Secrets and Surprises of Barbican

From Roman Fort to Brutalist Utopia — London's Most Unexpected Neighbourhood

London · 9 stops · 1.8 km · ~1.0 h · Generated

  1. 1. Barbican Station: The A1 Begins Here

    Barbican Underground Station, Aldersgate Street, London EC1A 4JB

    You're standing on one of the most historically layered stretches of tarmac in all of Britain. This unassuming road beneath your feet... is the very beginning of the A one. The longest numbered road in the United Kingdom. Four hundred and ten miles from here to Edinburgh, connecting the two capital cities. And when the Ministry of Transport created the road numbering system in nineteen twenty one, This road got top billing. A one. Number One. Because nothing was more important than the ancient route linking London to Scotland.

    But this road is Far older than its number. It traces the path of what was once called the Great North Road... and before that, the Roman route known as Ermine Street. For nearly two thousand years, people have been heading north from this very spot.

    And what stood right here, blocking their way? A gate. Aldersgate... one of the original gates in London's Roman wall, added sometime after the wall's construction in the second century. The name comes from the late Saxon period, around the year one thousand, when it was called Ealdredesgate, meaning the gate of a man named Ealdred. Over the centuries, that name softened into Aldersgate.

    Now here's a detail most people walk right past. In fifteen oh three, King James the Sixth of Scotland rode South along this very road... through this very gate... to claim the English crown. It was such a momentous occasion that when the gate was rebuilt in sixteen seventeen, by a designer with the wonderful name of Gerard Christmas, they placed an equestrian statue of James on the outer face... and a second image of the king seated on his throne on the inner side.

    But the gate's days were numbered. By seventeen sixty one, London had sprawled far beyond its old Roman walls. The gates were no longer defences... they were traffic jams. Aldersgate was pulled down and its materials sold off... for just ninety one pounds.

    One more secret. See the church of Saint Botolph nearby? Botolph was a seventh century Saxon abbot, the patron saint of travellers. In medieval times, four London churches were dedicated to him, each one planted right beside a city gate. Before setting out on a dangerous journey, travellers would stop to pray for safe passage. So this spot was London's original departure lounge... centuries before any airport existed!

  2. 2. Defoe House: The Robinson Crusoe Connection

    Defoe House, Barbican Estate, London EC2Y 8DN

    Look up at this concrete tower rising above the Barbican podium. It looks like any other residential block... but it carries the name of one of the most Extraordinary men ever born in this neighbourhood. Defoe House. Named after Daniel Defoe... the man who gave us Robinson Crusoe.

    But here's the thing most people don't know. Defoe wasn't just a novelist. He was a bankrupt merchant, a satirist, a convicted criminal... and a genuine Spy.

    Daniel Foe — that was his real name — was probably born right here on Fore Street, in the parish of Saint Giles Cripplegate, around sixteen sixty. He later added the "De" prefix to sound more aristocratic. Can you imagine? Just sticking a fancy syllable on your name to climb the social ladder?

    His father, James Foe, was a tallow chandler — a candle maker — of probable Flemish descent, and a member of the Worshipful Company of Butchers. Not exactly high society. As a young boy, Defoe lived through the Great Plague of sixteen sixty-five, which killed seventy thousand Londoners. The very next year, the Great Fire of London left only his family's house and two others standing in the entire neighbourhood.

    Now, the story gets Wild. In seventeen oh three, Defoe published a satirical pamphlet so cleverly written that both sides of a religious dispute took it seriously. He was prosecuted for seditious libel and sentenced to the pillory. That was a terrifying punishment — people were sometimes blinded or even killed by angry mobs hurling stones. But legend has it that all that was thrown at him were Flowers, while his friends sold copies of his writings to the spectators.

