Ladies Who London Podcast

Join ladies about town, Blue Badge Tourist Guides and history nerds Alex and Fiona for a relaxed gossip about London’s past and present.

This is how it works: we pick our favourite people, places and events from London’s weird and wonderful history and we break them down and look at why we are still talking about them today. Expect a lot of laughter, a bit of silliness and a spot of gentle learning. A blog post accompanies the podcast each week as well.

The special guest for this very special recording with a lve audience is Leo Hollis who will be chatting about “Inheriance: The Tragedy of Mary Davies”.

The reclaimed history of a woman whose tragic life tells a story of madness, forced marriages and how the super-rich came to own London

June 1701, and a young widow wakes in a Paris hotel to find a man in her bed. Within hours they are married. Yet three weeks later, the bride flees to London and swears that she had never agreed to the wedding. So begins one of the most intriguing stories of madness, tragic passion and the curse of inheritance.

Inheritance charts the forgotten life of Mary Davies and the fate of the land that she inherited as a baby – land that would become the squares, wide streets and elegant homes of Mayfair, Belgravia, Kensington and Pimlico. From child brides and mad heiresses to religious controversy and shady dealing, the drama culminated in a court case that determined not just the state of Mary’s legacy but the future of London itself.