Tours with Kim Boyd
Literary Walks
London is densely packed with cultural locations where echoes from the past resound. As a former English teacher, I am keen to take groups to visit the haunts of writers including Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde or Virginia Woolf. One of my favourite walks starts in the City of London at the site of a house Shakespeare bought towards the end of his career, before crossing the river and exploring Bankside, the Elizabethan entertainment district, and having a look at the reconstructed Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
The past crowds the thoroughfares of this still-busy stretch along the south bank of the Thames. We might finish up at the George Inn on Borough High Street, the only remaining galleried inn in London, where you can imagine the entertainment in the courtyard while enjoying some well-earned liquid refreshment at the end of our cultural adventure.
Cultural Highlights
Come with me and explore the free-to-visit world-class art galleries such as the Tate and the National Gallery. Or why not visit the Natural History Museum, or the British Museum, with its eight million artefacts from two million years of human culture? If applied and decorative art are up your street, then the Victoria and Albert is worth looking into, with its fabulous Ardabil carpet, the collection of enormous Raphael cartoons, the absorbing Rodin sculptures. Then there’s “Tipoo’s Tiger”: a fascinating if somewhat disturbing work from eighteenth century India, with much to say about Britain’s colonial era.
As a former teacher, I enjoy working with young people on tours around London and beyond, whether it’s a coach trip, a walking tour or a visit to a specific location. I can plan a route that fits school students’ needs, and I like to build in plenty of opportunities for questions. Have a look at the video of a recent tour with a delightful group from the British School, Muscat – it’s on my home page on this website.
Bespoke Tours
A great way to explore London is to follow your interest and come on a tailor-made walking tour around an intriguing area of historic London like the City of London, founded by the Romans and full of churches rebuilt by Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London, along with one or two survivors from earlier times; or Clerkenwell, with its monastic sites and its traces of writers and artists such as William Shakespeare, William Hogarth, Samuel Johnson and Charles Dickens; or Spitalfields, with its fascinating history of migrant settlement and communities through the centuries – and its Bengali restaurants, if you like spicy food! See Adam Jefford’s sketches of some of the locations on this walk by clicking the words in light grey in the last sentence.
If you would like to step back into the delights of Regency London, our walking journey could take us to King George IV (nicknamed “the Prince of Whales” for his large appetite); a John Nash theatre; the grand Regent Street route, which starts at the Duke of York’s statue; Jane Austen, and her meeting with the Prince Regent’s librarian; the fashion-leader Beau Brummell; and the scandalous Lord Byron!
Out of Town
Outside London itself, you could join me on a journey around Stonehenge with its ancient and mysterious stones, drawing visitors in like a great magnet. We could head for the Roman and Georgian city of Bath, with its Jane Austen connections; the “dreaming spires” of Oxford, and the nearby Blenheim Palace (as shown in this photo of the Gomez family from Florida enjoying a trip there); the delightful Cotswold villages; or the great medieval cathedrals of Salisbury, Winchester and Canterbury. Finally, if you want to find out more about William Shakespeare, I would love to take you to his birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, to see, amongst other places, the church where he was christened and where he was finally laid to rest. To round off your visit, you could finish your day with an outing to one of three Royal Shakespeare Company theatres in the town.
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