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 Bank Holiday Monday, August 4th, 2025.
———————
Hey, I feel another occasional series coming on. When they run, they’re almost always going to be on a Monday morning. And why is that? Because we do our St Paul’s Cathedral Tour on Tuesday morning. So this St Paul’s series will be to whet your appetite. Set you up for Tuesday’s tour. Reminds me more than a little bit of my days as a journalist, a news editor. Every day’s first order of business was to get a cup of coffee and then read myself in. Read the handover from the overnight Editor. See what the copytaster had come up with, etc. Sort of like football players stretching and warming up before the actual event. So if you’re going on the St Paul’s Tour – or any Tuesday for that matter – here’s a chance to read yourself in. Ok, listen yourself in.
And as always, the aim – it’s the aim with every single one of these – the aim is to give you at least a couple of takeaways, factoids that are things of wonder, that will get the synapses snapping and crackling and popping. In a word, buzzing. A couple of amazing factoids – stories – particulars that you’ll remember. Will maybe look out for when you’re on the tour. And might well tell a friend. You know, spread the goodness. Anyway, let’s get stuck in.
Here’s why that St Paul’s Tour is a must-do.
Keynote: St Paul’s Cathedral is London’s heart in stone.
Take it in. First, that dome—111 metres high, 365 feet, one for every day of the year. For 300 years, it was the tallest thing in London. You look at that dome you’re looking at the shape of London’s soul.
And as long as you’re at it, think of what this hill has seen. For starters, it’s an important reason why London is where it is. Why it’s here. And then fast forward. Rifle through the pages of London’s history. This hill has seen it all. Fire. Plague. The Blitz.
But let’s touch down in 1666. London lay in ashes—smouldering, silent. And then, from that ruin, this. Wren’s great act of defiance and faith. Thirty‑five years, ten million bricks, 70,000 tonnes of Portland stone. Men walking in giant wooden treadwheels, like human hamsters, hoisting blocks the size of small cars into the sky.
What’s inside you say? Well, famously you can hear whispers chase themselves around the dome. And then there’s the Bishop’s Foot—yes, a little stone foot carved as a private joke by a mason who’d had enough of ecclesiastical meddling. Down in the crypt we’ll stand hard by where Nelson and Wellington lie.
As for those great oaken doors we’ll go through. They’re nine metres high, a tonne and a half each. You’ll walk through them it’s like stepping onto the stage of London’s longest‑running play.
St Paul’s is a cathedral, yes—but it’s also a promise in stone. It says: We endure. We rise. We are London.”
—————————————
Ok, let’s get up close. Let’s get particular. Here’s why St Paul’s is important. Here’s why you’re at her side when the little lass in the red coat – that’ll be Mary – says, “let us go then, you and I, Let us go to St. Paul’s. Here’s your checklist. Here’s why you’re with little Miss Red Riding Hood on a Tuesday morning.
Bears repeating. St Paul’s is more than a cathedral. It’s a London heartbeat in stone. Here, like so many steps, is why it matters, why it’s a must-see. And what it means to this city.
Bong – think of these as the strokes of Great Tom, the main bell:
St Paul’s is a landmark of hope and identity. It’s a post-fire phoenix. After the Great in September of 1666 London lay in ashes. St Paul’s rose from that ruin as a statement of rebirth.
To cross the threshold of St Paul’s is to stand inside London’s great comeback story.
And as for that dome, it’s a mighty physical presence. But it’s also a symbol. 365 feet high – this bears repeating, one foot for each day of the year – the dome commands the skyline. For 300 years nothing in London could legally surpass it. During the Blitz, that photograph of St Paul’s surrounded by flames became an icon of national survival. Winston Churchill got it. He said, “St Paul’s must be saved, at all costs.”
BONG.
St. Paul’s is a must-see for its sheer drama.
It’s architecture as theatre. Through those nine-metre-high west doors the nave unfurls like a processional avenue. Christopher Wren knew what he was doing. He choreographed the experience.
Think Dome plus Whispering Gallery plus crypt. That’s a three-act play in stone.
You’ve got the awe of height and light.
You’ve got the fun and mystery of sound.
You’ve got the hush of national memory down below.
BONG: You want statistics, I’ve got statistics for you. Statistics that will impress even the jaded.
There are 70,000 tonnes of stone in St Paul’s
There are ten million bricks.
It’s 528 steps to the top.
There are several hundred burials and memorials in the crypt.
BONG.
St Paul’s is place of national memory.
You want burials and memorials…
You’ve got Admiral Nelson, you’ve got the Duke of Wellington, you’ve got Sir Christopher Wren himself. You’ve got the Florence Nightingale memorial. You’ve got Alexander Fleming. And Britain’s greatest painter, that consummate Londoner, J M W Turner.
The crypt is a who’s who of British genius. And grit.
BONG
St Paul’s is the eternal flame of the ceremonial life of the nation.
Jubilee services. Royal weddings. And thanksgivings. Funerals of Churchill and Thatcher. Aside here, had she wanted to your guide Mary could have got married at St Paul’s. Ask her about it. Ask her how she came by that great privilege.
Coda: St Paul’s is the Empire’s and the Nation’s stage for moments of gravity and celebration.
BONG. St Paul’s is a living piece of London’s character.
It’s bold. It’s theatrical. It’s self-confident. Those characteristics, that’s London.
St Paul’s doesn’t creep into your vision; it claims it.
More London character: St Paul’s is ingenious and slightly subversive. Christopher Wren tricked Parliament with his triple dome to get the profile he wanted.
And another piece to the puzzle: the cosmopolitan craft of St Paul’s. It was built by Londoners, by Irish labourers, by Dutch brickmen, by Huguenot carvers. That’s our London, that’s our city in microcosm, even in 1700.
BONG. What does St Paul’s stand for?
Try Resilience. It’s survived fire, plague, the Blitz and pollution.
Try Ingenuity. It’s a building that is both art and engineering.
Try community and continuity. We’re talking 1400 years of Christian worship on that hill.
Try a public promise in stone. A city saying, “we are here. We endure. We rise.”
BONG. Curtain call.
St Paul’s is London’s cathedral of the spirit. It’s where architecture meets identity, where history meets heartbeat, where a visitor can grasp the story of the city itself – with eye, ears, and maybe even a whispered word under that great dome.
See you tomorrow.
——————————
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.