Five... History Walking Tours You Can Join in June
Highlights from the London Festival of Architecture
Hi and welcome to your bank holiday weekend newsletter… 🏛️
This edition’s my pick of highlights from the month-long architectural smörgåsbord coming to London next week.
1 June 2024 marks the start of the 20th edition of the London Festival of Architecture, a buffet of talks, walks, guided tours, performances, exhibitions and workshops celebrating the city’s architectural landscape.
There are a lot of bigname venues and landmarks in the programme - behind the scenes at the Bank of England, hidden nooks of the National Portrait Gallery - mixed with lesser-known architectural oddities. But if the (intermittently) glorious sunshine weather has you yearning for some time in the open air, here’s a handful of the walking tours in the programme that’ll let you bask in some history and some summer at the same time.
The lost river (Shoreditch)
We love a lost river at Londonist HQ - in fact we have an entire London’s Lost Rivers playlist dedicated to videos we’ve made about them - and this tour’s a chance to join urban researcher and writer Dr Tom Bolton walking the route of the Walbrook.
A water source for Londoners in Roman times, the Walbrook’s been beneath ground for centuries now - but if you know where to look, certain traces of its former existence still remain today.
And if you’re not in London, or can’t join the tour, you join in
’s footsteps instead via this video from back in 2018.Exploring the lost Walbrook River: tour through the hidden heart of the city, 15 June, 11am-1pm