The London Wall walk again, really???
Yes really, but just the first half of it to The Barbican,
then we tick off the five sites of the Guildhall School’s Vibrance two-day Festival
of Light and Sound extravaganza (3 of which are on the route anyway), which
gets us to Guildhall Square (3.6 km walked). Then we either walk on (continue this
walk, strike down to the Thames and walk some of this walk’s Roman Era
Waterfront option, anything else) or retire for drink and food. https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/vibrance [Thanks go to Karan G for
suggesting this]
Meet at 18.30 outside Tower Hill Underground Station’s Main
Exit, facing Trinity Square.
Here the blurb for the normal London Wall walk:
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.a
The Haslemere Outer Orbital Path (HOOP) passes through plenty of woodland, some picturesque areas not passed on other SWC walks, as well as some familiar areas.
