London is our main course but we also serve up wonderful side dishes in the shape of Here's England – Away We Go! Day Trips to Stonehenge & Salisbury, Oxford, Bath, Cambridge, Hampton Court, The Cotswolds, Glastonbury & Wells, Constable Country, Royal Winchester, etc. etc. etc. And be sure to check this out!
And look, if you know the score, and just want to know what's on when – just click here for a table, laid out in chronological order, of all the out-of-town trips we'll be running in the Winter-Spring 2011-12 London Walks programme. And a tip of the hat to walker Chuck B. who came up with idea ("please set them all out in order in a single table").
And here's a video taster – a taster of one of our destinations and indeed of the experience itself. Speaks for itself, I think you'll agree.
And here's an accompanying piece. This one covers all the practical details – how it works, the timing, the logistics, the transportation arrangements, etc.
A London Walks Day Trip is an interesting, fun and inexpensive way to get the most out of your visit to these not-to-be-missed places. After all, if you've only got a few fleeting hours to take it all in, why squander a good part of your time wandering around trying to get your bearings? See below and each day's page for full details.
Our Day Trips from London consist of two completely different walks – one in the morning and one in the afternoon – with a lunch break in between. Afterwards there's some free time for shopping or a museum or gallery visit. We travel by comfortable, high speed train – it's fastly superior!
Ok, the image is of course of an old fashioned railway carriage. But it gets the feel – the tone, the mood, the agreeableness – of rail travel right, even if in technical and mechanical terms it's from a bygone era!
The ride through the lovely old English countryside takes an hour or so. We get back to London in time for you to go to a show or do an evening walk.
To go on one of our Day Trips from London simply meet your London Walks guide by the main ticket office of the designated London  railway station at the time stated. Your guide – Richard or Gillian or Chris or Hilary or Simon or Alison – will be holding up copies of the distinctive white London Walks leaflet.
The Day Trips from London cost £14 for adults plus the tariff  (your train fare and any entrance fees). Or £12 (plus the tariffs) for students, Super Adults [over 65s], and Discount Walkabout Card holders. Children under 15 go free (apart from the tariff). And there's "added value" galore because time and again the tariffs – which are available through the guide – are a big saving on the normal price.
See below for the adult tariff for any given Day Trip from London. N.B. there are often further reductions for students, senior citizens and children. British Rail Pass holders travel free.
And bang goes the starting pistol. Read on...
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 This is some kind of wonderful. Lacock is the most exquisite village in England. No wonder Harry Potter, Pride & Prejudice and Emma were filmed here. We're talking a living village: just four streets, houses of every century from the 13th onward, the river Avon and a swabbling brook, Snaylesmead Meadow and Lacock Abbey. And as for Avebury, it beggars all description. The largest stone circle complex on earth, it speaks to us across the ages, speaks of a secret geometry and lost science, of an ancient time more clairvoyant and star-born than ours. And that's not to mention the white horses cut into the hillside or Silbury Hill, the largest Neolithic monument in Europe. It's the same age as – indeed, it is England's Great Pyramid. And on that note, here's a little feast-your-eyes photo-essay on Avenbury & Lacock!
And if you want a lengthy – a really thorough, really detailed – description/account of the Avebury & Lacock outing, click here.
 In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme – which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
we go to Avebury & Lacock on:
Saturday, August 25
Meet Richard at 9 am in front of the main ticket office
(it's near Platform One) of Paddington Railway Station.
For a photograph of the meeting point – and even more precise directions – click here.
Tariff £45
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AVEBURY & STONEHENGE "For the Autumn Equinox"The double. Both of them. Right on the hinge. Yes, we're going there for the Autumn Equinox! As perfectest as it gets.
In 2012 we go to Avebury & Stonehenge on
Saturday, September 22
Meet Richard at 9 am in front of the main ticket office (it's near Platform 1)of Paddington Railway Station.
c. £45
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BATH - "Bath is to England what Venice is to Europe" You want it in 19 words? Only two cities on the planet are classified as a UNESCO World Historical Site. Bath is one of them.
You want it in rather more words? Okay, let's tell it like it is. Here goes...
