I cycled along the River Lea to Waltham Abbey. On my approach, even from the riverbank, I could see the majestic tower rising over the water meadows as the Abbey has done for the past thousand years, ...

Jack Hanlon gives a rare insight into the fascinating lost world of the Smithfield Meat Trades Institute… The correct way to ...

St Mary Rotherhithe Free School founded 1613. To be candid, there is not a lot left of old Rotherhithe – yet what remains is still powerfully evocative of th ...

Can you spot Sheila Bell in this photograph of the residents of Great Eastern Buildings celebrating Victory in Europe Day at the Grey Eagle in Quaker St on 2nd May 1945? Look more closely, there she ...

I am delighted to announce The Gentle Author’s Tour of Whitechapel commissioned by the Whitechapel Gallery as part of the Gallery’s Backyard Biennial. Join me for a two-hour walking tour of ...

On the semiquincentennial, as we contemplate the disturbing irony of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in which the American colonies set out to rid themselves of the tyranny of monarchs, ...

Click here to book for the Gentle Author’s Tours After he photographed the end of the trams in 1952 at the age of twelve, photographer Colin O’Brien became fascinated by recording the ‘last days’ of ...

Next tickets available 18th July for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields Clare Market c.1900 I never knew there was a picture of the legendary and long-vanished Clare Market – where Joseph ...

One house in Fournier St has wallpapers dating from 1690 until 1960. This oldest piece of wallpaper was already thirty years old when it was pasted onto the walls of the new house built by joiner ...