Overview

Please note: This event is for students participating in the 2017 Undergraduate Summer School Programmes only.

We invite Summer School students to join us on this special walking tour. 

London was to Shakespeare and Dickens what Paris was to Balzac. It held them in its thrall, was both their canvas and their inspiration, their workshop and their raw material. They in turn made it their own, imaginatively colonising it. And, like "special correspondents for posterity", bequeathed it to us. Today, despite the ravages of time, riot, bombing, and especially fire, traces of their London – shipwrecks from the past – still abound in the City. Everything from superb half-timbered Elizabethan dwellings to the magnificent early 16th-century gatehouse where Shakespeare went with his plays to the offices of the Elizabethan Master of the Revels. And from London's grandest Tudor manor house to crooked little alleys which fed the fires of Dickens's "hallucinating genius"

REVIEWS 

This walk has attracted a great deal of press coverage. The Times, The Observer, The Guardian have all sung its praises. 

"London Walks puts you into the hands of an expert on the particular area and topic of a tour..." The New York Times

"Every time my wife and I come to London we make sure we take advantage of London Walk tours. This time we chose a Dickens and Shakespeare themed walk. Our guide was a Royal Shakespeare Company actor. He took us on a fascinating journey to actual places described in these authors' books, and through areas of London where Shakespeare lived and Dickens worked. At various points along the way he would recite, often from memory, passages from various books and plays. Standing in the courtyard of Guildhall and listening to his voice fill that vast space was truly magical... We saw where the Scottish hero William Wallace was executed, where Dickens' character Oliver Twist would have passed on his way to a robbery, where we could touch the scars left in the walls of St Bart's hospital by bombs dropped from a Zeppelin in WWI, all while listening to our guide recite from King Lear. If that isn't fascinating, I don't know what is!"  Jim W., Silver Spring, Maryland

To familiarise yourself with the terms and conditions of booking, please visit https://www.kclsu.org/unlockbook and check the section Information for Undergraduate Summer School students. 

• Please meet our guide at St Pauls tube station, outside Exit 2, at 1.20am.
• He’ll be holding up a ‘London Walks’ brochure.
• The tour sets off at 1.30am sharp and lasts two hours.
• The tour will happen rain or shine (dress appropriately).
• Bring your student ID and email confirmation as proof of purchase. We will have supplied them with a guest list and they'll be holding up a London Walks pamphlet.
• Most of our events are non-refundable, however we understand there might be mitigating circumstances (Force Majeure). Please see our FAO section for further details.