Lombard Street, London

Lloyd's Coffee House was a significant meeting place in London in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was opened by Edward Lloyd (c. 1648 – 15 February 1713) on Tower Street in 1686. The establishment was a popular place for sailors, merchants and shipowners, and Lloyd catered to them by providing reliable shipping news. The shipping industry community frequented the place to discuss maritime insurance, shipbroking and foreign trade. The dealings that took place led to the establishment of the insurance market Lloyd's of London, Lloyd's Register and several related shipping and insurance businesses.The coffee shop relocated to Lombard Street in December 1691. Lloyd had a pulpit installed in the new premises, from which maritime auction prices and shipping news were announced. Candle auctions were held in the establishment, with lots frequently involving ships and shipping. From 1696–1697 Lloyd also experimented with publishing a newspaper, Lloyd's News, reporting on shipping schedules and insurance agreements reached in the coffee house. In 1713, the year of Edward Lloyd's death, he modified his will to assign the lease of the coffee house to his head waiter, William Newton, who then married one of Lloyd's daughters, Handy. Newton died the following year and Handy subsequently married Samuel Sheppard. She died in 1720 and Sheppard died in 1727, leaving the coffee house to his sister Elizabeth and her husband, Thomas Jemson. Jemson founded the Lloyd's List newspaper in 1734, similar to the previous Lloyd's News. Merchants continued to discuss insurance matters there until 1774, when the participating members of the insurance arrangement formed a committee and moved to the Royal Exchange on Cornhill as the Society of Lloyd's.

Garraways Coffee House was a London coffee house in Exchange Alley from the period where such houses served as important places where other business was performed. Its original proprietor, Thomas Garway, was already said to be the first person in England to sell tea prior to the house's founding, and when he began to sell it here in 1657 it became the first place in England to do so. The Hudson's Bay Company conducted its first sale of furs at the coffee house in 1671. Different kinds of merchants patronized different coffee houses, with tea merchants patronising Garraway's, as well as many investors in the South Sea Bubble of the 1710s. The establishment became famous as a sandwich and drinking room, it being said that the sandwich-maker spent two hours preparing each day's food.The works of Charles Dickens include multiple references to Garraway's, and Daniel Defoe wrote of it being frequented by wealthy traders from the City.The building was destroyed by fire in 1748, having been open for 216 years.

Jonathan's Coffee House was a significant meeting place in London in the 17th and 18th centuries, famous as the original site of the London Stock Exchange. The coffee house was opened around 1680 by Jonathan Miles in Change (or Exchange) Alley, in the City of London. In 1696, several patrons were implicated in a plot to assassinate William III, and it was thought to be associated with the Popish Plots. In 1698, it was used by John Castaing to post the prices of stocks and commodities, the first evidence of systematic exchange of securities in London. That year, dealers expelled from the Royal Exchange for rowdiness migrated to Jonathan's (as well as to Garraway's Coffee-House). It was the scene of a number of critical events in the history of share trading, including the South Sea Bubble and the panic of 1745. It was destroyed by fire in 1748, and rebuilt. In 1761 a club of 150 brokers and jobbers was formed to trade stocks. The club built its own building in 1773 in Sweeting's Alley, which was dubbed the New Jonathan's, but was renamed the Stock Exchange (now officially called the London Stock Exchange). The original Jonathan's served as the home of a lottery office until it was destroyed by fire in 1748.

The City bonds robbery of 1990 was a heist in which £291.9 million (equivalent to £840 million in 2023) was stolen in London, England. The carefully planned operation made it seem at first as if a courier had been mugged on 2 May, yet the City of London Police soon realised that it was a sophisticated global venture which ended up involving participants such as the New York mafia, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and Colombian drug barons. The robbery was one of the largest in world history. The robbery took advantage of the existence of couriers who moved vast sums of money around the City of London in order to ensure liquidity in the UK financial system. The money was in the form of certificates of deposit and HM Treasury bills. These bearer bonds were recovered in different places including Glasgow, New York, Miami (on their way to Peru), and Zürich. In a wide-ranging investigation, the police eventually recovered all but two of the 301 certificates, with some of those arrested allegedly turning informant, such as Mark Osborne, who was later found murdered. Patrick Thomas, who allegedly carried out the original theft, was shot dead. Keith Cheeseman, an extravagant fraudster, was arrested in the UK but skipped bail to Tenerife, claiming his life was in danger. He was briefly thought to have been the Bolney Torso and then was located and arrested in Spain. Cheeseman was extradited to the US to stand charges of money laundering and received a six and a half year sentence. John Traynor was arrested for a mortgage fraud using the stolen bonds as collateral; he was sentenced to seven years for handling stolen goods. A year and a half later he absconded from prison; he was arrested in the Netherlands in 2010 and extradited back to the UK to serve the rest of his sentence.

