In The City [antikvár]

THE SQUARE MILE The City of London may cover an area of a square mile, but it is certainly not a square. Looked at from the air, the City is the shape of a helmet, with Liverpool Street station an excrescence on the back of the head. The whole of its southern edge is lapped by the Thames. Its eastern limit is marked by the Port of London Authority, Fenchurch Street station and Aldgate. The western flank is bounded incongruously by the Inns of Court and the Fleet Street press -incongruously because neither can be said to be part of the City. To the north of Fleet Street there are Hatton Garden, for diamonds, the meat markets of Smithfield, and Bart's Hospital. North-east of Smithfield there is the Barbican, now an expensive, unattractive area of tall, grey apartment blocks, which have done nothing to enhance the City's limited architectural appeal. Only Sir Christopher Wren left an enduring mark on the City, with St Paul's Cathedral, fifty-one churches and the Monument. Even Sir John Soane's Bank of England, which superseded George Sampson's original building, was rebuilt in the 1930s.