Camomile Street is a short street in the City of London

City of London

The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

. It is a westward continuation of Bevis Marks

Bevis Marks

Bevis Marks, classified as the A1211, is a street in Aldgate Ward in the City of London. Traffic runs northwest in a one-way direction into Camomile Street, and parallel to Houndsditch which runs southeast one-way.-History:...

, linking that street to Houndsditch

Houndsditch

Houndsditch is a street in the City of London that connects Bishopsgate in the north west to Aldgate in the south east. The modern street runs through a part of the Portsoken Ward and Bishopsgate Ward Without...

 and Bishopsgate

Bishopsgate

Bishopsgate is a road and ward in the northeast part of the City of London, extending north from Gracechurch Street to Norton Folgate. It is named after one of the original seven gates in London Wall...

.

The houses on the north side are on the site of the old Wall of London

London Wall

London Wall was the defensive wall first built by the Romans around Londinium, their strategically important port town on the River Thames in what is now the United Kingdom, and subsequently maintained until the 18th century. It is now the name of a road in the City of London running along part of...

, and in excavations made for the foundations of warehouses in the street, a bastion and other portions of the wall have been found, partly of Roman construction. A tablet on the house at the north-east corner of the street marks the former site of Bishopsgate.

There is no indication as to the origin of the name, and the street seems to have been unnamed in Stow

John Stow

John Stow was an English historian and antiquarian.-Early life:The son of Thomas Stow, a tallow-chandler, he was born about 1525 in London, in the parish of St Michael, Cornhill. His father's whole rent for his house and garden was only 6s. 6d. a year, and Stow in his youth fetched milk every...

's time. It suggests that the land immediately within the wall was waste and unbuilt on, and was covered with chamomile

Chamomile

Chamomile or camomile is a common name for several daisy-like plants of the family Asteraceae. These plants are best known for their ability to be made into an infusion which is commonly used to help with sleep and is often served with either honey or lemon. Because chamomile can cause uterine...

, which springs up so readily on all unoccupied land to this day.

On the corner of Camomile Street and Bishopsgate is the Heron Tower

Heron Tower

Heron Tower, also referred to as 110 Bishopsgate, is a skyscraper owned by Heron International in the City of London. It was completed in 2011...

, a 2011 skyscraper which is the tallest in the City of London and second-tallest in Greater London after One Canada Square

One Canada Square

One Canada Square is a skyscraper in Canary Wharf in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is the tallest completed building in the United Kingdom since 1991, standing at above ground level and containing 50 storeys...

.