Paul and Tim's Greater London Talks and Walks

Join Tim for a walk through the London of Christopher Wren, the greatest English architect.
After the Great Fire of 1666, the city of London was in ruins. The leading architect of the day, Christopher Wren, proposed a radical reimagining of London of great boulevards and monumental squares. It never happened. Instead he rebuilt the great churches of the City but was forced to follow the existing medieval street plan.
On our walk through the city we will visit ten of his greatest churches. We will look at his inventiveness and skill as an architect but also look at what his churches tell us about the protestantism of the Church of England. We'll also look at why his churches are so important by contrasting them with older architecture.

We meet in the foyer of Citizen M Hotel between 10.45 and 11 for a coffee to start walking at 11. The hotel is right next to Tower Hill station. We end in a welcoming pub near Fleet Street.
Fee is £10, payable cash on the day, by card, through PayPal or bank transfer

Join Tim for a walk round Albertopolis, better know today as South Ken, the world's first artistic quarter. The brainchild of Prince Albert, Victoria's consort, it represented perhaps the peak of Victorian self-confidence at a time when Britain was the world's dominant power and London its greatest city.
We'll look at the Victorians concerns: the links between art and science, technology and design and the power of education to drive progress. In particular we'll look at the weird and wonderful world of Victorian architecture from mock Gothic to mock renaissance and mock baroque. You'll never look at the Natural History Museum in the same way again!
We meet at the Pret opposite South Kensington Tube at 11. I'll be there waiting for you. We'll walk round the neighbourhood looking at all the different styles of architecture before ending in a pub for a meal and a chat.
Fee is £10 payable in cash on the day, by card, through PayPal or bank transfer. Phone number is O7846899156 for emergencies
I’ve reserved 10 spots for those who originally booked a place on this walk. If you were on the list and want to go message me and I’ll reserve a place for you.

photo by Ben Brooksbank.

MEET: 10.45 for tea at Paul 43 Hampstead High Street NW3 1QG
or 11.15 just outside for the start for the walk.

My number is 07815009191, please phone rather than text if you're running late or can't find us.

Hampstead is these days an exclusive village high above the city's sprawl. But it hasn't always been so.

Once the best place to send your washing, it looked snowbound from London with so many sheets out drying.

The spa of the 18th century had no rival and was the most fashionable place on London for a while. Fanny Burney's heroine Evelina came here and turned away men of lowly birth.

We'll visit the only houses on the heath at the Vale of Health, find out why Constable came here, who Marie Stopes lived with and why the village was delivered from cholera.

The walk is circular.

Please pay £12 to my account number 75471878 sort code 090128 or cash on the day.

If you see unpaid by your name just ignore it.

Join Tim on a walk through Soho, Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury in the footsteps of Karl Marx. We'll see where Marx lived and studied; where he wrote the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, two of the most influential books ever published; where his daughter, Eleanor, performed Ibsen with George Bernard Shaw, fell in love with a French revolutionary and lectured with Keir Hardie. We'll see where his children were born, grew up, died and were buried; where Karl agitated, organised and got blind drunk. It's a secret history of a remarkable man and, perhaps, an even more remarkable daughter.
More generally we'll be looking at London in the second half of the nineteenth century; a place of grinding poverty and disease but also of intellectual ferment, awash with political refugees from every country in Europe. We'll be walking through some of the most historic parts of London with a history stretching back over 350 years.
We meet at All Bar One in Leicester Square at 10.45 to start walking at 11 and end in a pub by the British Museum frequented by Karl and Eleanor after a hard day's agitating.
Cost is £10 payable on the day, by card, via PayPal or bank transfer.
Tel: O7846899156