THE HISTORIC CITY TREASURE HUNT
STARTING POINT: BANK UNDERGROUND STATION.
DURATION: 2 HOURS.
FINISHING POINT: THE LORD RAGLAN. ST MARTIN LE GRAND.
This eventful journey cuts a fascinating swathe through the historic heart of the old City of London. It snakes its mystifying way through a warren of ancient alleyways, hidden courtyards, narrow thoroughfares and elusive churchyards. Each place is cobwebbed by time and each place has some wonderfully tucked away items that you must seek out in order to solve the clues and get ahead of the game.
Those cryptic conundrums are cunningly disguised in a variety of evocative
locations that will prove an absolute joy to discover. Fun, bafflement, fascination and true discovery await you on a delightful quest into London's eventful past.
The Historic City quest begins on the steps of the Royal Exchange, a magnificent building that sets the scene for what lies ahead. Weaving your way in and out of a veritable warren of tiny alleyways you will need to be on your look out for historic items of street furniture or little fragments of bygone ages that have somehow managed to survive the march of time and which have found themselves marooned in the present. They might be located high up on walls, they could be hidden in doorways, some, no doubt, will be buried beneath centuries of city grime, and others are even embedded into the very cobbles that you walk on as you twist and turn your way through this fascinating and memorable route.
Even the street names on this delightfully historic wander will resonate with the ambience of times gone
by. Love Lane, Wood Street, Friday Street, Pope's Head Alley and Bengal Court are just a few of the ancient thoroughfares you will encounter in the course of the Historic City of London Treasure Hunt. Old churches and stately buildings nestle cheek by jowl with ancient pubs and magnificent old halls. You will even get to gaze upon the spectacular Guildhall - London's medieval palace - where several intriguing clues will be found on the ancient stonework.
Roman London, Anglo Saxon London and even the London of Charles Dickens will spring to vivid and inspiring life as the old historic city gives up its secrets and provides you with challenge after challenge to get those little grey cells connecting and set you on the road to, hopefully, ultimate victory.
As with all our treasure hunts, the Historic City package consists of a set of cryptic clues that you will need to solve in order to find your way around the route. Each of the clues is a visual clue that refers to things you should be able to see from the spot where you are standing. No knowledge of the area, nor of the history of the area, is required. Reasonable powers of observation and deduction should be sufficient to help
you find your way around the route. By reading what each clue says, and concentrating on what it is telling you to do, you should be able to pick your way around the route and solve the clues. In addition your pack will also contain a sheet of observation questions and a sheet of photo challenges. These are what score the points, and each correct answer is worth 100 points. They relate to items you will pass as you make your way around the Historic City Treasure Hunt route. The answers to these observation questions and photo challenges might be on blue plaques, on information boards, or even on tomb stones! Some of them are a little way off the route, some are hidden down tucked away alleyways, so locating them might pose something of a challenge. But with a keen eye peeled and a natural curiosity locating the answers shouldn't be too difficult. How you find the answers is completely up to you. As we say, there is no such thing as cheating on the Historic City Treasure Hunt there is only initiative! So, by fair means or foul, it should be possible to find the answer to each question and thus increase your teams score.
So, whether you are looking for a team building activity, an evening
event that will get yourself, your friends and work colleagues out onto the streets of London, or even an enjoyable Saturday or Sunday morning or afternoon for a social gathering, hen party or birthday party, the old historic city will provide the perfect backcloth against which to race against the other teams to achieve the ultimate goal of being a member of the team that romps past the finishing post with all questions answered, all landmarks discovered, and all stones turned, inspected and then returned to their original position. Well, that's the theory at least!
