Category Archives: Destination City

The City Corporation’s programme to develop and market the Square Mile as a leisure destination.

Pearly Kings and Queens and the Sheep Drive show City’s authentic culture and heritage

A week after the City Corporation’s £1.3 million Bartholomew Fair ended, two more modest events showed how traditional activities can attract crowds despite relatively little publicity. Yesterday I went to the Pearly Kings and Queens Harvest Festival in Guildhall Yard, while at Southwark Bridge the annual Sheep Drive celebrated the ancient privilege of Freemen of read more »

Sheep Drive and Livery Fair

Yesterday there were two traditional events in the City of London – the Pearly Kings and Queens Harvest Festival and the Sheep Drive and Livery Fair. I’ve written about the Pearlies here, but didn’t get to the Sheep Drive. Fortunately there’s quite a lot on social media, and I’ve pulled together some content to demonstrate read more »

After the Fair is over

Over on the Cloth Fair site I’ve reported on my research into earlier re-staging of Bartholomew Fair, starting with the big one organised by Barts Hospital in 1923. Senior medics yielded to a session in the stocks. I’ve asked for more info from anyone involved in more recent events, including 1973, 2000 and 2010. Meanwhile, read more »

A website for Cloth Fair, Bartholomew Fair and The City Courant

A new website Clothfair.city tells the story of how a Fair started in 1133 to support Barts church and hospital, but closed in 1855, was relaunched this week both locally and City-wide. The site features articles from a souvenir edition of The City Courant. As I’ve already written, the City Corporation picked up Councillor Matthew read more »

Destination City: good for visitors … what about residents too?

The Culture, Heritage and Libraries committee held a wide-ranging discussion today following a presentation about the vision for Destination City, which I wrote about earlier. Here’s some of the issues, and a suggestion on where best to explore the pros and cons of the programme for residents. Previous post about Destination City vision Presentation slides read more »

Ten Ages of London – a great Square Mile wander from Londonist

The first edition of the Londonist: Time Machine newsletter provides a brilliant example of the delights of wandering about the City of London, which I wrote about yesterday. Matt Brown offers The Ten Ages of London in One Short Walk starting with Prehistoric London on the banks of the Thames, and walking through Roman, Anglo-Saxon, read more »

Destination Square Mile needs support for wandering about

The City Corporation’s programme to attract more visitors is pitched in competition with other London destinations, including Canary Wharf and Covent Garden, as I reported earlier. One destination that might have been mentioned is South Kensington, which has a wide range of cultural attractions. The City prides itself on that too, saying: “It is recognised read more »

First public vision of the Square Mile as Destination City

The City Corporation has now offered the first public vision of its £2.5 million Destination City programme, which aims to attract visitors whose spending will boost a Square Mile economy hit by working from home. A presentation on the programme shows the City competing for visitors globally with festivals and events in Sydney, New York read more »

Policy chief commits to engaging residents in Destination City programme

The City Corporation has now posted on Youtube a recording of the City Question Time event held with residents earlier this month. I asked about Destination City and Bartholomew Fair – in particular what wider plans beyond the Fair there were for the programme, how to carry forward the promised proposals for better wayfinding, and read more »

Discussing what planning can do for Destination City

This evening’s City of London workshop on Destination City was well-worth attending – even though it turned out that it wasn’t much about Destination City. It was about a Plan. I should have paid more attention to the invitation page, which was clearly headed City Plan 2040 engagement programme. It said that workshops would run read more »