The London Walker

Blog

Explore my blog to read some fabulous stories, see films and photography of this famous city

  • London Stories – Host Cafe, St Mary Aldermary

    In the heart of the City of London, beneath the extraordinary plaster fan vaulting of St Mary Aldermary, you’ll find HOST Café and it has become one of my favourite places in London.

  • London Stories – Shepherdess Walk Mosaics

    Hidden in a corner of a park in Hackney lies one of London’s most extraordinary pieces of public art and almost nobody knows it’s there. The Shepherdess Walk Mosaics at first glance look like Roman pavements, but look closer and you’ll find decidedly modern things.

  • London Stories – Old Kent Road Mural

    Every day, thousands of people travel along the Old Kent Road without realising they’re following a route first laid out by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago.

  • London Writing – Of Ostrich Feathers and River Pirates

    A peculiar chain of London history, from ostrich feathers, the East India Company warehouses of Bishopsgate to thieves on the Thames and the birth of the River Police.

  • History Walk – Walking the Ancient Ridgeway to Wayland’s Smithy

    A walk along one of Britain’s oldest paths to Wayland’s Smithy, a Neolithic tomb beside the ancient Ridgeway. A journey through five thousand years of people, landscape and memory. And a reminder that sometimes it is good to walk somewhere really old.

  • London Writing – The Agas Map

    Meet London’s oldest A-Z: a four-hundred-and-sixty-year-old map so detailed you can still walk its streets today. Long before satellites and smartphones told us where to turn, this is how Tudor London found its way — and remarkably, so can we.

  • London Writing – the secret alleys of Clerkenwell

    Sometimes London shows itself best, not in its grand stately buildings, its palaces or cathedrals: but in its narrow gaps, the seams which thread between the buildings. Its passageways, its unloved alleys.

  • SUMMER WALKS – BOOK NOW!

    I’m delighted to say the first walks of the season are now live. Dates from June through to September are up and bookable right now, with more to come. Whether you’re a returning face or joining for the first time, it’s going to be a wonderful season and I can’t wait to stroll with you…

  • London Stories – Talbot Yard

    Hidden behind Borough High Street in Southwark lies Talbot Yard a forgotten corner of London where Geoffrey Chaucer once imagined the pilgrims of The Canterbury Tales setting out for Canterbury. Today it’s easy to walk past without noticing it.

  • London Writing – East India and Lloyd’s, where an Empire was forged

    What does Roman London, Leadenhall Market, Elizabethan pirates, the East India Company and the Lloyd’s Building have in common? They all occupied the same patch of ground.

  • London Writing – Shepherdess Walk Mosaics

    There are parts of London you can walk past a thousand times and never see. Shepherdess Walk, in the borough of Hackney, is one such place, yet hidden behind these buildings is one of London’s most extraordinary pieces of public art.

  • London Writing – Talbot Yard and the Canterbury Tales

    A walk through Talbot Yard in Southwark, where the ghosts of Chaucer’s pilgrims still seem to linger beneath modern London. Exploring the lost Tabard Inn, The Canterbury Tales, and the remarkable way seven hundred years of London life have changed far less than we imagine.

  • London Stories – Great Eastern Slipway

    Most people pass the edge of the Isle of Dogs without a second thought. Few realise this quiet stretch of riverbank once witnessed one of the boldest engineering feats in history. These weathered launch beams are all that remain of something extraordinary.

  • London Writing – The Persistence of trees, nature in the city

    I wonder if we were to vanish, if the city’s restless movement were suddenly stilled, how long would it take before the natural world came back? How many weeks before deer moved cautiously along Cannon Street, or seals, heavy with spring pups, found their way to the sandy margins by the Strand?

  • London Stories – Nelson Mandela

    Parliament Square is famous for its array of statues, some celebrated, others less so. From Churchill, Lincoln, Gandhi, Fawcett and then there’s Nelson Mandela. But his story here didn’t begin with a statue.

  • London Stories – Banqueting House

    Right in the heart of Whitehall, London, stands a building most people walk past without a second glance and yet it holds some of the most extraordinary stories in English history. This is Banqueting House, the last surviving remnant of the vast Palace of Whitehall, once the largest royal palace in Europe.

  • The London Walker – Spring Newsletter

    Dear subscribers, walkers, explorers, participants, friends, Romans, countrymen, flâneurs and history nerds lend me your ears! Welcome to The London Walker Spring Newsletter!

