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Take your Pyx

The Trial of the Pyx is an ancient ceremony that dates back to the 13th century. Its purpose is to check that all UK coinage produced at The Royal Mint is of sufficient weight and composition. The name ‘pyx’ refers to the boxes in which the coins are carried and comes form the Pyx chamber in Westminster Abbey, where important artefacts were housed. We believe there was some quality control in early medieval times but it was in the reign of Henry II (1154-89) that regular tests took place By the mid-13th century the Trial had begun to take the form we know today. Early trials were first held in Westminster until 1580, when Elizabeth I decree...

All Aboard the Mail Rail!

The Mail Rail once transported letters and parcels from Paddington Station to as far as the Tower of London. When it closed in 2003 after more than 75 years’ service the Post office were stuck with what to do with it. Ideas varied from converting it to a subterranean cycle lane to creating an extensive mushroom farm. But then they thought: why not open it to the public?  London’s newest attraction opened in 3 years ago and has already proved popular. Discovering a part of hidden London is always exciting and this journey under the streets of London is no exception. You travel about 1.6km along the tracks, at no great speed but enough for younge...

Looking for Richard

College Hill, a narrow lane parallel to Queen Street is one you’ve may never gone down. At the bottom of it stands St Michael Paternoster Royal. A Wren church, it was one of the last to be built after the Great Fire. It’s named after the paternosters, the ‘Our Father’ chants the priests used to utter, and the town of La Reole, in Bordeaux, which had connections with the wine trade. Now the church is the headquarters of the Mission of Seafarers but its claim to fame really lies in one of the burials, for it was here that Richard Whittington, Lord Mayor of London was buried in 1423. His house once stood next door. What we know of Dick Wh...

Bath time, Londinium style

Under an undistinguished office block in Lower Thames Street, opposite the Custom House and below St Dunstan-in-the-East lies a hidden gem of Roman London: a Roman house and bathhouse. It lies some way back from the river but in its heyday this building complex would have overlooked the River Thames from its hillside location. It may have been a ‘mansio’, which offered comfortable accommodation to officials - a bit like the nearby Premier Inn! When you venture down there’s a surprising amount to see. What survives are the north and east wings of the L-shaped house but there’s no trace of the west wing. The east side was kept warm with u...

A whiff of Bauhaus

The City of London is not well-known for its 1930s buildings. Between the Daily Express and Daily Telegraph buildings on Fleet Street, the impressive Ibex House in the Minories and the delightful Fox Fine Wines shop in Moorgate (formerly the Fox umbrella shop) you could be stumped trying to think of any more modernist monuments within the Square Mile. Walk out of Cannon Street Station, however, and look for the small Nii Haw sushi bar straight ahead of you. Before it fed local office workers with dim sum this cute and curvaceous outlet was a branch of TM Lewin. But 80 years ago 115 Cannon Street - to give its correct address - was the Mortimer Gall...

Going Dutch in the City

     Though the City today seems dominated by high rise developments and soaring skyscrapers, you can still find some pockets of earlier office buildings. One such gem is Holland House, tucked away in Bury Street, behind the iconic Gherkin. This impressive Art Nouveau structure was designed for the Dutch shipping magnate Kroller-Mullers by a fellow countryman Hendrik Petrus Berlage. It dates from 1914-1916 is quite unlike any other building within the Square Mile. Berlage was inspired by a visit to the United States; indeed Holland House wouldn’t seem out of place in Chicago or New York. It has a narrow, 4-storey frontage that faces south ea...