All but one of the Jack the Ripper murder sites have now been destroyed. But there’s much more to the Whitechapel Murders than the crimes themselves. So you start your walk well away from the Ripper tours of other companies, down in a less spoiled part of the East End, full of Victorian warehouses, cobbled streets and old railway arches. You see the only building associated with the murders that still remains, and hear how it led to an Act of Parliament that improved such facilities.

You’re also shown an old church where prostitutes used to advertise their wares, and you’ll hear about what drove these poor women to such a life. There’s also a night shelter, a soup kitchen, a dispensary (an out patients clinic for the poor), old pubs, houses and other Victorian buildings, and you’ll hear the social history attached to these places. You also head past Leman Street nick (of Ripper Street fame). You see one Ripper murder site and also another murder site that has been linked to the killings but is unlikely to be related, which links us in to the role of the press in the Whitechapel Murders and other crimes since.

You also walk down the last remaining dark, narrow alley (see photograph above), which one of the victims probably walked down to her death. And throughout you’re shown amazing photographs of Whitechapel 1888, which bring the people and the conditions in which they lived, to life. You finish in the new City of London police museum, where you’ll see a hologram of Catherine Eddowes played by a young actress. She’s in a police cell, asking to be let out (she was in a police cell just before she was killed). This brings one of the victims back to life. This is part of a section in the museum on the murders, and there’s plenty of other police history to see too.

Start Shadwell Overground Station Finish City of London Police Museum
Shorter Walk option – omit the museum and finish at a cafe, restaurant or pub in Spitalfields or at Liverpool Street station