    And here's where it gets truly strange. Robert Harley, the Earl of Oxford, brokered Defoe's release from prison in exchange for his cooperation as an intelligence agent. By seventeen oh six, Harley ordered Defoe to travel to Edinburgh as a secret agent, to secure Scottish support for the Treaty of Union with England. He is known to have used at least one hundred and ninety-eight different pen names in his writings — a master of disguise on the page long before he published Robinson Crusoe at the age of fifty-nine.

    Defoe died on the twenty-fourth of April, seventeen thirty-one, on Ropemakers Alley... not far from where he was born, probably while hiding from his creditors. A life that began and ended in the shadow of Cripplegate.

    And that is exactly why his name is etched into this estate. Most of the Barbican's buildings are named after prominent figures who either lived in or had an association with Cripplegate. Shakespeare Tower, because the playwright once lodged on Silver Street. Cromwell Tower, because Oliver Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourchier at Saint Giles Church. Even John Trundle Court honours a stationer whose premises were in the Barbican — the man who published the First quarto of Shakespeare's Hamlet!

    So next time someone mentions Defoe House... remember. It's not just a name on a brutalist tower. It's a monument to a man who survived plague, fire, the pillory, bankruptcy, espionage... and Still managed to write one of the most famous novels in the English language.

  3. 3. John Trundle Court: Where Hamlet Was First Published

    John Trundle Court, Barbican Estate, London EC2Y 8DF

    You're standing in John Trun-dle Court... a quiet, concrete courtyard on the Barbican Estate. Look around. Modern brutalist architecture, clean lines, a few potted plants. Nothing here screams literary intrigue. And yet... this very patch of London ground is where one of the greatest acts of literary piracy in English history took place.

    John Trun-dle was a bookseller and printer, born the son of John and Joan Trun-dle in Chipping Barnet, Hertfordshire. His father died when he was just two years old. At fourteen, the boy left home and moved to London, apprenticing himself to Ralph Hancock, a stationer. After eight years of learning the trade, he became a qualified printer in fifteen ninety-seven.

    And here's where it gets wonderful. That same year, Trun-dle set up his own printing business right here in the Barbican. His shop had the most delightful name... it was called "The Sign of Nobody." And it seems he ran it as a tavern as well! The sign itself depicted a man in breeches pulled up to his neck, his arms poking out of the pockets, and a cap completely covering his face. A man who was... nobody.

    Now... here's the secret. After Hamlet was first performed at the Globe Theatre around sixteen oh two, Trun-dle and fellow bookseller Nicholas Ling published a pirate copy of the play in sixteen oh three. This was what scholars call a "Bad Quarto" — not because the printing was poor, but because the text was reconstructed from Memory by one of the actors. It contained only about Half the play, with scenes in the wrong order!

    And get this — the most famous line in all of English literature, "To be, or not to be, that is the question," appeared in Trun-dle's version as "To be, or not to be, I, there's the point." Not quite the same ring to it, is it?

    Characters had different names too — Polonius was called "Corambis," and Reynaldo became "Montano." This pirate edition was so thoroughly lost to history that it wasn't rediscovered until eighteen twenty-three, when Sir Henry Bunbury stumbled upon a copy. Only Two copies are known to exist in the entire world.

    But Trun-dle was no mere thief. He dealt in ballads, news, books, plays, and what they called ephemeral literature — the tabloid press of his day. He was even a friend of Ben Jonson, and published at least one of his plays. In fact, Jonson name-dropped Trun-dle in his comedy Every Man in His Humour, joking about someone who might end up trolling ballads for "Mister John Trun-dle."

    Even Shakespeare himself may have winked at Trun-dle. In The Tempest, the character Trinculo refers to music "played by the picture of Nobody" — which scholars believe is a direct reference to Trun-dle's shop sign.

    So next time someone tells you the Barbican is all concrete and no culture... remind them that the world's most celebrated play was first put into print right beneath your feet. By a man called Nobody.

