On 31st October Footprints of London is hosting an event called Bleeding London – a joint event with the Royal Photographic Society. The event, part of the  Literary Footprints festival combines readings from the 1997 Whitbread short-listed novel, Bleeding London by Geoff Nicholson with a preview of some of the photographs from the most ambitious photo project that the capital has ever seen.

Stuart London, one of the characters in the book Bleeding London, sets himself the goal of walking every street in the London A to Z. Inspired by this, RPS London is challenging Londoners and visitors to follow in the footsteps of Stuart London in 2014 and cover the entire A to Z photographing the 73,000 streets as they go.

Inspired by this the Footprints of London team have been choosing some of their own favourite streets – here’s Of Alley chosen by Stephen Benton

Of Alley (now known as York Place) – see picture. This was part of a group of streets originally developed in the late 1670s on the site of York House just off the Strand. It had been owned by George Villers, Duke of Buckingham and so the streets were named George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street, Of Alley and Buckingham Street. Villers Street and Buckingham Street can still be seen today. The name George survives but as alley called George Court and Duke Street has become part of John Adam Street. Of Alley has been renamed York Place. Here is a map from 1682 showing the area. Of Alley is not named but runs parallel between Duke Street and the Strand.

Stephen’s first walk for Literary Footprints will be Circles, Squares and Triangles – Virginia Woolf in Bloomsbury on 4th October