London City - city of contrasts
November 26th 2007 13:05
The City of London, generally referred to as “The City”, is London’s business and financial centre. Its landmarks stretch along the north bank of the Thames from the Old Bailey, at the west end, to the Tower of London at the east.
Although there has been a settlement on the city site since the Romans established the fort of Londinium in the 8th century, most of the structures of early and mediaeval London were destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666. Again, during World War Two, bombing attacks took their toll on the buildings and monuments of the 18th, 19th and early twentieth centuries. Today, the city is a showcase of spectacular, towering modern architecture, among them Richard Roger’s 1986, stainless steel and glass Lloyd’s of London building and of course the spectacular Gherkin. Ever-rising scaffolding, the criss-cross of cranes against the sky and the din of jack-hammers suggest that renewal is constant and the upward climb, continual.
The city is the domain of the safety helmet, the yellow vest, the suit, the briefcase and, even sometimes, the bowler hat. It is a powerhouse of construction and commerce, a busy, vibrant place, which hums with daytime activity during the week and pumps on Thursday and Friday nights. Most of the rest of the time it is empty and deserted. Very few people have actually lived here since the 19th century.
Yet, still, threaded through the construction sites and dotted around the twentieth and twenty-first century monoliths are traces of old the city and the lives of the people who lived there. Plaques indicate the homes of famous figures from history, like prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry’s on Threadneedle Street. There are streets which recall neighbourhoods of another age, like Bread Street, Cornhill Street and Pudding Lane. The infamous Newgate Prison and the old Law Courts which visited dreadful punishments on hardened vilains and petty criminals alike, were located in the short street known as the Old Bailey. It is now the site of the new Central Criminal Courts which opened in 1907. Some districts are as old as Shakespeare, like Billingsgate, one of London’s oldest quays and home of its fish-market for 900 years until its 1982 re-location to the Isle of Dogs.
The ornate Victorian Leadenhall Market, on site of the Roman Forum, was designed by Sir Horace Jones in 1881 but has housed a food market since the Middle Ages. Today it offers additional gourmet fare; wine, cheese, chocolates and delicatessen. At breakfast and lunchtime it is crowded with shoppers, stalls and diners.
Nine of the 52 beautiful churches built by Christopher Wren after the Great fire still survive. The dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, completed in 1708, still dominates the city skyline. The bells of St Mary Le Bow still chime and the tradition still holds that anyone born within their sound is deemed to be a true Londoner or Cockney. Still standing, also, is Wren’s 62m stone column commemorating the Great Fire. The tallest isolated stone column in the world, it goes by the unassuming name of Monument.
Many lovely old historic buildings remain. The Royal Exchange building, 1844, is the third on its site between Threadneedle and Cornhill Streets. The first was founded by Sir Thomas Gresham, Elizabethan merchant and courtier, in 1565 and was given its Royal Title by Queen Elizabeth I. It is still one of the sites from which the new regent is announced. Britain’s first public (men only) lavatories, a symbol of the country’s sanitary enlightenment, were built in the forecourt of the Exchange. The Mansion house, official residence of the Lord Mayor of London, designed by George Dance the elder was built in 1953 and, of course, housed such legends as Dick Whittington. Also “housed” in its concealed prison was the suffragette, Emmeline Pankhurst.
The City of London is many ways a hodge-podge of new, old and older still, with tiny curving pedestrian alleys running off at odd tangents and roaring streets full of traffic, intersecting at strange angles. It is a mess of differing heights, styles and media with no architectural uniformity whatsoever and no apparent paln. But, yet it is the contrast of the old and the new, the high and the low, the stone and the glass, the plain and the effusively decorated, that give the city its distinctive character. It is the scarred stone church against the gleaming steel diamonds of the glass tower that give it its charm. It is the tall, pale, angular, planes of the skyscraper behind statues, friezes and neo-classical pillars or the glimpse of a pristine, white cathedral dome between two dark walls that give it its drama.
And it is the reflection of elaborate Victorian façades in the bare, steel-framed windows of the modern office block that gives it its magic.
