Mansion House is where the Lord Mayor of London lives so you’d think the security might be tight, but the guard just seemed to stuff our bags through the scanner and wave us through. I had my camera, phone, money and keys, guns, knives and bazooka with me, and the X-ray machine didn’t make a peep. Once you’re through the security (*cough cough*) you have to stand around in a little cloakroom for ten minutes looking at the marble busts of long dead Mayors.
The tour begins in the entrance hall where the guide launches into a very wordy speech which rattles along at steam train pace for the next sixty minutes. Not a lot of people know the history of the Guilds so most of the facts he fires at you are brand new but like a scattergun they come, rat-a-tat-tat, from Magna Carta all the way up to the present day. He covers the building, its history, the aldermen, the art and architects, before finally moving on to the Lord Mayor himself explaining what his role is, and how he came to be elected.
The Lord Mayor of London
Everyone thinks that the Lord Mayor of London is the same guy that operates out of City Hall, but he’s the Mayor of London (Greater London) whereas the Lord Mayor looks after the Square Mile. The Lord Mayor only holds onto his job for twelve months and then he gets booted out so someone else can have a go (if only we had the same rule for our Prime Ministers!), but he does get to live inside Mansion House for that entire time, which is some perk.
State Rooms & Egyptian Hall
Unfortunately you don’t get to see his private apartments upstairs, it’s strictly about the State Rooms. And he only takes you into five of them – but two of them are absolute stunners. You might have seen one of them on the telly already because the Egyptian Hall is where the Chancellor gives his annual address to the City bankers. It’s three storeys tall with a line of Corinthian columns down the side and a minstrel’s gallery running around the top. Marble statues of mythical gods look down from the alcoves and the stained-glass windows tell the history of the City. It’s an amazing space and one of the best rooms in London.
After that comes the boardroom with its collection of Dutch landscapes and dusty old portraits of the Aldermen.
The tour lasted for one hour exactly… but it was a very long hour because most of that was spent standing on the spot listening to the guide talking about the paintings and plasterwork.
If you enjoy this then try Guildhall (you can walk it in 4 mins) and Royal Courts of Justice (walk it in 22 mins or travel from Bank to Temple by tube). Mansion House is in the heart of The City, just over the road from the Bank of England and Royal Exchange
