One of Rob Smith’s series of walks along the Thames going East, this Guided Walk takes us from Rainham where we'll visit the gardens of Rainham Hall - a house built by a ship’s captain who operated his shipping fleet from the village when it was a busy port – before crossing the site of a former military training camp until we reach the Thames, where we'll look at the history of industry in the area. Then it is a peaceful stroll along the Thames through an area that is now an RSPB nature reserve but once rattled to the sound of machine gun fire. The walk ends in Purfleet which used to be a popular destination for day trippers and Dracula!
Guide: Rob Smith
Meet at Rainham Station, Ferry Lane, London RM13 9HY
There’s so much more to Walthamstow than just its famous mile-long Market. The grand tombs in St Mary’s Churchyard offer a bit of a clue. Starting at the teenage home of William Morris, later home to publisher Edward Lloyd, who brought to us the tale of Sweeney Todd, and today home to the William Morris Gallery, this Guided Walk takes in a set of mews built by a local butcher/property developer, a theatre hidden within a school and a remnant from Robert Smirke’s General Post Office before visiting the real and original Walthamstow Village with its Ancient House, almshouses, workhouse and church to hear how Lord Mayor of London George Monoux was a great benefactor to the area and finishing in an industrial park which is not only home to the jaw dropping God’s Own Junkyard but the Wild Card Brewery and Mother’s Ruin Gin Palace too.
Guide: Joanna Moncreiff
Meet at William Morris Gallery (outside front entrance), 531 Forest Road, London E17 4PP
See the architectural treasures of Barking and Dagenham in this Virtual Walk, part of a series by Rob Smith on the best buildings in London Boroughs. Barking was home to one of the most powerful medieval religious houses in the country, of which you can still see the ruins. Another medieval survivor is Valence House, home to the borough museum. There are the beautiful Eastbury Manor House - one of London's best Elizabethan buildings - and the buildings associated with Barking's huge fishing fleet by the River Roding. Rob will also explain how the area became industrialised in the 20th century with the building of the huge Ford works, Barking Power Station and the Becontree Estate - built for Ford workers - and will discuss the buildings being built in the borough today.
Virtual Guide: Rob Smith
Online Event
From fishing fleet to feminist icons. The Suffragette Line owes its new name to local Annie Huggett. There's more to Barking than you might think. Join Sue to find out more. This circular walk takes us past landmarks associated with its medieval abbey, its once huge fishing fleet, the noxious industries and civic pride of the 19th and 20th centuries, right up to today's riverside regeneration. Along the way we learn where Capt. Cook was married and where a local suffragette entertained Mrs Pankhurst. We find out what links prison reformer Elizabeth Fry to Barking's stunning Sikh temple and why there is a memorial to the victims of asbestosis.
Guide: Sue McCarthy
Meet at Barking Station, Station Parade, London IG11 8TU
The roads and riverside of Limehouse reveal evidence of its age-old connections with the sea and maritime trades, of its long journey from tiny riverside village – one of the “tower hamlets” – to today’s modern docklands area. Sailors passing through made it a truly cosmopolitan area – home to London’s first Chinatown – a bustling hive of industry with a dark side which philanthropists sought to address and some writers sought to exploit in sensational stories. Our Guided Walk takes us to the sublime St Anne’s church and Narrow Street’s fine 17th century house-fronts, to palatial sailors’ hostels, well- preserved 19th century warehouses and one of the very oldest urban railway viaducts, taking in splendid river views to Canary Wharf and the City along the way.
Guide: Andrew Parnell
Meet at Westferry DLR Station, London E14 8AS
This two-hour Guided Walk looks at the exteriors of very different buildings, all built during the 20th Century. From the grandeur of the famous Hackney Empire, civic pride of Hackney Town Hall, and the post war simplicity of Brett Manor, to more recent buildings like Sutton Square and Hackney Academy, Hackney has a range of buildings built in response to a variety of needs. Rob Smith will talk about the buildings and some of the social history context in which they were built.
Guide: Rob Smith
Meet at Hackney Central Overground Station, Amhurst Road, London E8 1LL
There’s so much more to Walthamstow than just its famous mile-long Market. The grand tombs in St Mary’s Churchyard offer a bit of a clue. Starting at the teenage home of William Morris, later home to publisher Edward Lloyd, who brought to us the tale of Sweeney Todd, and today home to the William Morris Gallery, this Guided Walk takes in a set of mews built by a local butcher/property developer, a theatre hidden within a school and a remnant from Robert Smirke’s General Post Office before visiting the real and original Walthamstow Village with its Ancient House, almshouses, workhouse and church to hear how Lord Mayor of London George Monoux was a great benefactor to the area and finishing in an industrial park which is not only home to the jaw dropping God’s Own Junkyard but the Wild Card Brewery and Mother’s Ruin Gin Palace too.
Guide: Joanna Moncreiff
Meet at William Morris Gallery (outside front entrance), 531 Forest Road, London E17 4PP
One of a series following the Thames from London looking at industrial, maritime and military history, this Guided Walk takes in an area that was once dominated by the testing grounds of the Royal Woolwich Arsenal. We'll walk along canals that were once used for carrying gunpowder, see the site of storage facilities for cordite, land where tanks were tested and a stretch of water once used for testing torpedoes. This stretch of the Thames features a dangerous bend called Tripcock Ness – we’ll go past a lighthouse which still marks the area, and hear tales from the river. In the 1960s, the area was built on to create a New Town within the boundaries of London - Thamesmead. We’ll look at the idealism of the plan and how Thamesmead is developing today. The walk also visits Medieval Lesnes Abbey, before finishing at Abbey Wood station.
Guide: Rob Smith
Meet at Plumstead Station, Walmer Terrace, London SE18 7FA
Women reigned in Rag Fair, which extended from Tower Hill along Rosemary Lane into Cable Street in the 17th-19th centuries. Poorer women sold old clothes, thieved and worked in the brothels of Damaris Page, called by Samuel Pepys 'the most Famous Bawd in the Towne’. We wend through back-alleys to one of the first London Docks, around whose walls a myriad of small businesses set up to service ships and sailors. Fans of Call the Midwife will be interested to see where young Mary escaped from one of the notorious brothel-cafés of Cable Street in the 1960s era of decline. We see where two local women lived who were accused of witchcraft and where the artist JMW Turner spent romantic - and unmarried - weekends. In short, on this walk we focus on a lot of residents rarely mentioned in histories of the docks. Great pubs await near the final stop.
Guide: Laura Agustín
Meet outside Tower Hill Station, London EC3N 4DJ
This two-hour walk looks at the exteriors of very different buildings, all built during the 20th Century. From the Edwardian splendour of the former public baths, a school designed by Erno Goldfinger, a factory that made aircraft landing lights, to more recent works like the Geffrye Museum Extension. Guide Rob Smith will talk about the buildings and some of the social history context in which they were built.
Guide: Rob Smith
Meet at Hoxton Overground Station, Geffrye Street, E2 8FF