  4. 4. The Barbican Conservatory: London's Secret Jungle

    Barbican Conservatory, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS

    Look up... higher... even higher. You see that wall of glass and steel towering above us? Behind it lies one of London's most extraordinary secrets. Even regular visitors to the Barbican sometimes don't know it's there — and looking at these grey concrete blocks from the outside, you'd never guess that they house the second-largest glass conservatory in London.

    Welcome to the Barbican Conservatory... London's hidden jungle.

    Before it became a tropical paradise, this space was originally just an architectural solution — designed to conceal the Barbican Theatre's fly tower, from which the rigging system and scenery for the stage Six stories below is lowered into place. But how do you hide an ugly concrete tower that looms over a residential estate? The architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon had an inspired idea — they planted the seeds, literally, in nineteen eighty, and this side-project grew to become something no one expected.

    The structure wraps around that fly tower, sitting under a steel and glass roof, with sixteen hundred cubic metres of soil... All of it hand-mixed to a specific requirement. And because the conservatory sits above the main entrance to the centre, every single plant and tree had to be lifted from the road by crane.

    And what a collection it holds! Over two thousand species of plants and trees, along with terrapins and Koi carp. The species are a mixture from regions as diverse as South Africa to the Brazilian coast.

    Now, here's a story most visitors never hear. The terrapins living in the ponds were actually brought to the conservatory after terrorising the local wildlife on Hampstead Heath! After the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film made them popular as pets in the nineteen nineties, families realised they'd bitten off more than they could chew once their little snappers grew up — and many were released into the wild. These wild terrapins were adopted by the Barbican in two thousand and seven, and they've been happily lounging here ever since.

    The Barbican itself has always divided opinion. When Queen Elizabeth the Second cut the ribbon in nineteen eighty-two, she described it as "one of the wonders of the modern world." Yet in two thousand and three... it was voted London's Ugliest building in a public poll. Love it or loathe it, there's no denying this conservatory turns that reputation completely on its head.

    And one more secret. The music video for Harry Styles' hit "As It Was" was filmed extensively right here — in the Barbican Centre and the Barbican Conservatory itself, spinning millions of viewers through this very space without most of them ever knowing what they were looking at.

    Take a moment. Breathe in. Somewhere beneath your feet, actors are rehearsing on a stage... and above you, palm trees are reaching for the London sky.

  5. 5. Cromwell Tower: Bowie's Vampire Finale

    Cromwell Tower, Barbican Estate, London EC2Y 8DD

    Look up at this concrete colossus. Cromwell Tower... one hundred and twenty-three metres of brutalist ambition, rising forty-two storeys into the London sky. Completed in nineteen seventy-three and named after Oliver Cromwell, it wasn't just another tower block. At the time, it was the tallest residential building in Europe. Let that sink in. The tallest place anyone called home... on the entire continent.

    And the naming? It's not random. Oliver Cromwell's wedding took place right here at the Barbican's own church, Saint Giles Cripplegate, back in sixteen twenty. So the tower stands on ground where England's most controversial ruler once walked as a young groom.

    Now here's where things get deliciously dark. In nineteen eighty-three, director Tony Scott chose this very building for the Final scene of his cult vampire film, The Hunger. It was his directorial debut, starring Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon. In the film's closing moments, Sarandon's character stands on a balcony right here in Cromwell Tower, gazing out over London as dusk falls... a newly made vampire, with two fresh companions at her side. Below her, a coffin in a storage room. Inside it, the ancient vampire Miriam, crying out a name that will never be answered.

    Why did Scott pick This building? Think about it. Budget limitations forced him to shoot most of the film in London rather than New York, and the Barbican's raw concrete geometry gave him something no Manhattan penthouse could... a sense of beautiful, modern alienation. The perfect lair for an immortal starting over.

    But the building's real-life drama runs just as deep. Leader of the Labour Party John Smith lived right here in Cromwell Tower with his family. On the evening of May eleventh, nineteen ninety-four, Smith gave a rousing speech at a fundraising dinner, declaring that the opportunity to serve the country was all he asked. At five past eight the following morning, in his Barbican flat, he suffered a fatal heart attack. He was just fifty-five. His passing changed the course of British history... he was called Labour's Lost leader, the man who made the party electable again. His successor? Tony Blair.

