A CITY & VILLAGE TOURS BRAND NEW DAYTRIP
GHOSTS,
GALLOWS &
GANGSTERS
London is the most haunted city in the world. Once called the “City of Gallows” visitors had to pass a hanged man at every gate. We seek out ghosts, gangsters and the mystery of Jack the Ripper. Expect goosebumps and giggles.
Meet the Blue Badge guide on Whitehall at 10.30am for morning coffee and biscuits (included). We slip into St James’s Park to begin a morning on foot telling the story of crimes and punishments, ministerial ghosts, spies and intrigues. In Parliament Square we discover the best way to preserve a head on a spike and learn the dreadful fate of the man who tried to rob the Abbey treasury. We break to buy lunch in Parliament Square – there’s the good value café in the Westminster Central Hall plus free time to look inside the highest court in the land – the Supreme Court.
In the afternoon by coach we head through the Old Square Mile via Sweeney Todd’s Fleet Street to the East End of the Kray Twins. In Victorian times life was cheap here and murder not uncommon. But one murderer has left an indelible mark on our national conscience – a murderer neither caught nor identified but known the world over as Jack the Ripper. We tell the story in the context of the East End’s social history. We tell the personal stories of the victims in the Victorian slums. A life of lodging houses and hovels paying a few coppers to sleep leaning against a rope – “so tired I could sleep on a clothes line”. To experience the daily horrors of this hand to mouth existence would utterly terrify us today even without the toll of ghastly murders. The Ripper murders coincided with the rise of the “penny dreadful” and magazines like Tit-
We’ll stop to buy tea in Spitalfields or you might choose a pint of ale or a large gin at the Ten Bells where the Ripper victims drank. You’ll be ready to head home at 4.15pm.
Adults & Seniors: £18
Available daily all year.
The Supreme Court is open
Monday to Friday.
10 miles
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