From the Great Fire to the Globe

This tour takes you from the heart of the city to what in medieval and Tudor times was its more riotous neighbour across the river - Southwark. We begin at the Monument which you can reach by a Monument or Bank Tube station.
Probably the greatest tragedy that hit London was the Great Fire of 1666 and it started just about a hundred yards up there, in ... look, Pudding Lane. And after it was all over they built a monument to commemorate the fire and here it is: the Monument. It’s 202 feet high, by far the highest building in Europe at the time, and it’s 202 feet from the place where the fire started. The Monument is the tallest, free-standing, stone column in the world. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke and constructed of Portland stone between 1671 and 1677, the simple Doric column is topped by a flaming copper urn to remind us of the great fire.
Now, if you walk three hundred metres up Gracechurch St on your right you’ll come to one of the centres of medieval London economic life. This is Leadenhall Market one of London’s oldest shopping centres. In fact there’s been a market here for 600 years, for the sale of meat, fish, poultry and corn. This iron and glass building is Victorian - it was put up in 1881. But for medieval Londoners, the market was their principal source of goods.
Walk back down Gracechurch St and turn right down Lombard St. London’s reputation as the center of world finance stems from this street, because this is where all the banks used to have their headquarters. The street is named after Lombardy in Italy, because the Lombards were great medieval bankers and money lenders, who operated internationally. When you reach the end of Lombard St, near Bank Station, keep left and go down Walbrook, you’ll soon see one of the churches built by Sir Christopher Wren to replace those lost in the great fire.
This is St Stephen Walbrook, which was Christopher Wren’s own local parish church - he lived just round the corner. Now, it looks rather dull on the outside, but inside he took tremendous trouble over the construction. St Stephen Walbrook, in the heart of the city, is also famous as the birth place of the Samaritans. In 1953 the rector Doctor Chad Verah, began the famous helpline from this church, and the original phone is still there.
What I most love about this church is that it is so beautiful. There are some modern features, like this circular altar installed by Henry Moore in 1987. But just look at the great wide open space these magnificent pillars and above all the fantastic dome.
Now, head down to the end of Walbrook and turn right when you reach Cannon St. When the road forks at Mansion House tube station, take the left fork - Queen Victoria St. When you reach Peter’s Hill, turn left and cross the Millennium Bridge. Make sure not to walk in step with all your fellow pedestrians, though, or you may set the bridge wobbling again!
On the South bank you’ll see the old Bankside Power Station, now world famous as Tate Modern. If you turn left and walk along the river, you’ll reach the Globe Theatre.
This is actually the third Globe to be built here. The first one was about 200 metres that way and the area then was all marshland so they had to build a platform of lime and brick to put the thing on. Now, it’s right across from the city and people would come across here by boat because the only crossing was London Bridge and that’s - oh - a half mile down stream, it's a mile round trip. So they'd run up a flag to show, like that red one at the top there, to show that a play was about to begin and then people would get in their boats and come across. And there was also colour coding, so there was a black flag if it was a tragedy, a white flag for comedy, and a red flag for history. When they rebuilt the Globe, they did their very best to recreate the original including the thatched roof, which was actually the reason why the first one was destroyed. They were simulating firing a cannon on the stage and as a special effect they fired a real cannon from the heavens above the stage and they fired it over the audience across the river. They didn’t use a cannon ball and they didn’t use much gun powder but the wadding caught fire, set fire to the roof and the whole place burnt to the ground. Luckily everyone escaped unscathed apart from one member of the audience - his breeches caught fire and they had to put him out with a bottle of beer!
Anyway after the Great Fire of 1666, no thatched roofs were allowed in London at all. And this modern Globe is the single exception to that rule - isn’t it wonderful? Now for the last stop somewhere you can put your feet up at last. Carry on along the river, and turn right down Southwark Bridge Road, left down Southwark St and right down Borough High St. Now, keep your eyes peeled, because soon on your left is another of London’s hidden gems.
And this is it - The George - the last coaching inn in London. In its time, incredibly important, a sort of combination of a mainline railway station and a stock exchange. Both a transport hub and a centre of commerce and offering food, drink, entertainment ... all that stuff. This dates from 1542, but almost certainly there was a pub on the site long before that. It used to have three sides, one, two, three but 2 of them were demolished for the Northern Railway. In its heyday, 50 coaches every day would have left this coach yard for destinations all over the country. Well that’s the end of this tour and now you can enjoy a well earned jug of ale, good bye!