Bath walks. Bath tours. Call it what you will, guided walking tours of Bath are streets ahead! The little video that shows our Bath tour in full flow surely underlines the point. You can't see Bath in a couple of hours. Let alone get to know it. That's why our Bath Tour spends the whole day there. That's why it's two different guided walking tours of Bath conducted by a top flight Blue Badge guide – guided tours that explore the highlights – the Roman Baths, the Royal Crescent, the cathedral, etc. of course – but that also go off the beaten track. Nor is it "just" two walking tours of Bath – there's also some free time in Bath for a museum or gallery visit. And, yes, we get to Bath and back the classy way – we go by comfortable, high speed train (rather than, ugh, the coach, the motorway, the crawl). So, if it's Bath walks – guided walking tours of Bath – you're looking for, well, you've just turned up trumps. And it's not just us saying that. Three top awards in four years – including two Golds (for the Best Tourism Experience in England and for the Best Tourism Experience in London) – well, you can take that to the bank. In short, this is the Bath tour that's full of win! C'est tout. Except to say, enjoy the Bath walks video! And looking forward to seeing you "full of win anticipation" at Paddington Station on one of those Thursdays (or Saturday, October 22nd) this summer!
Bath is like being in heaven without going to all the bother and expense of dying. A scoop of pure honey set in a green bowl, Bath is, quite simply, "the world's most perfect Georgian city". A graceful and airy miracle of Palladian grandeur, it's a world of arcades and crescents, of Assembly Rooms and Pump Rooms. (As this photo essay attests to.) In the 18th-century it was the focus of the Age of Elegance. Today it's our turn to savour the accreted delights of the slow centuries as we explore this exquisite place and its stunningly cosmopolitan Roman foundations, folded into a time-warp in the lovely Somerset hills. Bottom line: a trip to Bath is an event. European cities don't come any more provocative. Or profound. Or poetic. And if you'd like a sneak preview, a click here will take you to our wonderful little film of our Here's England - Away We Go to Bath Tour!
And talk about travelling back in time to the ancient world...feels like we've waited 2,000 years for this!
Meet by the main ticket office – it's by Platform One – of Paddington Railway Station at 9 am.
 In the Spring-Summer 2012 London Walks programme we go to Bath on:
Saturday, May 5
From Thursday, May 17 onwards we go to Bath every Thursday* for the rest of the summer: May, June, July, August & September.
We'll also go there on the following Saturdays:
Saturday, October 28
*May 17, May 24, May 31, June 7, June 14, June 21, June 28, July 5, July 12, July 19, July 26, August 2, August 9, August 16, August 23, August 30, September 6, September 13, September 20 and September 27
Tariff: c. £41
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Blenheim: three acres of palace; 600 rooms; 'the longest corridor in Europe'; 2,500 acres of park; a 390-foot bridge over the vast lake; 180 servants; Winston Churchill's birthplace. King George III conceding, "we have nothing to equal this." Oxford: "towery city and branchy between towers; cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmed, lark-charmed, rook-racked, river-rounded"; town and gown and dreaming spires; poets and punting; kings, wits, celebrated eccentrics, Brideshead Revisited, Inspector Morse, and, yes, American presidents who didn't inhale: "there's no other place like it in the world, it is a despair to see such a place and ever to leave it". And the thing is, what I've written above is just the scorecard. The reality melts it. Enough said? Not enough? Okay, in that case, click here.
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme –
which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
we go to Blenheim Palace & Oxford on
Saturday, May 26
Saturday, October 27 (for Horrible Happenings at Halloween!)
Meet Richard at 9.15 am in front of the main ticket office –
it's near Platform One –
of Paddington Railway Station.
Tariff c. £45
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Station X, Ultra, Abwehr Enigma G 312, the Bombe, Block B & Hut 4
What did you do in the war? For hundreds the official line was 'nothing', but then Bletchley Park was one of the best guarded secrets of WWII, Churchill called its people 'the geese who laid the golden egg... and never cackled'. Well, here's the egg. And the cackling. Let alone the crackling air waves. And the geniuses and ordinary people who made it all happen. From breaking the Enigma code to building the world's first computer... From Cambridge professors to crossword experts...They came to do the impossible. The story, the place – it's one of history's great crucibles. Frisson up the spine stuff, all of it.* In a setting that's nothing short of extraordinary. In Bletchley Park it's still 1943. Or thereabouts. Bottom line: Bletchley Park is a must-see place – a must-see place accompanied by tales that'll have you shaking your head in wonder. And perhaps tearing up just a little bit. And when Kim's shown you round – cracked open Station X and Ultra and Abwehr Enigma G 312, etc. – well, there's a plethora of wonderful "out-take" exhibits, ranging from D-Day to a stunning collection of Churchill memorabilia.
