For nearly 1500 years the physical growth of the City of London was limited by its defensive wall. The first wall was built by the Romans in about AD200 and formed the foundation of the later City wall. With the exception of a medieval realignment in the Blackfriars’ area, the City wall from the Tower to Blackfriars retained its original line unaltered over the centuries. From the 17th century, as London expanded rapidly in size, the Wall was no longer necessary for defence. Much of it was demolished in the 18th and 19th centuries and where sections survived they became buried under shops and warehouses.
The London Wall Walk, as it was originally planned in 1984, followed the original line of the City wall for much of its length, from the royal fortress of the Tower of London to the Museum of London.
The walk consisted of a series of 23 panels that did not only pick out surviving remains but also pinpointed sites of importance to the history of the city wall and gates. The Walk is about 3.2km (2 miles) long and may take between one and two hours. Wheelchairs can reach most individual sites although access is difficult at some points.
The accompanying booklet is now out-of-print and the Wall Walk panels have deteriorated or have been removed, but enough interest in the walk remains to justify its inclusion. New discoveries en route of the walk and the last section linking it to Blackfriars are now included here in order to complete the original circuit.
Download a pdf version of the Wall walk booklet here. It is divided into area sections, mainly using the city gates as the start or end points of each section. The walk and numbering system is designed to start from the Tower of London in the east to Blackfriars in the west.
