By James Stone -


I had wanted to try a walking tour around London for a while, but during the summer there seem like so many better things to do.

Once autumn arrived in full force, however, it seemed like an excellent way to fill an evening on a limited budget, so I made plans with a friend to try London's Bloomsbury Walk.

The one massive downside of waiting until summer is over to do such a trip, I discovered, is that alongside the dwindling tourists come the dwindling temperatures. Brrrrrr.

They say some like it hot… I can see why. Three hours in the British frost on a dark November evening might well have been enough to convert me to such a perspective. However, there are definite and unique upsides to British weather: like the pleasure of warming your icy nose in a warm and bustling pub.

We began outside Holborn station, where we met our friendly guide Jim. Jim's crystal eloquence proved to be the chief attraction of the evening, although I am still dubious about the truth of some of his 'facts'.

His patter was full of anecdotes about the area's literary history, all delivered with a thespian zeal that would not have disappointed crowds of several hundred.

Although much of the information we learned has passed through my memory with only a brief pause for entertainment, I remember being stirred by just how geographically contiguous some of the country's great literary history has been.

Virginia Woolf, TS Elliot, Oscar Wilde, JM Barrie, Charles Dickens and even King George III made an appearance during the walk, which took us to the British Museum, University of London Senate House and Great Ormond Street Hospital among other sites.

There was one particularly magical moment during the tour. We took a break in Queen Square to visit the Queen's Larder public house, where King George III's wife allegedly stored the pewter jugs of lemonade from which he was slowly imbibing lead poisoning.

I stepped in the tavern doorway and was hit with a rush of the warm and jolly atmosphere. It felt like we were polar explorers discovering a centrally heated cave after a week-long trek. Frozen on the spot for a moment, it was not long before the gloves were off and the bar was stormed.

The tour was great – interesting, entertaining and momentarily informative. I saw things that I would never have noticed, no matter how long I lived in London, and feel somewhat enlightened about the history of British literature.

It's funny though, that the thing I discovered which will stay with me the most is the beauty of a chilly English evening when you're standing just inside a jolly English pub.

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