This excursion will be back soon. In the meantime we’d be happy to organise a private tour for you. Please contact us on 020 7624 3978 | [email protected] to make a booking.
This excursion will be back soon. In the meantime we’d be happy to organise a private tour for you. Please contact us on 020 7624 3978 | [email protected] to make a booking.
Waterloo railway station, London
Guided by Rachel
Short version: Wonderful Waterloo – A Behind the Termini walk.
Long version: Waterloo sunset’s fine. So’s Waterloo. So’s its purlieus. So, yup, another London Walk tracking down, recognising, seeing, getting to know, making sense of, celebrating a London neighbourhood’s particularities. This one’s the swan song – for the time being – of Rachel’s wonderful series of Behind the Termini walks. It’s exactly what it says on the tin. Though with a good look at the station itself before we head round behind. That good look’s worth the time spend. Places take on a character – an ineffable feel – from what went down there. If your radar doesn’t detect it at first you’ll get it as soon as Rachel articulates it. And you’ll get it instanta why it’s got that “feel”, where it comes from. What else? It’s the busiest station in London. Part of it’s got one of the most complex and impressive steel and glass roof ever built. There’s the Necropolis Line (Waterloo sunset indeed). You name it, Waterloo’s got it. And that’s before we strike out for the territories. Got some lineage, that’s for sure. This was Lambeth Marsh. Comes up out of the wetlands – well, the name does – in 1377. Lower Marsh – let’s mush, let’s march to Lower Marsh – is a “conservation area in recognition of its special character.” It – the street – was there in 1690. Was a playground – pleasure gardens, circuses, theatres, music hall, temperance hall, opera house. Then rows of small houses, wharves and workshops. Quintessential London, really. The station, built in 1848, created yards and cul de sacs – fragments of which, happily, are still with us. What else (apart from the first and grandest of the Waterloo churches, the Old Vic, the Young Vic and the market, let alone the area’s Premiership attractions*)? Well, some good examples of early 19th century vernacular architecture. Courts and alleyways and streets off to the sides that still rejoice in some original sett or yorkstone pavings. Shopfronts from different eras. Good buzz from this era. In four words: diversity and great character. Good walk.
Wonderful Waterloo – A Behind the Termini Walk takes place at 2.30 pm on XXXXXXXXX. Meet Rachel in the main concourse of Waterloo Railway Station. She’ll be directly beneath the big station clock.
*the Southbank Arts complex, that ten storeys high screen in its spectacular glass building, The Eye (at the minute hand of the smiling – 10 to 2 – clock face; the Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre at the end of the hour hand).
If you can’t make one of the regularly scheduled, just-turn-up, Wonderful Waterloo it can always be booked as a private tour. If you go private you can have the Wonderful Waterloo 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 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.
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.