The Museum of London site (now closed as they prepare to move to their new site, coincidentally near the AWS HQ), and there was a window you could look down on part of the wall, which you can also see from the other side of the road near Barbican. I won't give directions, as that seems futile anywhere near Barbican, but I had only just thought about how weird it is that there is wall at Tower Hill, and wall at Barbican - they can't be the same run of wall as it was built, can they? That'd be immense...
The new Museum's site also has a very cool view through a window, but it's a view of the passing trains [underground], because historically that building (one of London's markets) had a freight service and of course there's no room to move a railway line under London so even though it hadn't needed a freight service for decades the passenger service over the same rails still exists and you will be able to wave to surprised (if they haven't taken that route before) passengers from inside the museum.
A friend lucked into (there's literally a lottery for popular sites) tickets for the new site in Open House London 2024 and the window existed but wasn't really set up for tourists yet of course.
There is a London Wall Walk, starting at the Tower of London. Text copied from the plaques at the postern: (thanks Google Lens)
>The London Wall Walk follows 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, situated in the modern high-rise development of the Barbican. Between these two landmarks the Wall Walk passes surviving pieces of the Wall visible to the public and the sites of the gates now buried deep beneath the City streets. It also passes close to eight of the surviving forty-one City churches.
The Walk is 134 miles (2.8km) long and is marked by twenty-one panels which can be followed in either direction. Completion of the Walk will take between one and two hours. Wheelchairs can reach most individual sites although access is difficult at some points.
For more of this sort of thing, check out the Old Structures Engineering blog. Don does a post a day, day in, day out -- so obviously some are more detailed than others. I enjoy having it in my feed.
I worked for Lloyd’s Register for a spell, and their cafeteria was where the Vine Street building is, just got used to eating lunch there by the bits of wall everyday for a few years.
For another interesting mix of new and ancient, check out the Serdica metro station in Sofia, Bulgaria. [0] It's fully inside an excavated Roman-era ruin. Very cool!
Not bad engineering to make it through a handful of civil wars, a Blitz, and a couple thousand V-1 rockets mostly intact. You have to wonder how long all the steel and concrete that's been laid around the Thames from our civilization will last.
> Delgado received his first big assignment back in 1978 while working for the National Park Service: excavating and studying the remains of the Niantic, one of the first whaling vessels that brought gold-seekers to the area. It had been discovered near the Transamerica Pyramid at the corner of Clay and Sansome streets. After being left behind during the Gold Rush, the ship had been repurposed to serve as a storeship, saloon, and hotel until its demise in an 1851 fire.
Before industrial demolition was common, old buildings would be town down and material repurposed for new constructions, build on top of existing foundations and rubble. Do this enough over the centuries and your city will slowly rise in height.
If anyone’s ever in Barcelona I recommend checking out the history museum, which is literally built on top of some Roman and medieval ruins. You can descend into the basement to see the excavated remains of the foundations of Roman buildings that had been levelled and built on top of.
Every time a building fell apart due to earthquake, fire, flood, war, abandonment- the good material was taken for reuse and the bad material became rubble which was often smoothed out and used as a foundation.
The Museum of London site (now closed as they prepare to move to their new site, coincidentally near the AWS HQ), and there was a window you could look down on part of the wall, which you can also see from the other side of the road near Barbican. I won't give directions, as that seems futile anywhere near Barbican, but I had only just thought about how weird it is that there is wall at Tower Hill, and wall at Barbican - they can't be the same run of wall as it was built, can they? That'd be immense...
I used to eat lunch at Bastion 14, although you can't get anywhere near it now. There was plenty of old wall at Moorgate that was very open access.
The new Museum's site also has a very cool view through a window, but it's a view of the passing trains [underground], because historically that building (one of London's markets) had a freight service and of course there's no room to move a railway line under London so even though it hadn't needed a freight service for decades the passenger service over the same rails still exists and you will be able to wave to surprised (if they haven't taken that route before) passengers from inside the museum.
A friend lucked into (there's literally a lottery for popular sites) tickets for the new site in Open House London 2024 and the window existed but wasn't really set up for tourists yet of course.
From the article:
with a link to a graphic map and guide: https://colat.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/London-Wall-...that states it ran from the Tower of London to the Museum in the Barbican.
There is a London Wall Walk, starting at the Tower of London. Text copied from the plaques at the postern: (thanks Google Lens)
>The London Wall Walk follows 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, situated in the modern high-rise development of the Barbican. Between these two landmarks the Wall Walk passes surviving pieces of the Wall visible to the public and the sites of the gates now buried deep beneath the City streets. It also passes close to eight of the surviving forty-one City churches. The Walk is 134 miles (2.8km) long and is marked by twenty-one panels which can be followed in either direction. Completion of the Walk will take between one and two hours. Wheelchairs can reach most individual sites although access is difficult at some points.
Note this is about the City of London, an entity much smaller and older than the modern city known as London. It's land area is about 3 km^2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
Title should probably read "the City of London" rather than "London".
Architectural Digest has a good video of the Roman Wall and other Ancient Roman history in london: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_-JnvuAeVI
For more of this sort of thing, check out the Old Structures Engineering blog. Don does a post a day, day in, day out -- so obviously some are more detailed than others. I enjoy having it in my feed.
Recent examples:
https://oldstructures.com/2025/10/24/not-quite-a-tunnel/ https://oldstructures.com/2025/10/21/relieved/
I worked for Lloyd’s Register for a spell, and their cafeteria was where the Vine Street building is, just got used to eating lunch there by the bits of wall everyday for a few years.
For another interesting mix of new and ancient, check out the Serdica metro station in Sofia, Bulgaria. [0] It's fully inside an excavated Roman-era ruin. Very cool!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdika_Metro_Station
Not bad engineering to make it through a handful of civil wars, a Blitz, and a couple thousand V-1 rockets mostly intact. You have to wonder how long all the steel and concrete that's been laid around the Thames from our civilization will last.
There's a Templar fortress in Lebanon that was occupied by militants a few years ago. 800 years old and still being used for its intended purpose.
> ground level then was a few metres lower than now
What?! That's huge. What happened?
Seattle: https://undergroundtour.com
Buried ships of San Francisco - https://www.nps.gov/safr/learn/historyculture/buried-ships-o...
https://www.baylightscharters.com/bay-lights-charters-blog/w...
> Delgado received his first big assignment back in 1978 while working for the National Park Service: excavating and studying the remains of the Niantic, one of the first whaling vessels that brought gold-seekers to the area. It had been discovered near the Transamerica Pyramid at the corner of Clay and Sansome streets. After being left behind during the Gold Rush, the ship had been repurposed to serve as a storeship, saloon, and hotel until its demise in an 1851 fire.
Consider that https://maps.app.goo.gl/tYjaESQXss2KhHXQA used to be sea level.
As mentioned else comment, things were torn down and that served as the foundation for the next building.
Before industrial demolition was common, old buildings would be town down and material repurposed for new constructions, build on top of existing foundations and rubble. Do this enough over the centuries and your city will slowly rise in height.
If anyone’s ever in Barcelona I recommend checking out the history museum, which is literally built on top of some Roman and medieval ruins. You can descend into the basement to see the excavated remains of the foundations of Roman buildings that had been levelled and built on top of.
Every time a building fell apart due to earthquake, fire, flood, war, abandonment- the good material was taken for reuse and the bad material became rubble which was often smoothed out and used as a foundation.
Shoes. All the way down. ;-)