Welcome to the February newsletter from Camden Guides, and as usual we have a selection of walks for the coming months, and a reminder that our full programme of walks by our guides is available on our website, reached by clicking here.
This month, we start with:
Gospel Oak – Walking the Suffragette Line
Starting at the western end of the Suffragette Line on the edge of Parliament Hill we see where fields gave way first to Victorian cottages and later to award-winning modernist Council housing.
On our way to Chalk Farm, we discover how the area got it’s name, hear about some runaway elephants and wonder at he “craziest Victorian church in London”, We see where political writer Karl Marx and novelist Buchi Emecheta lived and finish back with the railways at the Roundhouse
This walk takes place on the 16th of February, and can be booked by clicking here.
Barristers, the Bard, and Beyond: Exploring London’s Inns of Court
Step into the heart of London’s legal and literary history with our captivating walking tour, beginning at Holborn and exploring the iconic Inns of Court. Wander through Gray’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, Inner Temple, and Middle Temple, where centuries of legal tradition and stunning architecture come to life. These historic institutions have been the training grounds for barristers and solicitors, shaping the British legal profession since the Middle Ages.
Along the way, you’ll uncover ties to renowned literary figures such as Shakespeare, whose plays were performed here, and Dickens, who wove these Inns into his stories.
This walk takes place on the 21st of February, and can be booked by clicking here.
Historic Workingclass Migrations to London: Irish, Italian, African, Jewish
Working-class migrants, often maligned as ‘economic migrants’, do business, make families, invent objects, bring pleasures, help each other, fight and die together. One old area of central London shows strong and sympathetic traces of the migrations of poorer folk from the late-18th to 20th centuries from near and far, including from within England itself. The walk begins in the Fleet Ditch and works its way uphill through early Italian and Irish settlements in Saffron Hill into areas of more mixing, taking note of Blacks from Africa via the West Indies and ending with Jewish migrations from numerous locations that made Hatton Garden’s Diamond Street. On the weekend you can see traces of old migrations as well as new – it’s clearly still an area favoured for opening new small businesses.
This walk takes place on the 22nd of February, and can be booked by clicking here.
Steam engines to search engines: a guided walk in King’s Cross
Discover the fascinating history of King’s Cross, one of the most successful regeneration project in London, with Elena.
200 years ago King’s Cross was a rather desolate place, marked by brick kilns, rubbish heaps and slums. The arrival of the railways changed the area forever: join Elena’s walk to discover the traces of King’s Cross past – pioneering stations, model dwellings, splendid hotels and many historic building and structures which have been beautifully reimagined and repurposed for 21st century living. Today, King’s Cross is hailed as one of the great success stories of urban regeneration. Come and discover why!
This walk takes place on the 28th of February, and can be booked by clicking here.
A history walk in Hampstead, the quaintest of urban villages
Perched on a North London hilltop, Hampstead has retained the charm of a country village with wisteria covered cottages, atmospheric pubs, cobbled street and a history that goes back centuries. This “urban village” attracted, and continues to attract, artists, actors, writers, musicians and glitterati of all kinds: indulge in a bit of celebrity spotting while walking up and down its quiet streets lined by pretty houses from all architectural eras. It feels a bit like finding yourself on a film set!
We will admire the grand Burgh House, and Fenton House, the oldest surviving mansion in Hampstead. We will be walking in the footsteps of famous thespians, like Dame Judy Dench, bestselling authors like HG Wells and Daphne Du Maurier, and world renowned painters like John Constable, who was inspired by the Heath and painted his view of St Paul’s Cathedral from here. And we will visit a back-to-front church and an old graveyard which is the last resting place of many celebrities.
This walk takes place on the 7th of March, and can be booked by clicking here, and also on the 11th of March, which can be booked by clicking here.
Radical Theatre Kings Cross to Kingsway
This walk explores some of Camden’s rich history of radical theatre over the last 100 years from the propaganda plays of the Actresses Franchise League, through pacifist plays of WW1, agitprop and “alternative” theatre of the 1970s and more. We start at Kings’ Cross and finish near Holborn station.
This walk takes place on the 23rd of March, and can be booked by clicking here.
London’s Sex Industry and the Stage in the Long 18th Century
Charles II lifted the Puritan ban on theatre-going, and by 1700 London was sex-capital of Europe. This walk starts with the stage at a time when all actresses were assumed to be prostitutes and theatres a place for clients to find them. We pass through areas where street-walkers and bawdy houses were closely linked with playhouses, and we hear about high-class masquerades where actress-courtesans like Sophia Baddeley might appear. There are the bawds who kept houses, the women who worked in them, like Sally Salisbury, and Harris’s List, where they might advertise. We hear about homosexual Molly Houses as well as Jelly Houses, Coffee Houses, Bagnios and Masquerades. Links between corrupt government officials and criminals formed the plot of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera in 1728, with its cast of thief-takers, highwaymen, pickpockets and sex workers like Jenny Diver who met in flash houses where they spoke a secret language. The unscrupulous Society for the Reform of Manners tried to close down vice, but things began to change when Social Reformers said women selling sex were victims needing rescue. The walk starts in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and passes through Covent Garden and surrounding streets like Drury Lane, where ordinary folks lived who sold sex – orange-girls like Nell Gwyn, flower girls and patrons of dance halls. The underworld called this red-light area where you might meet thief Jack Sheppard’s partner Edgworth Bess the Hundreds of Drury.
This walk takes place on the 30th of March, and can be booked by clicking here.
A wide selection of walks to show you the varied history of the Borough of Camden.
Our next newsletter will be on the first Saturday in March.