The Old City: Fire, Fagin & the Gallows

London, United Kingdom

50 tickets 3 km · about 1 hr 30 mins · 12 stops · Standard walk How Walking Tickets work

LiteratureReligion & SpiritualityGhosts & MysteriesTrue Crime

This walk through the City of London traces nearly two thousand years of faith, fire, crime, and legend. From Reflection Garden and Cannon Street to Saint Mary Woolnoth, Old Bailey, Amen Court, and Saint Paul’s Cathedral, it reveals lost parishes, prison walls, and literary landmarks shaped by the Great Fire of 1666. Church and courtroom dominate the story, as do the public spectacle of executions and the memory of vanished churches. Ghost stories and literary echoes from writers like Dickens, Blake, and Eliot linger throughout this landscape of ruins and remembrance.

The stops

01
Reflection Garden
tranquil public pocket park located at 25 Cannon Street
02
Cannon Street
It is the site of the ancient London Stone and gave its name to Cannon Street
03
St Swithin, London Stone
At Saint Swithin, London Stone and the church bring together relic, legend, and civic identity in one place.
04
St. Mary Woolnoth
Designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and completed in 1727, St. Mary Woolnoth stands at the junction of King William Street and Lombard Street, its unusual twin towers and heavily rusticated stone facade making it one of the most dramatic church…
05
St Mary Colechurch
St Mary Colechurch was a parish church in the City of London. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and not rebuilt.
06
St Mary-le-Bow Church
Sir Christopher Wren-designed church, rebuilt after World War 2, whose bells define being Cockney.
07
Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice
The Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Postman's Park shifts the walk from formal religion to civic morality, honoring ordinary people who died saving others.
08
Christchurch Greyfriars Church Garden
Open public access to flowery gardens in the ruins of an 18th-century church bombed during WWII.
09
Giltspur Street
Giltspur Street connects Smithfield to Newgate, taking its name from the gilded spurs sold here by medieval saddlers.
10
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court, universally known as the Old Bailey, occupies the site of Newgate Prison, London's principal criminal prison from the 12th century until its demolition in 1902-04.
11
Amen Court
Amen Court is a secluded private enclosure reached through an archway off Amen Lane behind St. Paul's Cathedral, lined with a row of 17th and 18th century canons' houses.
12
St. Paul's Cathedral
Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral was built between 1675 and 1711 to replace the medieval cathedral burned in the Great Fire of 1666.