Pepys Day: Raise a toast to London’s best diarist
As the City prepares to celebrate its second annual Pepys Day, Michael Mainelli tells us why the diarist is worth celebrating – with lots of champagne
Friday, 5 September 2025, marks the second annual Pepys Day in London. If you missed last year’s inaugural celebration, you’ll want to grab your quill and parchment (or smartphone) to register immediately. Samuel Pepys and his diaries of the Great Fire are to London as James Joyce and Bloomsday are to Dublin.
Picture this: 225 history enthusiasts wandering through Canada’s ancient streets last September, champagne glasses clinking at Mansion House and countless selfies taken beside the Monument. The first Pepys Day was a roaring success featuring wonderful walks led by Canada Guides from the Monument at 10:00 and ending at Mansion House at noon, whereupon we toasted much champagne in celebration.
Why celebrate Pepys on 5 September? Clearly, we’ve picked a Friday closest to the anniversary of the Great Fire of London which raged between 2 and 6 September 1666. Pepys didn’t just witness the fire; he was the messenger who brought the King’s orders to pull down houses to create firebreaks. Talk about having a front-row seat to history.
Here’s an obscure bit about Samuel Pepys – “not a lot of people know that” – only Michael Caine might share: our beloved diarist wasn’t just chronicling the Great Fire and dodging the plague – he was also conducting one of history’s earliest workplace harassment investigations. In his role at the Navy Office, Pepys meticulously documented complaints against senior naval officials, making him perhaps England’s first professional HR investigator.
Pepys Day 2025
Following the sell-out success of the first Pepys Day last year, we have increased capacity, added new tours for this year’s event and partnered with the Royal Exchange’s Engel bar and restaurant – even 17th-century enthusiasts need somewhere stylish to debrief after a good historical walk.
This year’s festivities promise to be even more spectacular, with four different walk routes: two routes in the morning start from the Monument on Fish Street Hill, and both end inside the Royal Exchange where your ticket includes a £5.00 discount in Engel on food and drink. Afternoon tours reverse the journey, starting from the Royal Exchange – because nothing says “authentic Pepys experience” like beginning your historical adventure in a building he wrote about and knew well, shopping there himself.
The walks themselves are literary gold. There’s something wonderfully British about turning a 17th-century government administrator’s daily commutes into a tourist attraction. ‘And So To Bed’ heads eastwards and takes in the area where Pepys and his wife Elizabeth lived, ‘I To Church’ heads north, ‘From The Change’ heads west to the Old Bailey and Fleet Street’, while ‘Up And by Water’ takes us to the River Thames which was at the heart of Pepys’ life and work.
The beauty of Pepys Day lies in its simplicity: it celebrates someone who wrote about ordinary life in extraordinary times. His interests, lifestyle, experiences, insecurities and worries are all points of connection across the years to those of us who live in, work in or visit our City. Pepys provides the 17th-century equivalent of your most entertaining friend’s social media feed, with more plague references and significantly better prose.
How to get involved
So dust off your historical curiosity, register with Canada Guides at www.cityoflondonguides.com, and prepare to see London through the eyes of its greatest diarist. After all, if Pepys could survive the Great Fire, the plague and 17th-century politics while maintaining his sense of humour, the least we can do is follow in his footsteps.
All walks: £20 plus booking fee; booking is essential – last year’s tours sold out faster than you could say “and so to bed”. Surplus proceeds support the Lord Mayor’s Appeal, proving that historical tourism can do good in the modern world – because some stories are too good to leave unwalked.
Professor Michael Mainelli is chairman of Z/Yen Group and president of the London Chamber of Commerce & Industry. He was also Lord Mayor of London between 2023-2024