Put a spring in your step …

This March our walks all have a literary theme. Oonagh takes us around 19th century Fitzrovia in the company of Joseph Conrad and the Anarchists and explores Bloomsbury as depicted in the novels of the second world war. Sue is also in Bloomsbury, following in the footsteps of crime novelist Dorothy L Sayers and exploring how solitary walking influenced the writing of Charlotte Mew, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf.

See here for dates and details

They are all part of the Footprints of London Literary Festival

All Creatures Great and Small: A walk through Clerkenwell & Islington

Saturday 26th July  11am (lasts about two hours)

Start and Finish  Islington Museum – 245 St John Street London EC1V 4NB

Free but booking required. Donations to Freightliners Farm welcome

Book via:  http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/all-creatures-great-and-small-animal-lives-a-walk-through-clerkenwell-and-islington-tickets-12100863007?aff=es2&rank=2

There is little animal life apparent in today’s Islington other than domestic pets and squirrels in the Squares. It was not always thus! Even into the twentieth century, horse-drawn transport was still in use in London. In mediaeval times, instead of today’s built-up landscape we would have seen sheep and cattle grazing on the land owned by the great religious houses of Clerkenwell and St Paul’s and watered by the springs water that first drew people to settle here.

Discover how different kinds of animals shaped Islington’s development from open fields to inner city. Find out about the significance of animals for food, trade, transport and entertainment; see what it was like for humans and animals to live so closely together, and how their relationship changed over time.

Before or after the walk, why not visit Islington Museum’s Beastly Islington Exhibition.

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