This area centres around one of the main arteries of the City of London. Queen Victoria Street runs between the junction at New Bridge Street by the Thames and Bank station at the very heart of the City. The part of the street pertaining to this locale, however, lies in the Cordwainer Ward – one of the city’s smallest. At the southwestern corner, Mansion house tube station is serviced by the Circle and District line. Where Queen Victoria Street intersects with Cannon Street, one might find a small pedestrianised alleyway called Bow Lane. An archetype of narrow Georgian and Victorian City streets, this leads to a charming array of eateries and boutiques. Back at the intersection, the Church of St Mary Aldermary was built in gothic-style by Christopher Wren. It is home to the progressive Moot community which seeks to engage not just traditional Christians, but anyone curious about spirituality.

The Host café in the church is popular locally while the activities run at the church include meditation, yoga and Taize chanting. The triangle bound by Queen Victoria Street, Cannon Street and the pedestrianised Queen Street contains one of the last remaining Victorian buildings nearby: the Albert Buildings were designed by F. J. Ward in gothic style in 1869. On the other side of Queen Victoria Street, the looming bronze-plated giant is home to an HSBC branch at ground level with offices above it.

Queen Victoria Street was commissioned in 1861 to ease the pressure of traffic flowing into the City. The Metropolitan Improvement Act enabled the project which, in sum, amounted to £1 million. A church stood at the location of St Mary Aldermary since the twelfth century but, like the majority of the surroundings, suffered irreparable damage in the Great Fire of 1666. Like much of the City and beyond, its reconstruction has been attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, albeit inconclusively. What is unusual, however, is the fact that Wren’s architecture differs here to that of his other works. St Mary Aldermary is built in gothic style and has even been described by some as one of the chief surviving monuments of the 17th-century Gothic revival”. Its ornate fan-vaulted interior is certainly worth marvelling at.

While the Blitz did cause some damage to it, for the most part, the church remained miraculously unharmed. The bronze-plated building occupied by HSBC was completed in 1999 by Foggo Associates – the architects of Cannon Street station and the Can of Ham. Its façade has been likened to that of Islamic mashrabiya screens.

Together with the Albert Buildings, a grade-II listed public house inhabits the triangular island between Queen Victoria Street, Queen Street, and Cannon Street. The pub is probably of early 19th century origin as its first recorded landlord, John Curling, was serving its customers in 1839. Its name – Sugar Loaf Pub – derives from the way sugar was stored in those days. Cannon Street itself used to be a sugar refining hub and the end products would be sold in containers known as loaves.

Bank station has been voted in a YouGov poll as Londoners’ most disliked station. After demand has risen steadily by 50 percent over the past decade, pressure on its infrastructure has become critical, as the station is serviced by the Central, Northern and Waterloo and City tube lines, as well as the Docklands Light Railway.

By far the most anticipated development in the area is the ongoing Bank Station’s overhaul. This project consists of a new entrance on Cannon Street and an expanded Northern Line platform with step free access via a new concourse. Above this new Cannon Street entrance will also sit a new office block. Taller than originally planned, planners recently gave permission for TFL to add an eighth floor to their plans, with work scheduled to start by the end of 2022.