Whilst the City of London or “Square Mile” is the centre of the Capital’s wealth, it borders the East End and one of London’s historically poorer districts; Whitechapel. This walk begins in the Eastern part of the City, where early insurance brokers took advantage of its proximity to London’s docks. It takes in the Church where Samuel Pepys the diarist worshiped and is buried, along with the first victim of the Great Plague in 1665. Pepys is remembered again at the church from where he observed the Great Fire of London in 1666.

We then pass the scene of the infamous Jack the Ripper’s fourth victim to leave the City at Aldgate and enter Whitechapel. This was a poor area where many incomers from overseas settled in tough conditions, including over 100,000 Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe. We pass the road in which the Jewish community successfully repelled a march by British Fascists in the 1930s. Finally, we end up in St Katharine’s Dock, build by the great engineer Thomas Telford.