You can use this section of our site to find out more about the range of walks, tours and events that we offer.

This page provides a selection of routes and tours that can be booked by groups of any size subject to guide and venue availability and a minimum charge.

Many of these walks include visits to some of London’s leading medical museums and collections.

For those with an in depth interest in medical history, we are able to organise bespoke programmes. Our tailor-made itineraries can include your choice of walks, lectures, museum visits and tours.

To enquire about any of our walks or services simply email us at: discovermedicallondon@gmail.com 

To discover just how much we have to offer simply click on any of the walk titles below, or use the drop down menu above to access the home page for each of our walks, tours and events.

If there’s no link at present, please be patient we’re working to get this section of the site ship shape and Bristol fashion just as soon as we can!

“Who needs doctors anyway?” Find out how the biggest life savers in the story of human health come from far and wide, not just the world of physicians. Today, medical practitioners and professionals are held – quite properly – in extremely high esteem. But is the common view that the huge advances in our well being of the last 250 years come down to the role of doctors entirely true?

“Fire! Plague! Revolution! London 1666: capital of calamities” Explore the history of London’s most terrible decade through the eyes of a doctor! In a nation where the reverberations of a bloody civil war could still be felt, it was the darkest of years for its greatest city. Divided across lines of class and religion, still feeling the after effects of The Great Plague, The Great Fire came and seemed unstoppable, engulfing everything before it in flames for days on end.

“Medicine at the Movies” Lights! Scalpel! Action! Film and the invented lives of physicians and clinicians. Since its earliest days the cinema has been obsessed with playing at ‘doctors and nurses’. Sometimes it has taken its stories from fact, sometimes it has created fictions. The results have been both tragic and comic, and all too often ‘romantic’.

“London’s Plagues” From ‘The Black Death’ to Ebola, discover the diseases that have left a scar on our capital city and how medicine and society have responded to pestilence past and present . Get answers for the age old questions… ‘when does an epidemic become a medical emergency?’ ‘who gets to call a contagion a plague?’

“Sex and The City”  Take a walk on the wild side to explore both the streets of London’s former red light district and the complex history of medicine’s sometimes troubled relationship with human sexuality, sexology and the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. 

“Women and Medicine” Join us for a journey in search of the pioneers at the forefront of medical advancement and female emancipation as we tell the the tale of women’s involvement in the medical world both as practitioners and patients across the centuries.

“Medicine at War”  A walk to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War I examining the ever-changing role of medics at the front line from the mediaeval battlefield to The Western Front. 

“Fit to Rule”  Meander around fashionable Marylebone’s ‘Medical Mile’ and finish up by taking the air in ever so Royal Regent’s Park. On the way find out if those in charge were well enough to hold the reigns of power. 

“Homes for Healing”  A tour of healthy open spaces and London’s amazing architectural curing places. From fashionable town houses to squalid workhouses, lost priories to Princes’ palaces discover these dazzling gems. 

“Harley Street: Healers and Hoaxers”  Stroll along and around one of the best known medical streets in the world! Meet some of the most famous and infamous figures from from the history of healing. 

“One for the Road!”  Take a trip through the heart of London to explore the Capital’s drinking culture and the long and complex relationship between healing and imbibing, excess and distress.

“The Making of Thoroughly Modern Medicine” Cut across  the city’s  medical quarter learning all the way how a murky world of mercury cures and caffeine enemas, leeches and blood letting galore was transformed into one of the most respected professions at the cutting edge of science.

“From the Surgeons’ Theatre to Shakespeare’s” Travel along London’s Southbank and discover the secrets of the sacred and profane world of mediaeval and Renaissance medicine.

“Body Snatchers,Sex Maniacs and Spectacle Makers: an improbable history of medicine in London’s West End.” From pioneering anatomists with dubious suppliers, to quacks with eminent clients, and craftsmen restoring the miracle of sight uncover how London’s entertainment district has been a place of cure and the impure for centuries.

“The Intoxicating Walk Down Gin Lane”:  Go in search of the site of Hogarth’s legendary Gin Lane, epicentre of Georgian alcoholic excess. En route encounter the scale of society’s infatuation with all manner of intoxication over the centuries and uncover the attempts of the abstemious few to restrain their fellow man and woman. 

“Dr Dee & The Magic of Medicine”  A special  study tour celebrating the extraordinary collection of works once owned by Dee now contained in the Royal College of Physicians magnificent library. During the course of a day explore the life and legacy of one of Tudor England’s most enigmatic and extraordinary figures.

“Path-ologies: A capital’s contagious geography”: Explore the connection between some of London’s most famous places and the most virulent of pestilences as we seek out the scenes of many of the City’s greatest sicknesses. From the ‘French Disease’ to the ‘Irish Fever’, mediaeval leprosy to ‘The Great Plague’ and Victorian cholera these infections have occupied surprising locations from Royal Palaces to Pest Houses, Gentleman’s Clubs to Animal Markets. 

“MOMA: Modernism Optimism Medicine Architecture” Travel from the Southbank to The Regent’s Park, taking in some of the capital’s greatest buildings and discover how architectural experimentation, medical progress and social reform went hand in hand throughout the 20th century and before.

Can’t find what you’re looking for?

Not to worry. We’re happy to accept commissions to develop new walks and would be delighted to talk to you about putting together a programme that suits your needs.

Equally, if you’re a group leader or travel industry professional please contact us directly to discuss how we can meet your specific requirements. We are experts in developing short and extended itineraries to meet the most exacting specifications.

To enquire about any of our walks or services simply email us at: discovermedicallondon@gmail.com