Although a Celtic community
settled around a ford across the River Thames, it was
the Romans who first developed the square mile now known
as the City of London. They built a bridge and an impressive
city wall, and made Londinium an important port and the
hub of their road system. The Romans left, but trade went
on. Few traces of London dating from the Dark Ages can
now be found, but the city survived the incursions of
both the Saxons and Vikings. Fifty years before the Normans
arrived, Edward the Confessor built his abbey and palace
at Westminster. William the
Conqueror found a city that was, without doubt, the
richest and largest in the kingdom. He raised the White
Tower (part of the Tower of London) and confirmed the
city's independence and right to self-government.
During the reign of Elizabeth
I the capital began to expand rapidly - in 40 years
the population doubled to reach 200,000. Unfortunately,
medieval Tudor and Jacobean London was virtually destroyed
by the Great Fire of 1666. The fire gave Christopher
Wren the opportunity to build his famous churches, but
did nothing to halt the city's growtp>
By 1720 there were 750,000 people,
and London, as the seat of Parliament and focal point
for a growing empire, was becoming ever richer and more
important. Georgian architects replaced the last of
medieval London with their imposing symmetrical architecture
and residential squares.
The population exploded again in
the 19th century, creating a vast expanse of Victorian
suburbs. As a result of the Industrial Revolution and
rapidly expanding commerce, it jumped from 2.7 million
in 1851 to 6.6 million in 1901.
Georgian and Victorian London was
devastated by the Luftwaffe in WWII - huge swathes of
the centre and the East End were totally flattened.
After the war war, ugly housing and low-cost developments
were thrown up on the bomb sites. The docks never recovered
- shipping moved to Tilbury, and the Docklands declined
to the point of dereliction. In the heady 1980s, that
decade of Thatcherite confidence and deregulation, the
Docklands were rediscovered by a new wave of property
developers, who proved to be only marginally more discriminating
than the Luftwaffe.
London briefly regained its
'cool' reputation in the 1990s, buoyed by Tony Blair's
New Labour, a rampaging pound and a swag of pop, style
and media 'names'. Blair's blane Ken Livingstone donned
the mayoral robes in May 2000, opposing plans to sell
off the tube and pushing for improved public transport
and safety. The face of the city changed with the construction
of the £1bn white elephant Millennium Dome, the London
Eye observation wheel, the Tate Modern (linked by the
when-will-it-ever-open Millennium Bridge) and the creation
of the British Museum's Great Court. But some things
never change: London's cost of living outdoes itself
year after year, its chic quotient continues to soar
and the gap between the haves and have nots looms ever
larger.
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