Fleet Street

Saxon settlers, rebellious Elizabethans, the first waxworks, roaring printing presses; Fleet Street's extraordinary story, told on foot.

Fleet Street is famous across the world for headlines, exclusives and scandal. But its story runs far deeper than the newspapers that made it legendary. This is one of the oldest and most layered streets in London, a place long associated with words. From the Saxon settlers who first named this area, to the great printing presses that influenced and informed the world, the old newspaper palaces that now stand silent and empty. Walk slowly and the stories of the people who made this street are still here, hiding in plain sight.

Along the way you'll find a Tudor nobleman whose dangerous ambition ended with the axe, the first private telephone in London and a urine deflector that caused public outrage. There's Samuel Johnson, who spent nine years writing his great Dictionary and there's the church where a pastry chef glancing through a window invented the wedding cake.