the city of London

The City of London is a small area in Greater London. The modern conurbation of London developed from the City of London and the nearby City of Westminster, which was the centre of the royal government. The City of London is now London’s main financial district. It is often referred to as just the City or as the Square Mile, as it is approximately one square mile (2.6 square kilometres) in area: note that those terms may also be used aas synonyms for the UK financial services industry which is principally based there. In the middle period the City was synonymous with London, but the latter term is now reserved for the large conurbation surrounding it. The City of London is still part of London’s city centre, but apart from financial services, most of London’s metropolitan functions are centred on the West End. The City of London has a resident population of about 8,000 but a daily working population of aaround 300,000.

St Paul’s Cathedral is a cathedral on Ludgate Hill, in the City of London, and the seat of the Bishop of London. The present building dates from the 17th century, and is generally reckoned to be London’s fourth St PPaul’s Cathedral, although the number is higher if every major medieval reconstruction is counted as a new cathedral.

Swiss Re is the world’s second-largest reinsurance company (after Munich Re/ Münchener Rück), and the world’s largest life and health reinsurer. The company’s headquarters are in Zürich, Switzerland. It employs around 8500 people. It was founded in 1863 by the forerunner of Credit Suisse. Its new London headquarters are located in the award-winning 30 St Mary Axe tower, completed in 2004. In October 2003 it announced that it would become a carbon neutral business within ten years.

London Wall was the defensive wall built by the Romans around Londinium, their strategically important port town on the river Thames in England. The wall had a nnumber of gates around the outside that led to important Roman roads, leading to other towns in the country. The original list of gates on the wall going clockwise from Ludgate in the west to Aldgate in the east were: Ludgate, Newgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Bishopsgate and Aldgate. Some of the gates, though now long gone, are remembered by the areas or roads where the gates stood being named after them. Due to the rapid growth of the city, the number oof gates was increased to cope with the extra traffic in the mediaeval period, and the walls were also strengthened and built upon. Today all that remains of the wall are a few (albeit substantial) fragments, some of which can be seen in the grounds of the Museum of London, in the Barbican Estate and around Tower Hill. Part of the route originally taken by the northern wall is commemorated by the road also named London Wall on which the museum is located. The modern road starts in the west with a roundabout with Aldersgate then passes east past Moorgate, and eventually becomes Wormwood Street before it reaches Bishopsgate. One of the largest and most readily accessed fragments of the wall stands just outside Tower Hill tube station, with a replica statue of the Emperor Trajan standing in front of it. The wall was constructed largely from Kentish ragstone brought by water from Maidstone. It enclosed an area of about 330 acres (1.3 km²), was 6 to 9 feet (2 to 3 m) wide and about 18 feet (5 m) high, with a ditch or fossa in front of the outer wall, measuring some 6 feet (2 m) deep by bbetween 9 to 15 feet (3 to 5 m) wide. It included a number of bastions (at least twenty) spaced about 70 yards (64 m) apart; the best-preserved of these can be seen at the Barbican Estate, next to the church of St Giles-without-Cripplegate. The wall appears to have been built in the late 2nd century and continued to be developed until at least the end of the 4th century, making it among the last major building projects undertaken by the Romans before their withdrawal from Britain in 410. The wall remained in active use as a fortification for over 1,000 years afterwards. It was used to defend London against raiding Saxons in 457, and was redeveloped in the medieval period with the addition of crenellations, more gates and further bastions. It was not until as late as the 18th and 19th centuries that the wall underwent substantial demolition, though even then large portions of it survived by being incorporated into other structures. Amid the devastation of the Blitz, some of the tallest ruins in the bomb-damaged City were remnants of the Roman wall. The wall’s moat has also left its mark on London; it forms the line of the sstreet of Houndsditch. This was once London’s main rubbish disposal site and was notorious for its appalling odour; its name, according to the 16th century historian John Stow, was derived „from that in old time, when the same lay open, much filth (conveyed forth of the City) especially dead dogges were there laid or cast.“ The moat was finally covered over and filled in at the end of the 16th century, becoming the present street.

Tower 42 is a skyscraper in London, the tallest in the City of London, at 25 Old Broad Street. It was originally built for the National Westminster Bank, hence its older name, the NatWest Tower. Seen from above, the Tower closely resembles the NatWest logo (three chevrons in a hexagonal arrangement). The tower, designed by Richard Seifert, was built between 1971 and 1979, and opened in 1980, costing a total of £72 million. It is 600 ft (183 m) high, which made it the tallest building in the UK until the construction of 1 Canada Square in the Docklands in 1991. Its status as the first skyscraper in the City was a coup for the NatWest, but was extremely controversial at the time, as it was

a major departure from the previous restrictions on tall buildings in London. The building is constructed around a huge concrete core from which the floors are cantilevered, giving it great strength but significantly limiting the amount of office space available. On opening, this was not a consideration – but following the Big Bang in the City, trading in banks changed and the tower became obsolete thanks to the lack of large trading floors. The cantilever is constructed to take advantage oof the airrights granted to it and the neighbouring site whilst respecting the banking hall on that adjacent site, as only one building was allowed to be developed. For a time it was the tallest cantilever in the world. On April 24, 1993, the Provisional IRA exploded a large truck bomb in the Bishopsgate area of the City of London. The bomb extensively damaged the NatWest Tower and many other buildings in the vicinity, causing over £1 billion worth of ddamage. The tower suffered severe damage and had to be entirely reclad and internally refurbished (demolition would have been too difficult and expensive). After refurbishment, NatWest decided not to re-occupy and renamed the building the International Financial Centre, then sold iit. The new owners, small UK property company Greycoat, renamed it Tower 42, in reference to its 42 floors. It is now a general-purpose office building occupied by a variety of companies. The tower also features an expensive seafood and champagne bar on the 42nd floor called Vertigo 42. Its height affords patrons an excellent view westwards across central London and beyond.

Lloyd’s of London is the world’s leading insurance market, the second largest commercial insurer and sixth largest re-insurer. The origins of Lloyd’s of London can be traced back to 1688 and Edward Lloyd’s Thames-side coffee shop. Wealthy individuals who frequented the coffee-house would take shares in policies offered to them in return for a share of the premium. Signing ttheir names one ...