Category: Architecture Page 2 of 92

Roman London edition (and a flock in the shop).

On 1st October 2026

In Animals, Architecture, Parks, Religion, Roman London, Special Exhibitions

As you travel down the escalator at the Walbrook entrance to Bank Underground Station you will encounter a rather remarkable sight …

The 24 illuminated panels on display are a tribute to the Roman life that once flourished in this location, most notably, the nearby Temple of Mithras. Discovered in 1954, the ancient temple has now been restored and returned to its original Roman location, of which more later.

The panels were created in 1960 by the celebrated glass artist, John Hutton (1906 – 1978). Born in New Zealand, Hutton moved to London as a young artist. He became renowned for his masterful work in etched and engraved glass. They were originally on display in an office block called Bucklersbury House and, when that building was scheduled for demolition, they were gifted to London Underground to be installed in the tube station entrance.

The first series depicts daily life in Roman London, with the original London Bridge visible in the background. Women cluster in groups – some holding baskets or amphorae, vessels used to carry oil or wine, while others tend their children. A merchant sells his wares on the steps leading down to the river, while men holding scrolls engage in conversation. A group of soldiers gathers in a small clutch, their swords and spears piled next to them, elsewhere other soldiers ride their horses across the bridge …

A second series of panels shows gods and goddesses from a variety of ancient traditions. This cluster shows three Roman deities, Venus, Bacchus and Minerva but also the Egyptian God Serapis wearing a modius (cylindrical headdress) …

There is also the main iconography from the cult of Mithras, The Tauroctony where Mithras slaughters the bull …

Various other Gods and Goddesses …

You can read more about the delicate removal and restoration of the panels here.

Next door to the station entrance is the London Mithraeum. This is a fantastic venue to visit and entrance is free with a time-booked ticket.

Here are images from my visit some years ago. Descending through time, seven metres or so, from modern London to the very last days of the Romans in Britain, about AD 410 …

The beautifully restored temple itself …

Well done Bloomberg!

Even if you are not planning to visit the temple, you can pop in to the ground floor reception area …

At the moment it is hosting a fascinating free exhibition entitled Folkmoot by Anne Ryan. You can read more about the artist and the work on display here.

Some images from the exhibition …

There is also a permanent, well organised display of Roman artefacts which can be explored using your own mobile device, a tablet that they provide, or just by reading the labels …

If you are fascinated (as I am) with all things Roman London related you could follow the London Wall Walk which is identified throughout the City by plaques like this …

They’re a bit low-tech and weatherbeaten now, but I think that gives them a particular charm. Also, I found this very useful guide to the plaques and the wall in the London on my Mind website. Recommended.

A few words about what we still tend to describe as the ‘Roman’ Wall.

Londinium was a settlement established around AD 43-50. It sat at a key crossing point over the River Thames which turned the city into a trading port, serving as a major commercial centre in Roman Britain until its abandonment during the 5th century. Sometime between 190 and 225, the Romans built the London Wall, a defensive ragstone wall around the landward side of the city. It was one of the largest construction projects carried out in Roman Britain, requiring somewhere in the region of 85,000 tons of Kentish ragstone to complete. A medieval city wall was built on top of the remains of the Roman wall so much of what we see today was constructed in the fifteenth century.

Here are some images I took recently.

For a good sense of the scale of the wall one of the best places to visit is Salters’ Hall Garden …

Impressive as it is, it is pretty much all medieval, although the red tiles were probably scavenged from the earlier Roman construction …

This illustration from the excellent Living London History blog gives a good idea as to how the wall ‘grew’ in medieval times …

You can see medieval stonework. This is the only surviving section with a brick parapet dating from 1477 …

It was added by King Edward IV to help protect the city during the Wars of the Roses.

I like nice, helpful signage …

You also get a good view from the St Alphage Highwalk …

If you head north, you get a glimpse of more remains …

You can view them more easily if you make your way to the friendly, beautifully restored church of St Giles Cripplegate. In the old churchyard you can look across the artificial lake to another section of wall …

Also visible are the remains of two bastions …

I could get close to the more complete one since I have a Barbican Residents’ key …

Fragments of Roman red tiles …

Heron and Roman wall combination …

I’ve seen the heron literally dozens of time but never seen him catch a fish. Although, I’m told, he is partial to the occasional duckling.

And whilst on the subject of birds, a flock of pigeons has arrived at the Barbican shop …

And now I have a companion of my very own …

I know his feet are a little strange, but we don’t talk about that.

In other news.

