October

And the leaves are stripped bear of all they wear, what do I care? Bono might not (that line is from U2's October) but for me the nights are getting shorter, and with it the challenge gets harder. I only have myself to blame.

October started slowly, with no opportunity to take photographs until a week into the month. On my first outing I ventured due south from the office, down Gracechurch Street towards the monument. My second outing of the month followed the same route, and so I am combining both sets of photos in this post. First stop, Gracechurch Street.

There are quite a few little alleys off Gracechurch Street. The first I visited was Bell Inn Yard, named after an Inn which saw its demise during the great fire. There street does seem to have some significance as I have seen a couple of tour groups going down it, but I am not sure what that significance is. I did though take a couple of pictures that I am happy enough with.

This lane leads to a smaller Court called Corbet Court, of which I thought there was not much to say. However whilst the photograph clearly states this as being Court, on looking at the maps Corbet Court seems to be the next alley parallel to Bell Inn Yard. I may have to investigate this further.

Corbet Court or not, this in turn leads to St. Michael's Alley where a church of the same name is situated, its yard seen in the following picture. The church's tower was once the tallest building in the city and could be seen for miles. Today it is probably only visible from Cornhill.

The alley also features The Jamaica Wine House, formerly the Turks Head and the first coffee shop in London, after the landlord returned from overseas with some coffee beans. More alleys lead off here, one of which is George Yard and from here is Bengal Court, which at one point is extremely narrow as can be seen in the picture below.

Further down Gracechurch Street, towards the monument is Ship Tavern Passage, where just to confuse you I photographed a pub called The Swan.

Next up is Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire of London started in Thomas Farriner's bakery in 1666. Its a rather disappointingly dreary street with a building site on side and a horrible 60's concrete building (Farynes House) on the other.

Crossing Pudding Lane is Monument Street, where the monument, commemorating the fire is located, at the crossroads with Fish Street Hill. The monument is 62 metres high and is situated 62 metres from where the fire started. Of course I don't have a full picture of the monument as that would be too obvious and a bit touristy. I took a couple of pictures here, and one of them does have the base of the monument in it.

On Fish Street Hill I tried something a little different and took the following shot outside Monument tube station.

According to this link, the Black Prince, son of Edward III lived here at which time it was named New Fish Street.

Back to Pudding Lane and about half way up is St. George's Lane which features another side of the horrible 1960's concrete building mentioned previously.

A bit further up the lane I took another shot.

And then I took of shot of the street sign, which I often do so that I do not forget the name of the street I have just photographed. As I was taking the shot somebody came into view and I carried on shooting; I think it made a good picture.

Straight across from here is Botolph Alley and my final image of this post.