St Giles in the Fields – an illustrated historical talk with Rebecca Preston and Andrew Saint at Holborn Library

Rebecca Preston and Andrew Saint will be giving an illustrated historical talk at Holborn Library this month.

Preston and Saint are the authors of St Giles-in-the Fields: the History of a London Parish, a new book exploring the remarkably varied but unsung history of this area.

“Once one of the largest of metropolitan parishes, it was halved in size and fated to impoverishment when St George’s, Bloomsbury, was chopped out of its territory in the 1730s. Because St Giles came to connote slums, criminality and disease, people began to identify instead with Bloomsbury, Soho, Holborn or Covent Garden. Bedford Square, for instance, has always been in the parish, as was Lincoln’s Inn Fields until parish boundaries were adjusted in 1977, yet they are seldom associated with St Giles,” write Preston and Saint.

Their talk will focus on themes in their book including the area’s seventeenth-century heyday, the notoriety of its Victorian slums and its industrial profile as a centre for printing, brewing and iron-working. This event is organised by the Camden History Society.

St Giles in the Fields: The History of a London Parish, by Rebecca Preston and Andrew Saint, 7.30pm, Thursday 27 June 2024 at Camden Local Studies & Archives Centre, 2nd Floor, Holborn Library, 32-38 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8PA. Admission £2 (free to members of the Camden History Society and the St Giles congregation). The book is published by Brown Dog.