A palm tree silhouette in Regent’s Park …

Or maybe not …

It’s another surprise exhibit from Frieze 2026 …

If you would like to follow me on Instagram here is the link …

https://www.instagram.com/london_city_gent

A stroll around St Paul’s, a new memorial at Smithfield, a party and an angry Coot.

By The City Gent

On 17th September 2026

In Animals, Architecture, Memorials

This sign on London Wall a few weeks ago indicated a major change to the area around St Paul’s Cathedral …

The St Paul’s Gyratory Transformation Project is a major £19m scheme by the City of London Corporation to replace a 1970s traffic system with pedestrian-friendly public spaces and safer travel routes. One of the development’s nicest features is Greyfriars Square, a new 3,500 sq m public space, the largest in the Square Mile, is being built near Christ Church Greyfriars and St Paul’s Cathedral. You can experience a fly-through visualisation here.

I popped along to have a look last weekend and there is obviously a lot of work under way …

I walked around the Cathedral area a few weeks ago on one of the nice, but not too hot, sunny days last week and took a few images.

The heyday of the postal service …

I still find it bizarre that Royal Mail is now owned by a Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský through his investment vehicle, EP Group, following a £3.6 billion takeover of its parent company, International Distribution Services.

The heyday of the Empire as well as the Post Office …

A glimpse of Lady Justice in the distance …

The ruins of Christ Church Greyfriars and its pretty little garden will be an integral part of the new Greyfriars Square …

In Paternoster Square is a 1975 bronze sculpture by Elisabeth Frink which I particularly like – a ‘naked’ shepherd with a crook in his left hand walks behind a small flock of five sheep ……

Dame Elisabeth was, anecdotally, very fond of putting large testicles on her sculptures of both men and animals. In fact, her Catalogue Raisonné informs us that she ‘drew testicles on man and beast better than anyone’ and saw them with ‘a fresh, matter-of-fact delight’. It was reported in 1975, however, that the nude figure had been emasculated ‘to avoid any embarrassment in an ecclesiastical setting’. The sculpture is called, appropriately, Paternoster.

Paternoster Square Art Installation …

Since the weather was so nice, I took the opportunity to capture a few images of the bust of one-time Dean of St Paul’s John Donne …

It’s by Nigel Boonham (2012).

His bust points almost due west but shows him turning to the east towards his birthplace on Bread Street. The directions of the compass were important to Donne in his metaphysical work: east is the Rising Sun, the Holy Land and Christ, while west is the place of decline and death. Underneath the bust are inscribed words from his poem Good Friday – Riding Westward :

Hence is’t that I am carried towards the west, This day when my soul’s form bends to the east

The most familiar quotation from Donne comes from his Meditation XVII – Devotions upon Emergent Occasions published in 1624:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main … and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

Something I had never noticed before is that there is an inscription on his shoulder. It’s from Donne’s verse letter to Lady Carey and Mistress Essex Rich: “True virtue’s soul’s always in all deeds all.” It is famous for being the only surviving verse in English written in Donne’s own handwriting …

I have written about Donne before and you can access the blog here.

I really like this work by Paul Mount (1922-2009), also to be found in the gardens. It’s called Amicale (2007) …

Mount was one of the last British artists whose careers were interrupted by the Second World War. A lifelong pacifist, he served in the Friends Ambulance Unit in North Africa and then France, where he stayed on after the end of the war to do relief work. Once free to work again, artists like him never really lost their sense of a world to be made anew through art. For Mount, sculpture expressed an essential human dignity. He observed …

The way that two shapes relate is as important as the way two people relate.

There is a nice obituary notice about him and his fascinating life in The Guardian which you can access here.

On my way to Smithfield I took an image of the Watch-House in Giltspur Street. It’s attached Holy Sepulchre church …

It was built in 1761, to keep guard over the church’s graveyard, which was then much larger and extended across the road. Lost in wartime bombing, it was rebuilt in 1962.

Originally a night watchman was employed here to stop recently buried corpses from being stolen by ‘resurrection men’ (body snatchers) …

According to Dani Middleton, bodies stolen at this graveyard would usually be taken to an inn on the opposite side of the road, where the landlord would tie the name of a doctor or student, who had paid for the body, on the cadaver’s toe. Then the customer, probably from a nearby hospital such as St Bartholomew’s, would visit the pub and collect it.

