Destination: England : Well-Connected London : A hideaway on a street with impeccable historic credentials and privileged access to the rest of the city

I never thought I’d find myself in love with a London neighborhood bounded by a hospital, a high-rise complex and a wholesale meat market. But for several years my husband, James, and I have been happily returning to Cloth Fair, a tiny hidden street in the oldest part of London.

We were lured there by the chance to stay at No. 43, a cozy, one-bedroom flat owned for many years by Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984), once Poet Laureate. From this plain Georgian house at Cloth Fair, we have explored corners of that part of London called the “City”--the mainly financial center with the Bank of England, the Stock Exchange, and Lloyd’s--that many tourists never see.

This short street, not far from St. Paul’s Cathedral, has a long and fascinating history. Around the corner is St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, a venerable mish-mash of buildings, courtyards and pedestrian precincts. Bart’s, as Londoners affectionately call their oldest hospital, was once part of the medieval Priory and Hospital of St. Bartholomew. Although it has been rebuilt, the hospital was founded in 1123.

The Priory held the right to stage an annual fair on the feast of their namesake, and by Elizabethan times this fair was one of London’s great events. It is vividly depicted in Ben Jonson’s rollicking comedy, “Bartholomew Fair” (1614). Among the fair’s first participants were members of the cloth trade, headquartered nearby. So Cloth Fair was named for the site where the fair was originally held.

Betjeman’s flat (“ours,” we like to think) is part of a “terrace,” a British term for several connected dwellings, in this case houses built over shops. The Landmark Trust bought the terrace, including Nos. 39 to 45 Cloth Fair, in 1970. Landmark is a charitable organization that rescues intriguing historic buildings, restores them, and then rents them out as holiday flats. Because the Cloth Fair buildings enclose the only house in the City believed to date from before the Great Fire of London (in 1666),it is a special prize in their collection.

Since the 17th century, the “City” has dramatically changed. Some parts within its ancient boundaries--Fleet Street, the Inns of Court, the Old Bailey, the Tower of London--are still landmarks. But skyscrapers tower overhead, and anonymous office buildings have emerged everywhere. Entering Cloth Fair--requiring a very sharp turn from whizzing Long Lane--is like returning, however briefly, to an earlier time. Few cars venture into the narrow, one-way street. Short as it is, it still shelters several pubs and a wine bar, attractive residential flats above dignified offices, and an ancient church and graveyard.

The Landmark Trust handbook notes approvingly: “There is here a lingering feel of how the whole City of London once was before it was destroyed by money, fire and war--a place where long-established institutions, trades, houses and markets were mingled together, all rather too close to each other.”

*

The Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, founded like the nearby hospital in 1123 and considered the oldest in London, sets the quiet tone for the street. From our window we look into its churchyard, with patches of lawn and clumps of bright flowers among old stones.

Like many centuries-old churches, St. Bartholomew’s forcibly reminds its worshippers of a traditional religious theme: the brevity of life amid the eternity of time. One Palm Sunday, James and I joined the small congregation and solemnly marched with the choir around the nave, as everyone sang and waved palm fronds. The gray stone walls and floor oozed damp and age; the pale light from the high windows did little to brighten the dark March morning; and, despite the celebratory procession, we felt as if we were preparing for the gloom of approaching Good Friday.

*

Across the street is Smithfield Market, formally known as the London Central Meat Market. Now that Covent Garden, Billingsate, Spital Fields and Leadenhall all have been re-developed, only Smithfield still provides the hurly-burly of the old open London markets.

Smithfield is a grand Victorian structure with elaborate ironwork and glass-roofed halls. Its stone and brick exterior walls are extravagantly ornamented with arches, pilasters, rosettes and curlicues. Recently repainted, the market’s accent colors--gold, teal blue, scarlet, purple--are startlingly cheerful.

But inside, the colors are quite different. Workers, dressed in white jackets and aprons, are spattered with bright red blood. They hurry back and forth, shouting and calling to each other with friendly dispatch. Rows of carcasses--a duller red streaked with cream-colored fat--hang in stalls that line the long hall. White enameled overhead lights shine onto gleaming metallic tables and knives, also splashed with blood. If the Smithfield Market were a museum, it would be full of Breughels.

