The Guildhall Art Gallery - Romans and Pre-Raphaelites!

As befits a building housing the art collection of the Corporation of London, the Guildhall Art Gallery is seriously swanky. Even the entrance is cutting edge. The curved doors open, you step inside and wait while the doors close behind you. If you pass muster, the doors in front of you open and you can step through into the inner sanctum.

What happens if you don't pass muster, I don't know.

If you have a bag, it has to be screened, giving the gallery lobby the air of a small airport. Such is the culture of security in the twenty-first century.

Once inside, though, there's a treat in store. A treat made all the more intriguing by its low profile. The Guildhall Art Gallery gets rave reviews, yet it is rarely over-crowded. My visit coincided with its re-opening after a £600,000 renovation, and it looks in great shape. The pictures have been re-hung in appropriately Victorian fashion, the main gallery displaying paintings in double rows, their grand golden frames enhanced by the dark green walls.

The gallery owns around 4,500 works of art, and only has room to display some 250 pieces, which are frequently rotated. I was glad to see that some of my favourites were on show - Dante Gabriel Rossetti's La Ghirlandata, and the pair of paintings by John Everett Millais of his daughter. The first, My First Sermon shows her in church, alert and serious. Its companion, My Second Sermon, shows her slumped over in her pew, fast asleep.

The Corporation of London began collecting art shortly after the Great Fire of London of 1666. Today it is most famous for its Victorian paintings, which include a significant number of Pre-Raphaelite works. This would coincide with the opening of the first gallery in 1885, in keeping with the prevailing trend for galleries and museums in the Victorian period.

The gallery lasted until World War Two, when it was destroyed in an air raid in May 1941. A temporary gallery was built after the war, but this was never going to be satisfactory. The Corporation decided on a new gallery in the 1980s, which would be built adjacent to the ancient Guildhall. It was during building work that the history of this part of London was pushed back even further.

Archaeologists had taken the opportunity to investigate the site in advance of the new building and in so doing they found the remains of London's Roman amphitheatre. The developers had to adjust their plan to incorporate the remains into the foundations of the new gallery, to the eternal delight of archaeology geeks like me.

The amphitheatre dates to around 70AD. In Guildhall Yard, a curving line of dark slate traces the extent of the building, and always makes me smile. Where else can you see the Pre-Raphaelites and a Roman amphitheatre in the same building?

The Guildhall Yard and a section of the slate outline of the Roman amphitheatre

The Corporation of the City of London also holds an extraordinary archive going back to the eleventh century. Some of its gems are now on display in the Heritage Gallery. 2015 being the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, pride of place goes to the Corporation's copy, dating to 1297. It is the only copy to retain its complete seal. It will be going on tour, but should be back at Guildhall during the summer.

Entry to the Guildhall Art Gallery is free, so there's no excuse not to go! Check out their website Guildhall Art Gallery for more information.