    And there's one more literary secret. The titular skyscraper in J. G. Ballard's dystopian novel High Rise was largely inspired by These very Barbican towers... a story of civilised professionals descending into savagery inside a luxury concrete fortress. Ballard published it in nineteen seventy-five, just as these towers were being completed. Fiction and reality, rising in parallel.

    Vampires, prime ministers who never were, and dystopian nightmares... all woven into the concrete of one extraordinary building.

  6. 6. The Barbican Lake and Gilbert Bridge

    Gilbert Bridge, Barbican Estate, London EC2Y 8DS

    Stop for a moment and look down from where you're standing. When crossing Gilbert Bridge, recall the idea of the Barbican as a fortress... and specifically how this walkway resembles a drawbridge across a moat. That's not a poetic flourish. That was the Actual intention of the architects, Chamberlin, Powell and Bon. Every detail of this estate was designed to echo the medieval fortification that once stood here.

    The word Barbican comes from the Low Latin word "BarbecAna," which referred to a fortified outpost or gateway... a tower situated over a gate or bridge used for defence purposes. So this bridge you're crossing? It's a modern drawbridge. And the lake below... is the moat.

    But what lies Beneath this ornamental lake?

    Part of the area now occupied by the central water feature in the Barbican was once the site of the Redcross Street fire station. A large Victorian fire station, built after a devastating fire that destroyed much of Cripplegate on the nineteenth of November, eighteen ninety seven.

    And that fire station would see its Greatest test. The majority of the destruction of the area now occupied by the Barbican occurred on the night of the twenty ninth of December, nineteen forty, with fires created by incendiary bombs causing much of the devastation. It was so bad they called it the Second Great Fire of London. And right here, where the water now shimmers so peacefully... Commander Sir Aylmer Firebrace of the London Fire Brigade sat in the control room at Redcross Street Fire Station as, one by one, the telephone lines failed and the heat from the fires penetrated to the control room. Officers wisely evacuated Redcross Street Fire Station, and the only way of escape lay through Whitecross Street... which is exactly the path Gilbert Bridge follows today.

    The fire station was eventually demolished as part of the final land clearance in preparation for the build of the Barbican. But its ghost remains... drowned beneath the lake you see below.

    Now look up at Gilbert House towering above on those massive concrete stilts descending into the water. It's named for Sir Humphrey Gilbert, an Elizabethan explorer and soldier who actually Lived on the very street buried beneath your feet... Redcross Street. Sir Walter Raleigh was his half brother. In fifteen eighty three, Gilbert took possession of Newfoundland for the English Crown on the fifth of August... making it arguably England's First overseas colony. On the voyage home, his tiny ship the Squirrel was swallowed by a storm near the Azores. He was last seen shouting to his companion vessel his famous final words... before vanishing into the Atlantic forever.

    And here's a detail most people walk right past. This lake wasn't just for show... it was also designed to provide air conditioning for the Barbican Centre! The lake is one hectare in size and roughly follows the route of the Underground tracks from Barbican to Moorgate. So beneath your feet, there are train tunnels, the ghost of a Victorian fire station, and a hidden cooling system. Layer upon layer upon Layer of London... all concealed by what looks like a simple ornamental lake.

  7. 7. St Giles-without-Cripplegate: Cromwell's Wedding Church

    St Giles-without-Cripplegate, Fore Street, London EC2Y 8DA

    Look at the building in front of you... a medieval church, surrounded on all sides by brutalist concrete towers. Saint Giles sits rather incongruously in the middle of the Barbican development, surrounded by modern buildings, but this church has been a part of London history for over a Thousand years.

