London Month of the Dead - A Guided Tour around Tower Hill

BLOOD, FIRE AND PESTILENCE A Guided Tour Round Tower Hill with Pete Smith Saturday 30th September 2023 at 11 am & 2 pm London prides itself on its history and no area hosts more of that than the grisly environs of the Tower of London. The Tower, founded by William the Conqueror after his invasion of England to assert control over the defiant locals, stands as the epitome of that rich and ominous past. Pete Smith’s walk will take us from the crypt of All Hallows by the Tower, via the dreadful execution site on Tower Hill, to the overcrowded graveyard of the church Dickens called ”Saint Ghastly Grim”, before heading east to take in a vast plague pit and a Jack the Ripper killing ground. Looping back to the area where Samuel Pepys witnessed both the start and the finish of the Great Fire of London, its route follows a trail of war, murder, terrorism, pestilence, persecution and retribution, from IRA bombings and Hitler’s firestorm to a monument to killer mice. It ends opposite the aptly named “Hung, Drawn & Quartered” pub by which time you may be in need of a restorative pint of London Pride. Tickets £12 including a 20% donation to Tower Hamlets Cemetery. Please click here to purchase. Pete Smith is a Devon-born academic who has lived in London since the age of ten. Since retiring as Head of English and Dean of Arts at Brunel University (a job he describes as very like managing the salad bar at Smithfield Meat Market), he has reinvented himself as a City of London and City of Westminster guide and freelance lecturer. Image credit - The Execution of Lady Jane at Tower Greeen by George Cruikshank circa 1840. Grey Public domain image sourced from Victorian Web.

BLOOD, FIRE AND PESTILENCE
A Guided Tour Round Tower Hill with Pete Smith
Saturday 30th September 2023 at 11 am & 2 pm

London prides itself on its history and no area hosts more of that than the grisly environs of the Tower of London. The Tower, founded by William the Conqueror after his invasion of England to assert control over the defiant locals, stands as the epitome of that rich and ominous past.

Pete Smith’s walk will take us from the crypt of All Hallows by the Tower, via the dreadful execution site on Tower Hill, to the overcrowded graveyard of the church Dickens called ”Saint Ghastly Grim”, before heading east to take in a vast plague pit and a Jack the Ripper killing ground. Looping back to the area where Samuel Pepys witnessed both the start and the finish of the Great Fire of London, its route follows a trail of war, murder, terrorism, pestilence, persecution and retribution, from IRA bombings and Hitler’s firestorm to a monument to killer mice. It ends opposite the aptly named “Hung, Drawn & Quartered” pub by which time you may be in need of a restorative pint of London Pride.

Tickets £12 including a 20% donation to Tower Hamlets Cemetery. Please click here to purchase.

Pete Smith is a Devon-born academic who has lived in London since the age of ten. Since retiring as Head of English and Dean of Arts at Brunel University (a job he describes as very like managing the salad bar at Smithfield Meat Market), he has reinvented himself as a City of London and City of Westminster guide and freelance lecturer.

Image credit - The Execution of Lady Jane at Tower Greeen by George Cruikshank circa 1840. Grey Public domain image sourced from Victorian Web.