London's Dark History: Jack the Ripper, Plague Pits and the Tower
In 2013, engineers digging under Charterhouse Square for the new Crossrail line found 25 skeletons laid in neat rows. They had been buried in 1348 and 1349. DNA from their teeth confirmed Yersinia pestis, the Black Death. London's dark history is not a theme park. It is literally under your feet, between office blocks and Pret a Mangers, and you can walk most of it in two days.
Prices are 2026 figures; check the official sites before you go.
Whitechapel 1888: Walking the Ripper Streets with Respect
Between August 31 and November 9, 1888, five women were murdered in and around Whitechapel: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. The killer was never identified. The victims, for more than a century, were reduced to a lazy label: "prostitutes".
Historian Hallie Rubenhold took that label apart in The Five (2019, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize). Using census records, workhouse files and letters, she showed that there is no solid evidence that three of them ever sold sex. What they shared was poverty, alcohol, broken marriages and nights sleeping rough. Read it before you go; the walk changes completely when you know who Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, Kate and Mary Jane were.
The sites are real, though much has changed:
- Durward Street (then Buck's Row), where Mary Ann Nichols was found.
- 29 Hanbury Street, Annie Chapman's murder site, now absorbed into the old Truman Brewery.
- Henriques Street (then Berner Street), site of Dutfield's Yard and Elizabeth Stride.
- Mitre Square, inside the City of London, where Catherine Eddowes died. It is the best preserved of the five settings.
- Goulston Street, where a bloodied piece of Eddowes' apron was found under a chalk message.
- The Ten Bells on Commercial Street, the pub linked to Annie Chapman and Mary Kelly, still serving pints.
Go in the early evening, when Spitalfields' Georgian streets such as Fournier Street look closest to their Victorian selves. Keep your voice down outside homes: people live here, and the women who died here deserve better than selfies.
The Tower of London: Executions and Traitors' Gate
Most people imagine heads rolling inside the Tower. In fact only a handful of executions happened on Tower Green, behind the walls and away from crowds: Anne Boleyn in 1536, Catherine Howard in 1542, Lady Jane Grey in 1554 and Margaret Pole in 1541, whose execution was horribly botched. Those were privileges for the well-connected. The public show was outside, on Tower Hill, where more than a hundred people were beheaded in front of paying spectators.
Traitors' Gate, the water entrance under St Thomas's Tower, was built by Edward I in the 13th century. Prisoners arriving by boat from Westminster passed through it, which gave it its name. The last execution at the Tower was surprisingly recent: German spy Josef Jakobs was shot by firing squad there in August 1941.
- Price 2026: about £37 adult, £18.50 child, around £29.50 concessions. Buying online does not save money but fixes your entry slot.
Tyburn: London's Gallows for Six Centuries
Stand on the traffic island where Edgware Road meets Bayswater Road, near Marble Arch, and look down: a small round plaque marks the Tyburn Tree. From 1571 a triangular gallows stood here that could hang 24 people at once. Condemned prisoners rode from Newgate along what is now Oxford Street, drinking at taverns on the way, while crowds of tens of thousands followed. "Hanging days" were unofficial holidays.
The last execution at Tyburn took place in 1783.
The Great Fire of 1666 and the Monument
On September 2, 1666, a fire started in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane. It burned for four days, destroyed around 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches and old St Paul's. Only a handful of deaths were officially recorded, a number most historians now consider far too low.
The Monument, designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke and finished in 1677, is 61 metres tall: exactly the distance from its base to the bakery site. Climb its 311 steps for a view over the City. An inscription blaming Catholics for the fire was added in 1681 and only removed in 1830.
- Price 2026: about £7 adult, £3.50 child. You get a certificate at the top.
Plague Pits: Charterhouse and Bunhill Fields
The Charterhouse museum, on Charterhouse Square, tells the story of the Black Death burials found by Crossrail and of the monastery built over them. Entry to the museum is free.
A ten minute walk north, Bunhill Fields ("bone hill") was set aside by the City in 1665 during the Great Plague, which killed around 100,000 Londoners, perhaps a quarter of the city. It became the burial ground for nonconformists: William Blake, Daniel Defoe (who wrote A Journal of the Plague Year) and John Bunyan lie here. It is free and open daily.
Southwark: The Clink and the Old Operating Theatre
- Clink Prison Museum, on Clink Street, stands on the site of the Bishop of Winchester's prison, used from the 12th century until rioters burned it in 1780. It gave English the phrase "in the clink". Tickets cost around £10.
- Old Operating Theatre Museum, in the roof of St Thomas' church, is the oldest surviving operating theatre in Europe (1822). Surgeons amputated without anaesthetic in under a minute while students watched from the stands. Open Thursday to Sunday, 10:30 to 17:00; adults pay around £10.
Highgate Cemetery
End in north London at Highgate Cemetery, opened in 1839. The West Cemetery, with its Egyptian Avenue and Circle of Lebanon, is visited by guided tour only; the East Cemetery, home to Karl Marx's tomb, can be explored on your own. Tickets are sold online only and prices change by season, so check highgatecemetery.org.
Explore London with Trevurs
You do not need a paid guide to follow this trail. In the Trevurs app, "Jack the Ripper: The Real Steps of 1888" walks you through Whitechapel stop by stop, and "Dark London: Executioners, Fire and Power" connects the Tower, the Monument and the city's execution sites. If you want the 20th century chapter, "London at War: The Blitz and the City That Held On" picks up where the fire left off. All tours are free, self-guided and work offline, so you can walk at your own pace, day or night.
