Past the Palace – Our Most Controversial Walk!
Rated 4.33 out of 5 based on 12 customer ratings
(12 customer reviews )
Embankment underground station, London (Villiers Street exit)
Guided by Claire or Delianne or Karen or Peter G.
Adult: £20 · Students & Seniors: £15 · Children: £5
Walk Times
| Day | Walk Type | Start Time | End Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | Weekly | 2.30 pm | 4.30 pm | Winter Summer | Reserve Online |
N.B., Not suitable for snowflakes or under 12’s.
Hidden Places & Hidden History This one isn’t on the balcony – it’s through the keyhole. It’s hideaways and nooks and crannies and bolt holes with a difference: they’re royal hideaways, bolt holes, nooks and crannies. It’s where the goings on went down. It’s kings who were queens. It’s 16 coffin bearers, beheaded lovers and a questionable birthright. It’s a square coffin, a fake lesbian wedding and “a bat instead of a woman”. It’s curses and betrayals, heartaches and hearth-aches and unhealthy habits. It’s ugly sisters and poisonous makeup and war and head lice. It’s between the kings’ sheets and a cabinet particulaire and a royal brothel. It’s £40 million of debt, swinging parties, debauchery and treachery. It’s unofficial history, real history. It’s guides with that tiara tingle. Here’s how a walker put it: “This walk had my head spinning. Not just because of the dizzying array of funny and fascinating stories and often hilarious incidents but also because of the star power of the guide herself. What a wonderful way to spend an afternoon in London.” It’s a royally, royally good walk. Guided by Peter, Claire, Delianne and Karen, winner of the London Tourist Board’s Guide of the Year Award. (Hard act to follow but Karen did it – did it in spades. The august American travel magazine Travel & Leisure recently crowned her “the world’s greatest tour guide.”) But let’s hear from Karen herself.
PAST THE PALACE – THE PRACTICALS
Past the Palace goes every* Tuesday at 2.30 pm. The meeting point is just outside the Villiers Street exit of Embankment Tube. N.B. the Past the Palace walk ends very near Green Park Tube. *Except the Tuesdays in December and January
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THE GUIDING
Don’t just take it from us…
LONDON WALKS REVIEWS
“London’s best walking tours” Travel & Leisure
“The original and best – there are several companies offering walking tours of London but London Walks (London’s oldest) is easily the pick of the bunch” London, Cadogan Guide
LONDON WALKS PRIVATE WALKS
If you can’t make the regularly scheduled, just-turn-up, public Past the Palace walk do think about booking one as a private tour. If you go private you can have Past the Palace – or any other London Walk – on a day and at a time that suits your convenience. We’ll tailor it to your requirements. And – always with private London Walks and tours – we go to great lengths to make sure the guide-walker(s) “fit” is well-nigh perfect. Ring Fiona or Peter or Niamh or Mary on 020 7624 3978 or email us at [email protected] and we’ll set it up and make it happen for you. A private London Walk – they’re good value for an individual or couple and sensational value for a group – makes an ideal group or educational or birthday party or office (team-building) or club outing.
GIVE THE GIFT OF LONDON WALKS
A private London Walk makes a very special, indeed a unique gift – be it a birthday or anniversary or Christmas present or whatever. Merchandise schmerchandise (gift wrapped or not) – but giving someone an experience, now that’s special. Memories make us rich.
MIND THE GAP
LONDON WALKS – STREETS AHEAD!
Don’t just take it from us.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Mary Campbell-Hall –
I agree with Liz (Nov 20, 2024 review)! I have not done this Walk but have done quite a number of London and Paris Walks, all of which have been very informative and interesting with great guides.
Reading through the reviews for this Walk has stimulated my curiosity and I will do this Walk next time I am in London (Feb, March, Apr 2025). I’ll be there!
