Search all showsMedi-Culture Conversations
Episode 2 with Sarah Williams-Robbins
Host: Ilsa Jones
Medi-Culture Conversations is the official podcast of the Medi-Culture Festival, celebrating health, science and wellbeing in the heart of London Bridge this Spring. Across a series of short episodes, we go beyond the festival programme to explore the ideas, research and people behind the events. From gut health and nutrition to creativity, movement and laughter, each conversation uncovers the science and stories shaping how we understand wellbeing today.
Hosted by Team London Bridge, the podcast features interviews with festival facilitators, researchers and practitioners. Together, we explore how culture, creativity and community can support healthier lives, and why London Bridge has long been a place where medicine and innovation meet. Whether you are attending the festival or simply curious about the intersection of health and culture, Medi-Culture Conversations offers a space to slow down, learn something new, and connect with the ideas behind the programme.
In this episode, Ilsa is joined by Sarah Williams-Robbins, an accredited City of London guide and health promotion specialist known as Mrs Londoner, to explore the history of medicine, healing and disease in one of London’s most storied neighbourhoods. Together they trace the story of London Bridge as a site of healing, from the monks and nuns who shaped early approaches to care, to the herbs and remedies that preceded modern medicine, to the Thames itself as a source of both illness and renewal. They also reflect on what it means to walk through a place mindfully, and why moving through history on foot offers something that reading about it simply cannot.