Lothbury is a short 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 ...

. It runs east–west with traffic flow in both directions, from

Gresham Street Gresham Street in the City of London is named after the English merchant and financier Thomas Gresham. It runs from the junction of Lothbury and Moorgate at its eastern end, to St. Martin's Le Grand in the west. Gresham Street was created ...

's junction with

Moorgate Moorgate was one of the City of London's northern gates in its defensive wall, the last to be built. The gate took its name from the Moorfields, an area of marshy land that lay immediately north of the wall. The gate was demolished in 1762, bu ...

to the west, and Bartholomew Lane's junction with

Throgmorton Street Throgmorton Street is a road in the City of London that runs between Lothbury in the west and Old Broad Street in the east. Throgmorton Avenue runs from the north side of Throgmorton Street to London Wall. History It is named after Nicholas Thr ...

to the east.

History

The area was populated with

coppersmith A coppersmith, also known as a brazier, is a person who makes artifacts from copper and brass. Brass is an alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal. Unlike chemical compounds with metallic bases, an ...

s in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

before later becoming home to a number of merchants and bankers. According to

Stow Stow may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Stow, Lincolnshire or Stow-in-Lindsey, a village * Stow of Wedale or Stow, Scottish Borders, a village * Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, a small town * Stow, Shropshire or Stowe, a village * Stow ...

, the street was "possessed for the most part by founders that cast candlesticks, chafing dishes, spice mortars, and such-like copper or laton works, and do afterwards turn them with the foot and not with the wheel, to make them smooth and bright with turning and scratching (as some do term it), making a loathsome noise to the by-passers that have not been used to the like, and therefore by them disdainfully called Lothberie". Lothbury was the location of the Whalebone, a meeting place for the radical

Leveller The Levellers were a political movement active during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms who were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance. The hallmark of Leveller thought was its popul ...

movement in the mid seventeenth-century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Great Northern & City Railway planned an underground railway station at Lothbury, but this was abandoned because of financial constraints. Today 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 ...

station is

Bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

, a short way to the south. The nearest mainline railway station is Liverpool Street, with

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the ...

services towards East Anglia.

Buildings

The Bank of England moved to its present site on

Threadneedle Street Threadneedle Street is a street in the City of London, England, between Bishopsgate at its northeast end and Bank junction in the southwest. It is one of nine streets that converge at Bank. It lies in the ward of Cornhill. History The stree ...

in 1734. Lothbury borders the Bank on the building's northern side, and some of Sir John Soane's work dating from 1788 can still be seen there today. Opposite the Bank is the Christopher Wren church St Margaret Lothbury. 41 Lothbury is a particularly noteworthy office building, designed by architects Mewes and Davis, with interior columns, marble walls and floor. It was for many years the head office of

National Westminster Bank National Westminster Bank, commonly known as NatWest, is a major retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom based in London, England. It was established in 1968 by the merger of National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank. In 2000, i ...

. The Grade II* listed building was completed in 1932 and replaced a nineteenth-century building designed by Charles Robert Cockerell.

People associated with Lothbury

Having retired as

Governor of the Bank of England The governor of the Bank of England is the most senior position in the Bank of England. It is nominally a civil service post, but the appointment tends to be from within the bank, with the incumbent grooming their successor. The governor of the Ba ...

, Mervyn King was made a life peer and now has the title Baron King of Lothbury.

Charles Hoole Charles Hoole (1610–1667) was an English cleric and educational writer. He produced a visually-improved English translation of the ''Orbis Pictus'' of Comenius, a year after its original publication in 1658. Life The son of Charles Hoole of Wak ...

had his school in Lothbury.

References

External links

* Streets in the City of London {{London-road-stub