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Posts Tagged ‘Dickens London walks’

A Walking Tour of London

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

London walks make a great way to and experience the streets, buildings and hidden places of England’s capital.

There is so much to see and do in London and walks make the ideal way to really get beneath the skin of this fascinating city.

Walks around London can include the ever popular night time Jack the Ripper Tour. This takes place seven chilling nights a week and is both a fascinating and atmospheric tour of London.

Perhaps your interest is more towards the literary aspects of the City? Don’t worry we have several walks that you might find of interest. Although our Literary London walks are currently only for pre-booked groups of 20 plus they make a great way to experience and explore the streets of London following in the footsteps of some of England’s greatest author.

Richard Jones is the author of the acclaimed book Walking Dickensian London, so who better to guide you on a series of Dickens London walks.

Our Blue Badge Guides also lead a series of highly popular tours that can make a great addition to your day in London. How about a Royal London Walk around the old streets of the village St James? Why not let them lead you on your very own private tour around Westminster Abbey or the Tower of London. The cost of one of these great London walks in the company of a fully qualified Blue Badge Guide  is just £165 plus VAT per group plus admissions.

Richard Jones is the also the author of the international best seller Walking Haunted London. He leads  regular Haunted London walks on Friday and Saturday nights which takes in the more sinister sights and aspects of the City. A great way to spend two hours whilst also enjoying a night out that is both spooky and slightly different.

So when you’re looking for a way of exploring London then walks are far and away the best way to really get to know a city that has spent an amazing 2,000 years preparing for your visit.

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A Dickens London walk.

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

When you join Richard Jones on one of his Charles Dickens London walks you are joining the man who wrote the book Walking Dickensian London.

One of the addresses that is covered on this walking tour of Dickens London is 58 Lincoln’s Inn Fields which was, from 1834 to 1856, the home of John Forster (1812–76).

Forster was Dickens’s greatest friend and his first significant biographer. Dickens based Mr Podsnap in Our Mutual Friend (1864–65) on Forster, and later used his house for the residence of Mr Tulkinghorn – legal adviser to Sir Leicester Dedlock and evil blackmailer of Lady Dedlock – in Bleak House.

Dickens was at his lawyer-bashing best when he wrote:

‘The crow flies straight across Chancery Lane… into Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Here, in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr Tulkinghorn. It is let off in sets of chambers now, and in these shrunken fragments of its greatness lawyers lie in maggots in nuts.’

On the 2nd December, 1844 Dickens, who had travelled especially from Italy for the occasion, gave a private reading at Forster’s house from his new Christmas story ‘The Chimes’. The select gathering included Forster, Thomas Carlyle, and Daniel Maclise.

‘There was not a dry eye in the house’, wrote Daniel Maclise to Catherine Dickens, who had remained in Italy. ‘Shrieks of laughter – there were indeed – and floods of tears as a relief to them – I do not think that there ever was such a triumphant hour for Charles… ’

Maclise also did a pencil sketch of the occasion (opposite), showing Dickens seated at the desk, the book open in front of him, surrounded by his enraptured audience.

Forster considered it an accurate depiction of the event, although he did comment that there was a touch of caricature of which he considered himself ‘chief victim.’

A second reading two evenings later was equally successful, and thus were sown the seeds of Dickens forays into amateur theatricals and, according to Forster, ‘those readings to larger audiences by which, as much by his books, the world knew him in later life.’

This is just one location that features on Richard’s Dickens London walks but it really is a Dickensian landmark and a true time capsule of Victorian London.

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The Blitz in London Continued.

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Our report on the night of the 29th December when London was devastated as the Blitz got underway continues. Our London walks blog yesterday ended with the area around St. Paul’s Cathedral going up in flames.

Before the war Paternoster Row had been the centre of the publishing trade in England.

Indeed, back in the Great Fire of London in 1666, when Paternoster Row was burned down for the first time, 500,000 books went up in smoke.

On this evening in December 1940 fifteen million volumes were to make a similar exit. The offices and stores of twenty-seven publishing firms were destroyed.

The employees of the publishing firms were members of St Paul’s fire watch, running on ropes around the cathedral dome hacking out IBs as their own workplaces burned down across the street.

After this night, publishing moved out, mainly to the Bloomsbury area around the British Museum, and has never returned.

By 6.30pm, fire-watchers on St Paul’s were reporting ‘fires out of control’ in the buildings without fire-watchers in the area.

By 6.30pm New Change opposite St Paul’s was a continuous blaze. Carter Lane (covered on our Dickens London walks) to the south of the cathedral was an inferno, and on the cathedral itself the fire-watchers were now using wet sacks to put out flying sparks landing from other conflagrations.

