Stayed at the City of London Youth Hostel near St Paul’s. This wasn’t a new delight isn’t going to be my top favourite YH — no reading lights for beds and a truly mediocre cooked breakfast — just enough, however, to make it unwise to head into the nearest greasy spoon for the real thing.
But Carter Lane is one of those narrow, not quite straight little ancient streets that wind through the City — this one parallel to the river. The area was the classic mix of old and new, with some very tempting pubs. Pity I was only there in the early morning. I had two little finds on my amble from Carter Lane to Somerset House — one was Apothecaries Hall, set round a courtyard –a Georgian delight, the other, after a brief excursion through the temples of Mammon, was a “Roman” spring-fed bath, just on the river side of Fleet Street. It wasn’t open, but the National Trust had kindly supplied an external light switch with which one could light up the interior and peer through the window. There was a bit of dodgy history about it, and no-one really knows if it’s Roman, but it does seem more than likely, given the Romans’ enthusiasm for such things.
And from the Temples of Mammon to the real Temple, where the lawyers hang out, or some of them, in several acres of prime central London land with huge squares and gardens. It’s quite delightful, and open to the public to walk through, at least in the hours of daylight.
