London: Great Plague Tour with Plague Doctor Guide｜United Kingdom

Beginning in Aldgate, one of the districts most fiercely struck by the Great Plague of 1665, this tour follows the story of the pestilence as it spread through the City of London. It is devoted entirely to an event that killed more Londoners in a single year than any other in the city’s long history. As you walk, you will visit locations connected directly to the crisis, including sites of plague pits where thousands were buried, as well as the streets, alleys, churchyards and historic spaces that shaped the spread of the disease.

At each stop, the story unfolds. You’ll learn how the plague took hold, how it moved through the city, and how people attempted to cope and respond. Drawing on contemporary accounts, the tour explores the measures used to control the outbreak, from quarantine and record-keeping to the role of the plague doctor and some of the more bizarre cures and remedies the terrified citizens turned to.

This is not a theatrical performance, but it is an immersive storytelling experience. Alongside what you see, carefully used sound, scent and taste help recreate the atmosphere of the time, giving a clearer sense of what the city felt like as the crisis deepened.

You’ll remember the disruption of Covid. The Great Plague was on a very different scale: at its height, the dead were piling up faster than the city could bury them.

By the end, you won’t just know what happened, you’ll have a far clearer sense of what it meant to live through it.