London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
Top of the morning to you London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Thursday, August 14th, 2025.
Usual first stop. The London Calling Book Club Corner. What London Walks guides are reading.
It’s back to David Gollancz this morning because, like me, his reading is always at least a 3-ring circus.
First out of the David blocks was The Restless Republic by Anna Keay. It featured here a couple of weeks ago.
Today it’s Queen James by Gareth Russell. Here’s what David says about it: “The life of James VI of Scotland and I of England, told through the lens of James’s relationships with successive “favourites”, aka male (mostly) lovers. It’s neither gossipy nor salacious, telling the story of England’s first Stuart king using these relationships as a means of insight into James’s conduct as king. Also serves as a welcome antidote to those historians (most of them) who have no trouble in identifying a woman as a king’s mistress but would sooner pull out their own teeth than admit that a handsome young man who shared the king’s bed was anything other than a jolly good chum. Again, essential reading when considering the transformation of Britain in the 17th century.”
Thanks very much David. That one caught my eye when it was published earlier this year. And now thanks what you to say, I’m going to get it and read it.
Mental note to self: David, that’s me, when you go on David Gollancz’s new walk GameChangers! be sure to ask him if Queen James was on the palette he dipped into to paint that walk.
Moving on.
This one’s twin engine. First of all, you’re going to meet a Londoner you’ve never met before. Never heard of. But she’s fun to get to know.
And secondly, there’s a good walks tie-in. Our mystery Londoner – we first meet her in Greenwich. Our next Greenwich walk takes place on August 22nd. And frankly if I were you I’d make a point of going on that walk. For two reasons: One, because it’s the only Greenwich outing that’s scheduled over the next couple of weeks. And Two, because of the Catch it While You Can factor. By that I mean, it’s the last chance to visit London’s only planetarium until 2028. Yes, that’s right, come September 8th the Peter Harrison Planetarium is closing. It’s a long term closure. It won’t be open again until the Spring of 2028. It’s closing as part of major upgrade work at the Royal Observatory.
Ok, there’s your heads-up. Let’s meet our mystery guest.
Bit of pretend now. We’re in Greenwich. It’s early Monday morning. There’s mist on the Thames. The Cutty Sark is a ghostly outline. Up on the hill, the Royal Observatory – the very heartbeat of time itself – the Royal Observatory keeps its silent vigil.
And look who’s coming our way. Yes, it’s Ruth Belville. Ruth Belville, the woman who sold time. Ruth Belville, the Greenwich Time Lady. Ruth Belville, neat as a pin, eyes bright, wearing a sensible hat and sensible shoes.
In her gloved hand – not swinging free, oh no, that would never do – in her gloved hand, the watch. Arnold 485. An 18th-century chronometer, a little golden oracle, ticking away the most accurate time in the world.
The Observatory has just set it – Monday ritual – and now Ruth’s off. On her way. Down through Greenwich, past the tea clipper, onto the ferry, across the Thames, and into the city.
By mid-morning she’s in Clerkenwell. Why Clerkenwell? Because it’s watchmaking country, that’s why.
She knocks on the front door of a narrow little shop. The place sounds like what it is – we can hear bells jingling, clockwork ticks in the background. Door opens.
“Morning, Miss Belville,” says the clockmaker. And what’s he got in his hand? Why of course, his own precision watch. Ruth opens the case she’s carrying. The Arnold 485 case. The clock of clocks. Why this week it’s gained, what, a tenth of a second? The clockmaker sets his watch by Ruth’s Arnold 485, pays his fee, and she’s off again.
You think about it, Ruth Belville’s on her very own London Walk. From Clerkenwell she doubles back to the City. To Cornhill, to Cheapside, where jewellers are polishing shop windows. And now you know why those are her next ports of call. Eventually Ruth will make her way over to fashionable Bond Street in the West End. A world of gentlemen in top hats and ladies in feathers. They nod as she passes. Ruth Belville is a London fixture. People recognise her. She’s dependable. You can set your watch by her.
Set your watch by her because Ruth’s not just delivering time — she’s delivering the time, Greenwich Mean Time, the standard.
And now the tale comes all over London. Couldn’t be more London. It’s that fundamental, deeply ingrained principle: London deifies its habits. Turns its habits into Gods and worships them.
