Welcome to Within the Walls

Walk around the City of London today and, at first glance, there isn't much that looks ancient. There are glass towers, building sites, crowded pavements, and the endless cacophony of traffic. Yet the older City is never far away. Follow the right street and you may be walking a route that has existed for centuries. A church might stand where people have worshipped since Saxon times. A street name can recall a trade that disappeared generations ago, while beneath the modern City are the remains of Londinium and the many cities that followed it.

That mixture of old and new is what makes the City such an intriguing place. It covers little more than a square mile, but its history stretches back almost two thousand years. Within the Walls: Exploring the History of the City of London will look at that history in all its variety, from Roman London and the medieval city to the commercial powerhouse that emerged in later centuries. The Great Fire, the rebuilding that followed, the Victorian City, two world wars and the changes of recent decades all form part of the story. So do the less dramatic events that shaped everyday life.

Those smaller stories are often the most revealing. Who lived in the City? Where did they work, and what did their streets look like? What went on in its markets, churches, workshops and taverns? Why did some businesses and institutions survive for centuries while others disappeared? A building, an old map or even a name on a street sign can sometimes tell us more than we might expect. The City's landscape is full of clues if you know how to read them. Parts of the medieval street plan are still there, Roman remains have survived beneath later buildings, and old boundaries continue to shape the City in ways that are easy to miss.

Of course, much has been lost. Fires, war and redevelopment have repeatedly altered the City, sometimes destroying entire streets and buildings. Other changes have been more gradual, as businesses moved, neighbourhoods changed and old buildings were replaced. To understand what has disappeared, we have to turn to the evidence: maps, wills, parish records, company archives, archaeological reports, court records, contemporary accounts and the buildings themselves. The evidence is not always straightforward. Sources can be incomplete or contradictory, and there are plenty of questions to which we may never have a definite answer.

That uncertainty is part of what makes history interesting. The purpose of this blog is not simply to collect facts about old buildings or repeat familiar stories, but to look at the evidence and ask what it can actually tell us. The City has been written about extensively, but there are still countless stories to uncover and plenty of assumptions worth questioning.

The subjects will range widely. There will be architecture and archaeology, business and trade, politics and religion, crime and law, civic life and social history. There will be famous buildings and forgotten ones, important figures and people whose names have almost vanished from the record. Sometimes a post may begin with a major event; sometimes it may start with a single street, document or surviving fragment of the past.

The aim is straightforward: to explore the history of the City of London in a way that is grounded in good historical research but accessible to anyone who wants to know more about the place. You don't need to be an expert, and you certainly don't need to memorise a list of dates. What matters is curiosity.

Why was the City built where it was? How did it become such an important centre of trade and finance? What was everyday life like within its walls? How much did the Great Fire really change? And what can still be seen of the older City among the buildings that surround us today?

There are answers to many of these questions all around us; you just have to know where to look.