Guildhall Art Gallery
a roman arena under the art
The City's own art collection, free, sitting on top of a genuine Roman amphitheatre you can walk down into. Two thousand years in one free building.
Free to visit · City of London · Bank · EC2V 5AE
Opening: Mon–Sat 10am–4pm · check before Sundays
The Guildhall Art Gallery holds the City of London's own collection, free to walk into, full of grand Victorian paintings, London scenes and a vast canvas of the Siege of Gibraltar that the building was practically designed around. That alone is a decent free half hour.
But the real surprise is in the basement. When they dug the foundations in 1988 they found the lost Roman amphitheatre of Londinium, where the city watched gladiators and executions nearly two thousand years ago. You walk down into the dark and stand on the actual stone, with the outline of the missing walls traced in light around you.
It is one of the most atmospheric free experiences in the City, art upstairs and a Roman arena below, and most people walking past the Guildhall have no idea it is there.
Getting there: A couple of minutes from Bank, on the Guildhall Yard just off Gresham Street.
Best time to go: A weekday lunchtime when the City is alive, or a Saturday when the surrounding streets empty out and you can have the ruins to yourself.
Insider tip: Go straight down to the amphitheatre first while it is quiet, then come back up for the paintings. The light-traced outline of the arena walls is genuinely eerie when you have the dark stone chamber to yourself, which on a weekend you usually do.
Official site: https://www.thecityofldn.com
Free things to do in London · London Free Guide