Wandering the City of London’s Medieval Secret Passageways & Alleys (4K)

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Between the towers of glass and steel of the city of London, there's a whole network and a maze of hidden alleyways and passageways that have somehow survived all this development.

[00:00:14]It's a fantastic, wonderful, mysterious, atmospheric city. And today my aim is to walk across the city of London linking together these alleyways and passageways to reveal a completely different view of the city of London.

[00:00:32]So our voyage through the alleyways and the passageways of the city of London starts here in the wonderful Austin Friars Passage.

[00:00:43]And one of the great things about Austin Fry's passage is it has so many layers of history. You can see some of the buildings down here are modern, but this is one of the older walls. And you can see here we've got one of two boundary markers, old boundary markers. If the other one's still here, this one's from 1853.

[00:01:02]And I love this wall. You can touch this wall here and feel like you're touching the past. Oh, and it would seem as if the older parish boundary marker is missing. There's an older one which was above the butt. Maybe I've missed it actually. And Austin Friars takes his name from the 13th century friy was that was here and where Thomas Cromwell lived as well around here. And I've talked about that in a previous video. And you could see if you like, you can see that alleyway as a as a remnant of the network of courtyards that would have wound around the the grounds of the friy.

[00:01:56]and his surviving sign of one of the companies that used to be based in Austin Fry's Pa and Co. Stocks and share broker and I'm really excited about this walk.

[00:02:08]It's something I've wanted to do for a very long time. I remember coming down here with the wife and the kids and doing a few of them when the kids were quite little and it was really exciting and I've always wanted to do a thing where I just walk the alleyways and passageways. Obviously, I'm going to have to take in a few streets in between, but as far as possible, I've plotted a route where I can link them together. Uh, yeah, it's going to be wonderful. Great fun. Right. Passageway bagging, alleyway bagging, something like that. And just off Old Board Street, we've got Adam's Court. So, I'm going to take It wasn't on my list, actually, but let's see what's down here.

[00:02:44]>> Adam's Court is mentioned by John Ogleby and William Morgan in 1677.

[00:02:49]It seems to relate to an old inn or possibly the townhouse of the abbotts of St. Orbins's.

[00:02:56]Wow, this is wonderful. Old iron gate from 1833.

[00:03:03]I wonder what's up these steps here. I have no idea. Never been up here before.

[00:03:09]There you go. Looks like one of the little many secret gardens of the city of London. That'll be another video, I think.

[00:03:18]And it brings you out onto Thread Needle Street.

[00:03:24]I think I'm going to loop back and pick up the route I'd planned.

[00:03:29]But happen stance is a key part of this process, this exploration of the city.

[00:03:36]And now we go into Angel Court.

[00:03:41]So Copthor Avenue has a few of the little alleyways and passageways and courtyards. We'll just take them as they come to us. Let's go down here down Copthol buildings.

[00:03:57]And this alleyway here takes us into I think Token House Yard, which is a classic.

[00:04:06]Yeah, this is great, isn't it?

[00:04:10]And whale bone court here is quite a romantic name, isn't it? But apparently it comes from the Woolbrook. It's derived from the Woolbrook, the hidden river that runs nearby.

[00:04:21]And this is Copthool Close.

[00:04:25]You can see what a labyrinth there is. I already feel completely disoriented.

[00:04:29]So this part of Great Swan Alley, you would say this was more of a street than an alleyway now, wouldn't you? It does continue on the other side. And this was a residential area in the 16th century that was inhabited by a lot of cloth workers and drapers including Sir Thomas Gresham. We bought a big chunk of property here and kicked a load of people out to build a bigger a bigger um dwelling. Even though I've walked through some of these streets before, it's completely um defamiliarized me and I'm seeing the city in a completely different way. When you have your focus on one thing, like I did the city churches walks, it's like you don't notice other things and you just see the city in a completely different way. You're just looking for these. I've seen one here.

