Join Elena Paolini for a historic but fun Christmas walk in charming Hampstead Village. Did you know that the first Christmas card was designed by a Hampstead resident almost 200 years ago? And that the Victorian cookery writer who gave us the first recipe for a "Christmas pudding" is buried in Hampstead? You will hear […]
Step back in time and stroll through the enchanting streets of Bloomsbury with our accredited guides Elena and Ellika. We will bring to life the forgotten stories of a bygone era as we explore the eclectic array of shops and factories that once populated this historic district. From quaint corner stores to opulent emporiums, discover […]
You will probably know lots of bits of the St Giles’ area: Tottenham Court Rd tube, Centrepoint, Shaftesbury Ave, Seven Dials…but you probably don’t know how the area came to be as it is. A fascinating story of ancient roadways meeting, a medieval leper colony, a failed posh residential district, a notorious Victorian slum and […]
London was the destination for communists and anarchists to meet and argue over the form that the coming revolution would take. German anarchists had lived in London since 1848 and came to police attention after assassination attempts on the Tsar of Russia. Lenin knew London well, and the final split between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks […]
Dorothy L Sayers, one of the “golden age” crime writers between the first and second world wars, lived and worked in Holborn and Bloomsbury – as did her alter ego, Harriet Vane and other familiar characters from the novels and short stories. See places from which she took inspiration for her detective fiction; find out […]
Join Elena on a tour of a secret urban cemetery. Step into the historic and atmospheric St. George's Gardens in Bloomsbury, the first Anglican burial ground to be created away from a church in London. Thanks to the efforts of Victorian philanthropists it was transformed into an "outdoor sitting room for the poor" in the […]
Bloomsbury is world-famous for its Georgian garden squares. But today we will venture beyond the most famous squares to discover smaller ones, lesser known but no less charming. Over the last 150 years the University of London has became a significant presence in much of Bloomsbury. Come on this walk to see what is left […]
When the Puritan Protectorate ended in 1660, London's sex industry grew wildly public and was linked to both theatres and the underworld. 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 […]
A historic walk winding either side of the border between Camden and Islington boroughs – also the route of the now-buried River Fleet ‘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. This walk traces […]
Join Elena on a tour of a secret urban cemetery. Step into the historic and atmospheric St. George's Gardens in Bloomsbury, the first Anglican burial ground to be created away from a church in London. Thanks to the efforts of Victorian philanthropists it was transformed into an "outdoor sitting room for the poor" in the […]
A visit around the recently regenerated railway lands. The walk consists of some very interesting ‘firsts’, a lot are transport based, but also about the contrast in the life styles of the inhabitants. The area has recently undergone a massive transformation and is very much a ‘destination’ with so many new companies moving into the […]
You probably know Hampstead as a very attractive area of very posh houses and very famous people. But why is it so lovely to walk around? It's a lot to do with a hill which prevented major roads and any railways being built: so uniquely in London it preserves a Georgian village streetscape. It also […]