Date: Wednesday 5 August 2026
Time: 10:30am – 15:30pm
Who can attend: Society members and their guests
Cost: £25
Dress code: Casual
Venue: Outside the Science Gallery, located in the courtyard of the former Guy’s Hospital
Members’ Area Portal (LMS): Click here to book
Organiser: Sara Waldron, sarawaldron57@gmail.com

Their Dark Materials

The number of places is limited to 20 and will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. Please feel free to invite one or more guests.

This guided historical walk of about 2.5 miles will be led by Berwyn Kinsey. It starts outside the Science Gallery, located in the courtyard of the former Guy’s Hospital. It follows a route across London Bridge and along the Thames to St Katherine’s Dock.

The tour focusses on the trade in materia medica in London from the Roman era to the present day. Each stop corresponds to a particular era and a specific ingredient: its cultivation, importation, processing and changing use through time.

Ingredients range from the familiar, such as foxgloves and mint, to the gruesome and extraordinary, including ‘man’s grease’ and unicorn’s horn.

Locations featured include Borough Market, Glaziers Hall, Custom House, Old Billingsgate Market, the Tower of London and Potters’ Fields.

At the end of the walk, we will go to a local pub for lunch which will be self-funding. Please let me know if you are not joining us for lunch.

Refunds, minus a £5 admin fee (per ticket), will be offered, upon request, to anyone cancelling for any reason up to six working days before an event. After this time, no refunds are available.

The Livery Committee is the Society’s members’ social committee and is separate from the main Society Programme. It operates outside of the governance of the Society, and uses a money-pooling system for all of its events. Net receipts collected by the Society on their behalf are passed to the Livery Committee.