Minories

Minories was the western terminus of the London and Blackwall Railway (L&BR), located on the east side of Minories, a short distance north-east of the Tower of London. The line was operated on a cable-hauled basis with a 400 hp pair of stationary steam engines winding a cable 7 miles (11 km) long, to which the trains were attached on the cable car principle.It opened on 6 July 1840, as the City of London terminus for the L&BR (then known as the Commercial Railway). The following year, it was supplemented by a new station several hundred yards to its west, named Fenchurch Street, designed by William Tite. However, Minories station continued in use as an alternative terminus; it was closed temporarily between 15 February 1849 and 9 September 1849, before finally closing for good on 24 October 1853.The station site was later converted into goods sidings, and the lower levels of the old station were converted into the Mint Street Goods Depot. The depot remained open until April 1951; demolition came shortly afterward. The location of the station and winching houses are marked by the Minories public house. The western terminus of the Docklands Light Railway opened at Tower Gateway, just to the south of the site of Minories station, in August 1987.

Tower Gateway is a Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station in the City of London and is located near the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. It adjoins the tracks to Fenchurch Street station and is located on the site of a former station called Minories. Tower Gateway is within London fare zone 1. It is a short walk from both Tower Hill Underground station and Fenchurch Street. Access at street level from the Minories is via escalator, stairs or lift at the western end of the station. A pedestrian crossing connects the station with Tower Hill station, its closest London Underground connection. A narrow secondary staircase entrance at the eastern end of the platform, improved considerably in the early 2000s, descends to Mansell Street. It serves the eastern edge of the City of London financial district and development around St Katharine Docks.

America Square is a street and small square in London, off Crosswall and located near Minories. The square was built in about 1760 and dedicated to the American colonies. America Square was developed as part of Square, Crescent and Circus under plans by George Dance the Younger in 1768–1774. The Crescent was built at the expense of Sir Benjamin Hammet, who is commemorated by the name of another street in the area. He was a partner in the City bank of William Esdaile and was also alderman for the ward of Portsoken.Nathan Meyer Rothschild lived at No. 14 in the 19th century. The square was bombed in 1941, and Rothschild's house was demolished. Today, America Square is occupied by offices, restaurants and a gymnasium. The nearest London Underground stations are Tower Hill (to the south) and Aldgate (to the north), and the nearest Docklands Light Railway station is Tower Gateway, on Minories. Also nearby is Fenchurch Street station, a mainline railway terminus with services towards east London and south Essex.

Ibex House is an eleven storey Art Deco office building on the east side of the City of London, just to the north of the Tower of London. It was designed by Fuller, Hall and Foulsham in the Streamline Moderne style, with curved corners and distinctive horizontal bands of faience cladding and black-framed fenestration. Construction started as a speculative development in 1935 and the building was completed in 1937. It became a Grade II listed building in 1982. The building occupies about 0.75 acres (3,000 m2), almost half of the narrow block running between the Minories to the west and Mansell Street to the east, with Portsoken Street to the south and Haydon Street to the south. It has an elongated H- or I-shaped footprint, with blocks towards the east and west joined by a long thin central block. The arrangement provides ample natural light to the office space within. Most of the building rises to seven or eight upper floors, with top floors stepped back, plus a ground and lower ground floor and basement. It was built using a steel frame with distinctive strips of faiance cladding, black on the ground floor and buff on upper floors, between long strips of windows with black metal frames and horizontal glazing bars. Pevsner mentioned its "Long bands of glass, whizzing round curved corners". Curved glazed projections at the centre of the north and south façades run from the first to the top floor. The centre of the façade above the main west entrance is emphasised with a vertical black faience strip with glazing, running from the first to the top floor, with similar vertical black faience strips above entrances in the sides of the east and west blocks. The building houses 191,144 sq ft (17,757.9 m2) of commercial and office space, occupied by a variety of businesses, including the main offices of PLP Architecture. The ground floor alongside the Minories contains a number of retail units, which for many years included a public house and a sandwich bar. Until recently, most of the lower ground floor and basement was occupied by a Virgin Active health club. As a largely unchanged example of a late 1930s office building, it became a Grade II listed building in 1982 in recognition of its architectural integrity.The building was restored by the architects Rolfe Judd in 1994-94, and sold around 2019 for a price of around £121 million.

