The Monument

The London Underground Monument Station is great for walking to work.  It tunnels under one of the more complicated and hairy intersections and comes out the side of a building that is conveniently on my path.

It took me a week to see it, the alley where I exit is just up the street - a quarter of a block, really - from the Monument to the Great Fire of London.

The monument is pretty tall (200 feet), so the fact that I missed it says something about how I concentrate when I walk the streets of London…or how I can manage to miss a lighthouse erected on a city street.

The monument has an interesting history, and one interesting story that the locals told me.  The great fire of London started in 1666 on a nearby street (Pudding Lane) at the bakery of Thomas Farriner, spreading quickly and burning down a large portion of the city.  According to local legend, the Monument is sized so that if it fell from it’s base, the tip would touch the bakery where the fire started.

I don’t know if the legend is true, but it sounds good when you are walking from one pub to the other with a few pints under your belt.