At 6.39pm St Paul’s Fire Watch phoned Cannon Street Fire Station to report that the dome was on fire. This was true but turned out to be no real threat. An IB had punched into the lead of the dome and was blazing away.

The blaze lit up the whole dome and shone through the windows at the base of the drum. The IB was only partially embedded in the lead and its own heat melted the lead, causing it to fall to the floor of the Stone Gallery where it burned on harmlessly.

It was this bomb that gave rise to Ed Morrows’ CBS broadcast to America that night.

Morrow was watching the bombing from the roof of the Press Association building in Fleet Street, and, as was his habit, was holding his microphone aloft to catch the sound of the bombs as they fell around him, conveying a vivid impression to his listeners back home in the States.

Morrow said, ‘And the church that meant most to Londoners is now gone. St Paul’s Cathedral, built by Sir Christopher Wren, her great dome towering over the capital of the Empire, is burning to the ground as I talk to you’. Morrow was understandably wrong.

At the same time Prime Minister Winston Churchill had sent out an order to the London Fire Brigade: ‘At all costs save St Paul’s’. Divisional Officer Cyril Demarne responded, ‘He didn’t need to tell us that’.

Our London walks and the Blitz blog will continue tomorrow.

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Legal London walks - Lord Russell

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

In our previous blog on Saturday evening we told of the events leading up to the execution of William Lord Russell and told which of our London walks feature Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the site of the execution.

We ended by telling how Lord Howard was giving nhis evidence at the trail when news of the death of the Earl of Essex was brought to the court. Pausing in his evidence he announced that he could not continue “till he had given vent to his grief in some tears.”

But he soon recovered and told his story, the gist of which was that Lord Russell had spoken of seizing the King’s guards.

At the outset of the trial Lord Russell was asked if he would like a clerk to take down the evidence for him.

He turned, looked round the court, and then smiled. Facing the judge, he replied, “No, my wife is here.”

Throughout the whole of the proceedings Lady Russell took notes of the evidence.
Pemberton, the prosecuting counsel, opened his case fairly for the prisoner, but appears to have been egged on by Bloody Judge Jeffreys, who browbeat Russell and his witnesses in his best bullying style.

The jury was a “packed” one. They lost no time in bring¬ing in a verdict against the prisoner.

On the morning of July 21st, 1685, Lord Russell was led out to his execution. Arriving at the scaffold, he handed the sheriff a paper with his valedictory statement.

In it he said he thought his sentence “very hard,” and that killing by forms of law was the worst kind of murder.

He made a short address to the spectators, knelt in devotion„ and laid his head on the block “without the least change of countenance.”

It transpired afterwards that Russell might have escaped from prison. Lord Cavendish and the Duke of Monmouth both offered to take his place long enough for him to get away, but he would not let them endanger themselves.

Bishops Burnet and Tillotson and his wife were with him to the last.

Lady Russell lived another forty years, mourning the death of her husband.

Lord Russell was the son of William, fifth Earl of Bedford. Bythe death of his elder brother he became heir to the Earldom. After travelling on the Continent he was recalled home by his father to assist in the restoration of Charles II.

So if you join us for one of our Dickens London walks, or Legal London Walking tours you will most certainly see the spot where this eexecution took place.

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Free Walks In London

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

London walks are a great way to see London and you can really explore the streets of this wonderful city in an in depth and relaxing way on foot.

At Discovery Walks of London we offer a range of guided tours that cost just £7 per person. These include our ever popular Jack the Ripper London walk and our range of haunted London walks - such as the Alleyways and Shadows and the Ghosts, Ghouls and Graveyards Walks of London.

We are the only one of the London walks companies to ask you to book in advance and we do this for a very good reason. By booking you give us the opportunity to know how many people will be coming on the walk. We like to limit our numbers to a sensible and manageable number of around 34 people per guide, so by booking your tour you help us achieve that goal.

But some people enjoy the freedom of exploring London in their own time and at their own pace. We cater to these free-spirited souls by being the only one of the London walks companies to offer a series of free DIY walks.

These range from our hugely popular Harry Potter London Tour, a 27 page booklet that you download print off and follow. To date we have sent out 1700 downloads of this great London walk. If you would like a copy of the PDF please just fill in the quick enquiry form at the top right corner of this page and we’ll aim to send ti to you within 24 hours.

But we also offer a large range of DIY London walks at our sister site www.walksoflondon.co.uk. Here you will find Dickens London walks, Secret City Tours, Chiswick Walks and Docklands step by step London walking tours.

This site was recently featured in an article in the Travel section of the Los Angeles Times that recommended our free London walk around Clerkenwell to readers.

So why not stop by our sister site www.walksoflondon.co.uk and enjoy a whole range of great and free Londonwalks?

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