Exchange Alley or Change Alley is a narrow alleyway connecting shops and coffeehouses in an old neighbourhood of the City of London. It served as a convenient shortcut from the Royal Exchange on Cornhill to the Post Office on Lombard Street and remains as one of a number of alleys linking the two streets. Shops once located in Exchange Alley included ship chandlers, makers of navigation instruments such as telescopes, and goldsmiths from Lombardy in Italy. The 17th and 18th century coffeehouses of Exchange Alley, especially Jonathan's and Garraway's, became an early venue for the lively trading of shares and commodities. These activities were the progenitor of the modern London Stock Exchange. Similarly, Lloyd's Coffee House, at No. 16 Lombard Street but originally on Tower Street, was the forerunner of Lloyd's of London, the Lloyd's Register and Lloyd's List. The nearest London Underground station is Bank and the closest mainline railway station is Cannon Street.

St Edmund, King and Martyr, is an Anglican church in Lombard Street, in the City of London, dedicated to St Edmund the Martyr.Since 2001 it houses the London Centre for Spirituality, now (2017) renamed the London Centre for Spiritual Direction, but is still a consecrated church. In 2015, the church became an office of Ric Thorpe, Bishop of Islington and organisation he leads, Centre for Church MultiplicationSince 2019, Imprint Church organises regular worship inside of the building.The church lies in the ward of Langbourn, and has a ward noticeboard outside.

Simpson's Tavern is a pub and restaurant at 38 1/2, Ball Court Alley, Cornhill, London EC3. It is a Grade II listed building, built in the late 17th/early 18th century.

Candlewick is a small ward, one of the 25 ancient wards in the City of London. Its northern boundary runs along Lombard Street — to the north is the ward of Langbourn. Gracechurch Street forms Candlewick's eastern boundary with Bridge ward, down to the Monument to the Great Fire of London, erected to commemorate the place where the Great Fire abated. Its southern boundary curves along Arthur Street, incorporating traffic from London Bridge to its western edge along Laurence Pountney Lane, Sherbourne Lane and Abchurch Lane in Walbrook ward. There are two churches within Candlewick, St. Mary Abchurch on Abchurch Lane and St. Clement Eastcheap on Clement's Lane, while a third, St. Michael, Crooked Lane, was demolished in 1831 to make way for the new London Bridge. There are several large stores and pubs and a hotel located in the ward. As with many City wards it has its own social club and newsletter.Monument tube station is located in the south-eastern corner of the ward.

The Royal Exchange in London was founded in the 16th century by the merchant Sir Thomas Gresham on the suggestion of his factor Richard Clough to act as a centre of commerce for the City of London. The site was provided by the City of London Corporation and the Worshipful Company of Mercers, who still jointly own the freehold. It is trapezoidal in shape and is flanked by Cornhill and Threadneedle Street, which converge at Bank junction in the heart of the city. It lies in the ward of Cornhill. It has twice been destroyed by fire and subsequently rebuilt. The present building was designed by Sir William Tite in the 1840s. The site was notably occupied by the Lloyd's insurance market for nearly 150 years. Today the Royal Exchange contains Fortnum & Mason The Bar & Restaurant, luxury shops, and offices. Traditionally, the steps of the Royal Exchange are the place where certain royal proclamations (such as the dissolution of parliament) are read out by either a herald or a crier. Following the death or abdication of a monarch and the confirmation of the next monarch's accession to the throne by the Accession Council, the Royal Exchange Building is one of the locations where a herald proclaims the new monarch's reign to the public.

Cad and the Dandy is an independent tailoring company based in London, England with premises on Savile Row, the City and New York City. It sells bespoke suits, manufactured from a range English and Italian fabrics, and using traditional tailoring methods, generally at better value than other Savile Row houses. The company was founded in 2008 by James Sleater and Ian Meiers, two City of London bankers who were both made redundant from their jobs in the 2008 financial crisis. It has attracted local, national and international press coverage, including being listed by The Guardian in the Courvoisier Future 500, and in July 2010 the founders won the Bento Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the Macworld Awards.

Bank and Monument are interlinked London Underground and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) stations that form a public transport complex spanning the length of King William Street in the City of London. Bank station, named after the Bank of England, opened in 1900 at Bank junction and is served by the Central, Northern and Waterloo & City lines, and the DLR. Monument station, named after the Monument to the Great Fire of London, opened in 1884 and is served by the District and Circle lines. The stations have been linked as an interchange since 1933.The station complex is one of the busiest on the London Underground network, with usage of the station rising by 38% since 2008. Owing to this, the station complex has been rated the Underground's worst station in passenger surveys, and is currently undergoing a substantial upgrade and expansion. The stations are in fare zone 1.

The George and Vulture is a restaurant in London. There has been an inn on the site, which is off Lombard Street in the historic City of London district, since 1142. It was said to be a meeting place of the notorious Hell-Fire Club and is now a revered City chop house. It is mentioned at least 20 times in the 1837 novel The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, who frequently drank there himself. The George and Vulture has been the headquarters of the City Pickwick Club since its foundation. When it was threatened with demolition, Cedric Charles Dickens, the author's great-grandson, campaigned to save it. Since 1950 it has been the home of his Dickens Pickwick Club and, in the same year, it became the venue for the Christmas Day Dickens family gathering, in the Dickens Room.The George and Vulture is a Grade II listed building, dating back to the early 18th century. It is now run by Samuel Smiths Old Brewery (Tadcaster).