Walks Around London by Joan Bloxam

Seventy-five years have now passed since the publication of a little guide book entitled Walks Around London, written and illustrated by Joan Bloxam [Joan Mary Bloxam, 1884-1948] and published by the Athenaeum Press. My 1936 first edition was possibly bought by an A Groves in 1937, judging by the signature on the inside cover. As a guide book, this edition of Walks Around London is no longer particularly useful: pre-World War II and a transformation in commerce and transport, the London it describes is radically different from that swarming with tourists and shoppers today. But it is a quaint delight, punctuated with lovely little illustrations and a sense of the more simple pleasures in life, with no foreboding of the dark days that would visit the city in only a few short years.

The introduction by Howard Marshall observes, "Her charming sketches will remind us happily, in days to come, of London as we knew it before the town planners set to work. It may even rouse Londoners in defence of those parts of their city which should not be sacrificed to the contemporary cry for functionalism and efficiency."
 

Illustration of St Anne's Gate on the Westminster chapter
title page.

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