Signs of Old Lombard Street
Ornate hanging signs that still swing above the City's historic banking street, survivors of a time before street numbers.
FREE
The lowdown
Before houses had numbers, businesses hung painted signs above their doors so customers could find them, and Lombard Street, the historic heart of London banking since medieval Italian merchants settled here, kept the tradition alive. A handful of colourful hanging signs still swing over the street, a grasshopper, a cat and fiddle, an anchor, each once marking a bank or counting house.
Most were restored for a royal visit in the early 1900s, and they give the street a touch of old-world charm amid the modern finance. It is free to spot them, a reason to walk this famous old street looking up rather than down at your phone.
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