  • London Stories – Bazalgette Embankment

    In the summer of 1858, London faced a crisis so foul it became known as The Great Stink. For centuries the River Thames had been used as the city’s dumping ground. Industrial waste, rubbish, animal carcasses and human sewage all flowed into the river. As London grew during the Victorian period, the situation needed to…

  • London Writing – St Vedast

    A hidden cloister garden beside St Paul’s Cathedral holds Roman pavement, a sculpture by Jacob Epstein and a 3,000-year-old brick from the time of Babylon brought to London by Agatha Christie’s archaeologist husband. It’s also a place where it all started for me.

  • London Stories – Charlie Chaplin

    Tucked away in a small Georgian Square, between Lambeth and Kennington, is the childhood home of Charlie Chaplin, one of the most famous figures in film history. It’s little known and not often visited. Behind the doors of Number 39 West Square, a young Charlie Chaplin spent his earliest, happiest years…

  • London Stories – John Harrison

    Buried in the peaceful churchyard of St John’s, Hampstead, among weathered stones, clinging ivy and the soft birdsong of early spring, lies a man who helped humanity find its place on Earth. He was not a king, nor a general, or a soldier, but a simple carpenter’s son.

  • London Writing – Poverty and the Photograph That Changed Victorian London

    In 1877 John Thomson a pioneering photographer captured an image outside the St Giles Workhouse that altered London’s conscience and still today haunts us. Read the story of where and when this picture was taken.

  • London Stories – Mary Seacole

    Mary Seacole was a Crimean War nurse, healer, and entrepreneur who built her own hospital after being rejected by the British authorities. In this London story, we explore the life of Mary Seacole and visit her statue opposite the Houses of Parliament.

  • London Stories – Dr Salter’s Daydream

    In this London Stories walk, I explore a powerful and moving corner of Bermondsey, revealing a poignant story behind a curious public memorial, Dr Salter’s Daydream on the River Thames.

  • London Writing – Berry Bros and Rudd, St James’s

    From grocer, coffee house to the oldest wine merchant in Britain, Berry Bros. & Rudd, is a glorious business which owes its success to smart adaptability, grand timing, and an address of extraordinary good fortune.

  • The London Walker – Newsletter Winter

    Dear subscribers, walkers, explorers, participants, friends, Romans, countrymen, flâneurs and history nerds lend me your ears! Welcome to The London Walker Winter Newsletter!

  • London Photography – Barbican

    I love this strange Brutalist estate, it took a while for that love to emerge; at first, I simply ended up getting lost in it too many times, and through a slow process of finding my way out, I grew to know it better

  • London Stories – Two Temple Place

    Here’s a story about America’s first tycoon who fled the States and came to London. He built a rather grand Tudor style-mansion here on the banks of the Thames and inside was an innovative piece of modern technology.

  • London Writing – Street Art

    London is a city that refuses to sit still. It has forever been a busy bustling place, a great restless organism, never ceasing its endless invention. None more so than the Street Art in Shoreditch and London’s East End.

  • The London Walker – Newsletter Summer August

    Dear subscribers, walkers, explorers, participants, friends, Romans, countrymen, flâneurs and history nerds lend me your ears! Welcome to The London Walker August newsletter!

  • London Stories – The Victorian Urine Deflector

    Sometimes it’s good fun to look at the Victorians and explore their crazy inventions and ideas. Just hidden away on Fleet Street, and dealing with an early form of anti-social behaviour, is possibly their greatest invention of the absurd.

  • London Writing – Cadogan Hall, Chelsea

    Once a church, now a world class music venue and home to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, this is Cadogan Hall. As someone who once walked these streets daily, I return for a ponder…

  • London Stories – London’s Best Trees – Clerkenwell Olive Tree

    Continuing our theme of London’s most magnificent and interesting trees here is my third instalment – the gorgeous little Olive Tree in Clerkenwell.

  • London Stories – London’s Best Trees – Greenwich Park Chestnuts

    Continuing the wonderful theme of London’s most magnificent and interesting trees, we explore Greenwich Park and the Queen’s Oak and some absolutely beautiful Sweet Chestnuts.

  • London Stories – London’s Best Trees – Cheapside London Plane

    London has some of the most amazing and beautiful trees. This week I want to introduce you to one of my favourites: the Cheapside London Plane.

  • London Stories – Forgotten Streams

    In the heart of the city there lies an intriguing juxtaposition where our modern world meets the ancient. Buried deep underneath flows one of London’s lost rivers: the Walbrook. A new piece of public art brings this river once more to life.

