London History

londonguidedwalks.co.uk
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The London History Podcast uncovers the stories, people, and places that have shaped London over 2,000 years. Hosted by historian & tour guide Hazel Baker, each 20–40 minute episode feels like an audio walking tour, covering everything from Roman Londinium and medieval guilds to Dickensian streets, Georgian scandals, and modern social change. Perfect for curious Londoners, visitors, students, and history lovers who want to go beyond the usual tourist highlights.

  1. Sep 25

    164: Edwardian London: Mario Theodorou’s Historical Thrillers

    Step into the restless, glittering and deeply unequal London of 1904 with author, screenwriter and director Mario Theodorou, creator of the Felix Grey Mysteries. Mario joins Hazel to explore the Edwardian capital behind his historical thrillers: a city of political power, royal intrigue, rapid technological change and growing demands for social reform. At the heart of the novels is Felix Grey, an idealistic and inexperienced young Prime Minister drawn into dangerous mysteries of abduction, conspiracy and corruption. Together, Hazel and Mario travel across Edwardian London—from Downing Street, Parliament and Buckingham Palace to Fleet Street, the Savoy, the Tower of London, Bow, Old Kent Road and Sailortown. They discuss gentleman’s clubs and imperial power, the changing character of the capital, workers’ rights, the Bryant & May matchwomen, suffrage, the press, secret passages, and the tension between the old Victorian order and a more modern, uncertain future. Mario also shares how his film background shapes the sensory world of his fiction, from the smell of ink on Fleet Street to the energy of the docks, and why he hopes readers will begin to see London as a lived-in city of overlapping stories rather than simply a tourist destination. A richly atmospheric conversation for anyone who loves Edwardian London, historical fiction, political intrigue and the hidden histories beneath the city’s streets. London History Podcast Website

  2. Sep 11

    163: Fighters and Fashion: The Story of Georgian London's Public Combat

    Spotify episode description London’s forgotten fighting history comes alive in this episode of the London History Podcast. Hazel Baker explores the brutal, theatrical and hugely popular world of Georgian bare-knuckle boxing — a sport that shaped London’s streets, entertainments and social life. From James Figg, celebrated as the “invincible master,” to Jack Broughton’s influential rules of combat and Daniel Mendoza’s revolutionary style, this episode follows the fighters who made the ring a defining feature of eighteenth-century London. Hazel also examines women’s involvement in the boxing world and the writing of Pierce Egan, whose accounts give us a vivid window into the culture of prizefighting. Discover how boxing moved from taverns, amphitheatres and the margins of the city into the centre of popular London life — and why its legacy still matters today. In this episode: The rise of prizefighting in Georgian LondonJames Figg and the early fighting schoolsEntertainment, gambling and the city’s rougher edgesWomen in the boxing worldJack Broughton and the first formal boxing rulesDaniel Mendoza and the changing art of combatPierce Egan and the storytelling of the ring For full show notes, sources and more London history, visit the London History Podcast website.

  3. Jun 26

    162: Building Tower Bridge

    How Tower Bridge Was Built: The Untold Story of London's Most Famous Bridge Discover the remarkable history behind Tower Bridge, one of London's most iconic landmarks. Learn how political battles, engineering innovation, and Victorian ambition transformed a transport crisis into one of the greatest bridge-building achievements of the nineteenth century. 00:00 Building Tower Bridge 01:00 Why London Needed a New Thames Crossing 03:00 The Engineering Challenge 05:00 Early Designs and Political Battles 06:00 Choosing the Bascule Design 06:30 Horace Jones and John Wolfe Barry 08:00 The Tower Bridge Act of 1885 10:00 Building the Foundations Beneath the Thames 12:00 The Six Divers of Tower Bridge 14:00 Constructing the Steel Superstructure 16:00 The Revolutionary Hydraulic System 18:00 Victorian Engineering and Safety Standards 20:00 Costs, Delays and Human Sacrifice 22:00 Legal Disputes During Construction 24:45 Why Victorian Critics Hated Tower Bridge 27:30 The Grand Opening of 1894 29:00 Tower Bridge's Lasting Legacy

  4. Jun 12

    161: Life Below Stairs

    Below Stairs London: Tracing Victorian Servant Life in Belgravia and MayfairHazel Baker guides listeners through surviving street-level traces of Victorian servant London—area steps and railings, coal-hole covers, bell systems, mews alleys, and service districts—showing how London’s architecture encoded a rigid “upstairs/downstairs” hierarchy and enforced servant invisibility. Using census figures, she explains domestic service as Britain’s largest employer of women, driven by coal soot, class display, and tax incentives against male servants, then outlines household ranks from butler and housekeeper to scullery maid and mews staff. She describes the physical toll of long days, the servant supply chain at Shepherd Market, mews history and later gentrification, and surviving examples including Hyde Park Gardens Mews, Belgravia Mews West’s Star Pub, Bathurst Mews stables, and 18 Stafford Terrace (Sambourne House). She critiques period dramas for softening labor and highlights servants’ documented sexual vulnerability and limited protections.00:00 161: Life Below Stairs00:12 Introduction01:55 The Scale of Servant London14:20 The Architecture of Invisibility17:02 Coal Holes & Bell Systems22:38 The Mews28:50 Shepherd Market33:23 A Day in the Life37:00 Downton Abbey vs. Reality40:04 Sexual Vulnerability & Structural Silence44:47 Why Did Servants Stay?46:32 18 Stafford Terrace48:54 The Dual City51:43 Outro & Related Episodes

