Context London Tour Guides

Caroline Goodson received her Ph.D. in art history and archaeology from Columbia and wrote her dissertation on 9th century architecture in Rome. She is currently working on interdisciplinary studies of archaeology, art history, and history. She is lecturer of medieval history at Birbeck College, University of London, but spends as much time as she can researching in Italy.

Janine's love of food can be dated to the tender age of three, when she deemed that Brie baguettes were her preferred snack of choice. While studying visual art and writing at the University of Pennsylvania, she also worked on the university magazine's Food and Drink section, and her passion for all three arts intensified during a semester spent in Rome. After completing her BA, she picked up for Europe again, this time heading to London. Janine received an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art, specializing in food in early 20th century art movements. She continues to spend her time appreciating London's countless cultural offerings and debunking the myth that London is a culinary wasteland, and loves any opportunity to share her finds with others.

Caroline left Rome to return to her native London 3 years ago. Having completed a Masters degree in Classics at Kings College London, she is now in the first year of her Ph.D., looking at Latin Inscriptions and the Grand Tour. Whilst much has been made of the sculptures brought back to England by the Grand Tourists of the 18th Century, little has been said about any inscriptions, or the tourist's reactions to them, so she is aiming to fill that gap! The project is closely connected with the British Museum, which is also conveniently one of her favourite London destinations. Following the completion of her Ph.D. Caroline hopes to return to Rome and continue her much missed Dolce Vita!

Scott Nethersole completed his doctoral research through the Courtauld Institute of Art on the subject of The Representation of Violence in Florence: from Uccello's Battles of San Romano to the Fall of the Republic (1512)'. Although a Renaissance specialist, his research interests are far wider and extend to include eighteenth-century decorative arts, and particularly furniture. He is a curator at the National Gallery.

Archeaologist Luke Lavan received his Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham. A specialist in late antiquity, he has published a number of important scholarly papers and been involved in countless digs throughout the Western Mediterranean region, including France.

A gap year working in the frenetic world of women's fashion in Milan prepared Prue well for an undergraduate degree in Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge University, where she used linguistic flourish and copious coffees to confront courses in French and Italian art, literature, history and culture. Her final year topics reflected her lifelong love of Dante and Renaissance Italian art and literature. Prue spent her year abroad studying the history of Renaissance Venetian art at Ca' Foscari University, during which time she wrote a dissertation on the erotic dialogues of Pietro Aretino. She recently a Master's degree in the History of Renaissance Design and Material Culture taught at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal College of Art in London. Her research has focused on fashion, the domestic interior and the decorative arts in Renaissance Venice. Her dissertation is on doors and door furniture from this period. Prue worked for three summers as a registered tour guide of the mosaics in St Mark's Basilica in Venice and for the last four years has led cultural tours around Europe for American students. She has been accepted in Warwick University's PhD program and will return to Venice in 2009 to begin her research.

Michael Mulryan completed his PhD thesis at UCL and has lived in London for nearly ten years. He has taught at Royal Holloway and University College London. Michael specialises in late antique Rome but is interested in ancient and medieval urbanism in general, and the transition between the two. He is currently involved in a dig at Ostia, the ancient port of Rome. As part of his research he studied at the British School at Rome. Michael thinks London is one of the greatest cities in the world, but thinks the Luftwaffe and post-war architects have a lot to answer for.

Imogen Aylen is a south Londoner born and bred, who loves exploring her home city and never ceases to be amazed by the new and unexpected it offers up year upon year. A graduate in Italian literature from the University of Oxford, she spent several years working in Rome as a journalist, during which time she met the Context team. She now lives in London and works on a variety of projects, including magazine editing, PR consultancy and volunteering for an urban regeneration charity thinktank. As well as taking some of our city walks, Imogen is collaborating with Context Travel to raise the company’s profile in the UK media and beyond.

Sarah Ciacci has lived and worked in London all her life, but pops over to Rome fairly often. After completing her MA in History of Art at University College London, specialising in late 19th Century French Painting and mid 20th Century Art, she has worked in the contemporary art world in both London and Rome. Sarah is passionate about London, a fabulously rich, diverse and multi-layered city and for the past three years has been learning the skill of guiding London and telling its 2,000 year old story - spanning its history, culture, and the famous personalities who have lived here.

Nigel Cliff is a historian, biographer and critic. He has a BA and MA from the University of Oxford, where he was awarded a double First class degree in English and the Beddington Prize for English Literature. He is a former film and theatre critic for the London Times and writer for The Economist. His first book, The Shakespeare Riots, was published in 2007 by Random House and was a finalist for the National Award for Arts Writing. He makes his home in London, but as a longtime aficionado of all things Italian, he is researching and writing part of his new book in Rome.

