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
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
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
Come on today’s walk and find out what makes Whitechapel such as wonderful but also wicked place. An area that has welcomed both Lenin and Stalin and had been home to Mr Tescos, the Krays and Jack the Ripper. You will find out about the Elephant Man, William Booth and the Salvation Army, the bell foundry that made Big Ben and where the "white" chapel really was. And – how does your guide know all these stories – well she is Whitechapel-born herself!
Guide: Daniella King
Meet at Whitechapel Station, 277 Whitechapel Road, E1 1BY
This sixty-minute Virtual Walk explores the wonderful variety of buildings in the Borough of Hackney from Tudor Sutton House to modern Bridge Academy. Once a village outside London, with its parish church, houses of the wealthy and its old Town Hall, in the Victorian period Hackney’s population boomed and elegant town houses started to be joined by furniture factories and warehouses. By the 1930s the mix included wonderful examples of civic pride like Haggerston Baths, Shoreditch Town Hall and Hackney Police Station as well as innovative social housing. More recently, Hackney has had a programme of building new schools and converting 20th century warehouses for a changing population. Whatever your taste, you are bound to find buildings you like on this virtual walk.
Virtual Guide: Rob Smith
Online Event
Shadwell, developed to equip ships for imperial interests and explorations in the Age of Sail, was home to wealthy merchants and many small businesses. To make those possible, large numbers of ordinary folk provided services, making the area a multicultural hub where escaping slaves hid out, fed-up sailors started new lives, river pirates spied opportunities and women provided the comforts of home in lodging-houses, taverns and brothels. Of course, women were also seamen, pirates, slaves and merchants. Outsiders came to experience the many opium-dens that were standard places of unwinding for seafarers. Shadwell Basin is the only one left of three early docks located in the area. On this walk we pass remnants of all these phenomena as well as river stairs, imposing warehouses, green spaces, the Thames Path and numerous appealing pubs.
Guide: Laura Agustín
Meet at Shadwell Overground Station, outside exit on Cornwall Street, London E1 2QE
While a certain sporting event in 2012 has transformed the area west of Stratford, the Lower Lea Valley between Stratford and the Thames still retains a post-industrial feel. In this Guided Walk, Rob Smith looks at the industrial heritage of the area and the fantastic Victorian (and earlier) architecture that remains. He will talk about how the Lea was important to the development of London. You will see buildings associated with railways, printing, canals, sewage, mills, shipbuilding and gas supply, and see what is planned in the area for the future.
Guide: Rob Smith
Meet at Stratford Station, Station Street, London E15 1AZ
This walk with Rob Smith along the River Lea takes us through the Olympic Park, passing London Stadium and many former industrial sites before reaching the beautiful tide mills at Bow. It then takes us to Canning Town to see the last loops of the Lea before it joins the Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf. The Lea is one of the longest and most important tributaries of the Thames. It has formed the boundary between the Saxons and the Danes, been home to medieval mills and numerous other industries. This is one of series of walks by Rob which will look at the history of the River Lea, tracing its 42-mile course to the Thames.
Guide: Rob Smith
Meet at Hackney Wick Station, Wallace Road, London E9 5LH