*Whether it be that you-could-hear-a-penny-drop moment when – at last and against all the odds – they they fed in code and got German coming out the other end. Picture it. How they must have looked at each other with a wild surmise. Or the other end of the spectrum from that single moment. "The big picture." Which hardly bears thinking about. Namely, Hitler's forces equipped with jet fighters in 1945. And thus no Allied command of the skies. Upshot: Operation Overlord – D-Day – an abject failure. Which might well have been the outcome if the Normandy landings had been postponed by a year. The counter factual – thank God it's counter factual – sequence is: if the boffins at Bletchley Park hadn't "broken the code" the victories in North Africa and the North Atlantic would have been delayed by at least a year. The knock on effect of that is that the invasion of Italy has to come a year later, in 1944. Which in turn – think of dominoes here – postpones D-Day by a year. Postponements don't come much more catastrophic than that. Because that lost year enables the Nazis to get their jet fighters off the production lines and into the skies over Normandy.
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme –
which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
we go to Bletchley Park on
Sunday, May 27th
Sunday, September 16th
Meet Kim at 8.45 am by the main ticket office (it's opposite the Accessorize shop) of
Euston Railway Station.
c. £26
N.B. this London Walks Day Trip is the exception that proves the rule. I.E., instead of two completely different walks separated by a lunch break it’s just one big, comprehensive guided tour as soon as we get there. (We’ve pro-rated the guide’s fee accordingly.) Making an early afternoon return possible. But most people will want to stay on – have lunch in the World War II canteen and explore the many outlying exhibits in the afternoon.
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BRIGHTON - "London by the Sea""Brighton is a quintessential English experience." Brighton is Brighthelmstone...the mediaeval fishing village, echoed to this day in the Old Town, the famous "Lanes" of narrow cobbled alleys and fishermen's cottages. Brighton is Regency elegance, the oldest and for 200 years Europe's most fashionable sea-side resort. Brighton is patrician and plebeian - the Royal Crescent and spacious sea-view garden squares and fish & chip shops and antiques and the largest marina in Europe. Brighton is hidden green corners and a heart-stopping view of the whole sweep of the coast and sugar-cake hotels and antique cars and Jane Austen dandies and promenading along the garish but magnificent Victorian Palace Pier. Last but certainly not least, Brighton is the Oriental splendour of the Royal Pavilion, the most exotic palace in Europe, the Taj Mahal of our hemisphere. Here's a photo-essay.
In the London Walks Summer 2012 programme –
which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
we go to Brighton on
Monday, August 27
Meet Simon at 9.30 am by the ticket office of
Victoria Railway Station.
Tariff £18
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CAMBRIDGE - "can such places be?"
"the most beautiful city in Europe"
Cambridge. Miraculum orbis, wonder of the world; annexe to heaven. Mediaeval courts; emerald, velvet-soft lawns; the unearthly beauty of Kings*; Newton's room and garden where he experimented and, yes, that apple tree – think of him "forever voyaging through strange seas of thought"; the calm of the tree-fringed Backs; the willow-shrouded banks of the Cam; the Bridge of Sighs; the American cemetery; Darwin's college and specimens from his famous voyage; the pub where the structure of DNA was announced; punting on the Cam (we'll get a really generous discount if you want to take a turn – or, indeed, just go along for the ride). Let alone leafy streets and twisty alleys; and the whispering wind and yellow lantern; the shadowed passage and haunted bookstore; bicycling students; cheese and fish stalls in the market; people who talk like books... Here's a photo-essay. And more video anyone? Here's a little how-it-works job – the logistics, the practical details, etc. And here's a hot-off-the-press Cambridge piece that was earmarked for The Daily Constitutional (the London Walks Blog) but found a home here instead. You'll learn something fairly tasty from it.
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme we go to Cambridge on
Saturday, October 13
Meet Simon at 9 am by the main ticket office –
near the Leon Cafe –
of King's Cross Railway Station
c. Tariff £38
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Across the Immense Span of Centuries
Like Chaucer's pilgrims to Caunterbury we wende. And what tales Canterbury has to tell. Tales writ in the ancient cathedral towering moodily over the nearby pubs and shops. Tales gleaned from half-timbered, white-washed little houses lining narrow streets. Tales borne by the river Stour swabbling past brilliant flowerbeds and under arching stone bridges. In Canterbury we enter another world...we step into mediaeval history.
In the Spring 2012 London Walks programme we go to Canterbury on:
Saturday, April 14
Meet Simon outside the National Rail Ticket Office (opposite Starbucks) of
St. Pancras Railway Station at 9 am.
