Shakespeare Private Walking Tour of London

Please arrive 10 minutes before departure outside Farringdon Station on Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6BY.

Southwark Cathedral is where William’s younger brother Edmund is buried. Like William, Edmund wanted to become an actor but sadly died in London. Whilst enjoying the view of one of the best examples of Gothic architecture in the capital, your guide will explain why Edmund followed his brother and why London was a perilous place to live in the 16th Century.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre is the most prominent place in London linked to the famous playwright. Built during the late 1980s and early 1990s, this building has an American link that may surprise you! Learn how performing Shakespeare’s plays has changed dramatically since the 16th Century and how Shakespeare has gone from being a popular art form to being seen as elitist.

The College of Arms is the organisation that granted John Shakespeare (William’s father) a Coat-of-Arms, making them respectable. It was this respectability that helped advance Shakespeare’s social-climbing ambitions. But was Shakespeare the working-class genius we think he was? Or was Shakespeare, like some of his rivals, just another posh boy?

Clerkenwell Gate is one of the few places left in London that is pretty much as it was when William Shakespeare was alive. Today it is home to the Order of Saint John, but Shakespeare would have known it as the office of the Master of Revels, AKA the official censor.

Why were plays censored during a time which is often considered a golden age of theatres and new writing? And why did Shakespeare repeatedly re-write history to get his plays performed? Your guide will reveal all.