Length:
4.5 km (2.8 mi) or 6.8 km (4.2 mi) for the Circular Walk Options
Ascent/Descent:
negligible
Net
Walking Time: ca. 1 ½ or 2 hours
Meet
at 18.30
outside Tower Hill Underground Station’s Main Exit, facing Trinity
Square.
This
highly interesting walk follows as closely as possible the course of the
London Wall as it would have run during Roman times around the settlement
of Londinium, starting at the (medieval) fortress of the Tower of London and
leading through the modern-day City of London past the sites of the former city
gates to the westerly wall end at modern Blackfriars.
It also passes the site
of the much older first Roman Fort (built AD 120) at the north westerly corner
of the city, whose walls were later incorporated into the Wall (built ca. AD
190-230).Street
levels would have been up to 7 metres lower than today, so many remaining parts
of the Wall are now hidden from view in the basements of buildings or under
roads, but the route still passes a surprisingly large number of publicly
accessible exposed sections of the Wall above ground (plus one section
below ground on an optional extension).
Wall
parts as seen today have been much altered during the Middle Ages and some of
the info panels or the walk directions point out these alterations. The route
initially closely follows a signed London Wall Walk established by the Museum
of London in 1984 for the section from the Tower to the Museum and passes the
remaining info panels from that time plus several modern-day replacement
panels.
At
the end of the 3rd century, following a series of raids by Saxon
pirates, an additional riverside wall along the Thames was added, but no
evidence of it survives today. Nevertheless, two options are described to
make this a circular walk, either along the modern-day waterfront or along
the line of the Roman Era waterfront, which ran further inland.
Walk Options:
Dropout
points are aplenty along the route at tube stations or bus stops.
An
Extension leads
to a large section of the Wall in the underground London Wall Car Park (320m
each-way).
The
route can be made into a circular walk by following a choice of routes back to the
Tower, both add 2.3 km to the route:
·
The Thames Path along the modern-day waterfront (including several small
diversions around river fronting residential or office buildings);
·
A meandering route following as close as sensible the line of the Roman era
waterfront.
Refreshments:
Plenty,
both en route and at the end of all walk options. Check the pdf for details.
For walk directions, maps, height profiles, photos
and gpx/kml files click here.
T=short.47
2 comments:
Hi Thomas,
looking forward to the walk this evening
Anne
n=15 in w=pleasant weather
We needed 100 minutes for the route, with all seemingly enjoying the sites visited and the facts conveyed via info panels, text or speech. Some London-Lifers confessed to not having seen some of the stuff ever before, which is of course a great result for the walk author. Most finished with a courtesy visit to The Black Friar, where some of those may still be for all we know...
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