Great Tower Street, originally known just as Tower Street, is a street in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

, the historic nucleus and modern financial centre of London. It forms an eastern continuation of

Eastcheap Eastcheap is a street in central London that is a western continuation of Great Tower Street towards Monument junction. Its name derives from ''cheap'', the Old English word for market, with the prefix 'East' distinguishing it from Westcheap, ...

starting at Idol Lane, and leads towards

Byward Street Byward Street is a road in the City of London, the historic and financial centre of London. It forms part of the A3211 route and, if travelling eastward, is a short continuation of Lower Thames Street from a junction with Great Tower Street, t ...

and

Tower Hill Tower Hill is the area surrounding the Tower of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is infamous for the public execution of high status prisoners from the late 14th to the mid 18th century. The execution site on the higher gro ...

. On Byward Street, opposite Great Tower Street, is the historic church

All Hallows-by-the-Tower All Hallows-by-the-Tower, at one time dedicated jointly to All Hallows (All Saints) and the Virgin Mary and sometimes known as All Hallows Barking, is an ancient Anglican church on Byward Street in the City of London, overlooking the Tower of L ...

. A public house called the Czar's Head used to stand at No. 48, so named because

Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...

used to drink there when he was learning shipbuilding at

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, within the London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home ...

. Somewhere on Tower Street in 1688, Edward Lloyd opened

Lloyd's Coffee House A 19th-century drawing of Lloyd's Coffee House Lloyd's Coffee House was a significant meeting place in London in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was opened by Edward Lloyd (c. 1648 – 15 February 1713) on Tower Street in 1686. The establis ...

, where the insurance market

Lloyd's of London Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body gove ...

originated. In 1691, Lloyd relocated his shop to nearby Lombard Street; today Lloyd's is based on Lime Street. Prior to boundary changes in 2003, Great Tower Street formed the centre of the

City ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected to t ...

Tower A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specific ...

. Today it lies mostly in Billingsgate ward, but a short portion of the easternmost end of the street is still within Tower ward. Great Tower Street is home to a number of restaurants and offices, including the southern entrance to the London Underwriting Centre at the corner with

Mincing Lane Mincing Lane is a short one-way street in the City of London linking Fenchurch Street to Great Tower Street. In the late 19th century it was the world's leading centre for tea and spice trading. Etymology Its name is a corruption of Mynchen ...

, and

Plantation Place South Plantation Place South is an office building in the City of London. It consists of nine floors and forms part of a complex consisting of the larger 30 Fenchurch Street to the north. The building was designed by the Arup Associates architects' g ...

. It formed part of the marathon course of the 2012 Olympic and

Paralympic Games The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaired ...

. The women's Olympic marathon took place on 5 August and the men's on 12 August. The Paralympic marathons were held on 9 September. The nearest

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...

stations are

Monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

and

and the closest mainline railway station is Fenchurch Street.

References

{{coord , 51, 30, 35.8, N, 0, 4, 53, W, type:landmark_region:GB-LND, display=title Streets in the City of London Odonyms referring to a building