Permanent Tourist

The personal website of Mark Howells-Mead

A wall amongst concrete

London is so big, that it’s difficult to know what to see when visiting for just a short time. I visited in order to take some documentary “street photographs” in summer 2012 and amongst the places I visited was the Barbican Estate: a largely brick and concrete, Brutalist estate in the City of London. I was repeatedly drawn there for exhibitions and the severity of the architecture in the 1990s, and it hasn’t changed for the better in my absence.

One little bit of “architecture” there is a little older than the rest, though. Sitting amongst the concrete and brick of the 1960s estate is partially a remainder of London Wall. Built by the Romans around 1,900 years ago to extend the original fort of Londinium, it was re-shaped through the years and the Barbican website indicates that the current wall is mostly of Tudor age (around 400 years old), having been patched up and re-constructed using pre-existing foundations and materials.

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