N.B. And check this out. The getting there itself – faster than a speeding bullet! – couldn't be more special. We take the Javelin High Speed Train, the only super high speed train line in the country. It's whoosh! and we're there.
c. Tariff £29
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CHURCHILL, CHARTWELL & THE WEALD OF KENT "A day away from Chartwell is a day wasted." Winston Churchill
We're rolling through stunningly beautiful countryside.
On our way to drop in on Winston Churchill at Chartwell.
No question about it, he's here – the dining room's set for afternoon tea, there are daily newspapers and fresh flowers and cigars at the ready. Here's his study. And his library. Outside there are black swans on the lake and panoramic views over the Weald of Kent and his favourite refuge – his garden studio.
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme – which kicks in on May 1st and runs through Oct. 31st – the Churchill, Chartwell & Weald of Kent tour takes place on:
Saturday, September 1
Meet Chis at 8.45 am
by the ticket office of Charing Cross Railway Station.
c. Tariff £40
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CONSTABLE COUNTRY & COLCHESTER "It's like spending the morning in a painting."
Constable Country is the site of The Haywain, the river Stour, Dedham Lock. It's the archetypical English landscape. And for a chaser – and they don't come any better – we'll explore the oldest town in Britain...with its Roman wall and gateway, its Norman castle (and the finest keep in England!)...
its Dutch quarter, its Victorian park, its ancient street market. In short, if you haven't been there, go – because this is a very special day out!
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme
we go to Constable Country & Colchester on
Saturday, September 15
Meet Hilary at 9.15 am by the main ticket office of
Liverpool Street Railway Station.
c. £40
"The sound of water escaping from mill-dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things. Shakespeare could make everything poetical; he tells us of poor Tom's haunts among "sheep cotes and mills". As long as I do paint, I shall never cease to paint such places...Those scenes made me a painter and I am grateful." John Constable, letter to the Rev. John Fisher, 1821.
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The Cotswolds are achingly beautiful.
The Cotswolds are the fresh green lap of this fair isle.
The Cotswolds are thatched roofs and honey-coloured stone and cottages wreathed in wisteria and honeysuckle. The Cotswolds are stone bridges and old mills and millponds. The Cotswolds are storybook villages and matchless flower gardens. The Cotswolds are rural England at its best.
And here's where we come in. A Tour of the Cotswolds. Cotswolds Village Tours. Cotswolds Countryside Tours. Call it what you will, guided walking tours of The Cotswolds – well, okay, four Cotswolds villages and a really good taste of the Cotswolds countryside – are streets ahead. Oh, okay, Cotswolds village lanes and Cotswolds countryside byways ahead!
Now as to the practicals – here's how the London Walks Cotswolds Tour works. Meet the famous Richard – he of the honeyed voice just-stepped-out-of-the-pages-of-Gentleman's-Quarterly mien (as always, he'll be topped to the north with that distinctive red cap) – by the ticket office of Paddington Railway Station at the time stated. (Scroll down for the date/time particulars of our Cotswolds Tours.)
We travel to The Cotswolds by comfortable, high speed train. (Rather than, ugh, the coach, the motorway, the crawl.) Our way of doing it is fastly superior. Quicker and far more comfortable. Coach-time for us is just a tiny part of the day – as opposed to most of the day. Coach-time for us is just a couple of intervals when we're up in The Cotswolds. Which is by way of saying, Richard charters a local coach to get us over the ground between some of the villages that we tour. (A couple of them are close enough to each other – it's the merest gentle stroll – that we walk it. Though if anybody doesn't want to, the "wheels option" is there. It's the best of both worlds!)
And that's what we call getting the balance right. It's very little coach time indded, but it's there for us when we need it. We're not on a long-distance, cross-country Cotswolds walk, we're on a tour of The Cotswolds, and in particular four of the most exquisite villages in the whole of the Cotswolds. The coach takes care of those intervening miles. Though even those are something to be relished. Rather than endured. For the very good reason that because we've got the timing right – we've not eaten up three to four hours crawling through London traffic and motorway madness just to get up there – Richard can pick and choose his route through the Cotswolds, his route connecting the Cotswolds villages that we tour, very carefully indeed.
The which he's done. It's a gorgeous, back country roads route – a best of the Cotswolds countryside route. In short, the coach time isn't down time, isn't to-be-endured, grin-and-bear-it time – it's also part and parcel of our Cotswolds tour. It's a plus not a negative.
