London Month of the Dead - The Dead of St Pancras

SHADOWLANDS OF BLOOMSBURY Ghosts, spies and hidden histories in WC1 with Lester Hillman Saturday 10th October 2026 at 10 am Bright Bloomsbury has long been haunted by darker visions. Beneath its reputation as a centre of learning and literature lies a landscape that inspired spiritualists and mystics, nurtured urban Gothic writer Arthur Machen, and provided the architectural blueprint for Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Join author and cultural historian Lester Hillman for a fascinating journey through Bloomsbury’s hidden past. Along the way you’ll encounter spies, secret histories and extraordinary characters, from John Buchan’s Richard Hannay and The Thirty-Nine Steps to Cold War espionage, a hidden sculpture, an assassinated Regency Prime Minister, the remarkable eighteenth century fencer and spy Chevalier d’Éon, Kenneth Williams in his centenary year, and Sir Andrew Judde, the last English Mayor of Calais. Part literary pilgrimage, part urban exploration and part memento mori, this walk uncovers the remarkable stories and forgotten lives concealed behind Bloomsbury’s elegant façades. Tickets £15 including a 20% donation to Abney Park Cemetery. Please click here to purchase. Lester Hillman Lester Hillman is a London guide, writer and researcher with a passion for uncovering the city’s hidden histories and overlooked stories. His walks combine literature, architecture, film, folklore and social history, revealing unexpected connections between London’s streets and the ideas that have shaped them. Whether exploring the capital’s darker corners or its imagined futures, Lester brings an engaging, thought-provoking approach that encourages participants to see familiar places through entirely new eyes.

SHADOWLANDS OF BLOOMSBURY
Ghosts, spies and hidden histories in WC1 with Lester Hillman
Saturday 10th October 2026 at 10 am

Bright Bloomsbury has long been haunted by darker visions. Beneath its reputation as a centre of learning and literature lies a landscape that inspired spiritualists and mystics, nurtured urban Gothic writer Arthur Machen, and provided the architectural blueprint for Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Join author and cultural historian Lester Hillman for a fascinating journey through Bloomsbury’s hidden past. Along the way you’ll encounter spies, secret histories and extraordinary characters, from John Buchan’s Richard Hannay and The Thirty-Nine Steps to Cold War espionage, a hidden sculpture, an assassinated Regency Prime Minister, the remarkable eighteenth century fencer and spy Chevalier d’Éon, Kenneth Williams in his centenary year, and Sir Andrew Judde, the last English Mayor of Calais.

Part literary pilgrimage, part urban exploration and part memento mori, this walk uncovers the remarkable stories and forgotten lives concealed behind Bloomsbury’s elegant façades.

Tickets £15 including a 20% donation to Abney Park Cemetery. Please click here to purchase.

Lester Hillman
Lester Hillman is a London guide, writer and researcher with a passion for uncovering the city’s hidden histories and overlooked stories. His walks combine literature, architecture, film, folklore and social history, revealing unexpected connections between London’s streets and the ideas that have shaped them. Whether exploring the capital’s darker corners or its imagined futures, Lester brings an engaging, thought-provoking approach that encourages participants to see familiar places through entirely new eyes.