Wormwood Street is a short street in the City of London which connects London Wall with Bishopsgate and Camomile Street. It is a dual carriageway which forms part of the A1211 road running from Barbican to Whitechapel.
The name refers to a plant called wormwood which used to grow on London Wall and in other areas of wasteland in the City. Wormwood Street's course follows the line of a sector of the original City Wall, the wall forming the rear of the buildings on the north side of the street. It escaped destruction in the Great Fire of 1666, but has since been extensively redeveloped after suffering damage in an IRA bombing in 1993.
Archaeological investigations by the Museum of London Archaeology Service, undertaken during the reconstruction, discovered a coin in the remains of London Wall that caused the date of construction to be reappraised to preceding the year 180.
The nearest London Underground stations are Bank, Liverpool Street and Moorgate. Liverpool Street is also a National Rail station with mainline services to East Anglia and Stansted airport.
Famous quotes containing the words wormwood and/or street:
“a star
called Wormwood rose and flickered, shattering
bent light over the dead boiling up in the ground,
the biting yellow their corrupted lives
streaming to war, denying all our words.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“Baltimore lay very near the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay, and out of the bay it ate divinely. I well recall the time when prime hard crabs of the channel species, blue in color, at least eight inches in length along the shell, and with snow-white meat almost as firm as soap, were hawked in Hollins Street of Summer mornings at ten cents a dozen.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)