And when we're in the villages, well, it's out and about, out and stretching a leg. More than stretching a leg. A lot more. They're proper guided walking tours of four of the very best – four of the most exquisite – Cotswolds villages. And – you gotta love this – two of them are sufficiently close together that we can – and do – walk from the one to the other. Cross the short Cotswolds countryside fields and lanes and stiles and paths that connect them. Can you guess which Cotswolds villages they are?
Bottom line. If it's an all-day Cotswolds tour – a guided walking tour of Cotswolds villages and Cotswolds countryside – you're looking for, well, you've just turned up trumps. Our Cotswolds Tour are full of win! And – this bears repeating – it's not just us saying that. Three top awards in four years – including two Golds (for the Best Tourism Experience in England and for the Best Tourism Experience in London) – well, you can take that to the bank!
These are the best Cotswolds Tours going. They're not just different in degree, they're different in kind.
Oh, and do enjoy the little video of our Cotswolds Tour. Hardly needs saying, that – because we're ragingly confident that you will. Who wouldn't?
Here it is – the taster - it's a lovingly shot little film of day, destination, and guide (ah, Richard! cynosure of guides, golden of voice, red of cap, pink of courtesy! Not to mention platinum of well connected, etc. etc.). And here's another (it's a little photo-essay).
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme –
which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
The Cotswolds Tour takes place on the following dates:
Saturday, May 12 at 9.45 am
Sunday, August 12 at 9 am
Sunday, August 26 at 9 am
Saturday, September 29 at 9.45 am
Meet Richard in front of the main ticket office (it's near Platform 1)of Paddington Railway Station.
For a photograph of the meeting point – and even more precise directions – click here.
Tariff: c. £39
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If you're thinking about going on this one you're on the edge of perfection. Don't turn your back on it. Which is by way of saying, Oxford makes words sing. Towery city and branchy between towers; cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmed, lark-charmed, rook-racked, river-rounded."
Yes, yes, yes, welcome to the city of dreaming spires! "There's no other place like it in the world, it is a despair to see such a place and ever to leave it." Our setting: Oxford's mediaeval colleges and walls; its bridges, libraries and gardens; its cloisters and quads, its towers and dreaming spires, gnawed by time and echoing with centuries of youthful exuberance.
Our themes: town and gown; the life and times of generations of dons and undergraduates; kings and punting and Alice in Wonderland; scholars, wits and celebrated eccentrics; poets and Inspector Morse, Brideshead Revisited and Shadowlands and, yes, American Presidents who didn't inhale. Want to see more? Click here for a very special photo-essay. And here's one [it's a work in progress at the moment] of The Cotswolds leg of the tour.
And that's just the half of it! In the Cotswolds we'll explore a world of chuckling streams, stone bridges, and thatched cottages; of ancient churches and manor houses; of old mills and millponds; of vast panoramas, rolling hills, and deep green valleys; of villages out of a storybook. Explore, in short, what is quite possibly the most beautiful countryside in the world.
Here's a taster – it's a lovingly shot little film of day, destination and guide (ah, Richard! cynosure of guides, golden of voice, red of cap, pink of courtesy! Not to mention platinum of well-connected, etc. etc.).
In the Spring-Summer 2012 London Walks programme we go to The Cotswolds & Oxford
every Wednesday from April 11 through October 17
by the main ticket office* of Paddington Railway Station.
*Meet in front of the main ticket office of
Paddington Railway Station
(the main ticket office is near Platform One)
For a photograph of the meeting point – and even more precise directions – click here.
Tariff c. £34
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DICKENS BI-CENTENARY FESTIVAL Rochester in 1812What could be jollier? It's 1812 and the streets are thronged with hundreds of costumed characters. Everywhere you look there are top hats and frock coats and bonnets and hooped skirts. And why not? After all, bi-centenaries of England's greatest novelist only come along once every 200 years.
In 2012 we go to the Charles Dickens Birthday Bi-Centenary Festival on
Sunday, June 10
Meet Alison at 9.30 am (she won't be hard to spot in that Victorian bonnet and dress of hers) by the ticket office of Victoria Railway Station.
 Tariff c. £12
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The Holy Grail of Deepest England
A living – shaping – past your thing? Then listen up. Folklore and fact choir in the Glastonbury of King Arthur, Avalon, vast ruined Abbey, witches, healers and hippies. In the rolling Mendip Hills. In Wells, our gem-like English cathedral city. In moated palace, mediaeval streets, bustling market, verray parfait cathedral plumed with – pealing with – statues. Visits don't come any more vivid. Or vital. Or rainbow-rich. Okay, here's the photo (and watercolour)-essay.
