From Tower Hill station, we follow the signs for Tower Gateway station which takes us past part of a surviving section of the London Wall.
The London Wall was first built by the Romans around 200 AD. While a few sections remain to this day, a particularly impressive part can be found on the short walk between Tower Hill Underground station and Tower Gateway DLR station.
The eastern section of this wall began in what became the Tower of London and reached this point. What we see here goes back nearly 2000 years
Just beyond the wall, the walkway beyond – called Trinity Place – is a little underwhelming and a lot more modern. The Greater London Council created the walk and the open space to its south as part of the road widening scheme at Tower Hill in 1975.
About halfway along Trinity Place is a small entrance on the left. This was the site of one of the pioneering roads of the capital – “Circus”. This is not a misprint because I’ve neglected the first part. It was simply called Circus for the notable fact that this was the first road of this name in London. Circus was a Roman concept but it had never been applied as a street name before. The hundreds of roads that followed in its stead took their names from this – Piccadilly Circus, Cambridge Circus and many more lowly circular streets throughout the UK.
Circus was constructed from 1768 to 1774 under the architectural guidance of George Dance the Younger.
During the late 18th century, London experienced economic prosperity, partly fueled by the flourishing trade with the Americas. This period of growth created a need for high-quality housing catering to the newly affluent merchant class.
Sir Benjamin Hammett, a city alderman and property developer, secured the lease for the land hereabouts and enlisted the services of architect George Dance. His aim was to create a speculative residential development that would attract merchants to establish their residences in the City, strategically located near the bustling docks.
Not only was Circus built, but a road just to its north which he called simply “Crescent”, was also finished by 1774.
Crescent was the first planned crescent in London and introduced the concept of curved street frontages. Crescent was originally eleven identical houses.
North of Crescent was “America Square”. Thus was a square linked to a crescent and linked to a circus. Vaingloriously-named, if short, Hammett Street connected the development to the outside world at Minories.
Two years after all of these were complete, the United States gained its independence.
George Dance was likely influenced by John Wood’s work in Bath but the success of Circus and Crescent set a precedent, and other architects, including John Nash, followed suit by connecting circuses, crescents and squares in a similar fashion in the West End.
A decade later, Dance replicated this concept with Finsbury Circus and Finsbury Square.
In 1841, Fenchurch Street – the City of London’s first railway station – opened, leading to the construction of a railway viaduct that cut across the area between America Square and Crescent.
In 1884, the Metropolitan District Railway further altered the landscape by slicing diagonally through the southern half of The Crescent, resulting in the loss of five out of the eleven houses.
During the Second World War, America Square suffered extensive damage, resulting in the complete loss of its original houses. Nathan Meyer Rothschild had lived at No. 14 in the 19th century but a bomb in 1941 put paid to Rothschild’s house. Today, America Square is occupied by offices, restaurants and a gym.
Crescent lost four out of its remaining six houses, and in Circus, only one house remained intact. Post-war, the surviving house continued to be used for commercial purposes.
In 1962, the Tower Hill Improvement Trust acquired the local leases, which were later sold to the Greater London Council in 1975.
The GLC decided to demolish Circus and transformed the land into open space as part of the Tower Hill road widening scheme. Crescent, America Square and Hammett Street survived the final work of the bulldozer.
Nowadays, few know of these roads and their pioneering role in London nomenclature.
Turn left on Trinity Place here past the former site of Circus into Crescent. Hammett Street then takes us to Minories. Turn right at Tower Gateway DLR station.
After local demolitions and road realignments, a part of Royal Mint Street was renamed Shorter Street during the twentieth century. It ran up to the Royal Mint and had a number of courtyards and alleyways running off of it. The site of the modern car park was a railway depot.
Next up is Royal Mint Street itself. Very originally this was Hog Lane (or Hoggestrete) but, in time, Rosemary Lane. This was the continuation of what is now Cable Street, running from the junction with Dock Street and Leman Street towards the Tower of London. After the Royal Mint became located here, Rosemary Lane was renamed Royal Mint Street (in 1850). In the Rosemary Lane era there was a street market – primarily for second-hand trade.
At the Dock Street junction, turn left under the bridge into Leman Street.
Leman Street was formally named after Sir John Leman but it was already ‘Leman Street’ and pronounced like ’lemon’ locally. ’Leman’ was an old term for a mistress or lover.
The street was once officially called Red Lion Street. In 1831 the Garrick Theatre was here but was demolished in 1891 and a police station rebuilt on the site.
There was a strong local German community which supported a ’Christian Home for German Artisans’ (later a German YMCA) and also a private German hotel.
The Eastern Dispensary was set up in Great Alie Street in 1782 by a group of doctors. This moved to new premises in Leman Street in 1858 but closed its doors finally in 1940.
In 1887 the Co-operative Wholesale Society opened the headquarters of its London operations on the corner of Leman Street and Hooper Street. This was a seven-storey structure in brick, granite and Portland stone incorporating a sugar warehouse and a prominent clock tower.
All the way up Leman Street, to the Whitechapel Road junction, we reach Aldgate East station.