A short season of online talks for the dark days of winter. Come to all three and you can get them for as little as £10 a talk.
Over three Tuesday evenings from 20 January I’ll be examining two of the most important structures of the capital – London Bridge and St Paul’s Cathedral – and Bankside, the strip of the riverbank that connects them.
We’ve got Romans and Tudors, medieval kings and viking raiders, destruction by fire and war, and links from the earliest times of the city to the present day. Full details and booking links for the individual talks below.
Can’t make a date? – sign up to receive the full talk as a recording to be seen at your leisure (everyone who attends also gets this link).
Book all three talks and pay for only two! Click here for details.
All talks will be delivered via Zoom, with links to watch online being sent a couple of days before each event, and links to the recordings sent out 24 hours after the live talk.
A history of London Bridge: Tuesday 20 January 2026 at 7pm London Time
London Bridge and the city have been inextricably linked for nearly 2,000 years. It has been destroyed and rebuilt, suffered fires, pitched battles and even a hurricane. And still it stands.
From the Romans to the present day this thoroughfare has been a vital artery of the capital. Until the 18th century it was the only bridge over the tidal Thames; across it countless millions have travelled. It has been a defence against invaders, a flourishing high street, a gateway to the city and the start of a pilgrims’ trail.
We will look at the history of the bridge from Emperor Claudius’s invasion, through attacks by Danes and Normans; the succession of early medieval wooden bridges until the famous ‘Old London Bridge’ that stood for 600 years – the biggest occupied bridge in Europe, with over 500 inhabitants. And we’ll bring the story up to date with the 19th century stone bridge that now lives in Arizona, and the current iteration that maintains the tradition in the 21st century city.
Along the way we will meet Romans and Vikings, kings and queens, traders and pilgrims, talk about executed prisoners and rebellious peasants. We might even learn why London Bridge is Falling Down.
An online stroll along Bankside: Tuesday 27 January 2026 at 7pm London Time
Join me for an armchair visit to Bankside, one of the most historic and historically exciting districts of London.
We’ll journey from London Bridge to the Millennium Bridge, past a cathedral, a palace, a Roman mausoleum, a theatre and an art gallery, delving into the history and the stories here on the riverside.
This is where the entertainment district of Elizabethan London was, with theatres, inns, brothels and bear pits; William Shakespeare’s most famous plays were performed here at the Globe. We’ll pass the reconstruction of that theatre and of another Elizabethan marvel, Drake’s Golden Hinde, a ship that sailed around the world, bringing the treasures of the east (and of the Spanish) back to the capital.
We’ll visit Southwark Cathedral and the next-door Borough Market, stroll past the remains of the Bishop of Winchester’s medieval palace, see where a mob of brewery workers put a Hapsburg general to flight, and hear tales of the river and the people who worked on it.
Finally we’ll look at and around Giles Gilbert Scott’s magnificent Bankside Power Station, a cathedral of power, now the Tate Modern gallery, then cross the Millenium Bridge – to designers Norman Foster and Antony Caro it is the ‘Blade of Light’, to Londoners it will always be the Wobbly Bridge.
We finish in sight of our next online talk – St Paul’s Cathedral.
A History of St Paul’s Cathedral: Tuesday 3 February 2026 at 7pm London Time
The only domed cathedral in Britain, a triumph of English Baroque architecture, Christopher Wren’s masterpiece – if any building justifies the overused word ‘iconic’ it is St Paul’s Cathedral.
Join me for an investigation of the history of this church and a look at some of the treasures of the present building.
The mother church of the City of London, St Paul’s has a history going all the way back to the start of the 7th century. At least five churches have stood on this site, all the previous ones violently destroyed.
We’ll look at why the first cathedral was built in the empty ruins of the Roman city, the destruction (by fire and vikings) of the anglo-saxon churches, and the magnificent Norman building that arose in the 12th century – one of the wonders of the medieval world, but devastated in the 1666 Great Fire. Wren’s St Paul’s rose from the ruins of that church, and the story of its design and construction is fascinating and unexpected.
There is the story of how it suffered but survived the devastation of the Blitz, its role in national celebrations and commemorations (including the funerals of Nelson, Wellington and Churchill) and the graves and memorials that can be found within its walls.
All talks will be delivered via Zoom, with links to watch online being sent a couple of days before each event, and links to the recordings sent out 24 hours after the live talk.
And some in-person tours of the British Museum
I’m hoping to do some British Museum tours in early 2026 as well: a walk through the museum to look at some of the famous highlights of the space as well as a selection of my favourites. If you think you might like to come along, fill out this form and I’ll drop you a line when I’ve got the dates sorted out.
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