City of London Historical Walking Tour

Address: 2 London Wall Pl, Barbican, London EC2Y 5AU, UK Link to map We meet outside Barbie Green restaurant next to the Ruins.

City of London Historical Walking Tour: Layers of Power, Faith & Commerce Journey through two millennia of history in the Square Mile, where Roman ruins whisper beneath skyscrapers and medieval guildhalls stand alongside temples of global finance. This curated route reveals how London’s ancient heart evolved from a fortified trading post to the world’s financial nucleus.

---

1. St. Alphage London Wall, EC2Y 5DE

15 minutes Begin amidst the ghostly arches of this 11th-century church, built into the Roman city wall. Gutted in the Blitz, its surviving tower now frames a sunken garden where medieval masons once mixed mortar. Touch the flint-and-rubble masonry – a tactile link to Norman London – and imagine processions passing through Cripplegate’s long-vanished tunnel ("cruplegate" in Saxon).

---

2. Roman City Wall, EC2Y 5AU

10 minutes Trace your fingers along ragstone blocks laid by Roman soldiers c. AD 200. This 6m-high section near Barbican reveals horizontal tile bands – ancient "spirit levels" ensuring precise construction. Edward IV later added crenellated brickwork here during the Wars of the Roses, turning defensive engineering into political theater.

---

3. St. Giles Cripplegate, EC2

10 minutes Enter London’s "church of the iron curtain" – a 1090 Norman foundation rebuilt after the Great Fire and the Blitz. Shakespeare’s nephew was baptized here; revolutionary Oliver Cromwell married here in 1620. Spot the bullet-pocked WW2 memorials, testaments to its survival as the Barbican’s spiritual anchor.

---

4. Salter’s Hall Garden, EC2Y 5DE

10 minutes Descend into this sunken oasis where Salters’ Company members once brokered deals on white gold (salt). The 15th-century wall fragment displays Roman foundations topped with Tudor bricks. Modern steel walkways mirror medieval trading routes – a fitting metaphor for the City’s eternal reinvention.

---

5. Brewers’ Hall, EC2V 7HR

10 minutes Stop by the Worshipful Brewers’ Company (founded 1438) the Tudor ale-makers, . Though rebuilt post-Blitz, its cellars hold Elizabethan-era tokens – small beer tokens workers exchanged for daily rations in lieu of risky water.

---

6. St Mary Aldermanbury Garden, EC2V 7JN

10 minutes Walk the phantom nave of a Wren church dismantled brick-by-brick in 1966 and rebuilt in Missouri as Churchill’s memorial. The box-hedge maze echoes medieval processional routes, while the Shakespeare actors’ monument honors play-saving publishers Condell and Heminges.

---

8. Guildhall, EC2V 7HH

15 minutes The building has been used as a town hall for several hundred years, and is still the ceremonial and administrative centre of the City of London.

---

9. St. Lawrence Jewry, EC2V 5AA

5 minutes Admire Wren’s "parish church of the Corporation", rebuilt in 1677 with gold-leafed ceilings.

---

10. Guildhall Art Gallery, EC2V 5AE

25 minutes Descend to Londinium’s Roman amphitheater (discovered 1988), where 7,000 spectators once roared. Upstairs, Victorian paintings like John Singleton Copley’s Defeat of the Floating Batteries dramatize the City’s global reach.

---

11. St. Margaret Lothbury, EC2R 7HH

5 minutes Marvel at Wren’s "boardroom chapel", its 1670s interior a symphony of walnut paneling and Grinling Gibbons carvings. Merchant donors’ crests in stained glass form a corporate pantheon – piety and profit entwined.

---

12. The Royal Exchange, EC3V 3LR

5 minutes Beneath the Corinthian columns, imagine Tudor traders shouting deals in Thomas Gresham’s 1566 original.

---

13. Mansion House, EC4N 8BH

5 minutes The Lord Mayor’s 1740 palazzo hosts gold-laden banquets in the Egyptian Hall. Spot the lamppost dragon snuffer – ceremonial tool for extinguishing debtors’ candles when payments defaulted.

---

15. Bank of England, EC2R 8AH

5 minutes End at the "Old Lady’s" 1930s fortress, where gold vaults 15m below hold £200bn in bullion. The museum’s Roman coin hoards whisper of Londinium’s first bankers.

---

Your Gateway to Hidden Histories This route distills 2,000 years of power, faith, and commerce. From salt merchants to algorithm traders, the City endlessly reinvents itself while guarding its ancient privileges.

1. Is the tour suitable for people with reduced mobility? Yes
2. Is the tour suitable for pets? No
3. Does the tour require the payment of entrance fees or additional expenses? No
4. Do you accept any kind of electronic payment? Yes via Paypal we can accept the main forms of electronic payments Cryptocurrency is possible - Contact to enquire