Lovely Carter Lane

If I hadn’t taken the temp job at the Kuwait Investment Office, I am quite sure I would never have found Carter Lane.

Lovely, narrow, winding Carter Lane, which is most certainly a ghost of itself on the weekend, when the City empties. But this City of London lane, stretching from the south side of St. Paul’s down to St. Andrew’s Hill above Blackfriar’s, is the perfect City street on a weekday. The barber shop alone has many perks, as you can see: with staff that speak British, Americanish, and Australianish, it offers free Halloween sweets and beer, and no appointments.

I also found Wardrobe Place, a tiny courtyard of former homes, now offices, once the site of the The King’s Wardrobe, destroyed in the 1666 fire. The Rising Sun pub, a shining red and green place that I can see out the window of Janis’s office, the huge sign over the top of the buildings on Addle Street.

There is Shaw Booksellers… not a bookstore but a great old curvy pub on St. Andrew’s Hill, around the corner from the barber shop. Across the road, you’ll find The Cockpit, a wee sort of place, yes, that has a sign by the door warning you not to bother trying to enter if you are wearing dirty boots or clothes.

If you turn right out Wren House, where my office is, its just a few steps to the walkway down to the Thames across to the Tate Modern. But although I know it is there, I hardly ever walk in that direction. Instead, I am drawn to the backroads of the City and the Churchyard of St. Paul’s. At lunchtime, I sometimes brush past the queues inside St. Paul’s and attend 12:30 lunchtime mass underneath the enormous dome that Christopher Wren had constructed, and which withstood the bombings of the World Wars, even when nearby Ave Maria Lane (and the millions of books stored there) did not.

I have free lunch inside my office, but even if it is raining, each day I find a reason to go out and wander around. Next stop: the shop around St. Mary-le-Bow and Cheapside, Bread Lane and more.