Ascent/Descent:
negligible
Net
Walking Time: ca. 1 ½ or 2 hours,
Toughness:
1 out of 10
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:
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
For walk directions, maps, height profiles, photos and gpx/kml files click here. T=short.47
4 comments:
Informative instructions. Intend going on what should be a very interesting walk.
It sounds an interesting walk. I am in!
I arrived late but did the walk. It is lovely despite it became a bit dark for the final bit of the walk.
Ok, so 17 walkers on time, plus (as per the previous comment) 1 late arrival, i.e. n=18 in total, on a w=pleasantly-warm evening. There is plenty of information to take in on this walk, both from the written directions as well as just from info panels encountered en route. It is ambitious trying to read and digest everything on a late summer evening walk, so we focused on the highlights and it took 90 minutes to get to Ludgate Hill, near the end of the main walk route, where we turned the corner just as St. Paul's bells were ringing for 8 o'clock. On to Blackfriars, where 8 decamped to The Black Friar.
Of those, 5 went on to walk along the Thames back towards the start, with 2 peeling off en route for buses and 3 finishing at London Bridge.
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