I found this passage in HV Morton’s ‘In Search of England’ which expresses a common refrain of the topographical writers of his time – that London is no longer London but a metropolis built over the real thing, maybe that’s what people such as myself and Nick and countless others are attempting, to see or at least feel London: ” Of course, no living man has seen London. London has ceased to be visible since Stuart days. It was then possible for the last time in history to stand among the water meadows at Westminster and to see London riding on Ludgate Hill escorted by her church towers and spires. Plantagenet London must have been the best of all the London’s for the purpose of a farewell speech: a city behind its walls, something definite to see and to address. To-day, even if you climb to the dome of St Paul’s you see not London the City State but London the Labyrinth.”