Matthew Shardlake’s Tudor London

Temple Tube

Guided by Andy

Adult: £20 · Students & Seniors: £15 · Children: £5

Walk Times

Day	Walk Type	Start Time	End Time
7 May 2025	Special	2 pm	4 pm	Summer
4 June 2025	Special	2 pm	4 pm	Summer
9 July 2025	Special	2 pm	4 pm	Summer
13 August 2025	Special	2 pm	4 pm	Summer	Reserve Online
10 September 2025	Special	2 pm	4 pm	Summer	Reserve Online

Unlocking Tudor London

Short Read: Tracing the footsteps of C.J Sansom’s dogged, melancholy ‘hero’ Matthew Shardlake and his ‘sidekick’ Barak through the streets of Tudor London.

N.B., this walk is the trailblazer walk. Matthew Shardlake’s Tudor London, Part One. We now have a second, completely different Shardlake’s Walk.  The new walk – the Part Two Shardlake’s London walk is called Tudor London – Walking with Matthew Shardlake (and Barak) Yes, that’s a link. It takes you to the new walk.

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Long Read: Fan of Tudor London? Look no further, ‘The sights, the voices, the very smell of this
turbulent age’ are raised from the page into the genuine article. You will be surprised how much of
Tudor London still survives. We follow in the footsteps of Matthew Shardlake as he solves another mystery and embarks upon another dangerous commission, like a ‘Tudor Rebus’ cutting through ‘the religious and political chaos of the 1540s with sinister élan’. 

There is so much of Shardlake’s London and so many exciting characters real and fictional to cover that we now have two separate walks.  Much of the early modern City of London which lay within the old Roman walls and gates has disappeared, but the street plan hasn’t completely changed and many of the names still exist. Some of the buildings can still be observed today including the priory church of St Bartholomew’s, Charterhouse and parts of Lincolns Inn. Many others, such as Staples Inn and Middle Temple Hall were built within the later part of 16th Century. And of course many of the churches and buildings such as St Paul’s Cathedral having been burnt down in the Great Fire of London were also quickly reconstructed on the same site in the 17th Century.

Using new archaeological and historical research experts have brilliantly reconstructed the City as it
would have been in the sixteenth century, so we now have a good idea of the landscape of the City
in this period. It is this insight and expertise that we will use on these two accompanying walks to
bring Shardlake’s London alive.*

Part One, The Inns of Court, Shardlake’s Chambers and Smithfield

Things you will see include:

Middle Temple

Inner Temple and Temple Church

Chancery Lane/ Shardlake’s house

Lincolns Inn/Shardlake’s chambers at Gatehouse Court

Staple Inn 

Ely Place and St Etheldreda’s 

Site of Fleet River 

Smithfield 

Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great 

Charterhouse 

Longer Read: Shardlake and Barak would often ‘catch a wherry ’at Temple Stairs to take them upstream to Westminster, downstream to Deptford or across to Southwark. The Inns of Court go back centuries and they still feel like a tranquil oasis off Fleet Street. As Charles Dickens put it, ‘Who enters here leaves noise behind.’

 

Middle Temple is the alma mater of the evil Richard Rich; member of the Privy Council, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations and principle enemy of Shardlake. The heart of the Inn is the beautiful Middle Temple Hall, a sixteenth century dining hall where the first production of Twelfth Night was performed.

 Shardlake’s home is situated on Chancery Lane, described as a ‘fine stone property’ with ‘trellised garden paths shaded by climbing roses’ churned to mud by torrential rain in ‘Sovereign’. Shardlake has built up a’a thriving legal practice’ and his chambers which he shares with Godfrey Wheelwright and his clerk John Skelly can be found by passing ‘under the high square towers of the Great Gate’ of Lincolns Inn and into Gatehouse Court.