[00:05:16]This is Morgate Place. Again, not on my list. That's so far. Most of the places I've walked around haven't been on the list that I picked out.

[00:05:33]Mason's Avenue was originally named White Rose Court.

[00:05:39]The name was changed to Mason's Avenue as it led to the Mason's Hall.

[00:05:55]And it brings us out at the side of the Majestic Guild Hall.

[00:06:04]Guild Hall buildings. This is where you really feel the presence of the old medieval city, isn't it?

[00:06:11]Crossing Gresham Street. And here we have another modern little alleyway which could well be a a replacement or a survivor of the old medieval streetscape. This is Lawrence Lane and I imagine it takes its name from the church just over the road, St. Lawrence Jury. That's the the reason for a lot of the names, either the pub they lead to or the church lead to. But I've just spotted something here that I never would have found otherwise. That's the joy of doing this. Set into the side of this modern building here, we have, look, this this castle, sight of the castle, 17th century tavern. And above it, we have the head of what I'm assuming is a monarch. But which one?

[00:06:57]Anyone know? I can see my next one over there. You got to have a sharp eyes to spot these things hidden between the buildings there. Can you see it? And as modern as Honey Lane looks, it is recorded as far back as the 12th century. And it's speculated, not surprisingly, that it uh takes its name from the fact that honey was sold here.

[00:07:20]Bearing in mind that it's close to Milk Street, Bread Street, etc. And it was noted for being quite dark with washing hanging over it and people sweeping the street to keep it clean. And over there we have Prudent Passage. And it really does feel like it's leading you into this other hidden world, doesn't it?

[00:07:39]It's really exciting. And Prudent Passage was originally Sun Alley, my guess is named after a tavern. And you can see here that the spirit of the city tavern persists in Prudent Passage.

[00:07:59]A nicely arranged line of Budweiser cans there. And that brings us out into Iron Munger Lane, which is one of my favorite laneways of the city for many, many years.

[00:08:13]And that takes us into a wonderful little uh court alleyway here with a very uncryptic name. And we have St. Olaf's court named after the church that's still on this site. The tower is still here, but it's offices now. It's in my churches of the city of London series.

[00:08:35]St. Olaf's Court is a real classic.

[00:08:38]Really beautiful. I'm filming this on a Friday afternoon, sort of late on a Friday afternoon for context, so you can get a sense of the pulse of the city.

[00:08:49]World Court looks like a classic down here. Wow.

[00:08:54]Wow. This is fantastic.

[00:08:57]Again, this is another one I found as I've wandered around, I guess. I think it's it's probably not a very cryptic name. Here we have the merchant house, though.

[00:09:15]And you come out to another one of my favorite little streets here, Bow Lane, which is absolutely fantastic.

[00:09:21]And down there we have Groveland Court.

[00:09:31]And apparently Bow Lane used to be called Cord Wayer Lane or Hosia Street.

[00:09:38]And it's interesting to know there's still a number of men's kind of tailoring businesses down here. So the old trades have survived even though the name changed to Bow Lane to reflect St. Mary Leau Church. We're looking at the back of it.

[00:09:55]Have to include a shot of Walling Street. This has got to be one of the great views in London here. looking towards St. Paul's Cathedral and another little unnamed alleyway off of Bow Lane. What's down here? It's getting behind the pub.

[00:10:19]Yeah, just leads to the pub garden.

[00:10:23]I think this has one of the best names we're going to encounter today. 5 foot lane which Stow writing in 1598 calls five foot lane because it was 5 ft across which it might still be maybe but originally before that in the early middle ages it was called finermore lane I haven't found an explanation as to why and this is where 5-ft lane leads you this walkway over upper temp street which is fascinating I'm going to double back and go up huggin Hill hugging hill doesn't actually come up in the old references drawn from maps and from John Stow survey of London but it looks as if it must be a survivor. I shall investigate further. We have a fragment signage here that indicates that the name was different. It was something lane before.

[00:11:20]So that's a little bit of a giveaway.

