New London Walking Tour - Midtown

Midtown, linking the City and the West End, is the historic heart of the legal profession and home to long-standing estates as well as new developments like Bennetts Associates' New Street Square. Discover this rich slice of the city as it gears up for the changes that Crossrail will bring in 2018.

We walk the slice of Midtown from Holborn to Chancery Lane passing virtually end-to-end regeneration, in various states of readiness, including Woods Baghot’s new Rolls Building, Gaunt Francis Associates refurbished Maughan Library for Kings and a rare new residential block: David Walker's St Dunstan's Court. We take in the new pedestrianised hub around which a mix of LSE accommodation includes its retrofitted Library (Norman Foster) and award winning new build student centre (O’Donnell Tuomey). A spill-over Grimshaw retrofitted former government building nearby heralds further developments for LSE in that direction. But we head south to focus on the developments lining the Aldwych crescent where JRA’s refurbishment of Bush House awaits Kings College students and neighbouring Marconi House (Norman Shaw) has been transformed into apartments attached to Foster’s new Me Hotel. The walk concludes with Insall/Dixon’s homage to William Chamber’s Somerset House courtyard.
This walk starts at Chancery Lane Underground (south side High Holborn exit) and finishes at Somerset House.