What to see near Bank: a guide to London by tube

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2013/jan/09/what-to-see-near-bank-tube

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<strong>Nearby highlights </strong>At the epicentre of the City, the dragons of Bank stand over our bullion reserve. Find the statue of Dick Whittington, Mayor of London, on the Royal Exchange and then have a look inside Mansion House (cityoflondon.gov.uk) the Mayor's official residence (tours on Tuesdays, 2pm, £7/£5). Simpsons Tavern (38½ Cornhill, simpsonstavern.co.uk) provides an old-school lunch break: the daily specials haven't changed for 250 years; or try Cheese at Leadenhall (Leadenhall Market, cheeseatleadenhall.co.uk) for melted raclette amid Victorian ironwork. If you walk down Walbrook and Dowgate Hill, you are walking above London's City river, the Walbrook. Descend steps to the river beach. To your right is a storm drain where the Walbrook still trickles.

<strong></strong><br /><strong>Did you know? </strong>Bank is one of a small number of underground stations with no overground buildings at all, and the only original member of the Central London Railway never to have had one. Its original ticket offices were built in the crypt of St Mary Woolnoth, which the church sold to the founders of the railway for £340,000, spending the money building 30 more churches in London's suburbs. The station clock is immortalised in TS Eliot's The Waste Land: "To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours. With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine."