Why you should experience Old Broad Street in London, England.
Old Broad Street is a financial corridor where the City of London's banking heritage, railway innovation, commercial enterprise, and institutional continuity continue defining one of Britain's most influential business addresses.
Running through the City of London between Bishopsgate and Moorgate, the corridor links financial headquarters, historic churches, office towers, transport infrastructure, and civic institutions occupying ground shaped by nearly two millennia of urban development. Portland stone buildings, post-war commercial architecture, contemporary skyscrapers, and carefully integrated public spaces preserve a streetscape that continuously adapts to changing patterns of finance and commerce. Banking institutions, insurance companies, investment firms, and professional organisations continue reinforcing the corridor's international significance. The result is an experience shaped by financial leadership, engineering innovation, and uninterrupted commercial evolution.
What you should know about Old Broad Street.
Old Broad Street is best known for occupying the route of London's medieval Broad Street, which expanded outside the line of the former Roman city wall before becoming one of the City's principal commercial thoroughfares and later undergoing fundamental transformation after construction of Liverpool Street Station, opened by the Great Eastern Railway in 1874 following designs by Edward Wilson with engineering led by Sir John Hawkshaw, replacing the former Bethlem Royal Hospital site with one of Britain's busiest railway termini. The station required extensive excavation, bridge construction, retaining walls, and iron-and-glass train sheds while connecting London directly with East Anglia, the Port of Harwich, and expanding industrial centres, stimulating rapid construction of banking houses, insurance offices, shipping companies, and merchant headquarters throughout Old Broad Street during the late nineteenth century. Twentieth-century redevelopment accelerated after wartime bombing damaged substantial sections of the corridor during the Blitz, leading to modern office construction that culminated with projects including Tower 42, completed in 1980 as Britain's tallest building at 183 metres, together with successive generations of financial headquarters occupying increasingly sophisticated steel-framed office buildings. The corridor now sits within one of the world's largest concentrations of banking and financial services, accommodating institutions whose operations support international capital markets, foreign exchange, insurance, investment management, securities trading, and corporate finance across the Square Mile.
Tower 42, originally commissioned as the National Westminster Tower, was designed by Richard Seifert & Partners, completed in 1980, rises 183 metres across 42 storeys, and introduced a floorplate deliberately arranged to resemble the NatWest logo when viewed from above. St. Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, standing immediately west of the corridor, preserves a parish documented before the Norman Conquest, while the present church was completed in 1729 to designs associated with James Gold and incorporates monuments spanning several centuries of City history. The Worshipful Company of Girdlers, whose recorded history extends to the fourteenth century and whose royal charter dates to 1449, maintains its hall nearby, preserving the City's livery company traditions within the surrounding financial district. The City of London Corporation continues managing the corridor through conservation policies, transport coordination, public realm investment, and planning oversight that balances internationally significant financial activity with the protection of surviving historic streets, churches, and archaeological remains.
How to fold Old Broad Street into your trip.
Old Broad Street works as an exploration of the City's financial history, railway engineering, and institutional development.
Begin at Liverpool Street Station, where Victorian railway engineering introduces the infrastructure that reshaped the surrounding financial district before following Old Broad Street southward. Continue to Tower 42, whose distinctive profile reflects the evolution of late twentieth-century commercial architecture and London's expanding global financial sector. Conclude at St. Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, where centuries of parish history provide a fitting finale examining the older civic landscape that existed before the surrounding banking district emerged. The progression moves naturally from railway expansion to financial growth before concluding with one of the City's longstanding ecclesiastical institutions.
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