Bloody London

20 Walks in London, Taking in its Gruesome and Horrific History

David Fathers

Bloomsbury 2020

Pb, 128pp, £9.99, ISBN 9781844865505

This book should be a treat for London types with an interest in strange and gruesome tales and criminal history. It lays out a series of illustrated strolls, some linked by geography and some (fire, imprisonment and plague) by theme. Using a loose definition of gruesome, horrific and criminal, the author pulls together a collection of facts to follow along walks of between one and 10 kilometres. The tales featured are diverse, from events of historical import to one-off murders; the latter are likely to provide fresh information even for those with an informed view of London history. The layout follows the pattern set in Fathers’s last work, London’s Hidden Rivers, combining illustration and maps to follow, with the story spots flagged up.

The first route (Holloway and Islington) is a promising start, but the book structure, which worked so well in the previous book, falls down here, as the pages feel cramped and points are overstretched to make the walks work. The book feels rushed and unfocused, though it can still be a pleasure despite these shortcomings. Fathers has unearthed an interesting collection of London’s lesser known gruesome tales.

I say London, but it feels disappointingly retro in 2020 for a book about “London” to treat south London as a sort of smear below the Thames, as this does. A book on horrific, criminal or gruesome London that, for example, fails to include a walk from Peckham via Camberwell and Walworth to the Elephant just isn’t doing its job. This may be a provincial point to make, but it underscores a broader criticism of the work. Having said this I look forward to Fathers’s future work because he has a lively mind, an eclectic approach and clearly knows his (north) London.

Chris Roberts

★★★