  5. May 29

    160: Soho Square’s Untold Stories: From Charles II to Mary Seacole

    Host Hazel Baker and Westminster guide Philip Scott record in Soho Square, tracing its shift from Middlesex countryside and royal hunting ground—where “Soho!” was cried—to a late-1600s development originally called King Square for Charles II, whose weathered statue remains after being moved and later returned. They highlight residents and landmarks, including Mary Seacole’s blue plaque and her Crimean War work after being refused by Florence Nightingale’s nurses: she built the British Hotel, treated soldiers and went to battlefields, later publishing her 1857 autobiography and receiving a benefit concert. They discuss Seacole’s rediscovery from the 1980s and her statue near Parliament, the square’s 1925 mock-Tudor gardener’s hut and tunnel myth, Huguenot immigration and the French-language Protestant church, Theresa Cornelis and Casanova, and trivia about entertainer Danny La Rue, buried near Seacole. The episode ends promoting a Soho walking tour.

  6. May 22

    159: Unveiling London's Victorian Vampire Legacy

    London’s Dracula Connections: Victorian Vampires, Penny Dreadfuls & the Lyceum Theatre (World Dracula Day Special)On World Dracula Day (26 May), London History Podcast host Hazel Baker speaks with Lambeth tour guide and Gothic novelist David Turnbull about how a century of Gothic writing and London locations shaped Bram Stoker’s Dracula. They trace early vampire traits through Coleridge’s Christabel, Byron’s circle and the Villa Diodati summer, Polidori’s The Vampyre, and the influence of penny dreadfuls like Varney the Vampire and Lloyd’s publications, before moving to Fleet Street magazines and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla. The conversation highlights Stoker’s Lyceum Theatre work under Henry Irving, the Beefsteak Room’s literary influences (including Burton and Vambéry), Stoker’s research at the British Museum and London Library, and Dracula’s London settings from Piccadilly and King’s Cross to Hampstead. They discuss Dracula’s slow initial success, rivalry with The Beetle, and its 20th-century rise via Hamilton Deane and Bela Lugosi, ending with Turnbull’s Dracula-influenced novel The Hurdy Gurdy Man and related London tours.00:00 Introduction05:39 The Romantic Poets & Vampire Origins17:17 Penny Dreadfuls & Fleet Street31:57 Dracula's London Locations36:19 Dracula's Rise to Fame See Show Notes

  7. May 8

    158: Finsbury Circus: Marsh to Metropolitan Marvels

    The script traces Finsbury Circus Gardens’ transformation from medieval marshland north of London’s wall—created as the Wallbrook’s flow was impeded—into today’s Grade II listed public garden and commercial centre. It recounts Roman burials, later use as a waste dump and tanning area, failed drainage and quarrying, and the successful draining in 1527. The site became home to Bethlehem Royal Hospital (“Bedlam”) in 1675–76, designed by Robert Hooke, before its demolition in 1814–15 and redevelopment as an elegant oval residential circus planned by George Dance and executed by William Montague (1815–17). It covers the area’s religious institutions, a fatal 1825 construction accident, an unrealized radical monument to Rafael del Riego, its 19th-century medical quarter (including Moorfields Eye Hospital), later office redevelopment and key buildings like Lutyens’ Britannic House and Derwent Wood’s sculptures, public opening in 1900, and 2025 restoration after Crossrail works. Podcast show notes: londonguidedwalks.co.uk/podcast

    158: Finsbury Circus: Marsh to Metropolitan Marvels

  8. Apr 24

    157: From Factory Floor to Black Market: The Button Theft Scandal

    Hazel Baker of the London History Podcast describes late December 1870 at the crowded Worship Street Police Court, where three women—Elizabeth Brown (22), Charlotte Quigley (20), and her mother Charlotte Quigley (45)—are charged with stealing large quantities of buttons from Hackney manufacturer Mr. Williamson. The episode explains why buttons had real commercial value in the booming Victorian clothing trade and how stolen goods could be easily hidden and resold. Detective Chapman traces the missing buttons through East End neighborhoods via shopkeepers such as Isaac Levine of Bethnal Green Road and Mr. Hyams near Spitalfields, who admit buying “job lots” without records or reporting suspicions. Magistrate Henry Jeffreys Bushby condemns this normalized receiving of stolen goods, warns traders to keep detailed purchase records, and links the thefts to severe East End poverty and economic distress; the case is remanded and the final outcome is unknown.

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About

The London History Podcast uncovers the stories, people, and places that have shaped London over 2,000 years. Hosted by historian & tour guide Hazel Baker, each 20–40 minute episode feels like an audio walking tour, covering everything from Roman Londinium and medieval guilds to Dickensian streets, Georgian scandals, and modern social change. Perfect for curious Londoners, visitors, students, and history lovers who want to go beyond the usual tourist highlights.

Information

  • Creator
    londonguidedwalks.co.uk
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    167
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 155245
  • Show Website
    London History

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