Opposite Dowgate Hill is Walbrook. We now reach (right) Cannon Street Station and Cannon Street Hotel, with rooms much used for meetings of public companies. Below is the Cannon Street Station of the District Railway. The station occupies the site of the Steel Yard, a factory of the Hanseatic League, established in 1250. In Oxford Court, nearly opposite Cannon Street Station, is the London Chamber of Commerce.
On the left, at the corner of St. Swithin's Lane, stands the church of St. Swithin, rebuilt by Wren in 1678, but modernized. St. Swithin is regarded as the saint of the weather, and the rain or shine of St. Swithin's Day (July 15th) is popularly supposed to maintain itself for the next 40 days. Dryden was married here to Lady Elizabeth Howard in 1663. Immured in the south wall of the church is London Stone, generally believed to have been the Milliarium of Roman London, from which the distances on the Roman high roads were measured. This is the stone which Jack Cade struck with his staff, exclaiming, 'Now is Mortimer Lord of this City' (comp. 'King Henry VI.,' Part II., iv. 6).
The significance of this action, evidently appreciated by the mob, suggests that the Stone may be a prehistoric monument, marking the meeting-place of the open-air assembly that governed the city. The stone was removed from the south side of the street, a little to the west, in 1742 and placed in its present position in 1798.
In St. Swithin's Lane are Founders' Hall (No. 13, on the left) and New Court, the premises of Messrs. north M. Rothschild and Sons. Adjoining the latter is Sailers' Hall, with portraits of George III. and Queen Charlotte (ascribed to Reynolds) and of various benefactors. Adjoining the earlier hall on this site stood a meeting-house, used as a chapel and associated with the Salters' Hall Conference of 1717-19, a landmark in Nonconformist and Unitarian history.
In Abchurch Yard, off Abchurch Lane, the next side-street to the left, stands St. Mary Abchurch (i.e. 'up' church, from its high site), rebuilt by Wren in 1686, containing woodcarvings by Grinling Gibbons and cupola paintings by Thornhill (open daily, 8-9.30 and, except on Saturday, 12-3). The font (by Wren) and font-cover are noteworthy.
A little farther on Cannon St. ends at the William IV. statue, whence Eastcheap and Great Tower Street continue in the same general direction to the Tower, while King William Street leads to the right (south) to London Bridge.
