A Christmas Walk with Mr Dickens and Mr Pepys #2
SATURDAY 16TH DECEMBER
MEET AT 1115 FOR 1130 DEPARTURE
Liverpool Street station, Bishopsgate exit, top of escalators.
Get into the Yuletide spirit on this festive history walk with a literary flavour. The City was home and inspiration to some of our finest writers - Charles Dickens, Sam Pepys and William Shakespeare, and we'll be exploring their lives, inspirations, and the Christmas traditions celebrated in their eras that have endured to the present day.
After warming ourselves with a mulled wine and a mince pie we'll navigate the City's atmospheric alleyways and some of its most famous sights, ending our illuminating stroll at the festively decorated Leadenhall Market, featured in the Harry Potter movies.
We will:
- see the spot where the young Shakespeare wrote Romeo & Juliet - next to his parish church (which once had a nunnery attached!)
- hear how that man-about-16th-century London, Sam Pepys, spent his Christmas
- hear how Charles Dickens helped to 'invent' Christmas, turkeys and all
- visit the surviving haunts of his most memorable character Ebenezer Scrooge and the ghosts who tormented him...all to stir the conscience of the Victorian middle class
- see the place where the apprentices hung evergreens in defiance of the Puritans' ban on Christmas
- hear about the real Dick Whittington, immortalised in countless ballads plays and pantomime
- end at Leadenhall Market aka Diagon Alley, a favourite haunt of Harry Potter - our most famous contemporary literary sensation.
Walk will be around a mile on the flat, duration c.100 mins. Suggested minimum age 12.
We will end up in a historic pub for a drink/lunch and fine chat!
Email me with any queries :)