Sue King was born a Londoner and has lived in several other cities including Seoul, Berlin and Washington DC. Since returning to London, she has spent the last three years studying its art, architecture, literature and history.
Sue holds a research MPhil in History of Art from the Barber Institute, Birmingham University and has specialist knowledge of Victorian Britain through her study of its painting and literature. Her thesis, on symbolism in Victorian Art, focused on the work of the Pre-Raphaelites and she has also made studies in 20th Century American art.
Sue is fascinated by London's history and is most interested in the artists and writers who have helped to define it. She loves to recount stories of their lives and works, and their connections with each other and the city.

Jim came to art history relatively late. After training at RADA and working as an actor and musician in theatre and television for over a decade, he arrived at the Courtauld Institute of Art where he took a BA, MA and PhD, writing his doctoral thesis on Donatello. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Courtauld, teaching and writing on the materials, processes and surfaces of sculpture, especially painted stone and wood. In January 2012 he takes up a Research Fellowship in the institute's Conservation Department to undertake research on sculpture during the English reformation and revolution. Jim is a Londoner, a dad and a cyclist, and would usually rather be at Lord's, watching the cricket.

Simona has a strong passion for art and the meaning of visual arts, and strongly believes in the added value that history of culture and art gives to individual life and this is why she loves to share knowledge and curiosities with other people. Specialized in Italian Renaissance Art, she studied both in Venice and in Rome, where she had her PhD in History of Art with a thesis on the “Ara Pacis Augustae”. She is actually living in the university city of Cambridge, where she teaches History of Art; she knows London auction houses, museums and its artistic treasures like a real local.

Philippa is an Oxford educated historian with specialist training in Art History. A qualified teacher with over 15 years experience as a resident guide and teacher at Dulwich Picture Gallery. For the last two years she has been on an intensive course learning about this great city. A Londoner all her adult life, she enjoys all aspects of the city, from the architecture to the food markets, from the parks and riverside walks to the galleries and city churches. Her particular interests are the quirkier, less well-known places which only a long standing Londoner gets to know.

Lawrence travelled and excavated extensively in Israel, Jordan and Egypt before attending the University of Durham where he studied archaeology. He specialised in ancient human remains during his Masters' at Liverpool University Medical School, followed by a year of travel and excavation in the UK and Africa. He won a scholarship to attend University College London, where he wrote his Doctorate on ancient populations of the Western Mediterranean basin and the Canary Islands. He currently lectures at Birkbeck College, University of London, and is guest lecturer at the University of Lima. He carries out research at London's Natural History Museum and spends several months each year working on a major archaeological project in Peru. He is also connected with excavations in Egypt, Bolivia, California, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Spain, where he works with a forensic unit recovering the fallen from the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War. He has a special interest in African art, and has undertaken various collecting trips as well as acting as a consultant to various galleries and private collectors. In addition to his research, he has interests in the classical world, ancient Assyria, geology, palaeontology, twentieth century art history and the history of London.

Eowyn is originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico. She holds an MA in Art Conservation from the State University of New York at Buffalo and is specialized in the conservation and restoration of Italian Renaissance panel paintings. Her experience includes everything from the restoration of 2nd century frescoes to Baroque ceiling paintings, and she was awarded a Kress Fellowship in 2007 to conserve Florentine cassoni (15th century wedding chests) for the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Eowyn has taught Art History and Conservation at the American University in Rome and lectures on international conservation practices and ethics. She now divides her time between Rome and London and her expertise in art history, artistic materials, and painting techniques allows her to discuss the creation of artwork within Rome's Vatican Collections and Galleria Borghese, and London's National Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Kevin Childs has worked as a publisher, an actor and a research consultant. Having gained a first class degree in English Literature at Oxford and an MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, he has completed a PhD at the Courtauld examining the ways in which Michelangelo influenced the art of his contemporaries. Although his heart is in the Renaissance, his interests range from Greek and Roman classical literature to the art of twentieth-century Mexico. Kevin has lived in London for over 20 years and has a great passion for the city, its history and all that it currently offers. He has also spent extended periods of time in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Mexico, Egypt and Morocco. He writes regularly on art and travel.

