the will of God... and protecting against it was considered almost blasphemous. The priests' refusals prompted the president of Harvard University himself to write to Franklin about the astonishing force of prejudice.

    But this spot holds secrets far Older than the steeple. The present Saint Bride's is at least the seventh church to have stood on this site. In the underground crypt, you can see the remains of a Roman pavement dating back to around one hundred and eighty AD. Excavations also uncovered thousands of human remains, dating from the Roman period through the Plague of sixteen sixty five, right up to the eighteen fifties.

    And the name? It has nothing to do with weddings. It is believed the name derives from Bridget of Ireland, the patron saint of Ireland. The church may have been founded by Irish monks, missionaries converting the English, making it possibly the Only Celtic Irish-founded church in the east of Britain. Legend even says Saint Bridget could turn bathwater into beer!

    One more thing. Samuel Pepys, the great diarist, was born in a house right next to this church and was baptised here. And in fifteen hundred, Wynkyn de Worde set up his printing press in the churchyard of Saint Bride's, launching Fleet Street's five hundred year love affair with the printed word. From Roman ruins to wedding cakes, from lightning rods to printing presses... this single spot holds more layers of history than any cake could ever match.

  5. 5. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

    Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, 145 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2BU

  6. 6. Smithfield Market: London's Oldest Trading Ground

    Smithfield Market, Charterhouse Street, London EC1A 9PS

  7. 7. The Charterhouse

    The Charterhouse, Charterhouse Square, London EC1M 6AN

  8. 8. St Bartholomew the Great: London's Oldest Church Nave

    St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, London EC1A 9DS

  9. 9. Postman's Park: The Heroes' Memorial

    Postman's Park, King Edward Street, London EC1A 7BT

  10. 10. Leadenhall Market: Diagon Alley in Disguise

    Leadenhall Market, Gracechurch Street, London EC3V 1LT

  11. 11. St Dunstan in the East: The Bombed Church Garden

    St Dunstan in the East, St Dunstan's Hill, London EC3R 5DD

  12. 12. The Millennium Bridge

    Millennium Bridge, Bankside, London SE1 9JE

  13. 13. Tate Modern: The Turbine Hall

    Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG

  14. 14. The Oxo Tower Wharf

    Oxo Tower Wharf, Bargehouse Street, London SE1 9PH

    Look up at that tower. See those geometric shapes near the top... two circles and a cross, stacked vertically on each face? That's not just decoration. That is one of London's Cleverest pieces of hidden advertising... and it's been hiding in plain sight for nearly a hundred years.

    This building started life as a power station, built at the end of the nineteenth century to supply electricity to the Royal Mail post office. A humble beginning. But the story gets interesting in the nineteen twenties, when the Liebig Extract of Meat Company acquired the building, manufacturers of Oxo beef stock cubes, for conversion into a cold store.

    Now, Liebig had ambitions. They wanted to include a tower featuring illuminated signs advertising the name of their product. But there was a problem... permission to display illuminated signs was denied, thanks to a ban on skyline advertising along the South Bank.

    So what did they do? They hired their company architect, Albert Moore, who came up with a Brilliant loophole. Moore designed windows shaped like the letters O, X, O... a simple yet striking move that cleverly sidestepped the advertising ban. The tower was built with four sets of three vertically aligned windows, each of which... "coincidentally"... happened to be in the shapes of a circle, a cross, and a circle. It wasn't signage. It was architecture. And the authorities couldn't do a thing about it.

    At that time, the building was named Stamford Wharf and was London's second highest commercial building.

    But the history of this ground goes back much, Much further. Bargehouse Street commemorates the old Barge House and stairs where the King's State barge was housed from Henry the Seventh to Charles the First. That's right... the very street you're standing on was once where English monarchs kept their royal barges! Around fifteen thirty, this site held the dwellings of the Royal Barge Master and sheds for the State Barges. Back then, the Thames was London's main highway, and kings travelled by water between their palaces.

    By the early nineteen seventies, the building was derelict. There were multiple proposals to demolish the art deco structure, but locals fought back. Thanks to their efforts, the tower and the land around it were sold in nineteen eighty four to a non-profit group called Coin Street Community Builders. The twenty million pound refurbishment was designed by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, and today this building houses seventy eight affordable flats, designer studios, galleries... and up on the eighth floor, Harvey Nichols' very first restaurant.

    From royal barge house... to power station... to meat warehouse... to one of the South Bank's most vibrant creative hubs. And through it all, those three cheeky letters have been glowing over the Thames... the longest running free advert in London.

  15. 15. Gabriel's Wharf

    Gabriel's Wharf, 56 Upper Ground, London SE1 9PP

  16. 16. Leake Street Arches: The Graffiti Tunnel

    Leake Street Arches, Leake Street, London SE1 7NN