London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
The pro forma but nonetheless genuinely meant salutation. A very good evening to you London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025.
Here’s a London Walks guy for you. Capsule bio time. Here’s what we say about him. The Seigneur of this favoured realm, he broods over words, breeds enthusiasms and is ‘unmanageable.’
A balterer, literary historian, university lecturer, journalist, logophile and lifelong thanatophobe, he’s also the London Walks “pen.” Yeah, that’s me, David. A couple of those words aren’t all that familiar so maybe a bit of glossing is called for. Maybe start with the word balter. It’s obsolete now. Hasn’t been used for hundreds of years. The one hold out is London Walks, we’re still using it. Anyway to balter is to tumble about, to dance clumsily. So a balterer is one who dances clumsily. That’s me. And it’s a bit of an inside joke because Mary is a professional dancer. She dances beautifully. The other word that’s not all that well known is thanataphobe. You don’t have to go to a whole lot of trouble to work it out. The first part of the word comes from the word thanatoss, the Greek word for death. And phobe – well it’s another Greek word, phobia. So a loose translation of that phrase a lifelong thanataphobe would be a lifelong opponent of death.
But today, the word that gets star billing is broods, as in broods over words.
Yeah, words, no question but I’ve got a thing about them.
Particularly in relation to London. And especially words that are place names. I make it a practice of spelling it out to my walkers: I’ve turned it into an apothegm: to see London you have to hear it. Place names are very often an x-ray of the past.
Juliet in Romeo and Juliet asks What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Well, poor child. She’s wrong of course. Actually, there’s rather a lot in a name. They gather moss, so to speak.
By way of example, a really famous London place name. Knightsbridge.
So once upon a time there was a bridge there. It was a bridge over the Westbourne, a tributary to the Thames. And the legend is two knights fought a duel to the death on that bridge. Did that really happen? We don’t know. But it makes a nice tale. The place would be poorer without it. A poorer Knightsbridge, hard to imagine, isn’t it. But the point is that upmarket, super-rich, posh Knightsbridge, for all that it is today, deep in its core is a rather wonderful, ancient tale about a bridge and two knights slaying one another. A touch of Camelot in Cadogan Square.
But we can go further with this riff.
I think it’s high time we look at London nicknames. Every reason for doing so, not least because they often cut closer to the bone.
And while we’re at it, let’s brood over the word nickname for a minute.
It’s a really old word. Comes from eke name. Which literally means an additional name. From the Old English word eaca, meaning an increase. So the word nickname is cognate – it’s a cousin – of the word increase. And the word eke is still used in the phrase to eke out. Which means to make a supply of something go further or last longer.
So a nickname is a little something extra, it’s an addition, an increase.
And that little something extra – yes, it often cuts closer to the bone than the actual official name, the given name.
Another way of putting that, nicknames are often from the ground up. They’re the people having their say, as opposed to official names which are usually from on high.
So nicknames for Knightsbridge, I don’t think there’s much question about it. They do cut closer to the bone.
Here are few examples.
Knightsbridge is sometimes called The Golden Postcode. Speaks for itself, doesn’t.
As does Billionaires’ Row.
Or how about the Velvet Ghetto. Hits home, that one. It shrieks super-rich residents – that Knightsbridge mix of royals and foreign investors in their gated or heavily secured properties. The clincher being Knightsbridge is exclusive to the point of isolation.
And then there’s Harrodsville. Also spot on. A one-word reminder that Knightsbridge’s identity is inseparable from ultra-luxury shopping.
And sooner or later you’ll hear it called Little Doha. Again, spot on, given that Knightsbridge is a hub for Gulf wealth.
Another version of that is Saudi on Thames.
Or how about Cashbridge. I mean, hey, it’s Knightsbridge, even the pigeons have platinum loyalty cards.
So yeah. Knightsbridge. It wears a lot of masks.
And the nicknames aren’t just jokes. They’re little postcards. Snapshots. Truths with a wink.
Because places—just like people—rarely stick to one story.
And Knightsbridge? She’s got loads of stories.
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.