The Medieval Ruins By Salters’ Garden

Walking around London is a journey through the centuries, the old side by side with the new.

There is one particular corner of the City where this is particularly in evidence. You can find an especially interesting section of the old city wall, but also the remains of a medieval priory, a beautiful hidden garden and a new modern high walkway. 

The area has relatively recently been modernised and can be found here.

The Wall

The section of the wall here, I think, is one of the most interesting. It was revealed when the buildings around it were destroyed by the bombs of the Blitz.

The city wall was originally built by the Romans in around 200AD. It was around 14 feet (4.4 metres) high and 8-10 feet thick (2.4-3.1 metres) and enclosed an area of roughly 330 acres.

It had a ditch around the outside and five gates (two more were added later), as well as towers and extra fortifications.

The wall went on to define the shape of London for around 1500 years before it burst its boundaries and spread into what we know of as London today. 

You can usually identify original Roman bits from the rows of terracotta tiles, running through it horizontally. These were used possibly to stabilise the wall, stop damp rising or to keep the wall even during construction.

Here, all the Roman bit is thought to be below the modern street level today. 

Instead we can see medieval stonework and this is the only surviving section with a brick parapet, added in 1477. 

The parapet was added by King Edward IV to help protect the city during the Wars of the Roses. 

A few years before, in 1471, Lancastrian forces unsuccessfully tried to storm the City and free King Henry VI, who had been imprisoned in the Tower by Edward.

Diapering

You can also see the brick crenellations, as well the diamond pattern, known as ‘diapering’. This was a popular design in the 15th and 16th centuries, created from glazed bricks.

The word ‘diaper/diapering’ originally referred to just the geometric, repeated pattern, probably the Greek ‘disapros’ meaning ‘across white’. It later became associated with the same pattern on linen and cotton. This was the material used to make what the Americans call ‘diapers’ for babies.

Salters’ Garden 

Go round the back of the wall and you will find, where would have once been the moat or ditch running along the outside of the wall, a beautiful garden. 

From here you can admire more of the full height of the wall.

Salters’ Garden is managed by the Worshipful Company of Salters, one of the 111 livery companies in the City of London. They started off as medieval trading guilds and today are largely charitable, educational and social institutions, that sometimes still play a role within their trades. 

The Salters’ Company was a fraternity of medieval salt traders and they received their royal charter in the year 1394. Salt of course was crucial in food preservation and much of it was imported from France, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, up the Thames to London.

The company built their seventh hall here in 1976 after their previous hall on St Swithin’s Lane was destroyed in the Blitz. 

Their garden was designed in the 1990s to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the company. Designed by David Hicks, it is laid out as a knot garden, with a formal geometric pattern and has a fountain and decorative urn. 

It is a really wonderful spot to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. Sitting in here, you would not guess you are in London’s financial district. 

Victorian Gates And A Minotaur

At the Eastern end of the garden you can see the Victorian iron gates, purchased by the company in 1887 for their hall and survived the bombs of the Blitz. 

You can also see the Minotaur sculpture by Michael Ayrton from 1969. 

A Ruined Priory/Church

Between the wall and the busy London Wall road is a ruined medieval tower.

This is all that remains of the chapel for the priory church of St Alphage City Wall. St Alphage’s was established likely in the 11th century, possibly earlier, nestled right up to the old city wall. 

The church was closed in the 16th century and demolished. The parishioners then took over the former church of the dissolved priory of Elsing Spital.

The priory of Elsing Spital, just to the south of the wall, was established here in 1331 by a wealthy City merchant called William Elsing. The ‘spital’ bit comes from ‘hospital’, i.e. providing hospitality, food, shelter and care. 

The Priory was dissolved during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s under King Henry VIII. 

The church of the priory then became the new parish church for the parishioners of St Alphage’s. 

The tower dates from the 14th century and was gutted during the Blitz. 

The Walkway

In 2018 the elevated walkway snaking over London Wall Place was opened. You get great views down over the ruins and historic remnants. 

In the 1960s, the vision of what cities were going to look like included pedestrians separated from vehicles on a connected network of elevated walkways, with cars consigned to the ground level or tunnels. 

This was the only corner of the city, particularly inside the Barbican Estate, where any semblance of that vision was realised. For decades there were unfinished sections of walkway and spaces for walkways were left unfilled. 

The walkways that have been added today are therefore, in a way, a nod to that idealistic vision and completing some of that work that was never finished. 

So there we have it, nearly two thousand years of history in just one spot.

Thank you for reading, more of London’s fascinating historical spots below…