Welcome to the March listing of walks by Camden Guides for March 2026, where we start with:
Dodging the Blitz: Bloomsbury Second World War Novels
Graham Greene’s End of the Affair and the Ministry of Fear are directly taken from his wartime experiences and love affairs in Bloomsbury as an air raid warden. Elizabeth Bowen and Muriel Spark are other writers who transposed war time events into their literary output. Pat Barker and Sarah Waters have used the period and location brilliantly in recent novels to emphasise the female experience of war. This walk highlights important events which formed the basis of these novels, and looks at some of the main landmarks of the Blitz in Bloomsbury.
This walk takes place on the 5th of March and can be booked by clicking here.
Music and Revolution in Camden Town
Camden Town has been a hotbed of musical scenes and counter-cultures for over 50 years!
But where did it get the grit and charm that has inspired so many musicians and writers? From open fields to steam and stench, industrial powerhouse to drinkers paradise, and from radical thinkers to musical rebellion – what is it that put this tiny area of Camden Town on the global stage and spawned cultural movements that changed the world? Join me as we look beyond the t-shirt stands and souvenir stalls to discover the places where counter cultures were born and musical history was made. Find out how Camden Town became the beating heart of Rock, Punk, Britpop and beyond! The tour will naturally end in one of Camden’s fine pubs where you can soak up the atmosphere and find some inspiration of your own.
Conrad’s Secret Agent and Anarchism in Fitzrovia
Explore the anarchist circles in London through the eye of Joseph Conrad in his Secret Agent, based on true events
Conrad’s The Secret Agent cast a critical eye over London at the end of the nineteenth century when the capital was home to a series of revolutionary anarchist groups. They had come to police attention following royal pressure after the assassination of the Tsar of Russia. The Secret Agent, Verloc, in Conrad’s novel is a double agent, blackmailed to commit an outrage which ends in family tragedy. The death of Stevie, Verloc’s son in law, is closely based on a real anarchist explosion near the Greenwich Observatory in 1894
This walk takes place on the 9th of March and can be booked by clicking here.
Women Who Broke the Rules: Bloomsbury Walking Tour
A guided walk led by Elena Paolini, Camden and City of London guide, to celebrate Women’s History Month
Bloomsbury, a hotbed of radical ideas, has always attracted women who refused to conform. This Women’s History Month, we will walk in the footsteps of suffragists who demanded the vote, women doctors who fought to practise medicine, artists who defied expectations, reformers and pioneers who transformed women’s education. As home to the 200 year old University of London, the first secular university in Britain to admit women in 1878, Bloomsbury nurtured thinkers who challenged conventions and changed the world. From political rebels to medical mavericks, this walking tour celebrates bold women who refused to think – or live – inside the box.
This walk takes place on the 10th of March and can be booked by clicking here.
Happy 200th birthday to UCL! A medical walk round Fitzrovia
Meet opposite one of London’s finest hospitals and end at the chapel of a rival hospital that has been razed to the ground. Learn about the medical discoveries at University College Hospital and at the now extinct Middlesex Hospital on the other side of Tottenham Court Road. We’ll talk about the discovery of the hormone aldosterone, early identification of HIV, novel cancer therapies and some of the amazing characters who have shaped the practice of medicine over the past 200 years.
This walk takes place on the 11th of March and can be booked by clicking here.
MADNESS The Nutty Camden Walk
Conducted by official Camden Tour Guide and Madness fan Frank K Molloy, this walk explores the story of Madness, the ever-popular UK band. This year, they are celebrating 50 years since the first Nutty sound developed into an enduring musical legacy. So join us as we go One Step Beyond in commemorating a national treasure.
It’s incredible to think that the first seeds of this band were planted way back in 1976, when early members got together in a north London house with the idea of making music. But how did they originate? Who were their influences? And how did that famous ‘Nutty Sound’ evolve?
Your guide will provide the answers by leading you through the various locations around Camden Town. These were the stomping grounds of Madness during the 1970s and 80s, and we will also examine why these streets became so inspirational to their music.
The first walk takes place on Sun Mar 15, 2026, at 10:30am from outside Chalk Farm Underground Station. It will take approximately two hours and finish about 12:30pm close to Camden Town Underground. This walk is limited to ticket holders who have booked through Eventbrite only. Further walks are scheduled later in 2026.
This walk takes place on the 15th of March and can be booked by clicking here.
The Trollopes of Bloomsbury
Both Anthony Trollope and his mother Fanny were prolific and successful writers.
Anthony, born in Bloomsbury is best known for the Barchester Chronicles and Paliser novels where Cathedral towns and country houses often overshadow the place of Bloomsbury. But this area which “cannot be called fashionable” and is “not much overlooked by nobility” offers lodgings and temptation to young clerks like Johnny Eade and affordable accommodation for impoverished women like Lady Anna.
Join Sue to follow the links between Anthony Trollope’s own life as a civil servant at the Post Office, his fiction with its Bloomsbury locations and the influence of Fanny Trollope’s writing on her son’s work.
This walk takes place on the 23rd of March and can be booked by clicking here. A second date is on the 29th of March, which can be booked by clicking here.
Our next newsletter will be on the first weekend of April, and the listing of walks is updated on our website during the month, click here for the list.