Learn about the legacy left by influential local radicals
Radical Walk in Wimbledon at 1.30pm, Sunday December 11.
Starts: 1.30pm, The Broadway, London SW19 1SD. Ends: circa 3.30pm, St Mary’s Church, Merton Park, London SW19 3HJ.
Forget the wealthy and establishment residents of Wimbledon such as the Spencer Family and Edward Cecil Viscount of Wimbledon, or events such as the world famous Tennis Championships.
Wimbledon has a far more interesting radical history and a forthcoming ‘Radical Walk’ uses the legacy left by some of the outstanding radicals who played a crucial role in Wimbledon life during the late 19th and early 20th century.
The walk will identify the sites and history of the Wimbledon Suffragettes together with the artistic and political legacy of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. It will explain how Morris and the leading Suffragette, Rose Lamartine Yates, created a radical political and artistic legacy for this part of south-west London.
The walk also looks at other key events and the people who played a part in that history, and visit landmarks that still exist. You will be shown original photographs of the individuals and some of the events they participated in.
There will be a visit to the garden where suffragettes held meetings and recuperated from prison hunger strikes. The local houses designed to honour Morris’s Arts & Crafts legacy, and the route that the suffragettes marched through Wimbledon, led by one of the most doughty suffragette heroes, the diminutive Mary Leigh. It will end looking at the beautiful stained glass windows designed by Burne-Jones, in St Mary’s Church in Merton Park.
This walk was pioneered at this year’s 2016 Wimbledon Bookfest (the first event to sell out).
The walk lasts just under 2 hours and costs £10. There’s a maximum of 20 people, so it’s important to book first. Places can be booked by e-mailing: peter@vistaevents.co.uk giving name and e-mail details. Joining instructions will then be sent. Good walking shoes and an umbrella are advisable.
November 23, 2016