  • The London Walker – Newsletter Spring March

    Dear subscribers, walkers, explorers, participants, friends, Romans, countrymen, flâneurs and history nerds lend me your ears! Welcome to The London Walker Spring newsletter!

  • London Stories – Postman’s Park

    Postman’s Park is one of nearly two hundred parks, gardens and green spaces in the city. But this one has a moving Victorian memorial to heroism.

  • London Video – Brick Lane Waltz

    Started shooting around Bethnal Green last weekend Sunday, it was a little grey and overcast, but plenty of people milling around Brick Lane and its environs. I love this area as there is so much vivid graffiti and street art, everywhere a vibrance of colour and design…

  • London Writing – The Greasy Spoon

    The mighty greasy spoon, the king Cafe of Cafes. Not a quaint little country place selling scones with a view of some lost castle, no, we are talking of the bacon and eggs, sticky floor, plastic chair variety, which you can find in most towns and cities on this fair isle’s: some of the best…

  • London Writing – Banqueting House

    Whilst everyone happily mills about opposite – some amazed, others amused – at the ceremonial guard of troopers and horses outside Horse Guards, directly behind them along Whitehall stands a building with an extraordinary history and story to tell. One that delves into a dark chapter of our past: civil war, regicide – the killing…

  • The London Walker – Newsletter Winter/Spring January

    Dear subscribers, walkers, explorers, participants, friends, Romans, countrymen, flâneurs and history nerds lend me your ears! Welcome to the first newsletter of The London Walker, my first furtive folio!

  • London Walks – Winter/Spring

    Hey folks, it’s the new year and there’s a whole load of history to explore and walking to be done in this fabulous city of London. My Winter/Spring collection of walks is being released through this month and next, and kicks off this month with Rebels and Radicals and a brief history of English activism.

  • London Photography – Abstract, Ministry of Defence Building

    Slightly abstract photograph from the corner of the Ministry of Defence Building, when completed in 1959 it was described by architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner as a ‘monument of tiredness’.

  • London pubs – The Coach and Horses

    Welcome to The Coach and Horses in Soho, grade II listed and situated on the corner of Romilly Street and Greek street, a stone’s throw from Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus. For me, this is the jewel of all London pubs. It has everything you could ever want in a boozer…

  • London pubs – The Grenadier

    First, you deserve a good slap on the back, a firm handshake, and a pint to celebrate actually finding this pub. It hides down a narrow, cobble-stone mews, there are hanging baskets and trails of wisteria creeping along the walls, its immediately charming and wonderful, welcome to “The Grenadier”…

  • London Writing – St John’s Gate

    St John’s Gate stands out more than most old buildings in this part of London. It has that look, boosted by its crenellated battlements, that makes people understandably stop and stare. Its history is truly astonishing: Crusaders, Shakespeare, Hogarth and a dog named Trump…

  • London pubs – The Hand and Shears

    As we approach the holiday season, I thought it high time to explore a couple of the old London boozers I have long frequented, know, and love, and to examine their history and folklore. But where to start, perhaps lets visit the “Hand and Shears” in Smithfield…

  • London Photography – Buckingham Palace

    I was out to get some interesting photographs of the Palace the other day when the sun was bright and the air clear. Its hard not to get a nice photograph of the building so pretty soon I had gathered the shots I needed. I would have wandered off towards St James in search of…

  • London Photography – Wilkes Street

    This is the corner of Wilkes Street a stones throw from trendy Spitalfields Market and in the other direction the clamour of Brick Lane. It has a rich history dating back to the 1720’s with the arrival of French Huguenot refugees and their silk-weaving industry.

  • London Photography – Eastcheap looking up

    Two remarkable buildings 20 Fenchurch Street ‘the Walkie Talkie’ and the beautiful brick and gabled Gothic of 33-35 Eastcheap the site of the Boar’s Head Tavern, an enormously famous ancient pub mentioned by Shakespeare in Henry IV part I as Falstaff’s local and where he had many a boozy night with the soon to be…

  • London Photography – Street Lamps, St James’s Park

    A night-time walk, passing through St James’s Park last night heading down to Whitehall and the river, revealed some interesting photography as well as a variety of challenges. I caught sight of this lamp on the Mall and had to capture its magnificence…

  • Black History Month – George Ryan, Nelson’s Column

    It’s October, and it’s Black History Month. So I thought I’d write a post looking at our multicultural heritage, celebrating some of our exceptional Black British family. And to start, suitably, is at one of the most famous monuments in England: Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square.

