Black history on city's tourist trail

A new guide to black London is being published as tourism chiefs bid to attract new visitors from around the world.

The London Black Tourism Guide marks points of historical interest from the 16th century to the present day, including many that will be unfamiliar to most Londoners.

It also details the best specialist record shops, hairdressers, cinemas, bars and restaurants linked to the black community.

The guide features a house in Clerkenwell, where Lucy Negro was part of a small community of black people who built their own homes there in the 16th century, and an address in Fleet Street, where a group of 57 people created a fashionable club in 1764.

Another highlight is the address in Marylebone of Olaudah Equiano, a former slave and politician whose book published in 1789 was used to lobby against slavery.

Other items from London's "lost history" include the site of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, where ex-slave Bill Richmond - also known as "The Black Terror" - set up a boxing academy in the 19th century.

More recent landmarks are the home of Caribbean-born writer Jean Rhys, who lived in Bloomsbury in 1909, Jimi Hendrix's address in Mayfair and the route of the Notting Hill carnival, created by expat American Claudia Jones in the late Fifties to foster community links after the riots in the area.

The guide's author, Nana Ocran, said it aims to put the history and cultural life of black Londoners firmly on the tourist trail. "There are important points of interest dotted around London that don't necessarily get included in mainstream guides," she added.

Author and historian SI Martin said: "These aspects of London life tend to be overlooked by tourists because there is an ongoing fascination with the stereotype of the Londoner as either the City gent with a bowler hat or the beefeater at the Tower of London. The reality is much more fascinating."