Monuments & Ruins

Guildhall Roman Amphitheatre

Londinium's amphitheatre, found by accident in 1988, with its full oval traced in the paving of the yard above it.

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Nobody knew where Londinium's amphitheatre was until the foundations for the new Guildhall Art Gallery went in and hit it in 1988. Built in wood around AD 70 and rebuilt in stone in the second century, it held some seven thousand people for gladiators, executions and animal hunts; the Guildhall was later put up on the same ground, which may not be chance. What survives is the eastern entrance and the two small rooms beside it where the fighters and the animals waited, with the timber drain still lying in its channel, shown in the gallery's basement with the seating that is gone drawn around it in green light.

Before you go in, look down. A dark ellipse is set into the paving of Guildhall Yard, and it is the amphitheatre at full size: the arena ran from the gallery door most of the way across the yard. Seven thousand people once sat around that shape, and all of it is under the stones you are standing on.

Where

Guildhall Yard, EC2V 5AE

Nearest station

Bank · 4 min walk

Hours

Hours from the page that lists them, checked 4 September 2026.

The oval in the paving of Guildhall Yard is outside and can be seen at any hour; the amphitheatre itself is reached through the Art Gallery, free.

NearbyMonuments & Ruins

• St Mary Aldermanbury Garden1 min walk
• St Alban's Tower, Wood Street2 min walk
• London Wall at St Alphage3 min walk

NearbyOther Categories

• GuildhallPower & Politics1 min walk
• Guildhall Art GalleryMuseums1 min walk
• Guildhall LibraryLiterary London1 min walk

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