Once we turn east from Cloth Fair, our neighborhood takes on the very different dimension of cosmopolitanism and culture. A few minutes’ walk down Long Lane, looms the Barbican, a modern concrete behemoth of residential high-rises and low-rises, connected by terraces, courtyards, stairways and tunnels. Begun in the 1960s and finally completed in 1982, the Barbican is either--depending on one’s view--a masterpiece of urban planning or an inhumane labyrinth.

We have become quite fond of the Barbican. Its vast public courtyards, reached by stairways from street level, are landscaped with shrubs, flower beds and benches. Few people ever seem to use these open spaces. When we walk onto an empty courtyard, I have to resist the urge to run and shout and wait for echoes.

At its heart is the Barbican Centre, literally stacked with the arts. Its 10 floors include a large concert hall that houses the London Symphony Orchestra, two theaters where the Royal Shakespeare Company performs, movie theaters, a roomy art gallery, a library and various auditoriums.

Given its daunting size and sleek modernity, the Barbican Centre is a surprisingly pleasant place to hang out. Several restaurants and cafeterias provide meals, which we sometimes take outside to the awning-shaded tables on a plaza overlooking a two-acre ornamental lake and fountains.

When it rains, we can visit the Barbican Conservatory. Surprisingly little known, this huge indoor garden holds towering palm trees, bougainvillea, ponds with exotic fish, a small aviary, and countless tropical and desert flowers.

At the end of an afternoon, we often stroll over to the Barbican for one of its free concerts. These “Performance Platforms” are held daily, except Mondays and Tuesdays, either between 12:30 and 2 p.m., or between 5:30 or 6 and 7 p.m. If early enough to find seats, we sink blissfully into one of the cushiony sofas or chairs scattered around the cavernous foyer. (At crowded Platforms, some have to sit on the carpet.) On a small stage along one wall, soloists or small groups perform Bach, jazz, folk, big-band music, etc. People saunter through the foyer, sometimes oblivious to the music. Others on nearby sofas chat in low voices, sip cocktails or eat sandwiches.

*

Although we can’t see it from our windows on Cloth Fair, St. Paul’s Cathedral dominates our neighborhood. Its famous dome no longer rises commandingly above the City, since ugly postwar office blocks now clutter the skyline. But St. Paul’s is still there, an implicit part of the landscape, as integral to London as the Empire State Building is to New York.

Ever since architect Christopher Wren designed the suitably grand replacement for an earlier St. Paul’s destroyed by the Great Fire, this has been England’s unofficial national church. It is the recognized venue for state occasions, such as Winston Churchill’s funeral and Charles and Diana’s wedding. St. Paul’s is our landmark and point of reference. “Cloth Fair is just north of St. Paul’s,” we explain to friends, and immediately they know where we stay.

Our first night in London, James and I always walk from Cloth Fair to stand in front of a silent, sleeping St. Paul’s. Looking up at the floodlit dome floating imperturbably in the night sky, I breathe a sigh of acknowledgment and relief. Nothing is permanent, but St. Paul’s comes close.

A Choral Matins, a service almost entirely sung by a boys choir, is a wonderful way to experience the cathedral. One rainy Saturday morning we apologetically jostled our way through the crowds waiting to pay admission into St. Paul’s. “We’re here for Matins,” I said to the guard. He beckoned us in and pointed us toward a small group--perhaps 30 people--who were seated just below the great dome. There, while the tour groups waited behind the ropes, we sat for an hour, caught up by the high clear voices leading us through a soaring Anglican service of prayer and praise.

Cloth Fair is also our gateway to the Thames. Heading south, past St. Paul’s and several office buildings, we reach stairs leading down to a riverside pedestrian walkway. This path, “Paul’s Walk,” continues to the Blackfriars Bridge and then onto the Victoria Embankment. Since traffic is diverted above, the walkway is quiet and offers unobstructed views of the surging gray river.

