Wild & Wonderful Women of Westminster

This one gets a 21-gun salute

Yes, a 21-gun salute for this new walk.

1. Created and guided by Dr Luisa. Snap! That’s a lock for a brilliant walk.

2. Women ahead of their time who dared to think and live differently.

3. Women who changed history.

4. Society beauties.

5. Math protégés.

6. Double-crossing spies – their heroism was unparalleled.

7. Heiresses.

8. Politicians.

9. Ground-breaking writers.

10. “The most remarkable woman in the kingdom.”

11. The courtesan who wrote the first kiss-and-tel memoir.

12. The Lady of the Lamp.

13. The woman novelist who inspired Jane Austen.

14. The London of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.

15. The royal mistress everybody loved.

16. Henry VIII’s short-lived “morally corrupt and physically deformed” Queen.

17. Posh London to the Nth degree.

18. The grandest, most beautiful house in London.

19. London’s shopping Shangri-La.

20. London’s oldest palace – hoary with age, redolent with history.

21. A hidden, utterly charming 300-year-old market square, the haunt of “strumpets & lazy rascals.”

FIRST THE 21-GUN SALUTE, NOW THE PAGEANT

Meet the wild and wonderful women of Westminster who changed history – from society beauties to maths protégés to double-crossing spies who risked their lives for democracy to heiresses to politicians to ground-breaking writers.

ALL ABOUT THE WALK (here speaks Guide Luisa)

We’ll be meeting the wild and wonderful women who lived in some of the loveliest and wealthiest parts of London from the 1500s to the 20th century.  Women who dared to think and live differently – women ahead of their time who were one part ordinary to two parts extraordinary.

Walking through glorious Piccadilly, St James’s Square and the Mall we’ll discover the woman who King Edward Vll said was the most remarkable woman in the kingdom – after his mother (who was Queen Victoria so the bar was high but then she, the woman Edward VII had in mind, did give billions of pounds to charity), the courtesan who wrote the first kiss-and-tell memoir (the Duke of Wellington said “publish and be damned”), the world’s best-selling crime writer who hid herself away to write in one of St James’s oldest hotels and the Lady of the Lamp who was a statistical genius as well as a pioneering nurse.

We meet the pioneering woman novelist whose writing inspired Jane Austen. And walk along the very streets frequented by Jane Austen’s characters in Sense and Sensibility. Streets Jane Austen knew from staying with her banker brother Henry. Streets great for shopping then and now.

We meet the most popular mistress of a King and remember the first wife of our current monarch. Her, that first wife’s family home, is a London “must see.” Many reckon it to be the most beautiful house in London. And nearby – an embarrassment of regal ex-wifely riches – a Henry VIII ex who barely saw the palace he built for her.

And what about the trailblazers, the women spies – part of the double-crossers – ordinary women whose heroism was beyond compare and whose work often led to the ultimate sacrifice. And for good measure,  the genius who saw what the earliest computer could do. We celebrate them, too.

A few of these women are household names – others are less famous. But one and all are undeniably wild or wonderful and often both.

The area itself is a visual feast, a joy to sojourn through. We will see the oldest and often overlooked palace in London, a hidden, charming market square that hasn’t changed much since the 1700s when it was full of ‘strumpets and lazy rascals’ as well as some of Piccadilly’s most luxurious hotels.

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THE GUIDING

THE ESSENTIALS

Meeting point:  Green Park  Tube Station – North exit (on the corner of Piccadilly and Stratton Street)

The tour lasts for two hours.

The tour finishes near Green Park  Tube station.