St Pauls or Bank

The Guildhall is open (when it is not being used for events) Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm. Entry is FREE.

020 7606 3030

The Guildhall Art Gallery is open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, and Sunday 12am to 4pm. Entry costs £2.50 for adults (free if you live/work in the City of London), concessions £1 and children under 16 free.

020 7332 3700

The Guildhall has been the London City Town Hall for around 800 years. The word Guild means money and it is here that the citizens used to come to pay their taxes. A modern block of offices behind the Guildhall still administers the day-to-day business of the Corporation of London.

The site was originally a large Roman Amphitheatre, the largest in Britain. It was built around 70AD and could hold 6,000 spectators, who would come to watch animal hunts, executions and gladiator combats. The extent of this Amphitheatre is marked by the oval shaped dark coloured paving around the courtyard.

Dark coloured paving mark the site of the amphitheatre

The current building dates from 1441 and is the only secular stone building to survive the great fire of London in 1666.

A drawing of the Guildhall in 1805

Inside, the Great Hall is one of the largest civic halls in England. Decorated by many liveries, banners and shields, it has been the setting of many high profile trials, including Henry Garnet, who was involved in the Gun Powder Plot.  Below the main hall is the largest medieval crypt in London. A museum in a room adjacent to the library displays the oldest and largest collection of clocks and watches, owned by the Clockmakers Company. The majority of exhibits date from the 16th to 19th century.

Inside the Guildhall

In 1999, a new Guildhall Art Gallery was opened to replace an earlier gallery destroyed in the blitz of 1941. The collection consists of about 4,000 paintings, of which around 250 are on display at any one time. Many of the paintings have a London theme, with the centrepiece being the huge painting The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar by John Singleton Copley.

The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar by John Singleton Copley 1783 in the Guildhall Art Gallery

Every November at the Guildhall, the outgoing Lord Mayor hands over symbols of office to the new Mayor. The ceremony is called the Silent Change, so called because no words are spoken. The following day is the Lord Mayors Show, when the Mayor in his gold state coach, travels from the Guildhall around the City of London accompanied by a procession of military bands and floats, decorated with flowers.

Top - Home