[00:11:23]I'm really gutted that I didn't carry on down Hugin Hill because down here we have one of the best preserved and most significant Roman sites in the city of London according to historic England.

[00:11:35]It's the Roman bath house and it's uh really well preserved and it was one of the principal buildings of Roman London.

[00:11:43]Uh there you go. Such is the nature of wandering around the city. I'm going to go back and take a look at it so look out for a future video showing the actual site. For now, it's the one that got away.

[00:11:54]Little Trinity Lane with a painters hall down there.

[00:12:09]Great Trinity Lane, Garlic Hill. Not technically a lane or a passageway or an alleyway, but uh I'm going to include it anyway cuz I really like it. It's got a wonderful clock down the end there you can see.

[00:12:26]And this is great St. Thomas Apostle. Is there even a name? Isn't that wonderful?

[00:12:31]No street alley, none of that business.

[00:12:34]Just ends with apostle.

[00:12:37]There are few finer things than just wandering around the city of London. I usually like to do it at the weekend, but the weekends have become quite um quite rowdy in the city and I thought Friday afternoon there'll be no one here, but there are quite a few people here and it is a little bit rowdy. Not massively, just a little bit. Lots of people outside the pubs. You'll have heard them in the background.

[00:13:05]Since within Lane, it's another medieval street named after a church.

[00:13:16]Mansion House Place looks particularly majestic in the sunlight, doesn't it?

[00:13:25]Pope's Head Alley here, just off Lombard Street, named after a famous inn that was on the site. I think we might have a plaque up there, actually. Let's have a look.

[00:13:37]Although post office core here looks as though it's new and being rebuilt, it dates back to at least 1655.

[00:13:45]It's mentioned in some of the old maps of the city. Exchange Alley here is an abbreviation of Exchange Alley because of its proximity to the Royal Exchange and it was a the home to a number of famous coffee shops such as Garaways and Jonathan's where discussions took place and people did trading. It's also where the canal office used to be.

[00:14:10]There you go. a plaque saying on this site stood on this site between 1680 and 1778 stood Jonathan's coffee house a principal meeting place of the city's stock brokers and interestingly now it is a uh a members club called 8 this is the back of the uh Scottish widows life assurance society is that but I'm wondering whether this head here is anything to do with that or a remnant of a former building. And we have another blue plaque here. This one telling us it was the site of the King's Arms Tavern where the first meeting of the Marine Society was held on the 25th of June 1756.

[00:14:59]And here's a wonderful plaque here to the site of Gowway's Coffee House rebuilt in 1874.

[00:15:06]The stone was placed here in 1930. This is the Royal Exchange opposite change alley.

[00:15:17]Now I can't find any references to Kalpa's court. I'm going to assume it was named after the poet William Kalpa who from memory has an association with my you know where I was bir born in Hwickham. That could be utter utter nonsense, but until I find out otherwise, these are some interesting quite evocative looking buildings here.

[00:15:49]This is quite rare for not having people that are down here having a sneaky cigarette or a sneaky drink or allowed drink, not a sneaky one. But usually when I get down here with my camera, if I pass through and then come back, they've scattered, lots of people kind of hide in the alleyways and laneways. It's interesting. It's quite funny.

[00:16:17]This is Bengal Court, which nearly passed me by with the famous Georgian vulture pub and chop house down there.

[00:16:26]There's been an inn on the site of the Georgian vulture since 1142.

[00:16:32]I think it's probably most famous for its association with Charles Dickens and its numerous mentions in the Pwick papers. And the Georgian Vulture is a pub of some great antiquity. And you you can see how bowed the wall is here. It's a wonderful old boozer this one. And here we have St. Michael's Alley. And you can hear all the the revalry of Friday night drinkers.

[00:17:00]A little bit of peace and quiet here in Castle Court. And you got a real nest of alleyways here and courtyards just off Burchin Lane. It's really wonderful.

[00:17:11]Full of drinkers. Full of drinkers. St. Michael's Alley taking its name from the church there on Cornhill.

