London

Richard Rogers's industrial design for Lloyds of London

Lloyds of London, 12 Leadenhall St and 1 Lime St
The various buildings occupied by the world’s oldest insurance market tell the story of the city in miniature. Edward Lloyd opened a coffee house in 1688 in Tower Street, but the company of marine underwriters associated with the place soon moved to Lombard Street to be close to the shipping action. In 1774, the ‘Subscribers to Lloyds’ moved into the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, where it stayed (apart from the two occasions when the Exchange burnt down) until 1928. The company then moved to Leadenhall Street, expanding into an adjacent site on Lime Street in 1957. Overcrowding again meant architectural expansion in 1978, when Richard Rogers designed his famous tower. Feature continues

At street level it’s a depressing place: dark and bristling with signs warning that it’s not open to the public. If you peer into the dim recesses of the building, though, you can glimpse a bright courtyard area that suggests that the penitentiary architectural overtones do not continue inside the building.

The 'instant city': Norman Fooster's Gherkin towers over its neighbours

Gherkin, 30 St Mary Axe, EC3
Foster’s instant City icon looks slightly unreal rising up out of the jumble of old City buildings and, though you can’t go in, it’s worth visiting on foot because you so rarely see pictures of its jagged-toothed street-level presence. It was built on the site of the old Baltic Exchange, centre of the shipping industry, badly damaged by an IRA bomb in 1992.

London Metal Exchange, 56 Leadenhall St
A sober-looking building with only a few Ionic columns for decoration, but inside it seethes with activity twice a day at 11.40am and 3.10pm, as the only place in the City where trading is still done by ‘open outcry’ – in other words, people stand about shouting prices and doing deals face to face. Sadly, this activity is not open to the public.

Plantation Place, 30 Fenchurch St
When this site was redeveloped, 42 1,800-year-old Roman gold coins were unearthed. They were probably someone’s life savings, buried for safe-keeping, and are now on display at the Museum of London. The new building houses Accenture, various underwriters and Wachovia bank. Revolving doors lead you into a hushed, light-filled airy atrium. You won’t get much further in without an appointment though.

Change Alley, off Lombard St
This network of alleys is where early stock-dealing took place, specifically in Jonathan’s Coffee House, where a stockbroker called John Castaing took to posting up the prices of stocks and commodities and thus founded what was to become the London Stock Exchange. The alley links Lombard Street – named after the merchants of Lombardy in Italy, who went into money-lending in the late fourteenth century and set up business in the City soon afterwards – with Cornhill, named after an ancient corn market. A blue plaque marks the area’s close links with another big City activity, shipping; it reads ‘Site of the King’s Arms Tavern where the first meeting of the Marine Society was held on 23 June 1756.’

Rothschild, St Swithin’s Lane
The oldest bank to remain in the same location, NM Rothschild is the London branch of the global financial business set up by Mayer Amschel Rothschild in eighteenth-century Frankfurt. He had five sons, the oldest of whom was Nathan Mayer Rothschild, who left for England at the age of 21 and was established in the City by 1809. He financed the Napoleonic Wars in 1814; in 1926, his bank put up the money for the expansion of the tube. This powerful institution’s HQ is gloomy, imposing and very private.