Gruesome Tales, This Thursday!

The scene that met the Policemen made them collectively shudder. Robert and Nathaniel Coombes were calmly playing cards downstairs. Their mother was nowhere to be seen. But she was in the house. Upstairs, lying in bed, actually. Murdered. Her face had been largely devoured by maggots while rats had eaten her brain, heart and right […]

Shuffle Festival 2016

by Sheldon Death usually depresses the hell out of people and 2016 seems to be doing a good enough job of that already – from the loss of icon after icon and Brexit; this year is one to be remembered. But there are still plenty of things to be chipper about – such as the return […]

Murder, War & Gore: A Trip to the Long-Gone East End

by Sheldon Ticket alert! In two weeks time we’ll be kicking off our touring schedule for 2016 with our highly popular tour of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park! Opened as the last of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ Cemeteries in 1841; Tower Hamlets wasn’t quite the success its shareholders had hoped for – the rich flocked to West […]

Movement, Migration and Place: Shuffle Festival 2015

by Sheldon Amongst the dappled shade of the only woodland in Zone 2 are once key-characters in the fabric of the East End. Beneath a pink granite monument is White Hat Willie, builder of Cutty Sark and on Millionaire’s Row – royalty itself – the uncrowned King of Limehouse. From drunk coachmen, Jack the Ripper […]

Get Involved! Tour Schedule 2015

by Sheldon With the summer season firmly in sight it’s time to announce this year’s tour schedule! We kick off this year’s season with the celebration of the 175th birthday of Abney Park Cemetery. An immaculate arboretum in its day, nature has claimed back the once tidy flowerbeds and hidden the people buried here…UNTIL NOW. Come […]

The Lost Docks, Prince and Engineer of Southwark

On a chilly Sunday morning, Steve and I went to Bermondsey tube station to go on a tour of Thames-side Southwark, led by the charismatic Tim Thomas (who wore the best flat cap I’ve ever seen). An actor (gleefully telling us it was he who bumped off Simon Callow in the third act of Four Weddings and […]

The Abode of the Mortal Part of Man: Cemetery Club Tour Part 2

by Sheldon Who’d have thought that 31 acres in North London would carry on the mantle established by a burial ground that lay 4.1 miles away, created several hundred years before? On Saturday I ventured up to Stoke Newington to give a tour on behalf of the Abney Trust, as part of their Winter Fun Day. […]

Orators and Entertainers

by Sheldon I’m pleased to say that another Cemetery Club tour is happening! On Saturday 13th December, I warmly invite you to join me for ‘Orators and Entertainers: the Hidden Story of Abney Park Cemetery’! Following on from the hugely successful Tower Hamlets walk I led, the nice people of Abney Park have invited me to […]

Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil

by Sheldon What does the first Labour Mayor of Poplar, the bloke who built the Cutty Sark and the supplier of animals to P. T. Barnum have in common? Following the successful debut of our Brompton tour, I am pleased to announce I shall be delivering a tour of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park as part […]

Guide & Seek: The Lost Lives of Brompton Cemetery

by Christina It is just past midday at Brompton Cemetery’s south gate. Sheldon is about to run through his first ever Cemetery Club tour before actual people begin arriving. As we start off for stop number 1 (Jon Snow), two dishevelled looking men with weather-beaten faces, Springsteen T-Shirts and bottles of cider in their hands […]