The author is organising two guided tours on 14 and 15 September 2024, based on her book London’s South Bank as part of Open City Festival 2024. Bookings open on 21 August on the Open City Festival website.
For a long time, the South Bank was perceived as London’s ‘neglected’ bank, where outcasts and rejects from the City of London took refuge and thrived – not always respectably (think drunken taverns and red-light district). The walk will straddle the boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth, offering stark contrasts between high tech architecture (e.g. the Shard) and some of the humble dwellings built by the Victorians to combat the ills of rookeries and poor housing (e.g. the Mint and Redcross Street cottages). The walk will take in two cathedrals, four hospitals, a busy market, a medieval domestic building, a cemetery rumoured to be connected to Bankside’s red district, former slums and mental asylums, and a charitable quarter. The walk will start in Southwark, St Thomas’ Street, outside the Old Operating Theatre and finish in Pearman Street, Waterloo. The last stop, in Pearman Street, will allow us a glimpse inside a Victorian house from the 1870s with a small display of South Bank historic artefacts, refreshments and toilets! This event will last two and a half hours (including tea and cake). This walk is based on Mireille Galinou’s book London’s South Bank – A History and will be conducted by the author. Comfortable shoes recommended.
Outside Cross Bones Yard, Southwark/ The Shard