South of London Wall

I keep saying how I need to cover the streets furthest away from the office (the west of the city) before it starts to get darker earlier, but apart from a couple of outings that way I haven't really followed that plan. I will try to venture further a bit more, but perhaps I might need to take a couple of half days off work, especially once the clocks change.

In the meantime I am mostly ignoring my plan, and this particular week was no exception, when I focused on the area between Moorgate, London Wall and Gresham Street; this is an area where it is quite easy for me to get off or on the tube at Moorgate and photograph on the way to work or the way home.

Starting up with Coleman Street, a street I had photographed before, but I really liked this scene with the contrast created by the man in the suit, and his reflection in the window.

Off Coleman Street lies White Horse Yard, which is not very photogenic, but happens to have a sheltered spot favoured by smokers, which made for a slightly more interesting photograph than I would otherwise have achieved.

Following are a couple more streets that lie off of Coleman Street - Great Bell Alley which leads to Moorgate, and Mason's Avenue which leads to Basinghall Street.

There is not much to say about Great Bell Alley (above), but walking down Mason's Avenue, is a bit of step back in time, although you don't really get a feel for this in the picture. The name comes from the fact the Company of Masons were based here.After the great fire of London, there was much rebuilding work to be done, and masons would have been busy for many years, due to the banning of construction the construction of wooden  buildings. Also of note here is a pub, The Old Dr Butler's head, which gets it name from an unqualified physician who served King James I. A few more details on this story can be found here.

At the end in the picture above is Basinghall Street, where the Guild Hall takes up most of the western side of the street, part of which can be seen in the picture below.

At the junction with Basinghall Avenue the street veers left and leads on to Aldermanbury and Aldermanbury Square, the latter of which is pictured below.

The next image is of Guildhall Buildings, a large square surrounded by the buildings of the Guildhall, hence its name. The square has some really interesting paving, which makes for great black and white pictures.

the main entrance way to the Guildhall is via Guildhall Yard, where I spotted this old police telephone box. Of course since taking this picture I have seen lots of them and have probably walked past quite a few without even noticing them; that's what happens when you just rush around from the tube to work and back again, you don't take in your surroundings.

My final image of the shoot, was on Wood Street, where there an interesting modern glass and yellow painted metal building that features these colourful air conditioning vents.

That takes me up to the end of August, so now only two weeks behind. Below is the updates progress map which is also on the progress page.

Filling in some gap and the other side of Barbican

Most of the week was spent around Barbican but I had a few streets between Aldgate and Tower Hill to finish off, so I will begin with those. On my way towards Aldgate I stumbled across a small lane, Aldgate Avenue that is not on any of the online maps, but I does have name, so here it is. There is not much to say about it except that it has a closed off entrance to the Aldgate Subway.

Behind where I was standing for the above photograph is Middlesex Street, which I had photographed previously, at the other end. I wouldn't go out my way to photograph a street again, but I was rather taken by the colourful shutters spelling out Happy (and I have been singing that song  by Pharrell Williams quite a lot since).

Haydon Street is one two that runs between Minories and Mansell Street that I didn't photograph when in this area before. The following picture shows the side of the Ibex building which as I mentioned in a previous blog is supposedly where Hitler would have had his headquarters had he successfully invaded Britain; years ago when working in the City previously I used to go the gymn here, when it was a "Holmes Place".

The other street I missed previously, on the other side of the Ibex building is Portsoken Street.

Back up towards Bishopsgate and just off St. Mary Axe is Bury Court, which isn't much of a court. It does have a fairly interesting modern narrow building though, in which there was a great reflection of both Tower 42 and the Gherkin.

Back up to Moorgate (on another day) and to New Union Street, where I saw a rather strange group of items - a road sign, beer barrels, wooden pallets, tables and a shopping trolley.

Off London wall and running up the side of the Barbican Centre is Fore Street. Here I took two similar photos that I both like, so am putting them both in; I love the shadows and patterns in these;

At the end of Fore Street is Wood Street. There is a lot of building work here, running between Fore Street and London Wall and St. Alphage Highwalk has been demolished. St. Alphage Garden seems to also be heavily affected, though may just be partly blocked off, but the streets sings were missing when I visited so I will have to go back.

Almost opposite here on the other side of Wood Street is Monkwell Square, which has some interesting gardens with an obelisk, that my picture probably doesn't do justice to.

From Wood Street I went up onto the "Highwalks" of Barbican. I only covered a small bit but will aim to complete in the next week or so. First up was The Postern.

I then went back down to street level and back up for some reason (can't remember why) and missed a bit between The Postern and Bastion Highwalk, so will have to remember to go back. At Bastion Highwalk I really liked the way the light was falling on a particular section and took a few pictures - here are two of them.

The London Museum is just up ahead, in the two pictures above, and my last picture is just round the corner for there, Nettleton Court, where I again I got a lovely combination of light and shadows.

Very few of the Barbican Streets and "highwalks" are marked on Google maps, so I'm not yet sure how I will mark them off on my map. They do all seem to be on bing maps, so at least I can use that for reference purposes.