The London Public Health Architecture Tour - Saturday 5 July 2025 10am
Regular price £19.50Join Open City for a walking tour exploring how public health challenges shaped London’s built environment through the ages.
This insightful walking tour from Soho to Clerkenwell — led by writer and architectural designer Eleanor Marshall — chronicles the many public health crises throughout London’s history and reveals how bold reformers, architects and public bodies radically changed our urban environment in response.
The walk will explain how urban qualities we take for granted today — such as clean water, fresh air and natural light — came to be recognised as crucial to good living and working conditions and radically influenced the architecture of the city. The tour will also consider how the recent pandemic could reshape our city once again.
Participants will discover the extraordinary stories of public health through the centuries. The tour travels through Bloomsbury to Somers Town, an area of bold community health reform and finishes at Bevin Court, a controversial housing project that was part of a string of radical attempts to create modernist affordable housing in the former Borough of Finsbury.
The tour will examine themes of public health, sanitary conditions and public housing by profiling pioneering buildings and people who have influenced much of modern architecture throughout Britain ever since.
You can now get a hold of Eleanor's tour as a part of our printed Pocket London guides here.
Key Information
Meet: Outside 29-30 Soho Square W1D 3QS
End: at Bevin Court, near Angel Islington
Duration: 3 hours approx
Distance: 5 km approx
Eleanor Marshall is a writer and architectural designer based in London. She has worked in public realm and industrial design offices in North America and the UK and with city transport authorities in Moscow, London, Edinburgh and New York.
Her areas of practice are transport, health, urban design and post-war architecture. She has previously led tours in Scotland and joined the Open City team in January 2021.
Please select solidarity pricing if you feel you can help our charity to offer reduced concessionary tickets to others who require them.
We aim to be inclusive and accessible where possible, please contact Adrianna at tours@open-city.org.uk to discuss your accessibility needs, reduced ticket prices and if you require a free carer ticket.
Tickets are non-refundable and tours go ahead rain or shine.
* Please check for any planned transport engineering works, planned strike action or large scale events that may affect your journey before making your ticket purchase *
If you find you can no longer make the tour for any reason including Covid we are unable to transfer you to another date, but please feel free to pass your booked place onto a friend to go and enjoy the tour in your place.
In the event your tour date is cancelled you will be issued with a credit note (with no expiry date) that you can use to
- book onto a rescheduled date
- book onto any other tour from our programme
or you can request a refund.
All ticket purchases are in support of the work of our organisation including our pioneering education programmes. We really appreciate your support!
Get in touch with Adrianna at tours@open-city.org.uk with any queries.
