Guided by spy author and broadcaster Stewart Purvis CBE.

Some broadcaster. Stewart Purvis was the eagle in the nest at Independent Television News. He was the Editor at ITN and ultimately the CEO. As an American friend who knows this country well and had read Stewart’s book put it to me, “you got Stewart Purvis to guide Hampstead Spies for London Walks! That’s like getting Dan Rather to guide Dealey Plaza.”

GLAD TO HEAR IT

Meet your guide – here’s a little podcast Stewart did about his Hampstead Spies tour

WATCH THE VIDEO

The video is a short extract from the recent BBC Four Storyville production Toffs, Queers & Traitors – The Extraordinary Life of Guy Burgess. Stewart Purvis – who created and guides the Spies of Hampstead walk – had a major role in the programme.

Short read: The KGB in NW3

Long read: There were once so many KGB spies in Hampstead that some lived just a few doors apart. Distinguished UK Newsman (former Editor and CEO of ITN), spy author and broadcaster Stewart Purvis has worked out from MI5  files who lived where during the Cold War and the links between them. The tour starts at Belsize Park tube station where one of the KGB’s top men in Britain notched up his first piece of espionage and it ends at a block of flats near Hampstead station where the same spy hid out while on the run from the police. In between ‘The Hampstead Spies’  takes you to the home of the KGB recruiter who first spotted the potential of Hampstead boy Kim Philby and also the home of his KGB minder.  You’ll stop outside the home of a whole family of spies who between them recruited the Atomic Spy Klaus Fuchs. Then come the Hampstead folk who knew and sometimes suspected the spies: George Orwell, Ian Fleming and John le Carre. Even Brad Pitt gets a walk-on part from a spy movie he made in Hampstead. But the real thing is better than any spy thriller. The walk is guided by Stewart Purvis co-author of Guy Burgess, The Spy Who Knew Everyone, which the New York Review of Books called “an excellent read”. Stewart and the walk were featured in a BBC TV spy documentary ‘Toffs, Queers and Traitors’ in November 2017.

THE SPIES OF HAMPSTEAD – THE PRACTICALS

The Spies of Hampstead takes place on the last Sunday of every month at 10.45 am 

It runs on: April 25th, May 30th, June 27th, July 25th, August 29th, September 26th and October 31st

To go on the walk meet Stewart just outside the exit of Belsize Park Tube at 10.45 am.

MORE VIDEO

Here’s Stewart giving a quick preview of the walk.

LONDON WALKS PRIVATE WALKS

If you can’t make one of the regularly scheduled, just-turn-up, public Mountain Building & Meteorites in the City of London walks it can always be booked as a private tour. If you go private you can have the The Hampstead Spies – the KGB in NW3 walk – or any other London Walk – on a day and at a time that suits your convenience. We’ll tailor it to your requirements. Ring Fiona or Noel or Mary on 020 7624 3978 or email us at privatewalks@walks.com 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 fab 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.

LONDON WALKS – STREETS AHEAD!

Don’t just take it from us.

OTHER TOURS YOU MAY LIKE

• Day trips from London
• Undiscovered London
• Ghost Walks
• Jack the Ripper walking tour