The building is home to a bust of Charles Lamb …

The wording reads: To the immortal memory of Charles Lamb. Perhaps the most loved name in English literature who was a Bluecoat Boy here for 7 years. B: 1775 D: 1834

Below the memorial there is a plaque reading: This memorial was moved here in December 1962 from Christchurch Greyfriars, Newgate Street, which stands beside the former site of Charles Lamb’s school Christ’s Hospital.

At the entrance to St Bartholomew the Great a new memorial has been installed to the famous martyr Anne Askew who was burnt at the stake outside the St Bartholomew gatehouse on July 16 1546 …

Anne was burnt along with John Lascelles (a lawyer and Gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber), John Hadlam (a tailor from Essex) and John Hemsley (a former Franciscan friar). A great stage was built at Smithfield for the convenience of Chancellor Wriothesley, other members of the Privy Council and City dignitaries, to watch the burning in comfort.

The execution of Anne Askew and her companions – 1563 woodcut from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs …

Anne herself, having been illegally broken on the rack, was unable to stand, and was chained to the stake in a sitting position. You can read more about this fascinating, brave lady here. You can read and hear more about the new memorial here.

Every burning was different; if the fire ‘caught’, it could be over relatively quickly, but on damp days, or when the wind persisted in blowing the flames away from the body, it could take up to an hour for the condemned person to die, an hour of excruciating agony.

Their crime was heresy and of the 288 people estimated to have been burnt during the five year reign of Mary Tudor, forty eight were killed in Smithfield. ‘Bloody Mary’ was the daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon and the burnings were part of her campaign to reverse the English Reformation.

The ‘Marian Martyrs’ are commemorated with this plaque erected by the Protestant Alliance in 1870 …

The gilding is a little faded in this picture. It reads …

Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. The noble army of martyrs praise Thee! Within a few feet of this spot,

John Rogers,

John Bradford,

John Philpot,

and other servants of God, suffered death by fire for the faith of Christ, in the years 1555, 1556, 1557

In other (more cheerful) news.

Two lovely City of London Police horses and their riders were here last Saturday to greet visitors to the Barbican Summer Party …

At the Party there was a long queue for the teddy bear zip-wire experience (although obviously much loved non-teddy creatures were allowed to participate as well) …

Some interesting stands in St Giles church …

Harry the Heron poses by the old barrel graves outside St Giles …

We were happily sitting on the Barbican Terrace with a cup of coffee and a slice of lemon drizzle cake when this character turned up, upstaging the hopeful pigeon who was there first …

So we shared a few crumbs with him, but when we stopped he was not happy. Have you ever been given the evil eye by a coot?

If you would like to follow me on Instagram here is the link …

https://www.instagram.com/london_city_gent

What’s the point? The spike on London Bridge and other miscellany.

By The City Gent

On 20th August 2026

In Architecture, Quirky, Sculpture, Social History

I couldn’t think of a unifying theme for the blog this week so it’s going to be a collection of items from my various wanderings and travels. I hope you find some of them interesting.

I thought I’d start with the pointy sculpture on the south side of London Bridge …

Created in 1999, apparently its proper name is the Southwark Needle but, strangely, there is no plaque explaining its significance.

This has led to speculation. My favourite theory is based on what you would encounter as you approached London Bridge from the south in earlier, more brutal centuries. This is Claes Von Visscher’s Panorama of London dated around 1600 …

If you look in the bottom right hand corner …

Beheading was a common form of execution at the time and reserved for higher-born individuals since it was swifter and less barbaric than hanging or burning at the stake. Heads also became available when individuals suffered the terrible death of being hanged, drawn and quartered (usually for high treason).

The first head to be displayed in this way was the Scottish patriot and rebel William Wallace in 1305 after he had been hanged, drawn and quartered at Smithfield. Between then and 1678 when the practice was stopped, there was a near-permanent display of decapitated heads grinning down from their spikes that pedestrians would have passed beneath. There was a plentiful supply, a visitor in 1592 counted 34 ‘heads of persons of distinction’.

So one theory was that the spike was a gruesome reference to those times.

In fact, the giant stone splinter is an architectural marker. According to the excellent Look up London blog, it’s actually about following the line of the base of the sculpture. This gestures across the River Thames to St Magnus the Martyr Church which originally marked the North entrance to Old London Bridge …

Nowadays you’re welcomed by a City of London dragon (and maybe a friendly pigeon) …

If you cross the bridge and visit St Magnus, you can stand on the main pedestrian entrance to the old bridge …

As I walked through it I couldn’t help thinking about the thousands and thousands who preceded me. Were they heading into the City to make their fortune perhaps? Or maybe leaving in bitter disappointment.