    Its full name is a riddle in itself. Saint Giles Without Cripplegate. When built, it stood "without" — that is, outside — the city wall, near the Cripplegate. Now, the word "Cripplegate"... you'd think it refers to cripples and beggars, wouldn't you? There is no definitive explanation, though it's likely the word comes from the Anglo-Saxon "Cruplegate," meaning a covered way or tunnel — which would have run from the town gate to the Barbican, a fortified watchtower on the city wall. Though the dedication to Saint Giles is no coincidence... tradition holds that Saint Giles was lame, so in the Middle Ages he became the patron saint of cripples and beggars, many of whom waited by the principal northern gate of the city.

    Now here's where the secrets begin. The parish register records the marriage of Oliver Cromwell and Elizabeth Bourchier on the twenty-second of August, sixteen twenty. His wife was the daughter of a Cripplegate leather merchant, and the couple had nine children. He was just twenty-one — a nobody from Huntingdon. No one could have guessed he'd one day topple a king.

    And the poet John Milton... blind, brilliant, author of Paradise Lost... was buried here in sixteen seventy-four. But Milton was not allowed to rest in peace. During the seventeen nineties, while repairs were being made to the chancel, his coffin was exhumed. The enterprising verger opened it and put the great poet on public display, charging first sixpence, later tuppence, and finally just the price of a pint for a peek. Milton's corpse received what was called "obscene and scandalous treatment" — portions of his bones, hair, and teeth were removed and dispersed as souvenirs. A lock of hair eventually made its way to Milton's Cottage museum in Chalfont Saint Giles, where you can still see it today.

    And did you know that William Shakespeare himself may have stood inside these walls? While living nearby, he wrote Othello, Measure for Measure, and King Lear. His brother Edmund, also a Cripplegate resident, had two sons baptised in Saint Giles, and tradition has it that William attended the services.

    And one more surprise, a truly hidden gem. In nineteen sixty-one, the veteran American composer Bernard Herrmann relocated from Los Angeles to London. The man behind the shrieking violins in Psycho. Saint Giles Church is noted for its fine acoustic, something which drew Herrmann to the church as a recording studio. It was Here that his last three film scores were recorded in the nineteen seventies — It's Alive, Taxi Driver, and Obsession. Just five months away from death, he found the recording sessions in Saint Giles Church an exhausting experience. He died on Christmas Eve, nineteen seventy-five... the Taxi Driver score his final gift to cinema.

    So look around you. A thousand years of worship. Cromwell's wedding. Milton's restless bones. Shakespeare's nephews. And the haunting notes of Hollywood's greatest film scores... all echoing through these ancient walls.

  8. 8. Wallside Highwalk: Roman Walls Below Your Feet

    Wallside Highwalk, Barbican Estate, London EC2Y 8BH

    Look down... no, further down. Below the concrete walkway you're standing on, below the neat lawns and the still water of the Barbican lake... there it is. Rough, ancient stone, nearly two thousand years old, running like a scar through the landscape. The London Wall was constructed towards the end of the second century AD, enclosing a semi-circular area of approximately one hundred and thirty-three hectares on the north side of the Thames.

    But here's the thing most people miss. The defensive wall that would define London for millennia actually started with a Fort, built by the Roman Empire close to the modern Barbican around one hundred and twenty AD. When the wall itself appeared decades later, between one hundred and ninety and two hundred and twenty-five AD, it incorporated this fort, strengthening its outer walls. You are standing right above the north face of that original Roman fortress.

    Now, think about scale for a moment. The construction was a substantial investment of resources. An estimated thirty-five thousand cubic metres of Kentish Ragstone was quarried Seventy miles away, near Maidstone, and shipped via the Medway and Thames to London. Roughly one million blocks, brought on barges. That is an Extraordinary feat of logistics for any age, let alone the third century.

    But where exactly was the fort's garrison? The wall included over twenty bastions, and a large twelve-acre fort on the north-west section. The fort itself was the home of the official guard of the Governor of Britain, housing around one thousand men in barrack blocks.

