If someone is in London next Saturday and has £7 to spare the Hyde900 organisation (set up in 2010 to celebrate 900 years since Hyde Abbey in Winchester was founded) is organising a Walk King Alfred’s London tour by Shank's mare which starts from St Paul's crypts at 11.00am.

I'm a great fan of the Hyde900's role in discovering and its whole approach to King Alfred's (or Edward's) pelvis - a much less hysterical, more respectful and infinitely more intelligent treatment of immensely important royal remains than has been evident in the Leicester scenario. Their understated and informative résumé of the bones' history and most recent excavations when compared to the histrionic claims and media-glare distorted "bites" of info churned out on Richard's behalf are akin to finding oneself delightfully transported to a cloister of serenity, sagacity and sanity having just come from a roller coaster ride shared by amphetamine fuelled ignoramuses on day release from a home for the academically bewildered.

We are leaving for London on Saturday (by 'next Saturday' I take it you mean what I might call 'this Saturday' ie 17th May) so too late.  I am always just a little concerned about walking tours - how big a walk will this entail?  On the other hand ones with no walking aren't quite right either - we are going to do a tour which ends at the Cabinet War Rooms, but as far as I can tell, it is a bus tour where we only get off the bus at the War Rooms, and they are an extra charge to go to. 

Or you might mean 24th May, but by then we will be in Brighton or, ghastly thought, travelling to Cornwall with five of us, including a baby in a carseat, and ALL the luggage we have brought from NZ.  I don't see how everything can fit into a Ford Focus.  But trains from Brighton to Bodmin Park seem full of changes where I might get lost and find myself in Bath instead.  

Sorry, that is rather off the subject.  Is this just a one-off walk, it sounds really interesting. I have a book from the library called Secret London by 'distinguished historian' Andrew Duncan which might have some other walks that appeal to us.  I realised when I refused to go down one tube station last time (very long escalator wasn't working) that we miss things by not just walking overground more. 

(Wouldn't be a very good idea to come to London without seven pound to spare.)

nordmann wrote:

... are akin to finding oneself delightfully transported to a cloister of serenity, sagacity and sanity having just come from a roller coaster ride shared by amphetamine fuelled ignoramuses on day release from a home for the academically bewildered.

But we do have so much fun. The Richard III Society's annual trip to Blackpool is not to be missed.

PS Caro - hope you enjoy your trip. The weather here in the South West is awful at the moment - wind from the Atlantic blowing a hoolie - so bring a woolly jumper or two. It's supposed to be getting hotter soon though, but you never can tell. (It's always warmer in London of course - might be low 70s there by Saturday.)

I'm going to whip your comment over to the Tumbleweed Suite and answer it there, temperance. [Edited because I put Tumbledown Suite - not necessarily an inaccurate description but not its actual name.]

Temperance wrote:

But we do have so much fun. The Richard III Society's annual trip to Blackpool is not to be missed.

Thought you'd appreciate that rant alright ....   

Personally I'm secretly hoping the hip bone belongs to Edward the Elder and not his dad, if only to raise the lad's profile somewhat amongst the Hoi Polloi whose principal source of information normally doesn't extend much beyond media sound-bites and Channel 4 promotions. When discussions concerning which king actually unified England occur they tend to gloss over Eddie's own claim to fame in that regard and how he almost went one better than anyone could have ever predicted when his daddy was a young buck and the family's "kingdom" stretched little further than the end of the marsh he was floundering in at the time - at least if the Parker Chronicle in the ASC ouvre can be counted on. Minnie take note; "All the people in the land of the Mercians who had been subject to Æthelflæd turned to him; and the kings among the Welsh, Hywel and Clydog and Idwal, and all the Welsh people sought to have him as their lord".

Now that's hip!