Yes, you heard it right, take a look for yourself…

The laughter is delightfully like a sitcom.

Today, as part of my architecture course, I visited Leadenhall Market in the City of London. I had come here before but it was obviously chosen as a place to visit on my course for its almost unique Victorian character. It truly is a wonderful place to stand in, especially during the working week where the City bankers still get their shoes 'shined' by hand under the market's cover.

The layout of the current market has actually been here since the 14th Century - very impressive - but did you know that it also stands directly on top of the original Roman Forum? Thus trading here has been going on for 2 millennia and so I can see no place more fitting than for this area to host the modern trading floors of 21st Century markets. The market recently posed as the backdrop to the Diagon Alley area for the first of the Harry Potter films.

It's a beautiful day and I'm currently having a wonderful walk around the Broadgate Centre, adjacent to Liverpool Street station in central London. The current development is a 1980’s construction of mainly Post-Modern style office blocks arranged around a pedestrian circus. For its era I think that it is actually quite successful, a pleasure to walk around today and its lack of focus on the car is very refreshing indeed.

The site does have an interesting past however. Did you know that it was once the site of a big train terminus named Broad Street?

Opened in 1865 it had swiftly become the 3rd busiest station in London and served as the terminus for the North London Railway, now the London Overground. According to Wikipedia, “at the start of the 20th century, more than one train a minute arrived or left the

station during the morning rush hour, with over 27 million passengers in 1902.” Over the 20th Century though, the station suffered a gradual decline with more passengers converting to the new tube lines and bus routes, and thus by the 1980’s it was decided the few remaining services be transferred to Liverpool Street and the station closed.

Sadly no parts of the station survive today but there are a few images: