Walking to Rome: London Six

One last day in London,

chasing persecution and martyrdom

on the London Martyr’s Way

from Tower Hill 

to St. Eltheldreda’s Church.

Around the Gilt of Cain’s

granite columns proclaiming

the abolition of the slave trade. 

Through Postman’s Park

and George Frederic Watts’s Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice:

George Lee Fireman

At A Fire In Clerkenwell

Carried An Unconscious Girl To

The Escape Falling Six Times

And Died Of His Injuries

July 26 1876

Passing Central Criminal Court

(née Newgate Prison and Scaffold).

Through St Sepulchre Without Newgate Church

and its finely displayed Execution Bell. 

Peeling back,

scraping through

a city’s history

from Roman Londinium

to modern gherkins.