Liz –
I have taken many of your walks in the past and plan to do more anytime I’m in London. The few negative reviews of this walk rather than putting me off have sparked my curiosity and next time I find myself in London on a Tuesday I’ll definitely be coming along.
Christine Notley –
What a superb walk we had with the lovely Claire. Despite the downpours on the day she certainly kept us entertained. The knowledge this lady has if phenomenal and would recommend her if you want a very funny tale of the not so secrets of the Royals of the Past. All I will say is that I will never look at a trumpet in the same way again.
Lyla –
Full disclosure: I’ve not yet taken this specific tour. But over the past 15 years or so, I’ve taken at least 30 tours with London Walks, led by a multitude of talented guides. The description on this website always has been accurate; the tours “do what it says on the tin”. The two recent negative reviews for “Past the Palace” seem to have been crafted by two visitors who did not read the description beforehand and, tragically, lack a sense of humor. As for Harry’s true parentage— UK tabloids, court biographers, and royal aficionados worldwide have long speculated as to where his ginger mop came from. Look up “James Hewitt” to see the most-frequently mentioned potential papa 😉
Julie Lake –
A wonderful Walk with Delianne on 16 July 24 for our U3A group. What a ‘colourful’ Guide! She managed to blend historical facts with somewhat risque details of the English Royals through the centuries. She was extremely knowledgeable and the talk was enhanced by the many photographs she showed us from her iPad. Yes, one has to recognise the immoral ‘goings on’ of past Royals, and some may feel uncomfortable to hear that the Royals from the most recent past, and the present, have also strayed off the path, both male and female. Extraordinary facts were told to us which, left me for one, keen to do some research. I would highly recommend this Walk and the highly entertaining Delianne – a misogynist as stated by previous clients? – no way!
David Tucker –
Sarah,
Phew! First Lisa’s excoriation. That some impressive anger…she sounds like a minor female prophet railing at the sins of the people. We suspect there’s more to her “review” than meets the eye, maybe a settling of scores about not getting the ‘teacher’s discount’ (which we don’t have) she seemed to think she was entitled to. Whatever it was she’s well and truly vented it. But at a price. She’s made it into the rarefied company of that extremely exclusive club (only four members out of 1.5 million London Walkers since 1968) – the London Walks equivalent of the no fly list every airline operates. And now here you are piling on. Anything to be said, do you think, for reading Delianne’s response to what Lisa said? I’d just add: 1) Delianne said you thanked her at walk’s end and told her you’d enjoyed it; in the circs. (given how you felt) that’s, well, extraordinary. 2) she, Delianne, is certainly not a misogynist. 3) Clearly you were on the wrong walk. 4) You should have asked then and there for your money back when you realised it wasn’t to your liking. 5) London Walks prices range from £10 to £20. For most of the people who go on walking tours that’s certainly not “a lot of money.” 6) Is it possible that you’re maybe being a little bit snow-flakey? 7) ‘Free’ [sic] tours aren’t free. They’re a scam. A classic bait and switch swindle. They use the word ‘free’ as a lure to hook the credulous into an extractive operation. The normal modus operandi is the ‘guide’ has to pay the ‘man’ – the company – a per head levy for everybody who goes on the tour. If the ‘guide’ is not able to wheedle that levy – £2, £3 per head, whatever it is – out of the people who turn up for a ‘free’ tour, he or she, the ‘guide’ is out of pocket. They basically have to pay the man to go to work. Take it from me, as the London Walks capo, you cannot persuade accomplished professionals – in London Walks’ case that’s two CBEs (the former Editor of ITN and a distinguished diplomat), six lawyers, a physician, a distinguished geologist, a former Museum of London archaeologist, Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Royal Shakespeare Company actors, etc. etc. – to guide for you by turning them into beggars. I realise there are plenty of people who don’t object to being lied to. There are others who do (I number myself among them). Bait and switch is a lie. It’s something I find “very uncomfortable to listen to.” Royals with their trousers down, I don’t have a problem with that.