  • London Writing – Golden Key Academy Graduation

    Last night was an exceptionally proud moment for me, after a year of research and study, practice and learning, I finally got my accreditation as a London guide from the Golden Key Academy

  • London Video – Rebels and Radicals

    Last week marked the beginning of something truly special at The London Walker – my very first ‘Rebels and Radicals’ tour! I’m excited to share a little reel of the journey’s opening sights…

  • People of London – Beau Brummell

    You gotta love someone who calls a serving monarch a ‘fat bastard’. So hats off, no doubt a silky-velvet number, to the rather grand character that is Beau Brummell. Although absolutely fabulous, there is something sad in his story…

  • London stories – Portland Stone and the gastropod

    When you’re walking around London, you are seldom aware that you are sharing the busy streets with ancient creatures who lived on this planet between 200 and 150 million years ago. But it’s the truth.

  • London Photography – Monument, London Bridge

    Its stood for over 340 years, the Monument to the Great Fire of London. It’s tucked away a short walk from the northern end of London Bridge, in a dip on Fish Street Hill and the moment you see it you are filled with a state of awe…

  • London Writing – James Smith and Sons, New Oxford Street

    James Smith & Sons is an iconic London institution, renowned for its craftsmanship in umbrella making. Located at 53 New Oxford Street, the shop is a glorious time machine. The moment you step inside you feel like you are entering another world…

  • London video – Trafalgar Square

    A new video reel featuring that magnificent most recognisable of London spaces Trafalgar Square. The square is named after the Battle of Trafalgar, a British naval victory during the Napoleonic Wars led by everyone’s favourite one-armed one-eyed hero Admiral Lord Nelson…

  • London Photography – Lovat Lane

    If you creep along Eastcheap beneath the great steel glass towers of commerce, pressed up against the walls by the suited noisy indulgent crowds who serve these buildings, you find yourself looking for the first point of escape. Lovat Lane offers a calming refuge…

  • London Photography – ‘Shepherd with his flock

    ‘Shepherd with his flock’ a beautiful bronze sculpture by Elisabeth Fink sits in the shadow of St Paul’s in Paternoster Square. It’s a great place for public art, you can sit on the steps underneath the central corinthian column and watch the people strolling by. Its well worth checking out…

  • London Writing – Detail Wrought Iron, Smithfield

    Researching across the city, stomping the streets, you become aware of the enormous amount of wrought and cast iron work, mostly Victorian, that stretches across all forms and functions, be it architectural or common objects. They can be found throughout the city…

  • London Video – Explore a City

    On an early morning stroll through the city last weekend, the weather utterly glorious, I shot a few little clips, little moments in and around St Paul’s, thinking they might look good on the instagram account. Let me know your thoughts.

  • London Writing – Smithfield

    Smithfield has been used for many things; from fabulous jousts in the Middle Ages and riotous fairs, to bloody executions and the oldest meat market in Europe. Smithfield has a rich and fascinating history….

  • London Writing – Staple Inn, Holborn

    In and around Chancery Lane are some fabulous buildings and other little known wonders which date surprisingly far back into the cities history. One of the most gorgeous buildings in the area, and theres a few, is Staple Inn located on High Holborn. It’s one of the few remaining Tudor buildings in the city, it…

  • London Photography – SkyRail

    View of the SkyRail from the 02 Greenwich side of the river. Say what you like about this rather ignominious and largely impractical ride, however it does give you some of the most spectacular views of the Thames and its famous bend around the Isle of Dogs…

  • London Writing – Jamaica Wharf

    Nestled along the southern bank of the River Thames, Jamaica Wharf, Shad Thames has a rich and intriguing history that intertwines with the rise and fall of the British Empire, the bustling trade of the Victorian era as well as the vibrant regeneration of modern London…

  • London Writing – Verde & Company Ltd, Spitalfields

    This is a story of an old fruit and vegetable shop, Verde & Company, Spitalfields Market. It’s had an up and down history. One of those classic tales of David and Goliath. Its present situation, from local East End greengrocer to a boutique vendor for an international chocolate chain reflects much about these times.

  • London Writing – Britton Street, Clerkenwell

    In the heart of Clerkenwell lies a thoroughfare steeped in history and change: Britton Street. What began as an unassuming stretch of land, occupied by gardens and modest dwellings, evolved into a bustling urban artery, bearing witness to the ebb and flow of time and people. Britton Street can be traced back to the early…