PAST EVENTS 2026

After passing through security, we met our incredibly knowledgeable guide, whose dry and very British sense of humour added a great touch to the tour. He took us through the Old Bailey, introducing us to the building’s fascinating history as we visited the imposing Entrance Hall, two courtrooms, the basement holding cells and the Judges dining room.

The Old Bailey began as a court beside Newgate Prison in the late 1500s and takes its nickname from the street it faces, which ran along the line of the outer defensive wall ‘bailey’ of the City of London near Ludgate Hill. The present building was build between 1902-1907 after Newgate Prison was demolished and opened by King Edward VII . The building was damaged during the Blitz and the IRA bombing in 1973 (after repairs, embedded debris were kept as part of the restoration history). In the 1970s more courtrooms and modern facilities were added as well as heavy lead-lined protective curtains installed over some of the large windows.

The Entrance Hall is the main public access area and central distribution point from which corridors and lifts lead to different courtrooms and administrative areas of the Old Bailey. 

We went to the oldest courtroom referred to as Court No 1 used for high-profile criminal trials such as Ruth Ellis (1955) the last woman to be hanged in the UK, William Joyce (1945) tried and executed for treason after broadcasting Nazi propaganda during WW2 , the “Yorkshire Ripper” (1981) Peter Sutcliffe was convicted  for 13 murders to life imprisonment.

It has a traditional, Victorian-era judicial atmosphere, with dark wood furnishings, formal seating with a traditional layout : the judge’s bench is elevated at the far end, the witness box sits to one side and the dock for defendants is enclosed by glass and a wooden partition. From the dock we went down a staircase to the secure holding cells located below ground level where defendants are held before and during hearing or trials before being transferred back to remand prisons like HMP Pentonville or Belmarsch for men and HMP Bronzefield and Downview for women.  They are divided in three categories and are separated from each other to prevent contact between defendants from different cases. A sobering experience for visitors. 

Our final destination was the Judges’ dining room used for lunches and private gatherings during court sittings. It is decorated in a formal, traditional style with wood panelling, royal portraits, senior judicial figures and heraldic coats of arms representing the Sheriffs of the City of London. They symbolise the link between the City’s civic government and the criminal justice system.

Seeing the Old Bailey firsthand was awe-inspiring and served as a powerful reminder of the heritage and authority of the English justice system.

After a delicious, Eastern Mediterranean tapas style, early dinner at Brothers Marcus in the delightful pedestrianised Slingsby Place in Covent Garden, a small group of us made our way to the Ambassador’s theatre nearby to watch Ava Pickett’s debut play, 1536. 

Set in a rural Essex village during the tumultuous year Henry VIII ordered the execution of his wife, Anne Boleyn, 1536 tracks how distant political turmoil and royal scandals embolden local men to control and condemn the women in their community. 

The play was effortlessly funny, bold and definitely ballsy. It blended dark themes with earthy, sharp-tongued humour. The three central characters were aptly cast, delivering emotionally strong performances alongside perfectly timed comic lines. We watched Anna (a thunderbolt of a character, selfish, brave yet naive), Mariella (a bristling yet fragile midwife) and Jane (the good girl, who starts off making us believe she is anxious and vulnerable, longing for a good marriage, but then reveals a more steely and ugly side.) argue, flirt, swear and spiral in exchanges that are gossipy, occasionally filthy and very frequently hilarious! 

The play’s most powerful achievement is how effortlessly it removes the distance between 1536 and the present day. Pickett's writing draws a clear, unflinching line from the court of Henry VIII through to modern culture, tracing the same patterns of male entitlement across five centuries. The ‘operating system’ is always the same: idealise the woman, crave her validation, feel entitled to possess her, reward those who fit the fantasy, punish or destroy those who do not. It was a message that landed on us full force and stayed with us some time after the performance ended.

With our very knowledgeable guide Dr Monika Hinkel, a distinguished lecturer and curator in the field of Japanese Art, specialising in Japanese wood-block prints, an Academic Member of the Japan Research Centre at SOAS University of London and an Academic Associate of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, we stepped  into the rich world of Japanese art, design and craftsmanship. Exploring highlights from the gallery’s renowned collection, the tour traced Japan’s artistic traditions from the seventeenth century to the present day, moving from samurai armour, tea ceramics, kimono, woodblock prints, and lacquerware to modern and contemporary design. 

Special attention was given to the new display, Urushi Now: Contemporary Japanese Lacquer, which celebrates the enduring and evolving art of Japanese urushi. Featuring works by leading contemporary lacquer artists, the exhibition reveals how this 7,000-year-old medium continues to inspire bold new forms and expressions today. We admired works like ishizuka Genta’s Red Flow and Mine Tanigawa’s fluid, organic sculptures that look almost impossible to fashion out of wood and sap.

Following the tour, our group walked up Exhibition Road to the Polish Club, where we enjoyed lunch in a warm and friendly atmosphere.