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This coming weekend I'll be starting my new regime of Weekend London Walks, including some entirely new adventures in parts of London I've not previously covered on group 'pay what you want' walks. This coming Sunday (3rd July) at 3pm I'll be doing my inaugural 'Holborn, Clerkenwell & Smithfield' tour, so thought I'd write a brief post describing a little bit about what you can expect. Holborn If you've been on walks with me before you'll know I'm quite keen on the etymology of words and place names, so we'll talk about 'Chancery' (we'll meet outside Chancery Lane underground station) and the legal 'Inns' that used to be in the area. We'll meet right by the impressive Staple Inn, a black and white Tudor building which is still standing and dates back to 1585. We'll pass by the gothic Victorian Holborn Bars, which was once Furnival's Inn, where Charles Dickens lived when he began writing the Pickwick Papers. We'll move on to Hatton Garden, today, London's 'jewellery quarter', once London residence of the Bishop's of Ely from the 13th century and part of which was grant to Christopher Hatton in the 16th century. We'll pass through a little alley way to discover a lovely little pub, Ye Olde Mitre, the origins of which date back to 1546 and a delightful little church which has managed to survive from the reign of Edward I (1272 - 1307). From there we'll move on to Smithfield.      Smithfield Smithfield has an intriguing, gruesome and varied history as a jousting ground, the site of a yearly fair which began in the 12th century, St Bartholomew's Hospital and a monastery founded in 1123, part of which the church of St Bartholomew-the-Great survives today, a meat market which has been on the site for 900 years and amongst other things ...executions. Queen Mary I ('Bloody Mary' had over 200 Protestants executed there, many of whom were burned at the stake. Perhaps the most famous execution at Smithfield was Scottish patriot William Wallace in 1305. We'll pass by the 'oldest house in London', walk over a Black Death burial site, stop outside another ancient monastery, which gets used regularly as a film set and currently houses about 45 'brothers'. We'll also talk about the meat market and its changing fortunes over the years before heading on to Clerkenwell.      Clerkenwell There was another 12th century monastery in Clerkenwell, parts of which still survive today, not just physically, but in an organisation that everyone will be very familiar with. We'll pass through the Tudor gatehouse and by the old Norman church to Clerkenwell Green which features in Charles Dickens 'Oliver Twist' and take a look at some of the buildings, old and new. At the end we'll go in search of the original 'Clerk's Well' which gives its name to the area.   Please Note - This walk might change a bit. The purpose of this blog post is to just give you a taster of what you can expect.
This weekend on Sat 2nd July I'll also be doing 'The Great Fire' walk, 'Around St Paul's cathedral' and 'Fleet Street'. If you'd like to join the walk listed here, or any of my other walks, please book first, by sending me a message via the Contact Form. Thank you.
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If you've ever been down (or up) Clerkenwell Road, you would have passed a big gate way just up the hill from Farringdon Road, and if you'd spied it, would have probably thought 'Jeepers ... that looks like it's straight out of a film set ... of a period film of some sort ... like a film that's set ages ago, maybe one that Cate Blanchett's in.' You would be quite correct in this assumption, because it's been there since 1504 and for me is just the tip of the iceberg. The metaphorical iceberg is formed of the rich history of the area that has so many stories, so many facets and such a wide reach spanning centuries, that to write about it here would do it an injustice. Instead, I shall furnish you with a few bits of information and leave it up to you whether you visit or not. Oh yes, the gate is called St John's Gate and looks like this. 
St John's Gate - Clerkenwell
So, in an unsatisfactory nutshell ... up until the point when Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church and began taking away land that belonged to them (often referred to as the Dissolution of the monasteries) much of London (and the rest of the country for that matter) was dotted with huge swathes of land that belonged to various monastic orders. The area around Clerkenwell belonged to the Order of St John, the Hospitallers, whose origins date back to the late 11th century in a role caring for pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem. The gate I just mentioned was a later addition, which lead in to a Priory that included a couple of large halls, dormitories, buttery, refectory, counting house, kitchen, stables, orchards, gardens, fish ponds and unusually for a monastic precinct, an armoury (those pilgrimages often got violent). After the Dissolution, I think Henry VIII used the Priory as a store house before giving it to his daughter Mary, who used it as a private palace. The Order of St John, the Knights Hospitallers, had an unexpected renaissance in the 19th century, when it became apparent that there was little or no provision for the aid of injured people in civilian life, particularly those succumbing to fatal injuries in the work place, at public events or indeed at home. For this reason, in 1877, the St John Ambulance Association was founded, continuing the same ethos that the original order begun, all those centuries earlier. As you know, St John Ambulance still very much exists today, continuing to carry out what the Victorian's called rather aptly 'Ambulance Crusades'. You can uncover this fascinating history over two sites. St John's Gate houses a museum (free to enter, and free to exit) detailing all of this stuff, and if you cross over the road you will find hiding beneath the facade of a reasonably modern building, the 12th century Priory crypt, one of London's few remaining Norman structures along with another small museum, garden and church, which was rebuilt after being completely destroyed in WWII. Also, just as an aside, William Hogarth (well known pictorial chronicler of debauched 18th century London) lived for 5 years in the east tower of St John's Gate, as his father ran a coffee shop there. Samuel Johnson wrote parliamentary reports there long before anyone approached him with the idea of compiling a dictionary, Charles Dickens visited the Jerusalem Tavern which popped up there in 1760 (of course he did) and the west tower currently houses one of the few remaining Tudor spiral staircases in England (although you can only see this if you join one of their tours at 11am or 2.30pm on Tuesdays, Fridays or Saturdays). Also, if that's not enough name dropping, in the 16th century, the Priory housed the office of the Master of Revels (which sounds like a pretty cool job) responsible for licensing and organising all court entertainments and plays, and 30 of William Shakespeare's plays were licensed there. 
St John Priory - Rebuilt Church
St John Priory (Clerkenwell) - 12th Century Crypt
St John Priory - 12th Century Crypt
St John Priory - Cloister Garden
The museum is open from Monday to Saturday (10am - 5pm), so if you're in the area or work nearby then why not pop in.
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