Narrow bent lanes of stone frontages under glass towers, and the Leadenhall Market doorway Harry Potter used as the Leaky Cauldron.
What City of London looks like
The lanes off Cornhill and Lombard Street are narrow and bent, with stone frontages at pavement level and glass towers standing directly behind them. Nine streets meet at Bank junction, where the Royal Exchange faces west behind a portico of eight Corinthian columns.
runs up from the river to , wide and paved with no traffic on it. The steeple of St Nicholas Cole Abbey stands at the end of one of the streets off it. passes below, a lower level of roadway under the office floors.
opens off Gresham Street in the middle of the City. St Lawrence Jewry stands along one side and the Guildhall porch faces it across the paving under a deep stone arch. A curved line of dark stones in the paving marks the outer wall of the Roman amphitheatre underneath.
on the eastern side is two lanes wide, with towers behind the older buildings along it. runs between it and Lime Street under an ornate roof painted green, maroon and cream over cobbled floors. at the north end of the City runs to the Barbican with a pedestrian bridge crossing it.
Filming is arranged through the City Corporation rather than through a borough, and its own film team handles Guildhall Yard and Leadenhall Market. Cranes are not allowed between 7am and 7pm on weekdays, and no dispensation is given for catering vehicles or winnebagos. Tracking is permitted only in a few quiet pedestrian areas, and a road closure needs twelve weeks of notice. Bank junction is closed to general traffic in those same weekday hours, with buses, cycles and licensed taxis the exceptions. The streets empty in the evening and at the weekend.
Shot in City of London
Bank junction was emptied for Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. The empty shop in Bull's Head Passage at Leadenhall Market became the Leaky Cauldron in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and Lara Croft rides through the same market on a motorbike in Tomb Raider.
Lawrence of Arabia, 1962
St Paul's Cathedral
The memorial service that opens the film was shot on the steps in front of the cathedral, where acquaintances of T. E. Lawrence give their opinions of him. Only the steps are here, since the interior was rebuilt in a Spanish studio. The same steps are where Pip arrives in London in David Lean's 1946 Great Expectations, and the finale of The Madness of King George was shot on them.
RKO 281, 1999
Guildhall
Played Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California, 1940
The HBO film RKO 281 dressed the Great Hall as the dining hall at Hearst Castle for the party where Orson Welles meets William Randolph Hearst. The porch in this photograph was redecorated as a Paris hotel lobby for the second Bean film with Rowan Atkinson.
What City of London can double for
Central in Hong Kong, China
Statue Square in Central has a two storey granite courthouse on Ionic columns standing under glass towers, which is the arrangement at Bank junction. Spy Game used the Lloyd's Building interior as the US embassy in Hong Kong. Traffic runs on the left there and the buses are double deckers, so the street furniture that gives London away elsewhere costs nothing here. The signage has to change, since almost every shopfront in Central shows Chinese as well as English. Try searching granite columns and glass towers now.
Skyfall used the Primrose Street entrance of Broadgate Tower as the Shanghai high-rise Bond follows a hitman into, and its steel bracing sits outside the glass. Lujiazui stands on wide boulevards and the Bishopsgate cluster does not, so a frame that opens out shows the wrong city. The stone frontages and church spires further down Bishopsgate end it. Try searching glass tower entrance now.
Wall Street is narrow between stone frontages with towers rising straight off the pavement, and 55 Wall Street has two stacked colonnades of twelve columns each. Stone Street is cobbled and closed to traffic for two blocks, which is the closest thing there to the lanes running off Cornhill. Everything on the road gives it away, so left hand traffic and red buses have to be held or dressed. The Wren spires cannot be dressed at all, which keeps the frame low and tight. Try searching narrow cobbled stone lanes now.
