A game of TimeGuesser turned up a picture of crowds gathering, at the end of the First World War in 1918, at Ludgate Circus looking up Ludgate Hill towards St.Pauls Cathedral caused me to wonder what had changed since then.
The street view today shows much has changed – click image to embiggen.
The spire of St. Martin’s church is recognisable; and just above the chap’s hat on the far left it looks like the top of one of the fancy finials that still adorn the building on the left.
The railway bridge was never much admired:
Of all the eyesores of modern London, surely the most hideous is the Ludgate Hill Viaduct— that enormous flat iron that lies across the chest of Ludgate Hill like a bar of metal on the breast of a wretch in a torture-chamber. – Walter Thornbury, ‘Ludgate Hill’, in Old and New London: Volume 1(London, 1878), British History Online [accessed 9 March 2025].
and it was removed in 1990 with the arrival of the City Thameslink rail service (the canopy protruding on the right) which passes under the road.
But perhaps the single greatest change since then… nobody is wearing a hat.