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme – which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
we go to Glastonbury & Wells on:
Saturday, July 14
by the main ticket office (opposite Platform 16)
of Waterloo Railway Station
£49
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LAVENHAM & THE VILLAGES OF SUFFOLK
"Q. Are we in England? Q. If so, what century is this? A. Yes. A. the 16th century. Q. Huh? Come on, Where are we? A. Pretty close to heaven. Because half-timbered, once-upon-a-time, film-set Lavenham is almost waaaaaaay too perfect. This England. This scrap of England. Ooooooh to be here in these mid-year moments of birdsong and streamsong and distant bells and vivid, singing skies and lanes and cottages and flower blazes and classic patchworks of valleys, woods and fields. To say nothing of what Suffolk's laureate describes as "remote settlements in a remote land… unconventional beauty, inward warmth distilled by the years.” Places like Long Melford (can you hear it? mill ford), all stately homes and antique shops and a cathedral of a parish church and 2,000 years of history. Or Chelsworth with its 1,000 years of history and the Brett Valley and cottages and (the day we go there) villagers inviting us into their private gardens. And the guiding? Richard’s local – his country house is here. No surprise then that he's a library of unexpected juxtapositions and gloriously out-of-the-way yet telling facts: “a typical 15th century Suffolk farm house – figure about 330 oak trees to make it.”
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme –
which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
we go to Laveneham & the Villages of Suffolk on
Meet Richard at 9 am by the main ticket office – it's opposite Platform 10 – of Liverpool Street Railway Station.
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As good as it gets! The rolling perfection of the Kentish countryside. Leeds Castle ("standing on its twin islands in the river Len, [it] rises romantically above the reed-fringed waters of its moat-lake." It's a fairy-tale setting so no wonder it's "the loveliest castle in the world". And Rochester: castra, Cantiaci, cathedral, castle, close, cloisters, keep, cockpit (of English history). Let alone ancient England on the Medway and Charles Dickens' old home town. His old home town in the year of years: his bicentenary.
Timing is everything, so we go there on Festival Days! On May 7th it's the Rochester Chimney Sweeps Festival. And June 9th it's Jousting & the Dickens Festival. And how majorly awesome* is that because 2012 is the bi-centenary of Dickens' birth!
*Gotcha! Which is by way of saying, I don't write like that, so I trust you're all – every last one of you – taking my use of that phrase as the prose equivalent of Jack Nicholson's cheeky leer.
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme –
which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
we go to Leeds Castle & Rochester on
Saturday, June 9 at 8.45 am
Meet Simon by the ticket office of Victoria Railway Station.
c. £44
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A Piece of Time You'll Never Forget
Oh Yes! The day of days in Oxford. Now how many shakes of the kaleidoscope would you like? Will 10 do? 1. Town and gown. 2. Hovels to Hogwarts. 3. Dreaming Spires. 4. Cloisters and quads and towers. 5. Punting and Potter. 6. Mediaeval colleges and gargoyles and ancient, creaking doors. 7. Dons and undeergraduates and Inspector Morse and Brideshead Revisited and Shadowlands. 10. Pranks and weird customs and rituals (e.g. Lord Crewe's benefaction, the encaenia, sub fusc and the once-a-century song to the mallard duck). 'There's no other place like it in the world, it is a despair to see such a place and ever to leave it." And if anyone's yearning for the old, rather more "poetic" description, here it is. *N.B. we've pitched this one for all ages (because of the "Harry Potter factor"). Ergo the small charge – £4 – for kids 8-14.
In the Spring 2012 London Walks programme
The Oxford Day takes place on
Saturday, March 24
Meet your guide, Hilary, in front of the main ticket office (it's near Platform One) of Paddington Railway station at 9.15 am.
Tariff c. £21
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ROYAL RICHMOND & HAMPTON COURT In Hampton Court "dead kings and queens
walk again and dead lips ask,
"what of the isles of England and her sea?
"till whispers fill the tower of memory"
There are any number of ways to "do" Hampton Court, but this is the best. In the same way that tailored is superior to off-the-peg. Because with Hampton Court "content" – Great Hall, Haunted Gallery, State Rooms, Private Apartments, Maze – takes care of itself. What doesn't take care of itself is "presentation". And presentation makes all the difference – the difference between something that seamless and timeless and unforgettable as opposed to theme-parky. And that's why we go by boat from Richmond. Just as Henry VIII did. It's a living act of "restoration" – because Hampton Court is a riverside palace and was meant to be approached by water. It makes for a golden day – stimulating and peaceful, beautiful and companionable.
