Between Life and Death: A Walk Around Seven Dials

Come on a walk to hear about the ultimate experiences of London’s 19c inhabitants, life and death, things we all share 'in common'. We explore an area of alleys and courtyards close to Covent Garden, formerly the site of London's most notorious slums and now an area of extravagant leisure, hearing descriptions by Dickens and others of the buildings around Seven Dials and the Rookery of St Giles and relating them to Hogarth's famous print of Gin Alley. We look at how the area was improved with the earliest surviving social housing and one of its most charming community gardens. And we admire the way in which modern architects have reinvented these areas - in some cases perhaps more controversially than in others - for the life styles of 21st century Londoners.
This walk was a sell-out when featured by LFA in 2019.
Anthony Davis is a prize-winning architectural historian and a graduate of Oxford University and UCL The Bartlett. He is also leading a walk called 'Patriarchitecture: Sex and Architecture in St James's' for LFA 2023.