London Bridge City / Hay's Galleria

London Bridge City is an umbrella term describing a handful of adjacent developments that lay between the London Bridge railway terminus and the Thames. As well as London Bridge pier and its adjacent water fountain (which sadly doesn't seem to have been functioning since these pictures were taken) London Bridge City also includes a rather agreeable modern glass office block and an imaginatively converted wharf.

The office block, which I believe is also known as the Cotton Centre, is an eye-catching creation in green-tinted glass. It features a large internal atrium, containing greenery, water features and glass sculptures. Though there is nothing actually to indicate it, there seems to be no objection to the public wandering through and the atrium has occasionally featured minor art exhibitions. There is also an escalator leading down to the lower level of the adjacent Hay's Galleria.

Hay's Galleria is a lovely place. Formerly Hay's Wharf, it is known to have been an unloading bay for ships carrying tea and similar foodstuffs and the Cutty Sark (now housed a few miles downstream at Greenwich) may well have been one of the ships that moored here. The wharf has been converted imaginatively yet simply by filling in the dock and roofing it with glass. The surrounding buildings have been refurbished and turned into shops and bistros, with the internal space landscaped as a piazza and containing a rather interesting dynamic sculpture as its centrepiece. The galleria echoes with birdsong during summer.

The lanes around the site are also interesting, having been paved with setts (rectangular cobbles) as they would have looked originally. The environs of London Bridge City are most fascinating.

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