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 Tuesday, July 1st, 2025.
And I’ve more or less just cleared the decks. The big July newsletter is down and dusted. And will go out at 8 pm our time tonight. It’s rich pickings. There’s lots of good stuff in it.
But let’s get this podcast locked and loaded. Powder poured. Bullet inserted. Bullet rammed. Primed. Weapon cocked. Shouldered. Trigger pulled.
Since it’s July 1st, a little bit about July to get us underway. The seventh month of the year it was originally the fifth. And known as Quinctilus. From the Latin Quinctus, fifth. From fifth to seventh and Quinctilus to July, how did that come about. Julius Caesar of course. He was born on the 12th day of this month. And when he was assassinated in 44 BC the calendar got revamped. And the month was renamed July in his honour. Apparently it was originally pronounced Jooly. The change in pronunciation came about to help distinguish the name of the month from June. The Anglo-Saxon name for the month was Heymonath. You can hear it, can’t you. Hay month. And it was also known to the Anglo-Saxons as Meadmonath. And you can hear that. Meadow month. Because of the flowering of the meadows. Folk wisdom held that it wasn’t a good month to get married. There was an old rhyme, Married in July with flowers ablaze, Bittersweet memories on after days.
And why wasn’t it a good month to get married. Well, it’s been suggested that to get married in July was to take your eye off the ball. There was more important business to be attended to. Another old saying said, ‘they that wive ‘twixt sickle and scythe shall never thrive.’
What else? Well, it’s nice to know that the flower – make that the flowers – of July are the larkspur also known as the Delphinium. Great names both of them. Delphinium is of course Latin. Which comes from the Greek word for dolphin. Dolphin? you say. Yes, makes perfect sense. It’s so named because of the form of the nectary. The nectary is the nectar-secreting gland in a flower.
And larkspur is pretty good as well. Larkspur comes from the flower’s spur-shaped calix. Calix is Greek for cup or goblet or drinking vessel.
The calix is the whorl of leaves that form the outer envelope in which the flower is enclosed while it’s still in the bud.
And in weather like this we all need to raise a cup or two. Have a drinking vessel primed, locked and loaded.
And let’s do a little bit of London Walks to push the July boat out.
One of my favourite people – let alone a favourite guide – Robert is just out of hospital. And he’ll be guiding on Thursday. First one in a couple of weeks. The walk in question – it’s so much more than a walk – is also a favourite. Thames Sightseeing, Brunel’s River Cruise – “not just a good walk, a perfect walk” in the words of the famous actor and controversial politician Lawrence Fox.
Anyway, if fortune smiles on you and you’re on that walk on Thursday, ask after Robert’s health. It’s a thoughtful gesture and he’ll appreciate it.
Anyway, thinking about the final destination of that walk. This is after the river cruise. And after the walk on the Isle of Dogs to the slipways where Brunel’s great ship was built and launched. And indeed after the brief stop to look across the Thames – for the single best view anybody ever gets of that wonder of wonders, Greenwich, Maritime, and after the stroll into 21st century London, Docklands, and after the briefest of train rides – just one stop – the briefest of train rides through the tunnel that made modern cities possible. Brunel’s Tunnel under the Thames.
All of that – those are the first four acts of a great five-act play – after all of that, Act 5. The grand finale: coming ashore, so to speak, – coming through the tunnel actually – in Rotherhithe.
And what a place Rotherhithe is. Let me give me a little shopping list. I defy you to hear this and not be salivating to go to Rotherhithe. Start with the 17th century riverside pubs. Riverside pubs built on piles over the river. Affording the best view you’ll ever get of the Thames and Tower Bridge and the City of London and St Paul’s. And of course the view across the river to Wapping. And finally the view down the river – the river gets broadshouldered – it moves with all the power and might of a huge herd of buffalo. What else? Well, how’s a church rebuilt 311 years ago grab you. A church with pillars that are really tree trunks plastered to resemble stone. And all kinds of great maritime memorials. Wooden ships in full sail, that sort of thing. I want to keep Robert’s powder dry, but one of those ships – it sailed from Rotherhithe, the captain and many of the crew are buried in Rotherhithe – one of those ships changed the world. What else? Well, there’s London oldest elementary school. And the oldest building in London used as a police station. And the only pub in London that has a licence to sell postage stamps. And an ancient watch house and mortuary. And an equally old – it’s hoary with age – engine house, where the local fire engine was kept. So primitive it wasn’t able to put up much of a fight against a fire.
But the intentions were good.
Why wouldn’t you want to see that? And best of all, see it with Robert. I know a bit about it. Robert knows there everything there is to know about it. He’s local. He lives down there. And he’s had a very interesting life. Actor, museum curator, in possession of a rare privilege. Robert can do something most of us can’t do. He has the right to drive sheep across London Bridge. Do yourself a favour, ask him about it. Make that a double favour. Plan to spend a bit more time there than just the walk. A few of his walkers usually join Robert for lunch apres walk. Lunch at the Mayflower. Oops, there, I’ve let the cat out of the bag. But why not. There’s everything to be said for a good dose of eager anticipation. And the Mayflower won’t just meet your expectations. It’ll exceed them, by several furlongs.
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.