Join the Architecture Foundation (at a special price for CUCL members) for a walking tour exploring the City of London. From its Roman foundations, through medieval origins and right up to its present status as a global financial centre, the walk takes in the towering blocks, ancient landmarks and mysterious alleyways of this remarkable and enduring fortress city.

Starting with one of the capital’s oldest and most forbidding structures, the Tower of London, we will venture into the Square Mile’s ancient thoroughfares where new towers, including The Walkie Talkie, The Cheesegrater and The Gherkin, draw global attention.

Witnessing the city’s commercial heritage, walkers will sample the sights and sounds of Victorian Leadenhall Market, discover the futuristic Lloyds of London, take a stroll down historic Threadneedle Street and take in the Classical grandeur of the Bank of England, Royal Exchange and home of the Lord Mayor, Mansion House.

We will learn how the fabric of the City, where ancient past and high-tech present collide everyday in its great banks, city liveries and institutions, grew layer-upon-layer over the centuries. We’ll hear an architect’s view on the City’s decaying fortress walls, mysterious medieval courtyards, spectacular Baroque churches, Victorian counting houses, vanishing post-war skywalks, towering Modernist offices and Post Modern wonders such as No.1 Poultry.

Walkers will witness the latest wave of bold new architecture transforming the district, including the Rothschild Bank headquarters by cutting edge theorist Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster’s Bloomberg Headquarters and the One New Change shopping centre by French architect Jean Nouvel.

Venturing west the tour will sample Christopher Wren’s world-famous masterpiece, St Paul’s Cathedral, before learning of the stylistic controversies surrounding Paternoster Square. Finally we will visit the imposing medieval Guildhall complex, which features a hidden Roman gladiator arena in its basement, before proceeding north to conclude the tour at the Barbican, one of the world’s greatest Brutalist mega-structures.