Back on the bridge, I love the views looking along the Thames, even on a miserable day like this …

Southwark Cathedral with The Strata Building with its three wind turbines in the background.

Some interesting street art …

The Shard reflecting the sky …

Walking north, a building in Moorgate overloaded with symbolism …

Since 1893 this golden lady has been standing at the top of 13-15 Moorgate facing the Bank of England …

Her image is repeated on the side of the building …

This was originally the London headquarters of the Metropolitan Life Assurance Society. The lady comes from its coat of arms (granted in 1885) which show her holding a skull (mortality) in her left hand with a serpent (signifying wisdom) entwined on her right.

The building also incorporates an attractive set of figures representing Prudence, Justice, Truth and Thrift – presumably all Virtues that the Insurer would like to be identified with …

An angel extinguishes a torch …

A common sculpture in Victorian cemeteries. A lit torch normally symbolises life and truth. When an angel turns the torch upside down or puts out the flame, it signifies that the mortal life of the person has come to an end. Could this representation above the door have been intended as an elegant reminder to employees as to why life insurance was important to their customers?

The recent horrendous heat was not nice but there were some nice skies for photography.

This building is on the north side of Finsbury Square …

Formerly Triton Court, it’s now known as the Alphabeta Building. Many years ago I would sometimes travel by train into the now demolished Broad Street Station. As the train approached the terminus I could see from my carriage what looked like a little boy standing on a large ball at the very top of the building. It looked like he was waving at me!

Well, he’s still there …

Now, however, I know the statue standing on top of the globe is Mercury (Hermes) the messenger and God of profitable trade. It’s by James Alexander Stevenson and was completed in the early 1900s. Though it would be impossible to see from the ground it’s apparently – as with all Stevenson’s work – signed with ‘Myrander’ a combination of his wife’s name (Myra) and his middle name (Alexander). Sweet. The renovated building is quite stunning inside as you can see here.

Feeling adventurous, I caught the single decker 214 bus and headed towards Highgate. Here are some of the sights I saw along the way.

Great rogue apostrophe …

On reaching Camden Town, scary tongue symptoms at the Chinese clinic …

Interesting architecture of The Black Cap pub …

The Palladium of Drag! Welcome to all!

Read lots more in this fascinating BBC report here.

As I strolled through Highgate Village …

The cakes look nice too.

The Angel pub with its headless angel …

…and interesting blue plaque …

I love this anecdote from Ray Davies of The Kinks:

“We used to meet up in the Angel. I remember when a woman collapsed outside the pub one night. Graham was a trained doctor and ran out to help. He tore off the woman’s blouse and said don’t worry I’m a doctor, and she said, no you’re not, you’re a comedian!”

Lots of choice at U Dessert …

Card in a shop window that made me laugh …

This also made me smile …

A plaque commemorating a stone step that you can no longer see …

A post box from the reign of King George V (1910-1936) …

I know it’s old but it seems to have taken quite a beating. They must have some fearsome weather up here.

I turned right into Waterlow Park to pay my respects to the wonderful philanthropist Sir Sydney Waterlow …

He is prepared for inclement weather with his umbrella, hat and overcoat. In his left hand he is passing over the keys to the park for everyone’s enjoyment. A ‘garden for the gardenless’ as he put it.

Everyone knows the story of Dick Whittington, the poor lad who against all the odds became Lord Mayor of London. Trudging back home up Highgate Hill, disillusioned after not succeeding in the City, he heard the bells of St Mary-le-Bow ring out with the message “Turn again, Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London!” Gathering up his loyal cat, he headed back the way he had come, and the rest is history. Or not.

Although the story is a total myth, it burned itself into folklore so deeply that the point on Highgate Hill where he supposedly heard the bells is commemorated this charming little memorial …

Carved on the side of the stone facing the road are the dates of Whittington’s Mayoralties, the three Kings he served under and the year he was Sheriff …

It also records that the stone was restored by W Hillier in 1935.

You can read a comprehensive history of the stone and the cat here on the London Remembers website. I recall the cat (made from Irish limestone) being added in 1964 since I walked up the hill almost every day on my way to school. The cat also lives on in the signage of the nearby Whittington Hospital and local pub …

Whilst waiting for the bus home, I encountered this informal tree advertising …

‘Tommy’ will get into trouble if he’s not careful.

Finally, last Sunday, there was a celebration of Carnival at the Barbican …

… and I had the great pleasure of sharing a lift with some of the lovely cast …

If you would like to follow me on Instagram here is the link …

https://www.instagram.com/london_city_gent