The Royal Exchange was established by Thomas Gresham in 1566, following his, and his father's, favourable experiences of the Antwerp Bourse as a place where merchants could arrange credit and loans and so trade effectively.
Elizabeth I officially opened the first Royal Exchange building on 23 January 1571, conferring the 'royal' title and awarding it a licence to sell alcohol and valuable goods. The large central courtyard was the bustling centre of the operation, despite being open to the elements.
The first building was lost in the 1666 Great Fire but replaced by 1669 with a building designed by Edward Jerman. A fire insurance company, Royal Exchange Assurance, was based in this building which is depicted on their insignia. Despite this, another, more localised, fire destroyed the second Royal Exchange building in 1838. The walls of the courtyard in both the first and second buildings, were lined with statues of monarchs in niches.
Prince Albert laid the foundation stone of the third (and last, as of 2025) building on 17 January 1842 and two years later Queen Victoria presided at the opening ceremony (October 1844, either 25th or 28th, accounts differ). This building is by Sir William Tite. The only statues of monarchs erected inside this time were Queen Elizabeth I (the Exchange was founded in her reign), King Charles II (rebuilt in his reign) and Queen Victoria (rebuilt in her reign). The .
The site was enlarged, the portico added to the west face and the courtyard roofed over. If you want to know about the sculpture in the pediment, by Richard Westmacott, son of Richard Westmacott, then is the place to go.
In the late 1980s the roof was replaced and the upper floor added. Renovated again in 2001, the Grade 1 listed building is now mainly occupied by seriously expensive jewellery shops and high end eateries. The plan of the ground floor at shows the ambulatory, or Merchants' Walk, (the arcade around the courtyard) which is now fully occupied by these shops. has (illicit) photos. 2017: visited the building and didn't like it very much.
The best images we have found of the first two Royal Exchange buildings (1571 and 1669) are at the is shown there with a powerful zoom. This shows (from the courtyard) three sides of the 1571 building and all 4 sides of the 1669 building. The drawing of then current building is labelled and there is a key showing which parts of the ambulatory were assigned to which trading regions (e.g. "i - New England, kk - East India, l - Turkey").
has reproduced a splendid 1927 guide to the Royal Exchange ("ladies are not admitted during the chief business hours, 3.30-4 daily and 2-2.30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays"). This states "the wall-panels of the arcades contain paintings, in spirit-fresco, illustrating the development of Commerce, Liberty, and Education and portraits of historic citizens. The electric lights above the paintings are switched on on application at the porter's lodge or to a constable on duty."
The murals, painted in 1892, are by Lord Leighton, Frank Brangwyn, Frank O. Salisbury, Seymour Lucas, C. Goldsborough, Lucy Kemp-Welch, Ernest Normand, A. Chevallier Tayler, Stanhope Forbes, Henrietta Rae (Mrs. Normand), E. A. Cox, J. H. Amschewitz, W. L. Wyllie, Edwin A. Abbey, S. Goetze, W. F. Yeames, Ernest Crofts, S. J. Solomon, Geoffrey Harcourt, A. C. Gow, R. W. Macbeth.
Because of the inserted shops it's now impossible to enjoy, let alone take good photos of these 24 murals. has some closeups. and show them all, clearly photographed before the shops arrived, but they are not great photos, and have no zoom feature. 2016, reported that the murals and the two niche statues were at risk but, 2025, that danger seems to have been averted. 's roving reporter found some statues from the building the one destroyed in the 1838 fire, in the garden of a hotel in Swanage (see Line of monarchs).
There are three statues on the outside the building (Myddelton and Whitington and Gresham) and various others around the building (check our map.) Here is a list of those within the building: in sequence of erection:
- Thomas Gresham - lost
- Line of monarchs - lost
- Charles II by Gibbons - lost
- Sir John Barnard - lost
- Charles II by Spiller
- Elizabeth I
- Victoria - lost (relocated)
- President Lincoln bust
Also, in 'Samuel Pepys: the Unequalled Self' by Claire Tomalin, p 340 there is a reference to a gilded statue of James I: "In the same month he {Pepys} became president {of the Royal Society, December 1684} he was engaged with an ex-president, Christopher Wren, in putting up a gilded statue of the king's grandfather, James I, at the Royal Exchange, commissioned by the Clothworkers' Company and carved by Grinling Gibbons." Philip Ward-Jackson does not mention this statue and we can find no other reference to it.
2025: A salesy information panel concludes: "Under one roof all that is beautiful and stylish is freely available to buy." Do those last 4 words make sense?
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