Essex Man Does Walking

One of the Back Alley Boys was getting married so we thought about kicking off the stag do with a walk around London. I had bought a book a whilst back which looks at the oddities of London, so I planned a route around that.

I have talked about the route previously but thought I would add in how it went.

The starting place was the Crosse Keys, a Wetherspoons pub on Gracechurch Street which is a short walk to the start. It took a while for us all to gather and a couple of drinks were had. Then we headed off heading to Amen Court to look at the Torch Snuffers.

Amen Court is a private road, you can see the barrier restricting entry in front of us. However, if you look closely you can see the Torch Snuffers mid way down the frame from the light. Not needed nowadays with electric lights!

Heading across the road we pass The Paternoster Vents which are used to cool an electricity sub station and then into Paternoster Square where we see the Pineapple monument, another vent and Temple Bar gate. This was moved stone by stone from Temple Bar in 2004.

Walking down Paternoster Row besides St Paul’s Cathedral we get to the Panyer Boy relief. This is on the wall next to a cafe opposite the tube entrance. It commemorates the burning down of the Panyer Inn in the Great Fire of London. It is also supposedly the highest point in London. From here we walk around the back of St Paul’s and come to a junction with Cannon Street. Opposite is Bracken House which has an astronomical clock, looking carefully you can see Winston Churchill at its centre.

From here we walk down Cannon Street noting the Cannon Bollards, before heading north upto Bank and the statue of James Henry Greathead who was the inventor of a tunnelling machine that allowed the tube to be built faster.

Carrying on down Cornhill we pass the Water pump erected in 1799 and onto the Cornhill Devils. These were put on a building that had a spat with the church next door. They were designed to look down upon all the parishioners using the church. At this point with bladders full we head around the corner to The Crosse Keys again and have another drink.

The route was taking a little longer than we thought and we had to go an kill zombies at some point so we cut out part of the tour. We headed for the old Victorian Turkish Bathhouse. Then heading west we got to Finsbury Circus to find another vent called the Obelisk.

From here on we looked at various parts of the original London Wall around the Barbican area.

Now it is here that my route stopped working as the way was locked to anyone but residents so we had to walk back around and then down London Wall with bladders bursting. Thankfully at our next stop, an underground car park with a part of the Wall in it there were toilets!

Deciding that our next stop would be the last before the zombies we headed to the monument to Heroic Self Sacrifice. Here you can find a large number of stories about as the title suggests Heroic self sacrifice.

We crossed the Thames to go and kill Zombies for a bit before a few more beers and then a long walk back to Liverpool Street where we had a curry and headed home. Very nice.