Travel through a thousand years of history, meeting kings and queens, body snatchers, Charles Dickens, an eighteenth century ghost, and William Wallace (and learn how he was in no fit state to shout "Freeeedoooommmm!" whilst being executed!)On our walking tour we'll visit the areas around Smithfield, for centuries London's site of both animal and human slaughter. We'll learn about how the city disposed of the tens of thousands of Black Death corpses in the fourteenth century, the execution methods used in the Middle Ages, and how the area became a notorious slum which Dickens used as the setting for Oliver Twist. The walking tour begins outside Barbican Station, ends near to Farringdon Station, and will take around two hours. Total distance is about two miles.