A weird tunnel beneath Charing Cross station traces the edge of what was once London’s riverside embankment, a waterfront that witnessed the arrival of Viking raiding fleets.

St Paul’s was the heart of early London. It was the burial place of King Ethelred (‘the ill-advised’) and also of unfortunate Archbishop Ælfheah whose body was stolen from its tomb by King Cnut The graveyard was once home to the London runestone, a rare monument to a member of London’s Viking elite.

The church of St Alfege was built on the site of the martyrdom of St Ælfheah: the archbishop of Canterbury who, having been kidnapped by Vikings and taken to their camp at Greenwich, was battered to death with animal bones…

The Barbican Redevelopment Scheme, comprising the Barbican Estate, Barbican Arts Centre and the office buildings around London Wall and Moorgate, is well known to people with an affection for twentieth-century architecture, and has become major cultural centre in its own right. Nevertheless, very few people are aware of how a type of plastic manufactured in rural Kent quietly revolutionised the design and construction of modern office building, in particular the curtain-walling systems that enabled open-plan offices. In the second of two viewpoints on the New Barbican, Alexander Davidson tells a story encompassing two office buildings built as part of the Barbican Redevelopment Scheme – Lee House and St Alphage House – and how the plastic Holoplast was manufactured, used in construction, and eventually came to be demonised by the City of London Corporation.