Ghosts of the medieval street plan, ancient rights of way and underground rivers under the city streets
7.00pm Thursday 26th September 2024
Visitors and Londoners alike are often baffled / enchanted by the extraordinary labyrinths of alleys, byways & courts that thread through the older parts of the the city. Explore them with two of our most knowledgeable London experts.
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And London's historic alleyways don't end in the Square Mile. Londonist's MATT BROWN akes us on a tour of some of the more unusual snickelways of the wider city, beginning with the oldest of all on Borough High Street. Angel Place is an alleyway which ran alongside the walls of the Marshalsea -the notorious prison where Charles Dickens' father was imprisoned for debts to a baker in 1824, and we'll discover an alley or two that doesn't really exist, peculiar names aplenty, and the tightest squeeze in town.
Using newly colourised maps, Matt will also explore the past, present and future of London's shortcuts.
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PETE SMITH is a Devon-born academic who has lived in London since the age of ten. Since retiring as Head of English and Dean of Arts at Brunel University (a job he describes as very like managing the salad bar at Smithfield Meat Market), he has reinvented himself as a City of London and City of Westminster guide and freelance lecturer.
MATT BROWN is editor-at-large of Londonost and chief pilot of Londonist: Time Machine, a popular newsletter about London history (with a penchant for colouring in old maps)
Self described as 'probably the most London-obsessed person in the world, reaching parts of the capital others can’t reach', he is the author of 12 books, including London Night and Day (2015), Everything You Know About London Is Wrong (2016), and the bestselling/award-winning Atlas of Imagined Places (2021)
