Service Description

There's a part of London that has never stopped changing. Not because it doesn't know what it wants to be, but because it's always been the place you arrive when you come from elsewhere: first the French Huguenots, then the Eastern European Jews, then the Bengalis, then the artists. Each wave has left something behind. This London stroll traverses all those layers. We begin in Whitechapel, where in the autumn of 1888, Jack the Ripper murdered five women in eleven weeks. The case was never solved. The names of the victims: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Jane Kelly, are still there, written on the cobblestones and in books. The alleys haven't changed much since then. We continue towards Brick Lane, which for five hundred years has been a brick street, a brewery, a Jewish market, and the capital of British curry. The building on the corner of Fournier Street has been a Huguenot church, a synagogue, and a mosque, in that order, following the waves of immigration. Today, Brick Lane is a hub of vintage shops, graffiti, bagels at 3 a.m., and Bangladeshi restaurants that never close. It ends in Shoreditch, where England's first theater was built in 1576, and where Shakespeare staged the first versions of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. Today, the same neighborhood is home to street art, independent galleries, and the city's most talked-about clubs. The name has changed, but its purpose hasn't: it has always been a place where London experiments. Three different souls of East London, five hundred years of immigration, no story yet finished. USEFUL INFORMATION On foot only: No public transportation, no entrance fee. Accessible: Route suitable for wheelchairs and strollers. Free pace: We stop whenever you want or wherever it suits you; no fixed stops. Cancellation: Free up to 48 hours in advance.