Born in London, Ruth has also lived in Israel for many years.
She trained at the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem, where she studied Voice and Piano and received a degree in performance in both instruments.
She is also a qualified Music teacher and for many years taught Music to children and adults of all ages.
Returning to London in 2000, Ruth undertook a number of intensive courses learning about the History of this great City which she loves.

Ruth has a particular interest in Jewish London and loves taking people round the atmospheric markets, little alleyways and old synagogues bringing the sometimes turbulent history of the old Jewish quarter to life.
She also has a keen interest in the Artistic and Musical history of London and has created walks which illustrate the musical and artistic diversity of this city through Handel and Jimmy Hendrix, to 2000 year old Roman archeology and 21st C modern art.

Oliver Thring was born in Switzerland and lived in Boston, MA before his family settled in Edinburgh, Scotland. He graduated from Oxford University with a first class degree in English Literature, and now spends his time writing for a variety of national publications on a number of subjects – particularly food, drink and travel. His food blog is one of the most successful in the UK. Oliver is passionate about London, having lived in and experienced the city for the last five years.

Eugene studied at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute and is currently completing his PhD at the University of Reading, looking at the history of Rome under fascism. While his research has focused most recently on urban design and planning of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he maintains diverse interests in art and architectural history, from Renaissance self-portraiture to futurist aesthetics, and in the modern history of Italy.

Clare has lived and worked in London for over 25 years. After graduating with a Degree in Geography and a Masters Degree in Environmental Planning from Nottingham University, she worked as a town planner and urban designer in one of the most dynamic, diverse and probably most challenging cities on earth - London! Employed in both the public and the private sector, she specialised in regeneration policy guidance and the conservation and renewal of protected buildings and historic areas in several of London’s Boroughs. Before starting a family in the 1990’s, she travelled extensively throughout Africa and Madagascar, working as a volunteer on several self-help community projects.

She has spent two years training to guide around London and now has the pleasure of telling London’s fascinating planning and architectural story to visitors, bringing her own personal insight into many of the city’s landmarks!

Roman native Sabrina Pietrobono is a Classical and Christian Archaeologist with advanced degrees from the University of Rome, Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology, Italian Institute for Paleographic, Diplomatic and Archival Studies, and University of L'Aquila, where she completed her doctorate in Medieval Archaeology in 2008. In addition to excavating many ancient sites in France and Italy, Sabrina has served as the Scientific Director of an Italian museum. She is the author of two books and many
articles and conference papers about her topographical research in Central Italy, and is currently writing a book on Italian castles while perfecting her knowledge of English and English culture in the U.K.

American ex-patriot, TyLean, began a career in the music business at the age of 16. Determined to run her own record label, she studied business and recording engineering in addition to earning a BA in music from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvana. She has released three solo albums on her own Bast Records label and toured America, Canada, Europe and the UK. TyLean immigrated to the United Kingdom in 2007 to earn her Master's degree in Music Composition for Film and Television from The University of Bristol. She eventually made London her home, where she is active in the live music scene. When TyLean is not on tour, she is researching for her PhD in Music with a focus on the economics and infrastructure of the independent music business.

Originally from Canada, Ayla moved to the UK in 2003 after completing her History of Art BA at the University of Victoria. She subsequently wrote her PhD on Victorian architecture at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she also obtained her MA. She has studied theology at Oxford University and is currently researching the connections between art and faith in British culture. Since 2008 she has been a Visiting Lecturer at the Courtauld, where she teaches undergraduate courses on nineteenth-century art and architecture. Ayla lectures widely and has given talks and tours for the V&A, the Courtauld Gallery, RIBA, and Love Art London (for whom she once gave a tour of Hyde Park in a fetching false mustache). Fond of tea, philosophy, climbing, singing and taking in all that London’s art scene has to offer, Ayla is also a freelance historic buildings researcher, writer and curator.

Loukas has studied Architecture, History of Architecture and History of Art in the United States and in the UK, and has taught undergraduate courses for a number of years at Cambridge and Princeton. He was part of Context Rome for two years while conducting research in Rome. Currently living in the UK, he is completing his Ph.D. dissertation on a group of 16th c. Italian villas and their political significance, while freelancing in the architecture/construction and property industries.

Born in Birmingham, the city once known as 'The Workshop of the World', Alice came to London following an undergraduate degree at Hertford College, University of Oxford. She received an MA in European Studies from University College London and has completed a PhD on Modernism at the London Consortium, where her research explores the links between material architecture and the architecture of the mind. She is also extremely interested in the post-war housing projects designed and built in the capital during the 1950s and 1960s - and is lucky enough to have lived in one. A Teaching Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, and an occasional lecturer on 'The City' course at the Centre for European Studies, UCL, Alice is ever eager to step out into the city and learn from its spaces directly.