Contrast of old and new
Although there has been a settlement on the city site since the Romans established the fort of Londinium in the 8th century, most of the structures of early and mediaeval London were destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666. Again, during World War Two, bombing attacks took their toll on the buildings and monuments of the 18th, 19th and early twentieth centuries. Today, the city is a showcase of spectacular, towering modern architecture, among them Richard Roger’s 1986, stainless steel and glass Lloyd’s of London building and of course the spectacular Gherkin. Ever-rising scaffolding, the criss-cross of cranes against the sky and the din of jack-hammers suggest that renewal is constant and the upward climb, continual.
Bowler hats and briefcases in the city
The city is the domain of the safety helmet, the yellow vest, the suit, the briefcase and, even sometimes, the bowler hat. It is a powerhouse of construction and commerce, a busy, vibrant place, which hums with daytime activity during the week and pumps on Thursday and Friday nights. Most of the rest of the time it is empty and deserted. Very few people have actually lived here since the 19th century.
Threadneedle Street
Yet, still, threaded through the construction sites and dotted around the twentieth and twenty-first century monoliths are traces of old the city and the lives of the people who lived there. Plaques indicate the homes of famous figures from history, like prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry’s on Threadneedle Street. There are streets which recall neighbourhoods of another age, like Bread Street, Cornhill Street and Pudding Lane. The infamous Newgate Prison and the old Law Courts which visited dreadful punishments on hardened vilains and petty criminals alike, were located in the short street known as the Old Bailey. It is now the site of the new Central Criminal Courts which opened in 1907. Some districts are as old as Shakespeare, like Billingsgate, one of London’s oldest quays and home of its fish-market for 900 years until its 1982 re-location to the Isle of Dogs.
Leadenhall Market
The ornate Victorian Leadenhall Market, on site of the Roman Forum, was designed by Sir Horace Jones in 1881 but has housed a food market since the Middle Ages. Today it offers additional gourmet fare; wine, cheese, chocolates and delicatessen. At breakfast and lunchtime it is crowded with shoppers, stalls and diners.
St Paul's Cathedral
Nine of the 52 beautiful churches built by Christopher Wren after the Great fire still survive. The dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, completed in 1708, still dominates the city skyline. The bells of St Mary Le Bow still chime and the tradition still holds that anyone born within their sound is deemed to be a true Londoner or Cockney. Still standing, also, is Wren’s 62m stone column commemorating the Great Fire. The tallest isolated stone column in the world, it goes by the unassuming name of Monument.
The Royal Exchange
Many lovely old historic buildings remain. The Royal Exchange building, 1844, is the third on its site between Threadneedle and Cornhill Streets. The first was founded by Sir Thomas Gresham, Elizabethan merchant and courtier, in 1565 and was given its Royal Title by Queen Elizabeth I. It is still one of the sites from which the new regent is announced. Britain’s first public (men only) lavatories, a symbol of the country’s sanitary enlightenment, were built in the forecourt of the Exchange. The Mansion house, official residence of the Lord Mayor of London, designed by George Dance the elder was built in 1953 and, of course, housed such legends as Dick Whittington. Also “housed” in its concealed prison was the suffragette, Emmeline Pankhurst.
The Gherkin with St Katherine's church
The City of London is many ways a hodge-podge of new, old and older still, with tiny curving pedestrian alleys running off at odd tangents and roaring streets full of traffic, intersecting at strange angles. It is a mess of differing heights, styles and media with no architectural uniformity whatsoever and no apparent paln. But, yet it is the contrast of the old and the new, the high and the low, the stone and the glass, the plain and the effusively decorated, that give the city its distinctive character. It is the scarred stone church against the gleaming steel diamonds of the glass tower that give it its charm. It is the tall, pale, angular, planes of the skyscraper behind statues, friezes and neo-classical pillars or the glimpse of a pristine, white cathedral dome between two dark walls that give it its drama.
St Paul's from Bow Lane
And it is the reflection of elaborate Victorian façades in the bare, steel-framed windows of the modern office block that gives it its magic.
Reflections of old in new, London city
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