The London street bollards that are old cannons

Stephen Liddell

Nov 28

Wandering around London and indeed many other British coastal cities you might from time to time come across rather strange looking bollards to stop people driving on pavements or generally just closing off areas to make them for pedestrians only.

Plenty though by all means not all are actually old Royal Navy cannons with a ball welded into the mouth of the gun to stop anyone getting ideas of using it themselves for nefarious means.

At one point the Royal Navy had around 1,400 ships and most of these had dozens and dozens of cannons but when iron hulled ships were introduced then a lot of these ships became superfluous and the cannons surplus to requirement.

If you know where to look, they are all over the place and from different eras though many of them are from around the Battle of Trafalgar.

Not all of my tourists quite believe they are cannons. I don't think they are of the opinion that I'm lying because there are far more implausible but true things to see in London but they just don't always seem that convinced.

Whilst walking near London Bridge however I noticed that two such old bollards had been pulled out of the ground in order to allow machinery onsite to demolish post-war building with a much smarter and likely bigger one.

Everyone else was walking by not paying any attention but that's why they aren't guides. People would see a whole lot more if they weren't addicted to their phones. Anyway, there in board daylight were two old cannons and you can clearly see just how massive they are and how much of them are normally buried below the ground.

According to a workman nearby, they had a huge problem getting them out of the ground and he told me I could carry one home with me if I wanted. I did reach other and touch the base of the cannon, perhaps no-one had done so for centuries, maybe not Lord Nelsons day.

I was told that they will be put back in place one day but for now, it is always nice and often rare to have physical proof of some of the things I tell my tourists.