Together with Ludgate Hill, to the east, and the Strand, to the West, Fleet Street forms the main thoroughfare that connected the cities of London and Westminster. Indeed, in earlier times, the Fleet Street name probably covered the whole way… Read More »Fleet Street
Lombard Street is perhaps the single most iconic address in the City of London, synonymous with banking and providing the title for Walter Bagehot’s seminal 1873 work on the money market. Bagehot wrote that “The briefest and truest way of… Read More »Lombard Street
Well into the late 18th century, this northern extremity of the City contained ‘moor fields’ (marshy, open land). After being drained and provided with paved paths, this open space became used for everything from laundering to military drill to raucous… Read More »Finsbury Circus & Moorfields
The uninterrupted street that bears the name Poultry at its eastern end and Cheapside at the western one marks the border between Cheap and Cordwainer wards, which in the Middle Ages were the wealthiest commercial districts of the City. Together… Read More »Cheapside & Poultry
Fenchurch Street is named after the church of St Gabriel Fenchurch, destroyed in the Great Fire and never rebuilt. It is disputed whether the ‘Fen’ refers to marshy land or the nearby hay market (hay = fenum, in Latin) on… Read More »Fenchurch Street & Aldgate
Aldersgate Ward takes its name from one of the four earliest gates in the City walls, probably going back to Roman times. Among the many parishes it contained, St. Martin Le Grand was the principal one until the great fire… Read More »Aldersgate