We begin at Richmond, the prettiest Thameside village of them all. The picturesque old streets and buildings here are the very stuff of history: Maids of Honour Row, Old Palace Yard, Trumpeters Court, the old Tudor Gatehouse. Then it's on to Hampton Court Palace. Like Henry VIII, we travel by boat. (We'll get a sandwich from the best sandwich shop in Richmond and picnic on board!) Upstream, a final loop of the Thames brings us along the watermeadows of our best loved national monument.
"It typifies the grand alliance of history and architecture more than any building in England." And so the stage is set for our afternoon walk, a tour of the palace and its precincts, everything from Henry VIII's Real Tennis Court and the Maze and the Haunted Gallery to the State Rooms and Great Hall and Private Apartments. (N.B., you'll save yourself a lot of money if you start your journey by getting a 6-Zone Travel Card: it'll cover your fares to Richmond and back from Hampton Court...and of course it'll also be good for any other travel you undertake in the London area for the rest of the day.)
In the Spring-Summer 2012 London Walks programme
we go to Royal Richmond & Hampton Court on
Monday, September 10
To go on the Richmond & Hampton Court trip meet the guide – Chris or Hilary or Gillian – at 9.30 am by the main ticket office (it's opposite Platform 16) of Waterloo Railway Station.
6-Zone Travel Card recommended.
c. £22
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In Winchester the whole tapestry of English history unfurls before us. It's the city of King Alfred the Great, quondam capital of England, perhaps even the Camelot of Arthur. It's Winchester College, founded in 1382 and the very pattern of the English public school. It's the Great Hall of the Norman castle. It's the mediaeval Westgate. It's – glory of glories – the Cathedral. (Words can't begin to do justice to the astonishing vista of its seemingly endless interior – it's the longest cathedral in Europe.)
It's the Round Table of King Arthur. It's Jane Austen country and the muted voices of grazing sheep and the merry click of bat upon ball and the lush green fields of England. Cue the little photo-essay.
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme –
which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
we go to Royal Winchester on:
Saturday, July 7*
Monday, September 24
*A bonus – July 7th is Hat Fair Day in Winchester. Timing is everything!
Meet Hilary at 9.30 am by the main ticket office
(it's opposite Platform 16)
of Waterloo Railway Station.
c. £30
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RYE, BATTLE & 1066 COUNTRY 
Photo by Michael Gray
True story. Two of our guides honeymooned in Rye. They chose it because they wanted "the most ancient, picturesque, romantic, and interesting village in southern England"...and everybody they asked said, "ok, then you have to go to Rye". And in case you're wondering, it was the Mermaid Inn, which dates back to 1156 and was rebuilt in 1420. We can have cream tea there. After we've visited the most important battlefield in the world. Where everything changed, changed utterly, in that "year of four kings and Halley's comet".
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme –
which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
we go to Rye, Battle & 1066 Country on
Meet Chris by the ticket office of
Charing Cross Railway Station at 8.45 am.
c. Tariff £40
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The most fascinating small city in England is just 20 minutes from London. St. Albans is an essence of England. You can stand on the bank of its little river, the Ver, and suddenly feel yourself touched, saddened by the great passage of time – Romans, and Saxons, and Normans, and Lancastrians rode across this stream, galloped up that hill, and disappeared into the centuries. And the same goes for the little town itself (little town, hell, long, long ago this was the most important city in Roman Britain!) – here you see it all – from the Legions of Julius Caesar to the dynasty of the Churchills. These streets are corridors in the vale of time. Here's the only Roman theatre in Britain; here's the oldest street market in this sceptered isle – it dates back to the Saxons; round this corner there's a 600-year-old Moot hall; round that one a clutch of mediaeval and Tudor coaching inns; hard by, a rare curfew clock tower; up these lanes a sprinkling of half-timbered Elizabethan houses; over there, streets and buildings that are essays in Georgian England; here, a Victorian prison. Let alone all sorts of hidden, curious places and things – and a skein of enthralling history. Not to put too fine a point on it, St. Albans is England in miniature and London's best kept secret! Okay, here's the photo-essay.
 Okay, who's for a "grab", a "soundbite"...here's Alison before that rare clock tower...
Want to read more? Click here...
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme – which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
we go to St. Albans on:
Sunday, October 14
Meet Alison or Hilary at 10 am just outside the exit of West Hampstead Tube.
