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Mayfair was Ian Fleming’s playground. He was born here in 1908 in a house strangely unmarked by a blue plaque. And it was here where he drank and gambled in his clubs. His father was an MP who was killed in the First World War, his grandfather was Robert Fleming the banker who gave…
Read moreTo celebrate our Literary Footprints finale on Friday 31st October, the Footprints of London Guides have chosen their favourite London streets. Here’s what Neil Sinclair says about Hanging Sword Alley If you feel any sense of foreboding or trepidation walking along Hanging Sword Alley, the passageway between Whitefriars Street and Salisbury Court off Fleet…
Read moreHave you ever wondered what it would be like to walk every street in the London A-Z? – A feat none of us Footprint guides has yet accomplished! In Geoff Nicholson’s 1997 Whitbread shortlisted novel Bleeding London that’s what jaded tour guide Stuart London sets out to do, crossing them out in the A-Z as…
Read moreTina Baxter finds some amazing connections between Chaucer and the modern City 25th October 2014 – Anniversary of Geoffrey Chaucer’s death Geoffrey Chaucer died on 25th October 1400 and was buried in Westminster Cathedral in a place now known as ‘Poet’s Corner’, he was the first great literary hero to be enshrined on that spot….
Read moreAlan Fortune poses some questions answered in his Literary Soho walk Which literary figure is this street in Soho named after? She was to have a great influence on Jane Austen. What connection does the New Loon Moon Supermarket have with Britain’s literary heritage? Which writer of both detective stories and theological books has…
Read moreJen Pedler talks about Shepherd Market Today Shepherd Market, just off Piccadilly, is a hidden oasis of pubs, restaurants and up-market shops. In the 1920s it was far less salubrious; a haunt of prostitutes and also home to writers such as Michael Arlen and Anthony Powell who both encapsulated the world of 1920s Mayfair…
Read moreJen Pedler asks where exactly is one of London’s most famous addresses The enigmatic 221b 221b Baker Street must be one of the most famous addresses in the world. It is, of course, fictional but that hasn’t prevented generations of Sherlock Holmes fans from trying to track it down. The blue plaque on the wall…
Read moreHazel Baker explains why Oliver Twist is very far from being a children’s story Many of Dickens’ contemporary critics and reading public feared that novels could be too realistic, and that naïve readers (often female readers) wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between fiction and reality. Especially for a novel like Oliver Twist, which…
Read moreWe have four different walks and a talk featuring Virginia Woolf in the Footprints Literary festival in October, so plenty of opportunity to hear about her life and works. But perhaps one of the oddest stories associated with Virginia Woolf relates to her part in a 1910 hoax perpetrated on the Royal Navy in February…
Read moreFootprints of London Guides Richard Watkins and Steve Pratt talk about their forthcoming new walk about The Great Fire of Westminster One of the paintings featured in the Tate Britain’s current exhibition, “Late Turner: Painting Set Free ”, is The Burning of the House of Lords and Commons 16 October 1834, amongst others on the…
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