Moving to a global scale, what would I pawn for sleep? Would I, given the choice, have peace for Palestine or twelve hours in bed? Clean water for the children of Africa or a week off motherhood? The advent of carbon-neutral industrial processes or a month's unbroken nights? It's a good thing Satan doesn't come and chat to the mothers of sleepless toddlers in the middle of the night."

From Westminster Bridge to the London Eye, Tate Modern, Millennium Bridge, Shakespeare’s Globe, and Borough Market, this walk will take you past some of the top landmarks on the water. It’s a great one to do at night, as the South Bank lights up in the evening. There are often pop-ups, festivals, street performers, and markets at night, so you can take your time and take in the scene. Two children are awakened in the middle of night by their parents who lead them on an evening hike into the countryside. Through the village, past the fields of sleeping cows, and into the woodland, they walk slowly, enjoying the peace of the night and the light of the stars above them. It is a fitting climax to a book that remains personal in tone even when it is flexing its considerable intellectual muscle. Occasionally, Beaumont’s style can be cloudily academic, with sentences about “the consolidation of urban capitalism and its attendant class formations” and a generous sprinkling of references to Foucault, Adorno, Benjamin and co, but for the most part it is sharp and precise in its appreciation of London’s messy charms.

London Night Walks

If you’re up for doing this fun London walk, you can see the route, map, photos, and video on my Soho walk blog post.

Not until 1827 was the ancient legislation against nightwalking finally repealed in England. However, human perception and the law often move at different speeds, and even though it was no longer a criminal offence to stroll or saunter at night, that did not prevent a newly formed police force from detaining anyone who gave cause for suspicion, even if that amounted to little more than looking a bit shifty. Whether you like to be in the heart of the West End or along the Thames, there’s a self-guided evening walk in London for you. She seems to move effortlessly between time periods. Signs for Lost Children was set in the 1870’s, parts of Night Waking in modern Scotland and although Ghost Wall was set in contemporary Britain it may as well have been the Iron Age The other main strand of Beaumont’s argument involves showing why nightwalkers are such popular literary figures. This results in plenty of cultural history, such as a magazine article from 1780 that gravely advised its readers not to adopt “the sauntering gait of a lazy Spaniard”, but it also means showing how often authors themselves have been creatures of the night. Their number include Samuel Johnson and Richard Savage, who spent impoverished parts of the 1730s engaged in various “midnight rambles”, or what Johnson’s Dictionary would later define as “noctivagation” (“the act of rambling or wandering in the night”), and William Blake, whose nocturnal wanderings seem to have been designed to discover the limits of the Enlightenment. It’s a fun London walk to do at night because the atmosphere in places like Leadenhall Market is particularly magical in the evenings. You’ll really feel like you’re in the wizarding world after dark on this walk. You can also see the Harry Potter play en route.Anna is not a totally reliable narrator and she's not even completely likable, but I think the character this author created is unfortunately realistic. Some people embrace the challenges of parenthood and others (like me) need to constantly work on their aversion to not being able to do whatever they want, when they want - her husband Giles, is guilty of this as well. He is conveniently absorbed in his work, so he doesn't have to deal with his wife or kids, if he doesn't want to. Giles would argue that Anna takes the night wakings, etc upon herself, but it is clear that he values his job over hers. He can spend up to 12 hours a day watching the puffins, but she must do her writing in whatever spare moments she can find between childcare and household duties. The setting is an isolated island in the Hebrides. Anna Bennett, her two kids, and husband have moved here so that hubby can count the puffins. Anna, a historian, in unable to get any work done as she is sleep deprived, and has her hands full with motherly and wifely duties. One day while digging in the garden the bones of an infant are uncovered. Whose bones are these? I did find the ending abrupt. An important part of the plot was never resolved by the final scene. While I can see an argument for the idea that readers were supposed to come up with our own ideas about how that played out, it still would have been helpful to have more direction there. This was something I’d expect to answer questions about if I were to read it to the little ones in my life. Although you’ll have an expert guide with you, we do recommend night walk participants have some previous hiking experience - you may want to book onto one of our Guided Days before coming along.

This is the daily, or nightly, reality of post-circadian capitalism, as it might be called. For the city’s army of nocturnal workers, many of whom are recent immigrants forced to perform the least popular forms of labour, travelling at night is in effect travailing at night. Sex workers and the police (or its precursors) have, for their part, always had to patrol pavements at night for professional reasons. So have street-cleaners and others employed to collect and dispose of the city’s waste. From Soho to Covent Garden, the South Bank to Shoreditch, my London night walks cover neighborhoods from north to south and east to west. This book taking place pre-dawn, just like books taking place at night, utilizes dark colors, so most of the book is very dark. The font is white so it could be read well in a poorly-lit room, but you will miss the illustrations. A well-lit room is a bonus here. lyrical and haunting…Yates’ narrative is presented as an account of a midsummer countryside walk…Its beauty lies in its tenderness about the world and the author’s personal responses to what he hears, feels and smells…It stayed with me a long time after I finished.’ Rachel Joyce, The Times

Climb Snowdon for Sunset

From twinkling lights to famous shopping streets, waterfront areas to hipster neighborhoods, these night walks in London will take you to some of my favorite places in the UK capital after the sun goes down. All the angst is rendered in both eloquent and laugh-out-loud terms. I giggled with recognition and comradery. I admired the honesty.