Sudi Pigott is a vastly experienced, highly opinionated food writer and restaurant critic who is passionately obsessed with the discriminatingly greedy pleasures of good eating and is carving a distinctive niche as the arbiter of better foodie values and as a forward food-trend spotter.

Sudi's culinary antennae are invariably on full alert whether writing about culinary trends; the best and rarest ingredients; artisan producers; specialist shops; chefs and restaurants from the startlingly avant-garde to the deeply comforting; exploring gastro-destinations both well-loved favourites and those in the vanguard; or delving into culinary history.
Sudi writes regularly for The Financial Times How to Spend It magazine, Time Magazine, The Saturday Telegraph Magazine, Metro, Delicious, Food & Travel, Departures, BA High Life and Easy Jet in-flight magazines.

Elisabeth Everitt took a degree in Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge University. She was at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for ten years in London, in the course of which she was posted to Helsinki (Finland), Nicosia (Cyprus) and New Delhi (India). She has lived and worked briefly in France and Germany and for longer in Vienna and Belgrade.
More recently she has trained as a Blue Badge Tour Guide in Cambridge, where much of her experience has been guiding in the Fitzwilliam Museum. She studied History of Art at Anglia Ruskin University on Landscape Painting. Her interests have always been history, and art and buildings, places and people

Susan's first profession was teaching, having studied English Literature and Art at the prestigious Homerton College in Cambridge. She also holds the Institute of Linguists Diploma in French. Her interests are strongly in history and architecture but science is on an equal footing because of all the fascinating scientific connections in Cambridge.
Susan is a holder of the coveted Cambridge Blue Badge for tourist guiding. She trained as a guide in 1998. Her guiding qualifications also include nearby Bury St Edmunds and Ely Cathedral.

After many years working in book publishing, Sarah Christie is now a travel writer and photographer with a particular interest in food. Born and raised in London, she has also lived in Germany and recently in the United States, where she discovered the true meaning of long distances and big weather. A foodie for as long as she can remember, and a passionate cook, she loves to discover a culture through its food and sees it as one of the great ways to get the heart of a place. After several years in the US, she returned to her native London, and is constantly rediscovering the many people, places and foods, old and new, that make this city great.

Viv has a degree in English Language and Medieval Literature from Durham University. She spends part of each year in France, but for the past 25years London has been home. Following two years of intense training she qualified as a Blue Badge Guide, coming top in her year. She is also a specialist City of London Guide and is accredited to guide the Venues for 2012 in anticipation of the 'Greatest Show on Earth' coming to London next year!
She particularly enjoys giving individuals and families in-depth tours of London focusing as much on the hidden and unfamiliar as the well-known - she concentrates as much on the here-and-now as the past. The City's fringes - Bankside and Spitalfields - hold as much appeal as Westminster and St James's. She enjoys sharing her enthusiasm for London's C18 and C19 history and her detailed knowledge of the city's royal connections. She has a particular interest in the great aristocratic landholdings of London, and has created walks around the 'villages' of London such as Chelsea, Bloomsbury and Spitalfields.
Viv also works as a volunteer marshal, or 'Green Gown' at Westminster Abbey.

Francesca grew up in West Wales, but coming from a long line of Londoners she soon found herself living and studying in the capital. She completed both her BA and MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art, specialising in Aesthetic Movement art and interiors. Whilst studying, she kept herself busy running the family events programme at Westminster Abbey and managing interns from inner city schools at Dulwich Picture Gallery. After graduating in 2008, she went to work at the Royal Academy of Arts organising visits to historical properties and collections in and around London. She currently works as a freelance gallery educator at various London galleries and locations whilst studying for her diploma in interior design at the KLC School of Design. She lives in Borough with a ‘knowledge boy’ and a small whippet.

Elizabeth has a lifelong love of history. She studied for her degree in Medieval and Modern History at Birmingham University before qualifying as a teacher of history. She taught in schools for eight years and then moved to The National Archives as an education officer where she conducted research into the collection of government documents and helped to ‘bring history to life’ for visiting students on a range of topics including the Tudor Monarchy, the Suffragette movement and Crime in Victorian London (using the case of Jack the Ripper).
Elizabeth has recently completed her MA in Victorian Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, focusing on social conflict and social reform in nineteenth century London. The Victorian art world was also an area of research.
She currently works in the education team at Westminster Abbey and lives in north London.