5 Places Everyone Should Visit in London
A Local Historian's Guide to the City
Hello history writers!
I am delighted to share a conversation with Matt Brown from the hugely popular Substack publication
, in which we talked all things London history.
This really was such a treat, as Matt’s is one of my favourite newsletters to read on this dear platform many of us call home. I just wish I’d have discovered his quirky, unique approach to our capital’s history when I still lived there!
What first piqued your interest in London’s history?
I remember the exact moment I fell in love with London. I was standing outside the Horniman pub beside the HMS Belfast, admiring the different eras of architecture across the Thames. Wren church spires, skyscrapers, old Billingsgate, Tower Bridge… I’m from a small Midlands town where we just don’t get any of those things.
All of a sudden, one of those violent summer storms broke behind the City, and the towers and steeples were illuminated in the flash of lightning. It was a tremendously powerful moment. I’d only been in London a day or two, but I remember thinking right then that I just *had* to stay. I’m originally from a scientific background, and I think I approached the city like a big science project – needing to research, explore, note down, categorise. Very quickly that evolved into exploring the city through time as well as space. And then Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography came out and utterly floored me. I’ve since read it four times, and even mapped every location he mentions on my Substack. So, it all started with a flash of lightning and the nourishing words of Peter Ackroyd.
What would you say is your favourite historical site in London and why?
Can I have “The whole of the Square Mile”? Because it is endlessly fascinating to me. Every tiny alley has a deep history. And I so enjoy the contrasts of the very old beside the very modern. If I have to be more specific, then I’d go for London Bridge. This was where it all began. The place the Romans first set up a crossing to connect Londinium to the south. Traces of the older bridge can still be seen at either end, and the ghost of the even older, medieval bridge haunts the churchyard of St Magnus and the vanished church of St Olave’s. Its alignment can still be seen in the road network long after it was dismantled. The bridge has also played an incalculable role in the City’s history. For centuries it was the only way to cross the river without a boat. The worst disaster in London’s history took place here in the 13th century, when hundreds if not thousands were trapped by fire. It’s in nursery rhymes, and folklore. The modern bridge is undistinguished concrete, yet it still has a haunting quality as though humming in resonance to all that history.
Your writing on Substack very much focuses on one place (London) over time. Did you always know that you wanted to take this local approach to history or is it something that developed over time?
I’ve never really thought about that. It just happened. I’m aware that this sounds utterly pretentious, but the city calls to me in a way that nothing else does. I want to be in it. I want to write about it. I want to spend hours colouring it in! I do write about other things in other places, but London’s history is what I love best. I first got the city bug while studying up in York – another tremendously historic place. But moving down to London was a power of 100 times more inspiring.
I guess part of the attraction is that it’s all-encompassing. Samuel Johnson famously said that “there is in London all that life affords” (he’s wrong, by the way – we don’t have mountains, or aircraft carriers, or even a glimpse of the Milky Way). So writing about London history gives me the freedom to tackle more or less anything I like. I also happen to live here, which makes getting photos and accessing archives and historic buildings much more convenient than if I’d specialised in, say, Manchurian domestic architecture.
You’re currently working on a colourised version of John Rocque’s 1746 map of London, sharing your progress on Substack. What has been the most interesting or unexpected insight you’ve had so far?
It’s the most rewarding exercise. I mean, it takes absolutely ages, but meticulously colouring every house, tree, building… it really puts me into the headspace of the people who originally sketched out the map. I say “people” because, after a while, you start to notice very subtle differences in how shading was applied, or boundaries drawn. The map-makers clearly had a tight house style, but you can spot small deviations here and there that suggest more than one hand is at work. So, in that sense, the most interesting insight is not a particular street name or building detail, but a glimpse of the nameless people who drew up the map on behalf of John Rocque almost 300 years ago. It is quite thrilling to be revisiting, retracing and, dare I say, rebooting their work after all this time. I hope I’m doing it justice, because it really was the most astonishing act of cartography.
If you could hop into a time machine and travel to London at any point in history, what date or era would you aim for, and why?
I would first want to travel forwards in time – say, 100 years. I’d love to know where all this is heading. (And what my kids get up to… although maybe we learned that this is not a good idea from Back to the Future 2.) My next priority would be the distant past. I’d love to be on the banks of the Thames when the first Romans arrived. I’d want to shadow their progress and find out why they chose to build Londninium precisely where they did. Which individual gave that order, who named the city, and why? Finally, I’d want to visit the city in the long years between the Roman withdrawal and the coming of Alfred, when the old Roman city was effectively abandoned. So little is known about this time. I’d love to roam that deserted city, and see the Roman buildings in ruins. I suspect it wasn’t quite so abandoned as the history books make out. It would be so interesting to see how the people around at the time (a mix of Anglo-Saxons and Romano-Celtic peoples, living in what is now Covent Garden) regarded the abandoned city to the east. Were they afraid of it? I have to recommend the novel Dark Earth by Rebecca Stott, which is a deeply evocative story of two sisters growing up outside the ruins of Londinium. (Somebody on Substack recommended it to me, actually… I can’t remember who, but thank you if you’re reading this!)
Final quick-fire question… Someone is visiting London and wants to learn about its history but not visit the usual touristy sites. What are the top five places you’d recommend they go?
The London Centre (Guildhall) for its incredible 3-D maps of the city. Good place to get an overview of the city before getting stuck into its history.
Spend an hour walking at random around the Square Mile, reading every plaque. In fact, just walk everywhere with your eyes open for details. It is *the* most rewarding way to engage with history. The serendipity of each discovery means it’ll stick in your memory much better than reading from a book.
All Hallows-by-the-Tower, which has a wonderful display of historical curiosities in the crypt, and a very rare Anglo-Saxon arch.
Down on the Thames foreshore. It’s the easiest thing in the world to stumble across an 18th or 19th century smoker’s pipe (though, really, you’re not supposed to remove stuff from the foreshore). Much of the wood and stonework on the foreshore is also very old. Go on a Thames Explorer Trust walk to learn what it all used to be: https://thames-explorer.org.uk/guided-tours/
Speaking of tours… London’s tour guides have a fabulous depth of knowledge and some put on walks that go completely off the beaten track (geographically or intellectually). I know guides who do tours of Dagenham industrial parks, literary circuits of Hampstead, scientific Westminster, or tours of London’s vanished Georgian coffee houses. A good place to start is the Footprints of London tour company, who often slip in unusual tours among the more mainstream tourist fare: https://footprintsoflondon.com/live/walks/
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Great interview! I love Londonist, and also recommend Footsteps of London for walking tours.
I've been there once, rushed, so I did not get to see much. I'd love to go again with plenty of time and funds to do it justice.