London certainly has some grisly history and the major plague epidemics are the subject of an alternative London guided walk. Tales of Plague offer a part gory guided walk and part theatrical event around The City of London.

The walk focuses on the Black Death of 1349 (see The Spread of the Black Death through Europe) and the Great Plague of London in 1665 (which ended a few months before The Great Fire of London).

Two Guides take you on the journey with one giving the background to each location on the route and another is an actor playing various historical characters popping up to tell their stories at different points.

The walk features visitations from the sinister plague doctor as well as Samuel Pepys and a medieval peasant. You'll stop by plague pits, ancient churches and some of the best sights The City has to offer.

Meeting Point

The Tales of Plague walks start from Tower Hill tube station where you won't have problems finding your Guide as they will either be holding leaflets or carrying a rat on a stick!

The Walk

The Guides cleverly weave in London's history at each stop relevant to the location. For example, the Roman wall at Tower Hill. While we learned about the use of each location now we were also told about what was there in the past including huge plague pits under The City.

Our Guides were both able to handle all the questions we threw at them so they know more than just the plague history.

We heard about the desperate attempts to cure the plague (see How to Avoid The Plague) and got 'first hand' accounts read from the diary of Samuel Pepys.

There was a lot of information but it was delivered with humour from the actor who was great with children. I took a 9 year old who was asking when we could do the walk again before it had even ended!

We saw the Tower of London and Tower Bridge near the start of the walk and ended near The Monument and the site of the start of the Great Fire of London. We were led down lots of back streets you may never see otherwise and had other sites of interest pointed out along the way.

Conclusion

Both of the Guides are great at their job and managed to entertain children and adults. This is London's only plague walk so if you are looking for something a bit different this is recommended.

Official Website:www.talesofplague.co.uk

As is common in the travel industry, the writer was provided with a complimentary services for review purposes. While it has not influenced this review, About.com believes in full disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest. For more information, see our Ethics Policy.