[00:17:20]And interestingly here I'm just stood outside the first London coffee house at the sign of Pasqua Rosy's Head in 1652.

[00:17:30]Now it's called the uh Jamaica Wine House.

[00:17:36]More St. Michael's Alley.

[00:17:42]>> George Yard.

[00:17:45]And this is an area just where people are just drinking all through the alleyway. It's difficult to get a shot of the alleyways. And this is Bell in yard and Bull's Head Passage here is one of a number that are associated with Leen Hall Market. Leen Hall Market is one of the oldest parts of London with lots of Roman finds around Leden Hall Market. And here we have Ship Tavern Passage again on the corner of Leenh Hall Market with a very rowdy pub, The Swan.

[00:18:30]Lime Street definitely deserves inclusion on this tour of little passageways and laneways and alleyways.

[00:18:38]Now, unless I've got my notes in a twist, Rude Lane here was so named due to an alleyway that was here called Boss Alley. It was named after a continuously running spring. How lovely. You know, I get excited about those kind of things.

[00:18:55]Now, Plantation Lane off of Rude Lane is a new one and it has sort of some of the mythology of London written into the streets of some of the stories and history of London. I think it's due to plantations that were held overseas is where the name comes from. Some of it is some of it's purely poetic. Seleni and the moon.

[00:19:16]We got some names here. Moneybag Alley haven't come up. Bullion Yard Hand Court that definitely still exists.

[00:19:27]Idle Lane's a good one. When Stripe was writing in the 1720s, it was spelled idol, as in bone idol. Uh he speculates it was where the makers of religious idols were located, but apparently there's not a lot of evidence for that.

[00:19:42]And uh St. Dunston's Alley, not very cryptically named after the wonderful St. Dunston's Church, a really sort of haunting romantic ruin. again featured in my City of London churches videos. So, we'll continue down Idle Lane. Couple more left that I want to include, St. Maric Love Lane. And I do think those flags they're flying must represent one of the city delivery companies, but actually nope. It's for a pizza restaurant. Here on this building here, number 31, we have Samuel Budgeon Limited, Metropolitan Bonded Warehouses Limited, Rubber Department.

[00:20:41]Love Lane had previously been Love Lane and that was recorded in 1394 as Ro Lane. Roman bricks and Saxon coins have been excavated on the site. It's a place of great antiquity.

[00:20:56]And here we have Bolf Alley which dates back to at least 1520. It's in the gazetier of London streets of 1520.

[00:21:06]And a really peaceful little haven amongst what's been quite a rowdy walk to be honest with you.

[00:21:14]And now along St. George's Lane, the famous Pudding Lane.

[00:21:28]Well, what a remarkable experience.

[00:21:31]It's completely defamiliarized me. I was so disoriented. I had no idea where I was going most of the time.

[00:21:38]I'm going to call that the end. I think there's some more near St. pools, but I think I've covered those quite thoroughly in my TUD to London walks.

[00:21:45]But I'm sure in the comments there'll be loads of people telling me ones I've missed out. Star Court or Star Alley was one that I seem to have bypassed, but I'm surprisingly tired for a little walk around the city.

[00:21:59]It's remarkable. I highly recommend it.

[00:22:01]I'm really looking forward to how this comes through in the edit without the main thorough affairs and all the usual sights and sounds of the city. quite a few of the usual sounds people gloring outside pubs. So that's where I'm going to go now. I think I've earned a good pint. Thank you for coming on that wonderful walk. Thanks to my wonderful supporters on Patreon, YouTube members, yourselves coming here, watching these videos, leaving your comments. I love it. Really love it. Take care. Look forward to see you on the next walk wherever that may be.

[00:22:34]>> It's over the over the stream. It's where I am going and where I have been.

[00:22:42]It's been a long day now. It's time for a beer. And now for home. Of course, I must.

[00:22:50]It's over the meadow, over the stream.

[00:22:53]China.