From the Bank of England
Museum, return to Threadneedle Street. Walk past the Royal Exchange. Look west at the
intersection. A curiously shaped modern building with horizontal stripes of brick red and
granite gray occupies the corner wedge between Victoria Street and Poultry. This is the
controversial No. 1 Poultry building, usually credited with introducing post-modern
architecture to London upon its completion in the late 1990’s. Colorful, eclectic,
even playful in its mixture of geometric shapes and colored glass, No. 1 Poultry is worth
a glance at this distance of 120 yards. More importantly, however, is its site. When
clearing the site for the foundation of No. 1 Poultry, archeologists discovered numerous
artifacts from 2,000 years ago, suggesting that a Roman road was built here during the
year 47AD, now the earliest known fixed date for the founding of the Roman town of
Londinium.
From the Royal Exchange, cross (south) Cornhill and Lombard Streets and walk southeast down King William Street (direction London Bridge) 300 yards to Gracechurch Street. Beneath your feet is the tunnel walkway connecting Bank and Monument Underground stations. Though 1/5 mile apart, Bank and Monument are unique in that they officially comprise one station on the London Underground, with access to five tube lines: Central, Northern, and Waterloo & City at Bank and District and Circle at Monument.