Word on the Streets Walking Tour: Architecture and Literature through the City and Smithfield

On the first of a series of Word on the Streets walks, author John Grindrod and architectural tour guide Mike Althorpe take us through the City of London and Smithfield, revealing strange tales of crimes true and fictional, and a restless City changing all the time. From Daniel Defoe to Poirot, Dickens to Slow Horses, this is the City seen through its heritage in word and brick. Starting out at Bank and ending at the Faber offices in Hatton Garden, this promises to be a fun and surprising way to see the City and rediscover the strange byways of the capital.

John Grindrod is a social historian of modern places, and the author of Concretopia, Outskirts and Iconicon. As well as leading walks and giving talks around the country, he has written for publications including the Guardian, Telegraph and Big Issue, and you can discover more about his work and his forthcoming podcast, Monstrosities Mon Amour, at his website.

The London Ambler is Mike Althorpe, an urban historian and curator of stories on architecture and the city. Between 2006 and 2009 he was part of the think tank Building Futures and between 2011 and 2015 was curator at the RIBA, producing the exhibitions ‘A Place To Call Home’, ‘The Brits Who Built The Modern World’ and ‘Mackintosh’. He also works with Karakusevic Carson Architects, co-authoring two books, Public Housing Works and Social Housing, and curated an exhibition based on the latter at New York’s Center for Architecture.