The Jermyn Street Experience

Specialties

Dr Cindy Lawford gives tours that combine historical anecdotes with intimate shop visits, where staff members introduce the craft behind their beautiful products. She gives two kinds of tours in St. James’s and Mayfair. The first is The Jermyn Street Experience, on Fridays at 4 pm (£20 per person) and privately (£30), where she focuses on just one street and discusses not only its glorious shirts, but also the colourful pasts of Henry Jermyn, Aleister Crowley, Beau Brummell, Rosa Lewis, Isaac Newton, Chapman Pincher and the notorious Turkish baths. There is also a Tuesday lunchtime tour that is only 45 minutes long, where for £10 you get a sandwich from Paxton and Whitfield and a tour. On Fridays meet at Jermyn Street Theatre at 4 pm. On Tuesdays meet at Paxton and Whitfield at 12:45 pm.

The second tour is the Men’s Fashion Heritage Tour, and it takes people around Savile Row and St. James’s Street. This tour focuses more strictly on the history of menswear and takes people into individual shops to meet the staff and, if available, the cutters of Savile Row. The construction of the bespoke suit is mulled over as well as its origin in the military uniform. Tales of various dandies are thrown in and the gentlemen’s world of yesteryear conjured up. Mondays at 3 pm (meet at Gieves & Hawkes, 1 Savile Row), Wednesdays and the last Saturday of the month, 10 am (meet at Berry Bros. & Rudd, 3 St. James’s Street). £20 per person; £30, private tour. Booking essential.

History

Established in 2014.

Dr. Cindy Lawford has been working as the Education and Development Officer of Jermyn Street Theatre since 2013, and in order to raise the profile of the theatre and better connect it to the street, she started The Jermyn Street Experience in April 2014. She decided to create a second set of tours, The Men’s Fashion Heritage Tours, in January 2015 because she became so interested in the history of British menswear and so delighted by how her guests enjoyed the combination of historical anecdotes with friendly shop visits where they get to handle goods and sometimes see how they are made.

Meet the Business Owner

Cindy L.

Business Owner

Cindy Lawford is from Texas, has a PhD in English Literature, specialising in the 1820s and 1830s and the English poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon. She has lived in England for more than 20 years, has two children and has been working in London fringe theatre since 2011, giving talks on plays or hosting discussions. Cindy loves historical research, public speaking, theatre, writing and most of all London, so she is trying to find a way to combine all her passions outside of academia, and on the London streets, where she can share the latest gossipy anecdote along with essential historical background information to anyone who is curious enough to listen. She has also found that her tours help to make accessible shops that can seem inaccessible because of their prices and grand reputations. She has gained the trust of staff members all around the St. James’s and Mayfair area, and they are happy to meet her guests.