Hiss the Villain

This circular walk, which starts from the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral close to Queen Anne’s statue, concentrates on the seamier side of London, and invites walkers to encounter a range of cheats, frauds, thieves, whores and cold-blooded killers. On it, we shall be passing a notorious no-go area where life was cheap, one of the mediaeval City’s worst red-light districts, the site of a prison described as ‘an emblem of Hell itself’ and the court of law where for a hundred years Britain’s worst criminals have been brought to trial. We shall also be hearing about some of the most chilling monsters connected with our route, from Dickens’s fictional Fagin to the possibly real Sweeney Todd.