Walking Tour: Walthamstow High Street. Saturdays 15th/29th October at 10am

Join qualified tour guide Joanna Moncrieff on a walk seeking out the history of Walthamstow’s famous High Street.

Originally called Marsh Street, as it led to the marshes, by the end of the 19th century this one time rural road was a thriving shopping street. It became a place where you could buy anything from high class drapery from Lidstone’s to a jar of pickled fish from a market stall. It was also a destination for evening entertainment such as to the sadly long gone Palace Theatre to see Marie Lloyd and other famous music hall stars.

On this walk we will seek out evidence of the street’s past history through individual details on and above shops, plaques hidden in plain sight and in the names of the parades and streets.

We will hear about the Warner family’s influence on the buildings at the St James’s Street end and see their former home still standing nearby today.

We will also hear about some of the street’s earlier history such as diary writer Samuel Pepys’ visits to his contemporaries who lived at the Hoe Street end and poet John Keats’ occasional visits to his sister who attended a Marsh Street school.

This walk will start outside St James’s Street Station and finish close to Walthamstow Library at the other end of the High Street. Please wear comfortable shoes, check the weather and dress accordingly.

Joanna Moncrieff is a qualified City of Westminster and Clerkenwell & Islington Tour Guide and for the past 10 years has created and led walks both in Central London and her own neck of the woods in Walthamstow and Chingford.

All Joanna’s public walks including walks locally and in the West End and Clerkenwell and Islington can always be found on this link.

A Westminster Walks event.