It is here in Gatehouse Court that Matthew’s friend is discovered, his throat cut, the icy water of the fountain turned to blood, murdered by a serial killer obsessed with prophesies from ‘The Book of Revelations’. The Old Hall was founded in the 15th Century but has been altered many times since, though parts of ‘Old Buildings’ date back to 1525. There is an ancient winding staircase in the corner of the courtyard where you can imagine the Scrooge-like barrister Stephen Bealknap had his residence.

The Chapel next door has a 17th-century open fan-vaulted crypt where Samuel Pepys once played; still today barristers ‘stride purposefully about the precincts’ with ‘the space of Lincolns Inn Fields beyond’.

Staple Inn with its wafer-thin Elizabethan half-timber façade was a satellite to Grey’s Inn, its members included amongst others who feature in the series Thomas Cromwell, Stephen Gardener, Robert Aske and William Cecil. We then turn down that impossible-to-find ancient alleyway, to an Inn, a pub, said to date back to 1546, the type of pub that bad boy turned family man Jack Barak could rarely resist. It is said to have been the servant’s quarters of the Bishop of Ely’s Palace. The Chapel of the Palace still survives, built between 1250-1290, we get to go inside; the upper church is dedicated to Tudor martyrs while the 13th Century crypt was the scene of a five-day feast attended by Henry VIII and his wife Catherine of Aragon. The Palace; the setting for John of Gaunt’s famous speech in Richard II, ‘this royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle’. 

We end at THE end for Anne Askew, burnt alive in Smithfield by The Priory Church of St Bartholomew’s so vividly and horribly portrayed in Lamentation. 

*my favourite source is Map of Tudor London, The City and Southwark in 1520 (second edition), published by The Historic Towns Trust, by Giles Dark, edited by Caroline Barron and Vanessa Harding, Sept 2022.

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Anyone for a stiff drink? Thought so. I have a recommendation Barak himself would enjoy.

 MATTHEW SHARDLAKE’S TUDOR LONDON – THE WALKS

THE PRACTICALS

Matthew Shardlake’s Tudor London, Part I  meets at 2 pm just outside Temple  Tube Station. Matthew Shardlake’s London, Part I takes place on the following Wednesdays: March 12, April 9, and May 7. The Matthew Shardlake, Tudor London Quest I ends near Barbican Tube  Station.

Tudor London – Walking with Matthew Shardlake, Part II takes place on the following Wednesdays: 26 March, April 23 and May 21.

Tudor London – Walking with Matthew Shardlake, Part II meets at 11.00 am by the Petit Pret at Blackfriars  Tube Station. The Matthew Shardlake, Tudor London Quest II ends near Monument Tube  Station.

The two Matthew Shardlake’s Tudor London Walks – Part I and Part II – are the Castor and Pollux of our Literary London programme of perambulations. A ‘double hit’ was always on the cards because Matthew Shardlake’s London is a teeming, cup overfloweth affair. And who else but Andy, whose academic specialty (MA, University of London) was Tudor London, would it fall to to track down – “every contact leaves a trace” – Shardlake’s Tudor London in the streets of 21st century London?  Track down, create, and guide.

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THE GUIDING

Don’t just take it from us…

LONDON WALKS REVIEWS

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“by far the most impressive series of walks that I have ever encountered are those offered by London Walks”  Travel and Enjoy

LONDON WALKS PRIVATE WALKS

If you can’t make the regularly scheduled, just-turn-up, public Matthew Shardlake’s Tudor London walk do think about booking one as a private tour. If you go private you can have Matthew Shardlake’s Tudor London or its alter ego Tudor London – Walking with Matthew Shardlake (and Barak) – 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 Peter or Niamh 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 very special, thoughtful and unusual gift. Be it a birthday or anniversary or graduation or Christmas present or whatever. Merchandise schmerchandise (gift wrapped or not) – but giving someone an experience, now that’s special. Memories make us rich.

MIND THE GAP

It’s not even close

PODCAST LISTEN

Shardlake’s London with a bonus – Andy got a bunch of his London Walkers to give their favourite London book recommendation.