David Tucker –
Here’s guide Delianne’s response.
Firstly, in response to your review, please let me thank you for coming on the walk and taking a chance on something that was clearly not going to make you happy, given its subject matter. We, at London Walks, value all our customers and their opinions, and are very grateful for reviews, no matter what they may be, in order to make our walks better and more entertaining. And – entertainment is what ‘Past the Palace’ is all about – a light-hearted romp through sometimes jaw dropping panoply of royal scandals, past and present. The online description of the walk clearly states ‘it’s not for the faint hearted!’ One of my clients once gleefully wrote: ‘this is the best trashy walk I’ve ever been on!’
I am a Freeman of the City of London, a City of London Guide, a Clerkenwell and Islington Guide, and a London Registered Blue Badge Guide, and believe me, on a regular historic walk I can bore for England. It would be exhausting to make up stories! Why bother when the truth is stranger than fiction? Every story I tell is based on published historic fact, by such respected authors as Ann de Courcy, Lady Colin Campbell, Kitty Kelly, Andrew Lownie, and many more – you may have been momentarily distracted by the twinkling gas lamps I was pointing out as I cited some of my sources? Should you wish to explore further, I would be very happy to furnish a complete list of all sources for each stop on the walk, and as I’m assuming you like books, you may find some very entertaining reading and enlightening reading there.
The royals are, and always have been have human beings in a sometimes difficult and restricted position, with all the hopes, frailties, desires and peccadilloes the great Creator designed in all of us. I have the greatest respect for Her Majesty, Queen Camilla, and most definitely did not refer to her as you intimated. Diana herself, said to my friend Lady Colin Campbell, that ‘she was no saint’. May I refer you to her books ‘Diana in Private’ and ‘The Real Diana’.
Please don’t let your disappointment in Past the Palace put you off the delights offered by my London Walks colleagues. I’m so sorry I was unable to offer you the discount you requested, and hope that this did not in any way contribute to your experience. I’m curious as to why you chose this particular scandalous walk, and can only wish you had stayed until the end of the walk and had the courage to voice your feelings to my face. We might have had an interesting debate.
In retrospect, it’s just as well that I didn’t favour you with some of my favourite Samuel Pepys diary quotes, or even the rare photo of an Albert piercing – now there’s a tale!
Sarah –
I love history and enjoy a walking tour so with a free afternoon in London I thought I would give it a go. I can only think that Lisa (review dated 19/06/24) was on the same tour as me. I found the misogyny, the talk about Harry and Megan and a Hollywood celebrity (!) very uncomfortable to listen to. I can’t be the only one as at one point I turned around and half our group had disappeared and I was left questioning myself why I hadn’t thought to run away too. Lesson learnt, I will stick with the free tours where you pay what you feel it’s worth, I would’ve saved myself a lot of money.
Lisa –
I almost never leave reviews, but this walking tour was so awful, I want to warn others away. The walk does not take you anywhere particularly interesting, you see a couple of statues, and a couple of alleys and roads that the guide did her best to try to connect to the story that she was telling. There was very little factual history involved, the stories were mostly fabricated and sounded like they were coming straight from a tabloid – including implying that Prince Harry was not his father’s son. The worst part, however, was the casual misogyny of the guide, she basically called Diana and Camila whores, in addition to generally speaking about women and sexual promiscuity in an outdated and offensive way. She repeatedly showed pictures of royalty on her iPad, emphasizing how attractive (or not) they were. I was planning on going on multiple walking tours in London, but I have been scared off of them all together. Taking this tour as the quality of walking tours from this company, I can only encourage others to stay away.
Kate Beem –
Every time I find myself in London, I discover another London Walk that is my favorite. This one did not disappoint! What a fabulous walk! As it turned out, I was Claire‘s only guidee today. It was a remarkable experience, and I learned so much about the monarchy that I didn’t know before! What a privilege to have Claire’s undivided attention. Thank you, Claire!