A storytelling-led LGBTQ+ history walk through London’s Docklands…
Saturday 28th February 2026 - 11am
£25.00
London’s Docklands has always been a place of arrivals - cargo and crowds, sailors and strangers, fortunes made and lost with the tide.
But tucked between the cranes, canals and cobbles is another Docklands story: one of queer lives lived loudly, quietly, bravely, and sometimes right under everyone’s noses.
On this guided walk, we’ll trace a twisting path through Poplar, Limehouse and beyond, from vanished pubs and lost waterways to glittering new skylines.
We’ll meet a remarkable eighteenth-century publican who built a life with another woman while living publicly as “Mr James How” - and who, when threatened, took the extraordinary step of fighting back in court.
We’ll step into the shadows of the Docklands’ old “underworld” reputation - not just the myth-making and moral panic, but the real ways people found each other in a world that was often hostile.
Along the way, we’ll explore the Docklands as a queer crossroads: from working-class riverside pubs where “live and let live” could mean survival, to post-1967 community organising and the creation of spaces for friendship, dancing and belonging.
We’ll touch on art and nightlife too - with stops connected to figures like Francis Bacon and to venues that helped shape East London’s later LGBTQ+ scene.
It’s a walk of big history and small details: saints and sailors, secret meetings and dance floors, rivers that vanished and stories that refused to.
This walk is part of The Urban Rambler’s public programme for LGBTQ+ History Month, and pairs well with Queer Soho: Sex, Scandal & Subculture, a deep dive into London’s most notorious queer neighbourhood.