Tariff: £10
*This one is Ding Dong Merrily on High! because our annual Christmas season trip to St. Albans is timed to coincide with St. Albans' Christmas street market – the oldest, longest, bestest traditional Christmas street market in England. Timing is everything!
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"You'll never see anything like it again" Behold!
from Waterloo Railway Station
(meet your guide by the main ticket office, which is opposite Platform 16)
Behold. And then look at each other with a wild surmise. Because here, on Salisbury plain, under a sky like moving marble, you're going to be face to face with primeval Britain...
Stonehenge! That place of ancient ghosts. Stonehenge..."those storm-sculptured stones...that outlast the skies of huistory hurrying overhead." Stonehenge...observatory? altar? temple? tomb? ...to serve strange gods or watch familiar stars. And before that, there's Salisbury. Salisbury...even the name is mellifluous. Salisbury is the most spectacularly beautiful cathedral in Britain. Salisbury is the river Avon and mediaeval streets lined by half-timbered houses with high oversailing upper floors and tall gables and rejoicing in names like Ox Row and Silver Street and Fish Row. Salisbury is Thomas Hardy's Melchester and Anthony Trollope's Barchester - and views over the meadows that Constable painted. And betwixt and between...there are picturesque country roads that take us past the ancient site of Old Sarum and through a lush valley, past old churches and thatched cottages and country mansions. And if you'd like some more views – more imagery – click here! And if you'd like to read some more – well, pop-ups don't come any better than this!
To go on the Stonehenge & Salisbury Day Trip meet
by the main ticket office – it's opposite Platform 16 – of Waterloo Railway Station at 9.15 am.
In the Spring 2012 London Walks programme we go to Stonehenge & Salisbury on:
Tuesday, April 24
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme – which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st – we go to Stonehenge & Salisbury every Tuesday. And we'll also go there on:
Saturday, June 23 (for Summer Solstice Season!)
Tariff: £43
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STRATFORD-UPON-AVON & SHAKESPEARE COUNTRY Stratford! Heart of England, olde worlde, swabbling river, 16th-century stone bridge, orchard-dappled, ancient church – it's wag-a-tale wonderful. Add Shakespeare to it and the ampage goes way into off-the-chart, not-to-be-missed territory. Not miss is the mot juste. We see it all: the birthplace, Holy Trinity (where he's buried), Hall's Croft, the old town, etc. Anything else? Yes, Richard guides it. So you can add can't-go-wrong to not-to-be-missed.
Three blurbs for the price of one for this one. Here's last summer's (if you're interested). To cross the ancient stone bridge he crossed; to visit the half-timbered birthplace; to walk through the grove of trees to Holy Trinity in its bend on the Avon; to stand before that mysterious tombstone (the quiet there is preternatural – you really do sense a presence far more deeply interefused). All this is to get things into true. Because Stratford bred Shakespeare. Because its imprint is all over him. Because he's the measure and template of our humanity. Because he's so fundamental to our language and culture – to the way we think and feel. Welcome home, everybody.
And finally, let's draft in the wonderful Carol Rutter, who knows the man and his work and his Stratford and his Warwickshire better than anyone. "His imagination – its reach and resources – is cathedral-sized. Yet its particularity, the metaphors it utters itself in, are as familiar, as human-sized as the parish church still standing in a Warwickshire that is still recognizable from the writing, where the lark still sings at "heaven gate"; where...rain still runs down 'eaves of reeds; and the daffodils 'come before the swallow dares'; where latter-day greasy Joans still 'keel the pot' and slug-a-bed schoolboys still 'creep like snail' unwillingly to class, stepping over drunkards who've been thrown out of public houses and will wake up in the gutter."
And for a final bow, here's a little photo essay.
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme –
which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
we go to Stratford-upon-Avon & Shakespeare Country on
To go on the Stratford & Shakespeare Country Day Trip
meet Richard at 8.30 am by the ticket office of
Marylebone Railway Station
c. £37
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Timing is everything, so we head up to Warwick on Festival Day. When town and castle are in full plume. When pikestaffs are aloft and swords are clashing – when knights are jousting in the tiltyard! It's like being at a mediaeval tournament. When there's falconry, a mediaeval fair and "live" ghosts in the castle. Enough said? Well yes and no. Because let's not forget the bonus: we'll also explore, tour the historic – and very picturesque – old town itself. Here's a little photo-essay.
In the Summer 2012 London Walks programme –
which kicks in on May 1st and runs through October 31st –
the Warwick Castle Festival Day Trip takes place on:
Meet Richard at 8.30 am by the ticket office of Marylebone Railway Station.
Tariff £38
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