Welcome to our newsletter for June 2025, with walks for the coming months that explore the history of the borough, starting with:
The River Fleet from King’s Cross to Farringdon
This walk traces the route of the now-subterranean River Fleet, which also marks the border between today’s Camden and Islington boroughs. ‘Beating the Bounds’ around the borders between parishes, land ownerships and similar is an ancient tradition, where the boundary was literally paced out and marked with stones each year. Our route also explores nearby signs of previous boundaries of parishes, vestries, water conduits and historic landowners.
Along the way, we’ll see varied architecture from pretty Georgian and Victorian terraces to old burial grounds, narrow passages that were once slums and restored industrial buildings; see if we can spot historic boundary markers; meet mediaeval monks, Tudor and Victorian philanthropists, a dynasty of 19C architects and builders; and hear of lost wells and pleasure gardens.
Disgraceful Women of Old St John’s Wood
This walk begins 200 years ago in St John’s Wood, where family arrangements routinely diverged from Victorian rules of respectability. What did it mean to be a Kept Woman? Was it only disreputable or an act of shameful immorality? Some mistresses were movers and shakers, like Harriet Howard who financed the return of Louis Napoleon to the French throne. Novelist George Eliot lived placidly for many years with someone else’s husband, not far from a brothel where sex workers were known as laundresses. A bigamous Agapemonite minister lived with multiple rich unmarried female followers. All this took place in a suburb built with high walls and thick trees to ensure privacy and discretion.
We walk south into Lisson Grove, considered a Victorian slum, where journalist WT Stead staged a scandal he called The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, when he bought Eliza Armstrong from her mother to prove it could be done. Come on this walk to consider scandals of 200 years ago that might sound familiar today, and at the same time join up two neighbourhoods you never thought about together before
This walk takes place on the 7th of June, and can be booked by clicking here.
Primrose Hill and the Navvies Who Built Canals and Railways
The neighbourhood radiates brilliant industrial solutions of Victorian engineers, but who built it? This walk puts hard-living navvies at the centre of the story and tells how the area developed in the face of the railway’s soot and smoke. The walk follows a beautiful stretch of the Regent’s Canal, and from the top of the famous hill you have superb views over London. You’ll see railway landmarks as well as the artists’ studios and pastel-painted streets that came later, in one of which lives Paddington Bear. Primrose Hill cherishes a high street largely free of chain shops and numerous good pubs. It’s all minutes from Camden Market but feels miles away.
This walk takes place on the 14th of June, and can be booked by clicking here.
Secrets of St. Giles: a walk through London’s infamous past
Join Elena to discover the fascinating history of St. Giles.
We will delve into the darker chapters of London’s past as we uncover the secrets of this infamous neighbourhood.
We will wander through the alleys where tales of poverty and crime once echoed (Dickens will get a mention or two, of course…) and discover the remnants of centuries-old buildings that bear witness to St Giles’ tumultuous history.
As we wind our way from the ancient church built on the site of a leper colony to the site of the infamous rookeries and gallows, now replaced by some of the most striking modern architecture in London, we’ll talk music, pubs, executions and developers’ greed. There is something for everyone!
This walk takes place on the 15th of June, and can be booked by clicking here.
Steam engines to search engines: a guided walk in King’s Cross
100 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 19th of June, and can be booked by clicking here.
Cold Comfort Farm in Highgate
Discover the life of Stella Gibbons, who published over 20 novels as well as Cold Comfort Farm, her first novel, which achieved widespread success and is a satiric classic. She lived on the Holly Lodge Estate, Highgate, which had been built on land once owned by Angela Burdett-Coutt. John Betjeman and J.B. Priestley lived nearby, both of whom wrote about single professional women making their own way, often in flats like those on Holly Lodge Estate- described as Tudor towers visible on the Highgate landscape.
This walk takes place on the 21st of June, and can be booked by clicking here.
Historic Holborn
High Holborn was originally a westward path up from a crossing over the River Fleet, leading through green fields and connecting the mediaeval City to Westminster. The areas to either side featured bishop’s palaces, the first church of the Knights Templar, legal inns and ancient markets. Later, smart residential enclaves developed, then coaching inns, industry, jewellery and diamond trades thrived, followed by extreme poverty and slums, contrasted with Victorian temples of commerce.
More recent rejuvenation now sits by side by side with much of the old fabric of the area, including several Grade I listed buildings. We explore them all on this wander through the alleyways and green spaces at the south-east boundary of today’s Camden borough.
This walk takes place on the 6th of July, and can be booked by clicking here.
Our next newsletter will be on the first Saturday in July, and we will be continuing the Camden at 60 series of blog posts during June.