The most northeast section of the walls once enclosed the Bishopgate area. It's good the walls were no longer standing as a huge IRA blast in 1993 would have probably leveled them. It pretty well messed up the Liverpool subway station that serves this area (and that survived German bombings during both world wars). Luckily (or maybe by plan) the IRA blast occurred on a Saturday when the financial district was empty of all but guards and janitors except for a journalist, the only one who died. Among the casualties was the 1984 plaque (#8) describing the London walls in Bishopgate. Lloyds of London nearly went bankrupt paying for the damage.
Another church to St. Botolph, patron of travelers, suffered structural damage in the blast: Below are two photos of St. Botolph-without-Bishopgate meaning there was a gate nearby (this one led north to York and many inns served the travelers). This church was outside (without) the walls (in fact, just North of the gate). A sign outside the church claims that Christian worship took place here during Roman times! The church below was erected in 1725 disclosing the foundations of an earlier Saxon church.
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This church was lucky as the IRA blast completely destroyed the nearby St Ethelburga-the-Virgin within Bishopsgate, a church built probably in 1411 that survived the great London fire and WWII bombings. (An Ethelburga rector was the first to reliably translate the Koran into English many years before). Above are two views of the St. Botolph's tower, unique in London for being at the east end of the church. (Those 8-foot high clocks are accurate). The poet John Keats was baptized here in 1795.
Around the side of the church (below) once stood an abbey to St. Mary of Bethlehem. After Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, it became the Bethlehem Hospital for Lunatics, the first psychiatric hospital. One of its buildings used a portion of the old wall as a side. Henry's killing of the monasteries made life tough on the poor. This was a bit of a payback. The shortened form of the hospital's name was Bedlam and the IRA managed to bring bedlam back to this area, long after the hospital moved outside the city walls in 1675.
Behind the church sits this garden/tennis court, maintained by the church and the City of London. Besides tennis, netball, a variant of basketball, is played here. A sign asks park users to take their rubbish home with them. (Same as alpine hiking in America's National Parks but I thought London had better garbage service than that.) Why all those ash cans on the right in the picture below of the park that adjoins the church?
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From everywhere, the giant Gherkin of the 30 St. Mary Axe building looms. It was built on the site of a building destroyed in an earlier IRA (1992) blast than the one that damaged this church. While it's the most obvious skyline feature, a taller building may soon rise up here, the tallest in the UK. In fact, architects had to modify their plans to placate the aviation controllers.
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At the end of the church garden squats a funky restaurant, probably once Indian but now reborn as Italian. It makes for quite a view to stand next to this and look up at Norman Foster's giant Gherkin.
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