EVENTS AND TOURSOur tours run rain or shine, and are a fantastic way to explore the city under the tutelage of one of our expert guides. Any tours related questions can be directed to tours@open-city.org.uk. Any friends event related questions can be directed to friends@open-city.org.uk. |
|
 | Public Health and architecture walking tour
Saturday 4 November 10am
Saturday 2 December 10am
This walking tour from Soho to Clerkenwell explores how public health challenges shaped London’s built environment through the ages and chronicles the many public health crises throughout London’s history and reveals how bold reformers, architects and public bodies radically changed our urban environment in response. |
|
 | Lucy Pickford: London Grows Solo Exhibition
9 - 12 November Painter, former landscape architect, and Open City COO, Lucy Pickford will debut a brand new collection of original paintings at B.T. Batsford Gallery in Hackney this November, in her solo show London Grows. This new range of work focuses on the intersection of nature and the built environment in one of the most sprawling cities in the world. |
|
 | | Architecture of Westminster Cultural Landmarks walking tour Saturday 18 November 11am This fun and engaging tour focuses on how the area has responded to change over the years, adapted and developed to create the vibrant mix of activity we see today, exploring the unique and often overlooked history behind Westminster’s great theatres, galleries and cultural complexes, as well as the development of the area from a 'convent' garden of Westminster Abbey into residences for the gentry, and then from supplier of the nation's fruit and veg. |
|
 | Wren in the City walking tour
Friday 24 November 10.30am
Thursday 7 December 1pm
Saturday 16 December 11amTo celebrate the achievements of Christopher Wren this walking tour is a fascinating and insightful wander from one corner of the Square Mile to the other, charting Wren’s role in the City’s transformation from smoldering ruin after the 1666 Great Fire to glittering, modern metropolis. We will wind our way through the City’s streets and alleyways, finishing at Wren’s masterpiece, St Paul’s Cathedral. |
|
 | Reading by candlelight of The Chimes by Charles Dickens at Garden Court Chambers
Friday 1 December 6.30pm
Long-time Open House Festival contributors Garden Court Chambers will present a reading by candlelight of The Chimes by Charles Dickens. One of Dickens’s Christmas stories, The Chimes had its first reading, by Dickens himself, at Garden Court Chambers on 2 December 1844. Entry is by suggested donation of £10 (£5 conc.) and all proceeds will go to Open House Festival. |
|
|
 | Woolwich walking tour
Saturday 4 November 10.30am
This walking tour explores the municipal architecture of Woolwich, which was once a major manufacturing centre with factories, a dockyard and the Royal Arsenal situated on the banks of the Thames. Alongside a strong and independent civic identity, Woolwich also maintained a significant military presence and has recently seen a period of great change. |
|
 | King's Cross walking tour
Saturday 11 November 10am
Saturday 9 December 1pmThis insightful walking tour around King’s Cross Central tells the story of the multi-billion regeneration project which has transformed 27 hectares of former railway land in the centre of the capital. Participants will examine the success of the project to date while also looking ahead to what the future for King’s Cross might hold. |
|
 | Elephant and Castle walking tour
Saturday 11 November 10.30am
This fun and engaging walking tour explores the past, present and future of this extraordinary central London hub, but has at times since been controversially used as a symbol of urban decay and failed planning. Known affectionately as the ‘Elephant’ — is in fact a fascinating, vibrant neighbourhood with a rich history and a promising future, boasting conservation areas, pioneering post-war architecture and striking contemporary developments, all of which surround an ambitious large-scale regeneration scheme which aims to bring the Elephant and its revitalized circus back to town. |
|
 | | Forest Hill and Sydenham architecture walking tour Saturday 18 November 10.30am
Saturday 16 December 10.30am A journey through styles and periods, this walking tour explores the architecture of the area’s most prominent public buildings. Highlights include the Arts and Crafts-style Horniman Museum and Gardens, RCKa’s landmark TNG Youth and Community Centre, and the Brutalist Grade II*-listed Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. |
|
 | Canary Wharf walking tour
Saturday 25 November 10.30am
Saturday 16 December 10.30amOnce a relatively isolated part of industrial London, the area is now a financial district with towering office skyscrapers, new homes, landmark retail centres and multiple transport links to the rest of the capital. Here, the dock complex and the Grade I-listed sugar warehouses offer a rare glimpse of the area’s colonial past as a vast landscape created to receive the products of empire and slavery. The tour will then discuss some of the early docklands developments in Surrey Quays, Rotherhithe and Wapping, and the later work of the LDDC. |
|
 | Regent's Canal walking tour
Sunday 3 December 10.30am
This walking tour provides a fascinating insight into Georgian industrial infrastructure in early 19th century London. From an early speculative entrepreneurial scheme it became a bustling commercial waterway in the Victorian era, before falling victim to wider post-war industrial decline in the 20th century. Now transformed by developer-led regeneration into a once again busy urban thoroughfare. |
|
|
|
|
