Following The Footprints Of London Guildhall Tour

Today I took one of Footprints Of London’s walking tours around the Guildhall in the City of London.

Led by Tina Baxter, who is one of the City of London Guides & Lecturers Association accredited guides, we started our journey at St Paul’s, slowly making our way over to the Guildhall itself. Our first stop was at the fine St Mary Le Bow church, one of the many buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren following the Great Fire of 1666. The church doesn’t, as you might expect, get its name from an association with archery but due to the bowed arches of the undercroft, which would have been visible at the time of its construction (ground levels in the City have increased by several feet since the 1600s).

Our next stop, and the main focus of the tour was the Guildhall Yard, which is enclosed by the church of St Lawrence Jewry to the south (the Lord Mayor of London’s official church dedicated to the early Christian saint who, it is said, was literally roasted alive), the Guildhall offices of the City of London Corporation to the west, the Guildhall itself to the north and the Guildhall Art Gallery to the east.

Tina took us through security for a visit inside the Guildhall itself, which is usually open to the public (although it’s best to check given that investitures and celebrations and so on mean that it is closed from time to time). This immense vaulted space has a long and complex history, with only the four main walls of the building dating back to its initial construction in 1411. It has been renovated several times over the centuries, most notably by Sir Christopher Wren himself. His additions to the building survived until the Second World War, when unfortunately the incendiaries and high explosives once again reduced it to its four 15th century ragstone walls…

The way that the surrounding area looks today is directly due to those bombing raids – Guildhall Yard was completely opened up and the administrative buildings came soon afterwards, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Before he tackled those however, in the 1950s Sir Giles built a new portico on the Guildhall, which attracted controversy at the time but which I think is rather beautiful. Up at the top of the frontage, the City’s coat of arms are proudly displayed, and these are flanked by swords and sceptres in relief. Below there are Chinese-inspired windows with delicate flowers set around them…

Back in the Guildhall proper, visitors will note that most of the windows carry inscribed names – these represent a long list of every single one of the Lord Mayors of London. Dick Whittington’s name appears several times, and even the most recently invested Lord Mayor, Roger Gifford, already has his name emblazoned just above and to the right of the main doors into the hall.

Around the walls of the building are statues dedicated to the heroes of the City – Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson and the Duke Of Wellington are both commemorated in large elaborate tableaus while Sir Winston Churchill gets a rather more modest (and avuncular) bronze. Several of the Lord Mayors are also featured in the statuary – most notably William Beckford who was Mayor in 1770 and earned his place in the Guildhall by being brave enough to confront the monarch at the time, King George III, about the illegal imprisonment of his friend and MP, John Wilkes. Henry Fitzallwin, the first Lord Mayor of London also has a stained glass window dedicated to him – this was installed in 1989 to commemorate 800 years of governance of the City by the most appropriate of the City’s many Guilds, the Worshipful Company of Glaziers.

There are other interesting things to spot in this historic building – anchoring the minstrel’s gallery at the rear of the hall are large wooden effigies of Gog and Magog, the legendary giants who have had a long association with the City of London. Below them, flanking the entrance, are medallions which feature the regiments and companies of the armed forces that have an association with the City, with the first in the line being the Honorable Artillery Company, now a Territorial Army Regiment which is headquartered in a gothic pile about half a mile away on City Road. Along one of the walls there is also a large plaque noting the executions that were ordered by judges sitting over proceedings in the Guildhall (including Lady Jane Grey – wife of Edward VI who had an eventful marriage of just nine days) and up in the eaves there are some interesting flags.

Interesting because these denote the ‘top twelve’ livery companies in the City in order of precedence i.e. those who, historically, have had the greatest wealth. Number one and number two are, unsurprisingly, the Worshipful Company of Mercers (general merchants) and the Worshipful Company of Grocers, but two of the others have a tale to tell. Numbers six and seven are the Worshipful Company of Merchant Tailors and the Worshipful Company of Skinners (or fur traders) – always rivals, one year they had a race down the Thames to see who was the fastest and strongest team. The boats crashed and it was decided that to avoid further disagreement, they should swap places in the list every year, and so this year the Tailors are sixth. This incident gives rise to the phrase, ‘At sixes and sevens’, to denote a state of confusion.

Our walking tour left the Guildhall behind at this point, and proceeded on to the Guildhall Art Gallery, the last addition to Guildhall Yard which was built in 1999. The City of London, being a bit of a lover of tradition, awarded Sir Richard Gilbert Scott (Giles Gilbert Scott’s son) the commission to build it. The art gallery houses a whole host of fine works of art, with the centrepiece being the vast seven-and-a-half metre wide canvas by John Singleton Copley of The Defeat Of The Floating Batteries At Gibraltar, painted over a number of years from 1783, which commemorates the rout of the French and Spanish forces by General George Augustus Eliot, his Hanoverian troops and the combined British forces.

Another interesting feature of the Guildhall Art Gallery is, of course, down in the basement – the Roman amphitheatre which was discovered during the initial excavations for the building’s foundations. This is a rather eerie space where you can almost hear the cries of gladitorial combat, particularly if you happen to be in this large space on your own. Interestingly, back up in the Guildhall Yard, the internal dimensions of the amphitheatre are picked out by a large circle in the brickwork.

Today’s walking tour with Footprints of London was absolutely fascinating – you can find out about all of the guided walks that the organisation offers on their website here. Our guide for the day, Tina Baxter, can also be found on Twitter and you can also read her blog to find out more about her experiences of being a tour guide.