Because, let us not forget, by now we’re in the early 20th century – London is buzzing with new ways to get the time: the telegraph, the radio “pips”. But her customers, they trust Ruth. Trust the watch. Trust the ritual.
A BBC announcer can be a second off – or so they say – but Arnold 485? Never.
Ruth’s doing all this – doing her time travelling so to speak – while the city changes around her. Gas lamps give way to electric lights. Hansom cabs to motorcars. Empires fall, the Blitz is on the horizon – and still, every Monday morning, Ruth Belville walks into town with the time of the world in her handbag.
She does it until 1940. In 1940 Ruth Bellville is 86. At long last, the hour’s come round. Ruth hangs up her hat and gloves. She retires. Quietly. And Arnold 485 – having walked the streets of London for over a century – over a century because Ruth was preceded by her mother and father – Arnold 485 goes into the care of the Clockmakers’ Company, where it still ticks today.
A couple of facts and figures. Ruth charged approximately £4 a year for her services. A big saving on the Post Office time subscription of £15 a year. We met Ruth at 9 am sharp on Monday morning at the Royal Observatory. It was a twelve mile walk from her house to the Royal Observatory. It was clockwork for Ruth, that twelve mile walk to the Royal Observatory.
And here’s the part I love: in an age obsessed with speed, Ruth Belville’s business was slow. Human-paced. Street-paced. She carried the pulse of Greenwich in her pocket, and the city bent its own pulse to hers.
One woman. One watch. And all the time in the world.
You’ve been listening to This… is London, the London Walks podcast. Emanating from www.walks.com –
home of London Walks,
London’s signature walking tour company.
London’s local, time-honoured, fiercely independent, family-owned, just-the-right-size walking tour company.
And as long as we’re at it, London’s multi-award-winning walking tour company. Indeed, London’s only award-winning walking tour company.
And here’s the secret: London Walks is essentially run as a guides’ cooperative.
That’s the key to everything.
It’s the reason we’re able to attract and keep the best guides in London. You can get schlubbers to do this for £20 a walk. But you cannot get world-class guides – let alone accomplished professionals.
It’s not rocket science: you get what you pay for.
And just as surely, you also get what you don’t pay for.
Back in 1968 when we got started we quickly came to a fork in the road. We had to answer a searching question: Do we want to make the most money? Or do we want to be the best walking tour company in the world?
You want to make the most money you go the schlubbers route. You want to be the best walking tour company in the world you do whatever you have to do
to attract and keep the best guides in London –
you want them guiding for you, not for somebody else.
Bears repeating:
the way we’re structured – a guides’ cooperative –
is the key to the whole thing.
It’s the reason for all those awards, it’s the reason people who know go with London Walks, it’s the reason we’ve got a big following, a lively, loyal, discerning following – quality attracts quality.
It’s the reason we’re able – uniquely – to front our walks with accomplished, in many cases distinguished professionals:
By way of example, Stewart Purvis, the former Editor
(and subsequently CEO) of Independent Television News.
And Lisa Honan, who had a distinguished career as a diplomat (Lisa was the Governor of St Helena, the island where Napoleon breathed his last and, some say, had his penis amputated – Napoleon didn’t feel a thing – if thing’s the mot juste – he was dead.)
Stewart and Lisa – both of them CBEs – are just a couple of our headline acts.
Or take our Ripper Walk. It’s the creation of the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, the author of the definitive book on the subject. Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Donald is, in the words of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, “internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper.” Donald’s emeritus now but he’s still the guiding light on our Ripper Walk. He curates the walk. He trains up and mentors our Ripper Walk guides. Fields any and all questions they throw at him.
The London Walks Aristocracy of Talent – its All-Star Team of Guides – includes a former London Mayor. It includes the former Chief Music Critic for the Evening Standard. It includes the Chair of the Association of Professional Tour Guides. And the former chair of the Guild of Guides.
It includes barristers, doctors, geologists, museum curators, a former London Museum archaeologist, historians,
university professors (one of them a distinguished Cambridge University paleontologist); it includes a criminal defence lawyer, Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre actors, a bevy of MVPs, Oscar winners (people who’ve won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award)…
well, you get the idea.
As that travel writer famously put it, “if this were a golf tournament, every name on the Leader Board would be a London Walks guide.”
And as we put it: London Walks Guides make the new familiar
and the familiar new.
And on that agreeable note… come then, let us go forward together on some great London Walks.