EXTRA WALK – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12
By popular demand.
Stewart’s December 12 morning walk sold out. So he’s doing it all over again that same afternoon (December 12).
A little intelligence bulletin from London Walks HQ.
Stewart Purvis’s December 12 Hampstead Spies walk has been a runaway success. So successful, in fact, that we’ve had to close bookings for the morning departure.
The solution? An encore. Stewart has very kindly agreed to lay on a second walk that afternoon.
Same distinguished guide. Same fascinating story. Same extraordinary revelations from once-secret MI5 files. And a fresh opportunity to discover why Hampstead was once such a hotbed of Soviet espionage.
The KGB in NW3. Kim Philby, the Cambridge Five and the secret world of Soviet espionage in Hampstead. An AI-generated imaginative illustration of a remarkable true story.
THE KGB IN NW3
Kim Philby. Guy Burgess. The Cambridge Five. The Oxford spies. Moscow’s men in Hampstead.
It sounds like the cast list of a John le Carré thriller. Except that this lot were real. And so were their extraordinary betrayals.
There was a time when Hampstead was practically crawling with Soviet agents, informers and helpers. Some lived just a few doors apart.
How did it happen? Who recruited whom? Where did they live? And how did a quiet, leafy corner of North London become one of the great recruiting grounds of Soviet intelligence?
Stewart Purvis CBE has spent years finding out.
The former Editor and CEO of ITN, distinguished broadcaster and co-author of Guy Burgess, The Spy Who Knew Everyone, Stewart has trawled through thousands of pages of declassified MI5 files. He knows the names. He knows the addresses. He knows the secrets.
And he’s going to take you to the very places where it all happened.
Along the way, there’s the Hampstead connection with John le Carré, Ian Fleming and George Orwell. And the extraordinary story of how the plot to recruit Philby and his fellow spies took shape in Belsize Park.
ANDREW MARR WAS CARRÉ-D AWAY
When Andrew Marr went on Stewart’s walk, what struck him was how much more emotional and vivid a historical story becomes when you’re standing in front of the place where it happened, rather than reading about it on a screen.
Which is what London Walks is all about.
THE PRACTICALS
This is an additional afternoon departure of Stewart Purvis CBE’s popular Hampstead Spies – Kim Philby & His Oxbridge Comrades walk.
The morning walk on December 12 is sold out. This afternoon departure covers the same ground, tells the same story and is guided by the same man, Stewart Purvis CBE.
Hampstead Spies with Stewart Purvis CBE. Kim Philby, the Cambridge Five and the KGB in NW3. A remarkable true story, brought to life by one of Britain’s most distinguished newsmen.
Meeting point: Outside Belsize Park Underground Station.
Date: Saturday, December 12, 2026.
Advance booking essential.
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