London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
—————————————
A very good evening to you, London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s May 4th, 2025.
Edward Petherbridge. Great actor. A couple of Tony nominations. Created the role of Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard’s Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are Dead. Leading Royal Shakespeare Company actor. Ditto the Royal National Theatre. Portrayed Lord Peter Wimsey in the famous BBC adaptation of Dorothy Sayers’ novels.
Anyway, yes, the great Edward Peterbridge would occasionally do a Theatreland Walk for us. I daresay he’d still be doing them for us if he hadn’t moved away from London.
Anyway, Edward was known to start that walk of his by saying, “you realise, if I were to give you the whole history of where we’re standing we wouldn’t move from this spot for the whole two hours.”
I make a similar remark on my Kensington Walk. I show them the only house in London designed by the architect who did the famous Bridge of Sighs in Oxford. And I say, “we could easily spend two hours poring over the delightful quirks and felicities of this visual explosion of a house.”
And that’s by way of saying, sooner or later you realise – sooner if you’re a guide – that London stories are like dropping a pebble in a still pond. The rings just come out and out and out. Just keep coming. And that when you’re guiding you’re never giving the whole story. That would be impossible. Not only is London inexhaustible, so are its cityscapes, its places, its stories. London locations, they’re a little bit like the holy rood – or an eternal flame. They just keep yielding up more. Never run out of fuel, just keep burning.
So this evening I’m thinking about the start of Shaughan’s great Hidden London Walk. In particular, the second stop.
The walk forms up at Monument Underground Station. The first stop is that 17th-century skyscraper, the Monument itself. Shaughan explains why it’s there, why it’s exactly 202 feet high. In short, chapter One of that walk is about the Great Fire of London, which of course is what the monument commemorates. And of course he unpacks the richly detailed allegory on the west side of the base of the column. Right there, right at the beginning of the walk Shaughan hits a high C. It’s just so satisfying to have the scales fall from your eyes. To understand what it is you’re looking at, what those figures represent, the stories they tell.
Anyway, from there Shaughan makes his way down to St Magnus the Martyr. And there, he, like every guide worth his salt, has to make some editorial decisions. Because that church is a mother lode of great London stories. Usually points out the clock and tells the story of the little London apprentice boy who was given a beating for being late to work. And he talks about the church in relation to the most famous bridge of them all, London Bridge. There are, it’s delightful this, remnants of the famous old London Bridge to be seen at St Magnus the Martyr. But you have to know where to look. Shaughan does. And inside there’s a wooden pile from a Roman wharf. My favourite is the large, really detailed model of old London Bridge. And finally, Shaughan being Shaughan – marvelous thesp that he is – he of course quotes T.S. Eliot’s line in The Waste Land about the church interior: the “walls of Magnus Martyr hold/Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold”.
Hearing those words in there while you’re actually looking at those walls and their “inexplicable splendour of Ioanian white and gold” – it doesn’t get much better than that. But then it’s time to move on. A little bit wistfully so. Because there are so many stories that don’t get told, so many
blooms there that don’t get picked, don’t make it into Shaughan’s bouquet on that part of the walk. Time doesn’t permit. There are other places to go, other places to see on that walk.
But London Calling – this podcast – is garnish for the London Walks banquet. We do have the time here to pick a few of those blooms. Add them to the bouquet.
So, for example, it’s thrilling to know that the greatest medieval architect of them all – Henry Yevelee – is buried in St Magnus the Martyr. Henry Yevelee – Chaucer’s contemporary – who refaced Westminster Hall, who was responsible for Bloody Tower at the Tower of London, who gave us the magnificent naves of Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral. That scrap of knowledge is like a golden linch pin. It conjoins St Magnus the Martyr and Westminster Abbey, for example. Similarly it’s satisfying to know that Miles Coverdale, translator of the New Testament was the Vicar of St Magnus the Martyr. Right about the time Shakespeare was born. Coverdale died in 1569 and was buried in St Bartholomew by the Exchange. But then nearly 300 later his remains were exhumed and he was reburied in St Magnus the Martyr. Henry Yevele and Miles Coverdale keeping company, riding out eternity at St Magnus the Martyr, that thought is explicable splendour.
What else? Well, it’s nice to know that St Magnus’ Corner, as it was called, was a hub of mediaeval London. People gathered there, notices were read out. It was also a place of punishment. Malefactors were whipped there.
What else? St Magnus the Martyr wasn’t the only religious establishment right there. It kept company with the Weigh-house Chapel on Fish Street Hill. As is almost always the case in London, the name preserves the history. The chapel – it was a religious establishment for dissenters – was named after the King’s Weigh-house. The upper floor of the old weigh-house housed the first chapel. And what was the King’s Weigh House you ask. It was the place where the King’s weights, known as the Great Beam, were kept. It was used for “weighing all merchandise brought from beyond the seas at the King’s beam.” And if you’re thinking time-line, the earliest mention of the Weigh House is 1357.
And a couple more pieces to the puzzle… Had we been visitors to London in the middle ages and were over in that neighbourhood, we certainly would have wanted to be shown Old Swan Stairs. Great name isn’t it. They dated from the 15th century. And they were still there in the 19th century. They were a landing stage for river steam boats. And we can drop another name into the mix. Just a stone’s throw away from St Magnus the Martyr is Lawrence Pountney Hill, where lived Dr William Harvey. And, yes, it happened right there. It was there that Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood.
Finding out about London, walking London, discovering London, there’s a lot to be said for it. It gets the blood circulating. It’s enriching – good for body, mind, and soul.
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.
And that’s by way of saying, Good walking and Good Londoning one and all. See ya next time.