About this Event
In this walk we explore the Huguenots who, having fled from persecution in France, became accomplished West End gold and silversmiths in the 17th and 18th centuries and occasionally rose to high political office (one became Solicitor General and a noted anti-slavery campaigner).
We will look at the French Protestant Church, an Anglican Church designed by a pupil of Wren that rose from the ashes of the Blitz, a Roman Catholic church whose origins lie in one of the first catholic buildings allowed after the Reformation, the site of the Beth HaSepher Synagogue, the Soho Islamic Centre and a building transformed from a night club to a nationally important Hare Krishna temple.
In the realm of revolutionary politics, we see the Dean Street building where Karl Marx, his wife and five young children lived in two shabby rooms while he worked on Das Kapital in the British Museum Reading Room and the Red Lion pub where Marx and Engels gave lectures on the Communist Manifesto. In Old Compton Street we visit the site of the King Bomba delicatessen, owned by, and named for, an Italian anarchist and fugitive who was involved in a plot to assassinate Mussolini. The deli was, allegedly, the first place in Britain to sell pasta and a meeting place for many British radicals and suffragists.
The Westminster Guides are the official guides of the City of Westminster. Our Association, also known as CWGLA, was established in 2007 and prides itself on quality assured training and support for our guides. You can recognise us by our distinctive yellow/blue badge bearing the City of Westminster's coat of arms.
This year the Lord Mayor of Westminster will be supporting two charities, the proceeds of the 2025-26 walks programme will be donated to these charities.
Hotel School - is a London-based charity founded in 2017 by Jeremy Goring, CEO of The Goring Hotel, and Mick Clarke, CEO of The Passage, London's largest voluntary sector homeless resource centre, investing in people who have experienced homelessness and other disadvantages to equip them with hands on experience within the hospitality industry, since its inception the programme has achieved a 70% success rate of graduates securing employment within the hospitality sector.
The Avenues Youth Project - a best-in-class youth centre who believe every child from 8 -18 should have the opportunity to realise their potential, whatever their life circumstances, having built a safe-space youth centre in 1979 is now seeing 1,000 young people benefitting from their programmes each year.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Soho Square - by Tudor-style hut, Soho Square, London, United Kingdom
GBP 10.00
