The City of London, the financial district, is full of lesser-known historical treasures. The subject of this blog post though is not historical as such, but gives you a brilliant sense of the size, layout and architecture of London.
I often recommend the models of London by NLA (New London Architecture), inside the London Centre, to anyone visiting, but also to Londoners who want to better understand their city.
NLA launched in 2005 and are ‘London’s built environment community, a cross-sector membership organisation for everyone committed to shaping a better city’. As well as the models they also put on various displays, tours and information boards about London’s built environment.
Every Friday from 12.30pm-1pm, there is a free ‘Model talk’ about the models. Find out more here.
How To Get There
You should head to Guildhall, the administrative centre of the City of London. I have written before about the remains of the Roman amphitheatre you can see inside the Guildhall Art Gallery.
If you go round the corner onto the street called Aldermanbury you will find the entranceway to the London Centre. They are open Tuesday-Saturday 11am-5pm.
The New London Model
There are three different models to see.
The New London Model shows a large span of central London. It is at a scale of 1:2000 and 195 square kilometres of London, from the Royal Docks in the East to White City in the West, is covered on a 12.5 metre long model. Made by Pipers Model Makers, it includes models of approximately 170,000 buildings.
At a glance it shows you just how vast London is and how many rows of terraced houses there are. Railways are in light brown, so you can see all the lines winding like arteries through the city. It also makes you realise how much green space there is in central London.
A couple of chunks were actually on display elsewhere/’under construction’ during my visit and I believe will be until the end of March 2025.
The City of London Model
My favourite is the City of London model. It is at a scale of 1:500 and has been developed and added to for over 30 years now.
It was also designed by Pipers Model Makers and includes wooden blocks, detailed cardboard cut-outs and 3D printed buildings. The London Centre is marked with a pink flag.
It is fascinating because it not only includes scale models of all the major sites of the London skyline: the ‘Walkie-Talkie’, the ‘Cheesegrater’, the Shard, St Paul’s Cathedral, it also includes models of buildings that have been given planning permission. It is therefore a vision of what London will look like in a few years time.
The tower shown below, for example, is Trellis Tower at 1 Undershaft, not yet built.
Construction on it will probably finish in 2030. At 309.6 metres tall, it will be the exact same height as the Shard, making it the joint tallest building in London.
Other Details To Spot
There are a couple of details I would point out on this model. There are three different shades of building: dark grey for pre-1945 buildings, light grey for 1945-1980 and cream/lit-up and highly detailed buildings were built after 1980. The past, present and future of the City of London is spread out before you.
Since 1938, there have been protected views of the St Paul’s Cathedral in place: visual corridors known as the ‘St Paul’s Heights’. One of these is from the East and is the reason why the Leadenhall building (the Cheesegrater), is the shape that it is, because it leans out of the way of this view.
The slanted building you can see in the photograph is actually hiding the Cheesegrater. It is another one that has been given planning permission.
St Paul’s Cathedral was the tallest building in London until 1963, again emphasising the rapid pace of change over the last 60 years.
The Royal Docks Model
Finally, the newest model is a totally 3D printed one of the London Docks area, around the O2.
The solid white buildings are those that are already there and the frosted white show those that are part of the new development of the area.
The water in the docks alone is apparently larger than the size of the whole of Venice.
Thank you for reading! The models are really well worth a visit and they also have lots of interesting information boards around. Find out more about visiting the models on the NLA website here.
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Remarkable. Shame we can’t shrink our problems down to this scale!
Fascinating visually along with all your details! I’ll be adding to our itinerary for June. Thank you!
Hi Jack,
The avid ”history badger” in me cannot but mourn all those incredible auld, mysterious and ancient neibourhoods that have been wiped away.
Slain te’ from Cape Breton.
Me and my great niece chanced upon this last summer holidays while walking through the city from Blackfriars, we went in to avoid the rain and absolutely loved it! Stayed in there for ages and traced our route of the day so far.
Really interesting, thanks. Like many I imagine, I didn’t know this existed..