onionbagblog

Cloak Lane, EC4, The Way We See It.

“A winding cobbled street of offices, Cloak Lane has little interest, until you question what ‘cloaking’ device is in use here. The name Cloak is a corruption of the latin ‘cloaca,’ which roughly translated means sewer.

How could such a lovely street be named a sewer I hear you ask? Well the clue to this lies in an unusual memorial at the Cannon Street end. It marks the re-burial place of the inhabitants of St John the Baptist upon Walbrook

This long gone church did sit upon the open river Walbrook, which like most of the hidden rivers in London, become an open sewer before being culverted. The church itself was destroyed in the Great Fire, and was sadly one of only a handful not to be rebuilt by the 1670 rebuilding act.

Today there’s plenty of action during the week and virtually nothing during the weekend – it’s one of those nice proper old London streets.”

•