Harley Street – King’s Speech, Brass Plates, Botox

Great Portland Street tube station, London

Guided by Dr Barry

Walk Times

Day Walk Type Start Time End Time
20 June 2021 Tour du Jour 2.30 pm 4.30 pm Summer

GLAD TO HEAR IT

Meet Your Guide. Barry’s a microbiologist. a physician and an art historian. This interview ranges across his extraordinary life and career, from childhood in rural Ireland to the frontline in the battle against Coronavirus.

Short read: Medical London at its Grandest – King’s Speech, Brass Plates, Botox

Long read: Ah, yes. This neighbourhood. And its patients. And, yes, its specialists. The Old Master – Betjeman – nailed it. Heavy mahogany doors. Wrought-iron screens. Rich, sympathetic, discreet (the sound they make when they shut). Eighteenth-century scene. Edwardian faience adornment. Brick-built houses that are lofty and calm. Chimneys steady against the mackerel sky. The iron knob of this or that palisade, so cold to the touch. Our specialist, Dr Barry, x-rays through those heavy mahogany doors. Here are some of the encounters, some of the problems he probes. And the pertinent personnel – patients and physicians. JFK and Addison’s. Lord Lister. Charles Wheatstone and the concertina stethoscope. Dame Marie Tempest. Lord Moran (Winston Churchill’s doctor). Florence Nightingale. Emperor Fritz and throat cancer. Treeves and the Elephant Man. Ronald Ross and Malaria. Turner. Princess Anne. The Queen Mother. Field Marshal Lord Montgomery. Former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. To say nothing of the Society osteopath whose patients included Averell Harriman, Paul Getty, King Peter of Yugoslavia, Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Frank Sinatra and Danny Kaye. And whose friendships ranged from the richest man in Britain to the dark-haired declasse beauty brought up in converted railway carriage who shared her favours with a Russian military attache and the British Secretary of State for War and thereby brought down a government. Great walk. And – always on our medical London Walks – the big plus: they’re guided by a doctor, a Public Health Physician – Dr Barry.

Taking the temperature of Harley Street: “The inhabitants of Harley Street and Wimpole Street have been so taken up with their private practices that they have neglected to add to knowledge. The pursuit of learning has been handicapped by the pursuit of gain.” Royal Commission on University Education (1915)

HARLEY STREET MEDICAL LONDON TOUR – THE PRACTICALS

In the Summer 2021 London Walks programme – which kicks in on May 1 and runs through October 31 – the Brass Plates & Botox Tour* takes place at 2.30 pm on Sunday, June 20. The meeting point is just outside the exit of Great Portland Street Tube. The walk is guided by Dr Barry – a Consultant Public Health Physician

*Full title: Brass Plates & Botox – Harley Street: Medical London at its Grandest

LONDON WALKS PRIVATE WALKS

If you can’t make one of the regularly scheduled, just-turn-up, Harley Street – King's Speech, Brass Plates, Botox it can always be booked as a private tour. If you go private you can have the Harley Street – King's Speech, Brass Plates, Botox walk – or any other London Walk – on a day and at a time that suits your convenience. We’ll tailor it to your requirements. Ring Fiona or Mary on 020 7624 3978 or email us at [email protected] and we’ll set it up and make it happen for you. A private London Walk – they’re good value for an individual or couple and sensational value for a group – makes an ideal group or educational or birthday party or office (team-building) or club outing.

GIVE THE GIFT OF LONDON WALKS

A private London Walk makes a fab gift – be it a birthday or anniversary or Christmas present or whatever. Merchandise schmerchandise (gift wrapped or not) – but giving someone an experience, now that’s special. Memories make us rich.

LONDON WALKS – STREETS AHEAD!

Don’t just take it from us.

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