*

Though our little street is sequestered, it is surprisingly well-connected. A brisk half-hour hike east, takes us to the Tower of London; the National Theatre is half an hour south. Just a few blocks away is the imaginative Museum of London, illustrating the city’s history with lavish displays and multimedia shows.

The Museum of London is in turn part of the London Wall Walk. This new second-story paved outdoor walk links many buildings like a continuous footbridge. Its stairs lead to the Barbican, Guildhall and other important sites--including sections of the 3rd century Roman Wall. In the City, it is only a few steps from skyscraper to antiquity.

For shopping, we stock up on groceries in a Safeway supermarket in Whitecross Street. I even pick up my souvenirs there--British biscuits, shortbreads, chocolate, jams and soaps. An outlet of Cranks, the celebrated natural-foods restaurant and bakery, sells fresh whole-grain bread on the other side of Smithfield Market. Dillon’s, London’s biggest chain of bookstores, has a small branch in the Barbican. A little shop a few yards from our door sells morning papers and fresh-cut sandwiches. Books, bread, the London Times--what more could we want?

Although the City is not known for fine restaurants, all those well-heeled merchant bankers have to eat somewhere. Cloth Fair’s pubs, wine bar and small eateries offer informal dining as good (or bad) as anywhere in London. Rudland & Stubbs, an old-timer, specializes in fresh fish and draws well-tailored suits to its dark, utilitarian room in Greenhill Rents, around the corner from Smithfield Market.

Recently, upscale restaurants have begun to open in the neighborhood. Stephen Bull’s Bistro, on St. John Street, a few minutes’ north from Smithfield Market, attracts the sort of jaded gourmets who warm to escabeche of red mullet with spiced aubergine or deep-fried sardines in chickpea batter with saffron dressing. St. John on the same street, is perhaps even more modish. Its chilly black-and-white minimalist interior is a showcase for such dishes as pigs’ cheek with stuffed duck’s neck and sausages, boiled bacon collar and peas, and grilled ox tongue with potato.

Though possibly harbingers of a newly fashionable atmosphere, Stephen Bull’s or St. John’s are unlikely to change the Cloth Fair neighborhood much. St. Paul’s will remain; so will St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield Market, the Barbican, the London Wall, and the whole complex of ancient and modern structures that comprise the City.

Best of all, Cloth Fair itself will continue to welcome us with a secluded street of shops, offices and historic houses that the milling crowds in Oxford Street, Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square will never know.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK: My Fair London

Getting there: British Air, American, United, Delta and Virgin Atlantic offer nonstop flights to London from LAX, starting at $647 round trip, advance ticket purchase.

Where to stay: The flat at 43 Cloth Fair sleeps two; an adjacent flat at 45A Cloth Fair sleeps four. For rental information on these and other Landmark Trust apartments, contact: The Landmark Trust, Shottesbrooke, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 3SW; telephone 011-44-162-882-5925 or fax 011-44-162-882-5417; U.S. office is at RR1, P.O. Box 510, Battleboro, VT 05301; tel. (802) 254-6868.

Rentals begin at about $700 for a week’s stay at 43 Cloth Fair through April, about $900 for 45A Cloth Fair; a three-night weekend stay in the summer could cost about $590 for No. 43, $650 for 45A. Three-day minimum stay; weekday prices slightly lower. Flats are furnished, with complete kitchens; linens provided. A handbook listing Landmark properties , with floor plans and photographs, costs $19.50, including postage, from the Vermont office.

Where to eat: Stephen Bull’s Bistro & Bar, 71 St. John St., EC1; dinner with wine about $45-$50; tel. 011-44-171-490-3127. St. John, 26 St. John St., EC1; dinner with wine about $20; tel. 011-44-171-251-0848.

For more information: British Tourist Authority; 551 Fifth Ave., Suite 701, New York, NY 10176; tel. (800) 462-2748. London Tourist Board, Liverpool St., Underground Station, EC2M 7PN, London, England; tel. 011-44-171-824-8844.

--S.A.T.