Greening Aldwych: a walking tour of lost and future green spaces of Aldwych
Posted in Editorial blog posts, Education, entertainment, future, gardens, Green, Stories, Strandlines, streets and roads and tagged with Aldwych, guide, Guided tour, historic London, London, London history, London tour guide, Self-guided tour of London, strand, tour
To mark London History Day 2019, Professor Clare Brant, Director of Strandlines, and Assistant Editor Fran Allfrey put together a tour of past, present, and future green space around Aldwych.
We’re excited to release highlights from the tour here for anyone to use. All you need is your phone with data, or connected to The Cloud wifi, which is available for free in central London.
The tour explores how different locations around Aldwych have moved through different shades of green over the last three hundred years. We look at the big and famous spaces, such as the lost gardens of Somerset House, but we also take in some more esoteric stops, from admiring wildflowers to exploring the secret life of Aldwych bees and mushrooms.
The tour takes about 45 minutes (although you may want to skip parts!). The route also involves crossing the Aldwych gyratory using the pedestrian traffic lights. Part of the route involves stairs, however, this section can also be accessed by avoiding the stairs – we’ll point these options out when we get there.
Start the Tour
Stop 1: 171 Strand, on the corner of Surrey Street