    Now look to your left. See those two curving stumps of stone pressed against the wall? That is Bastion Eleven A... and it has a remarkable story. Bastion Eleven A was Not known when historians numbered the bastions. It was only rediscovered when the Barbican was being built. As part of the Barbican development, the churchyard around St Giles was lowered, and this lowering of the ground level revealed the remains of a completely unknown bastion. It was identified as Bastion Eleven A because it sat between the known Bastion Twelve and Bastion Eleven at All Hallows on the Wall. It survived as two curving stumps built against the city wall. Its outer section had been cut away by a seventeenth-century sewer that had been following the line of the ancient defensive ditch.

    And the towers nearby? The large medieval tower marking the north-western corner of the fort still stands at a remarkable two-thirds of its original height. Originally built as a defensive measure, the tower later became a refuge for Hermits... yes, hermits, living quietly inside a Roman military tower beside St Giles Church.

    During redevelopments of the churchyard in the nineteenth century, the wall became buried in earth and lay hidden until World War Two. The heavy bombing in the Cripplegate area exposed the tower once again. So it took the devastation of the Blitz to give us back these ancient stones... and then the Barbican builders, digging foundations for the future, accidentally uncovered secrets the Romans left behind almost two millennia ago.

  9. 9. The Highwalk Bridge: Streets in the Sky

    John Wesley Highwalk, Aldersgate Street, London EC2Y 8AX

    Look up... because right now, you're standing on a dream that never quite came true. This is the John Wesley Highwalk, and beneath your feet is one of London's strangest secrets... a ghost of a city that was supposed to exist Entirely above ground.

    Why is it called John Wesley Highwalk? Well, right below us on Aldersgate Street is the spot where John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had his famous spiritual conversion on the twenty-fourth of May, seventeen thirty-eight. A memorial called the Aldersgate Flame was placed here in nineteen eighty-one, commemorating that moment.

    But the Real story of this walkway... is far more ambitious. After the Second World War, this area was the most heavily bombed part of the City, reduced to a sprawling labyrinth built above total devastation. And from that rubble, planners hatched an Extraordinary vision. In nineteen sixty-five, an obscure City of London Corporation document — mysteriously known as Drawing three four zero zero B — laid out plans for a Thirty-Mile network of elevated walkways stretching from Liverpool Street to the Thames, from Fleet Street to the Tower.

    Imagine it... an entire parallel London on the first floor. Every new building in the City was Required to include first-floor access to this pedway network as a condition of getting planning permission. But since most of the network was never built, this created bizarre dead spaces — walkways that led to Dead Ends, and ghost doorways opening onto nothing. Even the NatWest Tower had a pedestrian bridge across Bishopsgate that was never once used... and has since been demolished.

    At the height of their popularity, more than thirty miles of highwalks were being planned. In the end, only about One Tenth were actually built — and most of what survives is right here, at the Barbican.

    Now look at this walkway itself. The John Wesley and Seddon Highwalks are covered ways under distinctive white round-arched roofs. The bridges were built high enough to clear a London double-decker bus passing underneath on Aldersgate Street. That was the whole point — pedestrians up Here, traffic down There.

    And here's a detail most people miss. This highwalk terminates in a glazed brick service tower with rounded walls and a pyramidal roof — look for it at the Aldersgate end. It looks almost medieval, like a fortress turret. And that's no accident. The word Barbican comes from the medieval Latin "barbecana," meaning Fortress — and the architects deliberately designed these walkways to echo the feeling of a walled citadel.

    One enthusiastic council member, a Mister Deputy Alfred, declared at the time: "Once people were up on the walkways there was no need for them to come down at all — until they wanted to go home."

    Well... the future didn't quite bless the court as they'd hoped. Escalating costs and the growing conservation movement eventually killed the grand plan. But standing here, on this surviving fragment of a parallel London... you can almost feel what might have been.