Tower Hill is a London Underground station in Tower Hill in the East End of London. It is on the Circle line between Monument and Aldgate stations, and the District line between Monument and Aldgate East. Tower Hill is within Travelcard zone 1 and is a short distance from Tower Gateway station for the Docklands Light Railway, Fenchurch Street station for National Rail mainline services, and Tower Millennium Pier for River Services. The entrance to Tower Hill station is a few metres from one of the largest remaining segments of the Roman London Wall which once surrounded the historic City of London. A small section of this wall is visible above the track at the far Eastern end of the Westbound platform, near the ceiling. The station was built on the site of the former Tower of London station that closed in 1884. The present Tower Hill station opened in 1967 and replaced a nearby station with the same name but which was originally called Mark Lane, that was slightly farther west.

The statue of Trajan is an outdoor twentieth-century bronze sculpture depicting the Roman Emperor Trajan, located in front of a section of the London Wall built by Romans, at Tower Hill in London, United Kingdom.

The Tower Hill Postern was a small fortified entrance (postern) at the eastern terminal point to the London Wall, at the junction of the Wall and the Tower of London moat. The size of the gateway indicates that it was suitable for pedestrians and horsemen but not wide enough to accommodate wagons, carts or carriages.

The WayOut Club is a nightclub venue in Minories, London. Formed in 1993, it is one of London's best known transgender venues and was the first to hold a regular Saturday night event. The WayOut Club was founded in 1993 by Vicky Lee and Steffan Whitfield. In 2008 the club won an online people's vote award from transgender charity Sparkle for "Best Transgender Nightclub". The club moved from venue to venue around London seven times before settling at Charlie's in Crosswall (off Minories) in the City of London in 1998, where it remained for 15 years. In June 2012 Charlie's had to close and the club moved using two venues on the same block; 33 Minories and 2 Crutched Friars. The reason for using two venues was due to availability of Saturday dates at short notice. After Abbey gave up its Saturday late licence Lee took the club to Gilt in Crutched Friars. This venue changed management and again the club moved, this time to two venues The Minories and Mary Janes both in Minories. The club is now settled at The Minories for the foreseeable future.The WayOut Club's performances were led by female impersonator Steffan Whitfield, until his death from cancer in 2005. His stage partner and co-founder of the club, trans woman Vicky Lee, took over his duties. The WayOut Club has been a breeding ground for transgender and drag talent. The club has held talent searches and offers a guest spot before the booked show to anyone who has a talent to share. Many of those that have taken up this offer have gone on to perform regularly at WayOut and other venues.

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red was a public art installation created in the moat of the Tower of London, England, between July and November 2014. It commemorated the centenary of the outbreak of World War I and consisted of 888,246 ceramic red poppies, each intended to represent one British or Colonial serviceman killed in the War. The ceramic artist was Paul Cummins, with conceptual design by the stage designer Tom Piper. The work's title was taken from the first line of a poem by an unknown soldier in World War I.

Beyond the Deepening Shadow: The Tower Remembers was an artistic installation at the Tower of London in November 2018, to commemorate the centenary of the end of the First World War. Each evening in the week before Remembrance Day, 10,000 torches were lit in the moat of the tower, after an opening ceremony of a bugle call, minute of silence and reveille. The torches remained lit for several hours while loudspeakers broadcast a soundscape composed by Mira Calix, based on a sonnet written by nurse Mary Borden to a British officer at the Somme. The event was conceived by Tom Piper and directed by Anna Morrissey.The installation was similar to Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, an installation of poppies at the Tower which commemorated the start of the war. That was so popular that crowd control measures were organised to control the large number of spectators.

Old Tower Without was an extra-parochial place, usually described as a "precinct", and after 1858 a civil parish in the metropolitan area of London, England. Old Tower Without was outside the jurisdiction of either the City of London or the County of Middlesex, and was within the Liberty of the Tower which had separate county administration and court of quarter sessions. It was within the bills of mortality area but did not give returns of burials and baptisms.It became part of the Whitechapel Poor Law Union in 1837. Under the Metropolis Management Act 1855 it was grouped into the Whitechapel District as the "District of Tower". This was later interpreted to mean it included the extra-parochial place of Great Tower Hill.In 1889 it became part of the County of London and the Liberty of the Tower was dissolved in 1894. The parish of Old Tower Without was abolished in 1895 and became part of St Botolph without Aldgate.

Crosswall is a street in the City of London. At its western end, the street begins at a junction with Crutched Friars and Cooper's Row. At its eastern end, the street is a turn off Minories. It is home to America Square, the City of London Medical Centre, and a number of bar-restaurants and offices. Crosswall was named as it crossed the old Roman wall, which was discovered after the bombing of 1940. Previously the street had been named John Street, after King John.The nearest mainline railway station is Fenchurch Street, and the nearest London Underground station is Tower Hill.