EC4 possesses most of the City's river frontage and acts as its conduit to Holborn and the West End...

Area Description
The postcode can be spilt into three areas, with Fleet Street and the Temple dominating to the west, the massive bulk of St. Paul's Cathedral providing the tone between Ludgate Circus and Queen Street and the City taking over in the eastern third.

The south-western tip of EC4 is still home to the legal world of the Temple and its fantastic warren of mazes, courts and gardens, and it provides perhaps the oldest concept of live/work accommodation in the capital. The Temple was founded by the Order of the Knights Templar in 1118.

Fleet Street to the north has changed beyond recognition as the Fourth Estate decamped to larger premises further east. The legal flavour reasserts itself somewhat north of Fleet Street as we get closer to the Inns of Court around Holborn Circus.

The area east of Blackfriars station and Ludgate Circus has some monumental buildings in the form of the Central Criminal Court, or Old Bailey, the City of London School and the Bank of England Offices, but they all play second fiddle to Christopher Wren's immense cathedral, a site of Christian worship since the year 604.

EC4 around Cannon Street Station is unalloyed City in the shadow of the Bank, the Mansion House and London Bridge. Like EC2 and EC3 this part of town is deserted at weekends.

Housing
Unsurprisingly what little housing EC4 has to offer leans to the western sector of our postcode. There has been a well-documented rise in city living, from a low of 4,500 in 1970 to around 8,500 today. This boom began in the mid-nineties and the gradual disappearance of the press from the area was well timed to provide a few office-to-home conversions.

Pemberton Row was perhaps the first, converted from office use in 1990, but others around Fleet Street include Poppins Court, Wine Office Court (the original home of the Press Association), Pleydell Street, Whitefriars Street and a few apartments in blocks around St. Bride's Church.

Office conversions to the south have happened next to the Temple on Tudor Street and Temple Lane. To the north of Fleet Street the conversion of an old press building in Printers Inn Court is complemented by old purpose-built flats on Fetter Lane and newer developments on Furnival Street and High Holborn.

East of Ludgate Circus housing is even more scattered. There is a clutch of apartment blocks to the north of Blackfriars station on St. Andrews Hill, Wardrobe Place, Ludgate Square, Carter Lane and Blackfriars Lane.

Housing becomes as rare as hen's teeth the further east you go. High Timber Street by the river has new flats with appropriate views over the water. There is a colony of flats around the shops on the junction of Cannon Street and Victoria Street on Bow Lane, Watling Street, Queen Street and St. Thomas Apostle.

In the easternmost quarter of EC4 a few flats can be discovered on Cannon Street and St. Swithins Lane.

Facilities
The facilities that EC4 can offer vary widely. The sandwich and wine bars of the east give way to more touristic fare as the cathedral and the Millennium Bridge to the south bank are reached. Things return to a more business-oriented world as we approach the Temple and Fetter Lane.

Major retail districts are concentrated around Ludgate Circus and in the tiny streets around Bow Lane.

EC4's theatres are under threat. The Mermaid (Puddle Dock) is looking to be reborn as a conference centre while the Bridewell (Bride Lane) has been knocked sideways by a hefty rent rise. Next door to the Bridewell the St. Bride's Institute acts as the community centre for the district, hosting classes, exhibitions and conferences.

With some good hunting and an A-Z this is a good postcode for restaurants. This is not immediately apparent as they are scattered far and wide. The four main axes off Ludgate Circus (Fleet Street, Farringdon Street, New Bridge Street and Ludgate Hill) are the chief repositories but many pop up on the tiniest of thoroughfares.

Open public spaces have been more apparent with recent developments. To the north of St. Paul's Cathedral the 1960s scheme that filled Paternoster Square has been swept away to provide a public square alongside the 70,000 square metres of office and retail space.

A ½ acre public park has been created at 25 Cannon Street while the Millennium footbridge now links EC4 with SE1, the Tate Modern and the Globe. More open space was created and landscaped by Knightrider Court to improve the axis between St. Paul's and Bankside.

Beyond these the City Churches provide much of the open spaces open to the public, full of lunching office workers in the week and none more popular than St. Bride's with its graceful spire once described as "a madrigal in stone". The gaslit grounds of the Temple are also open to the public.

Transport
EC4 is also the jealous possessor of central London's only cross-rail line. Now christened the Thameslink line (Bedford-Brighton) it crosses from the south bank to enter at Blackfriars station calling at Ludgate Hill and Holborn Viaduct before moving on to Farringdon and Kings Cross stations.

EC4 has two of the capital's major termini. These are Blackfriars and Cannon Street, and with the exception of the Thameslink service they specialise in bringing workers in from all over south-east England and south London.

Cannon Street station has been revamped in recent years with the LIFFE Futures Market taking over the entire top floor of the building and a large health club the width of the building facing the river.

For the tube the Circle and District Lines run parallel to link the two main stations and provide further stations to the west at Temple and to the east at Monument. The Central Line runs along the northern border of EC4 with stations at Bank, St. Paul's and Chancery Lane.

Six bridges leave EC4 for SE1. Three are road bridges (Blackfriars, London and Southwark), two are rail bridges (Blackfriars and Cannon Street) and now there is the footbridge from Bankside to St. Paul's. Better to walk in these parts; this is central London and time spent in a car here can be inordinately long.

Steve Roberts

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