London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
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A very good evening to you, London Walkers. Far and wide. Near and close.
It’s August 5th, 2025.
This one’s where the stories bloom. Or if you prefer, the oasis within the oasis.
Ok, let’s pretend we’re at one of those let-it-all-hang-out theatre productions. We’re not waiting for the curtain to go up because there is no curtain. Stagehands – and indeed some of the actors – are moving bits of furniture around on the stage. They’re setting the scene. Well, that’s what we’re doing here. Rather than concealing the stage apparatus, I’m going to reveal it. Here’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. Here’s the backstory. The London Walks programme, it’s not grab a handful and throw everything up in the air, let all the pieces come down where they will. A lot of planning goes into that programme. There are often reasons – good reasons – why a certain walk takes place on a certain day. And no, it’s not to benefit us. It’s to benefit you, our walkers.
Our Chelsea Walk is a classic instance of this phenomenon. You won’t have given it a moment’s thought. We gave it a lot of thought.
The walk takes place on a Wednesday afternoon. Morning, afternoon, evening – there are three slots to every day. Seven days in a week. That’s 21 slots a week. Wednesday afternoon is far and away the very best slot for the Chelsea Walk. A couple of very good reasons for that. Each one of those reasons is going to get its Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame here on London Calling.
So whither is this tending? Golden Rule Number Two, that’s where it’s tending. Golden Rule Number One is of course It All Comes Down to the Guiding. Golden Rule Number Two is Timing Is Everything. Well, everything except guiding. You don’t get the guiding right the world’s best timing won’t be able to patch things up.
And timing in this game means positioning a walk with a view to making the best possible embarkation and landing for our walkers. Yes, that’s a maritime image. Sees a walk as a boat ride. But the theatre is a pretty good analogy as well. There’s a reason the best seats in the house are the best seats in the house. There’s a reason a seat in the middle of Row E in the Stalls costs £110 and an upper balcony seat costs £40. Running our Chelsea Walk on Wednesday afternoon is a seat in the middle of Row E in the Stalls. The only difference is you’re getting a Stalls seat but you’re not paying for it.
So let’s cut to the chase, what are the two reasons that make Wednesday afternoon for the Chelsea Walk a Stalls seat?
You ready? Cards on the table here. Both of them aces.
Carlyle’s House and the Chelsea Physic Garden.
Carlyle’s House is only open on Wednesdays. From 11 am. My second podcast in this little mini-series will be about Carlyle’s House.
The Chelsea Physic Garden is open Sunday through Friday, from 11 am to 5 pm. Saturday’s obviously ruled out. And, really, Wednesday’s the only day that’s ruled in. Because it’s the only day in the week Carlyle’s House is open.
All right, so this one’s about the Chelsea Physic Garden. What it is, what’s so very special about it and why you should telescope it with the Chelsea Walk.
You can do it before or after the walk. But let’s say you do the walk first. You’ve just strolled Chelsea’s lanes with Brian or Stephanie.
Chelsea: poets, painters, rock stars and leafy lanes; Chelsea: red brick terraces, the river Thames and suspension bridge; Chelsea: Chelsea Pensioners in their glorious scarlet uniforms, living links to centuries of British military history. Chelsea: that famous Andy Warhol painting in the famous architect’s house. Chelsea: secret gardens and Sloane Rangers and the King’s Road and David’s favorite pub.
Well you get the idea.
But let’s go a-gardening, you and I. Off we go – merry as can be – off we go to Chelsea Physic Garden – London’s Secret Green Wonder, one of its most quietly astonishing treasures.
When we step through that modest gate London’s going to disappear. Welcome to a 3 1/2 acre botanical world. A botanical world that’s part laboratory, part time machine, part leafy wonderland.
It’s hoary with age. It was founded in 1673. Yes, 1673. Charles II was on the throne with a spaniel under one arm and a mistress on the other, Wren’s new London was rising from the ashes of the Great Fire, and down in quiet riverside Chelsea the apothecaries walled off a little garden where they could teach their lads which leaves could cure you and which ones would drop you in your tracks. Aside here, that’s 1673 in London and Chelsea. On the other side of the Atlantic New York had only just become New York. Well, actually it wasn’t sure what it was. The English had seized it from the Dutch in 1664 but in 1673 the Dutch took it back, renamed it New Orange. Didn’t last though. A year later the Dutch thought better of it, handed it back to the English. Said it’s all yours, this place will never amount to anything. While the apothecaries were doing their thing in Chelsea in 1673 the eastern seaboard on the other side of the Atlantic was the wild west. English settlements hugging the coast. French trappers moving through the St Lawrence and the Great Lakes. The Spanish in Florida and points. And Europeans exploring for the first time the Mississippi. Europeans named Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet. But that’s another story, another place. We’re in Chelsea. In the oasis within the oasis.
And since we’ve just seen any number of those old soldiers in their scarlet uniforms, those periwigs and knee breeches up ahead don’t look at all out of place. They’re apothecaries. And they’re getting on with it. A very London version of what those English settlers were doing 3,000 miles away. There was a job that needed doing. The apothecaries needed somewhere to train apprentices in plant medicine – how to identify, grow and use the leaves, roots, and seeds that could save (or occasionally end) lives. And this riverside plot fitted the bill. They built high brick walls to trap heat from the Thames, the sun and the breezes. They created a microclimate that could nurse delicate plants from across the globe. By the 1680s, they were already growing exotic citrus, figs, and herbs that would have struggled anywhere else in London.
And they didn’t stop there. In 1682 they launched a global seed-exchange programme. Seeds went out to Europe and the colonies; seeds came in from the Americas, the Levant, the Cape. That small walled patch in Chelsea didn’t just help Apothecaries treat patients afflicted with everything from toothache to the plague…in an age when doctors prescribed ground-up fox lungs and ale warmed with iron, this garden was where practical medical botany really began. It was London’s living pharmacy. It seeded the world with knowledge.
And with more than knowledge. Let’s get a personality in on the act. Philip Miller, the 18th-century Head Gardener, was a Horticultural Rock Star. The guy introduced cotton to Georgia.
So what do you see in there?
The Garden of Medicinal Plants is the heart of it. Beds are grouped by ailment and effect. You’ll pass plants for the stomach, the liver, the skin, the heart. The World Medicine Garden shows how different cultures heal—with ayurvedic plants, Chinese herbs, and Andean remedies. There’s an Edible and Useful Plants zone, too, where olive trees, nasturtiums and outdoor grapefruits flourish in the warm microclimate.
Ah, yes, the grapefruit – the garden’s little boast. This is the northernmost outdoor grapefruit in Britain, thriving thanks to that 17th‑century heat‑hoarding wall. It’s a quiet reminder that the apothecaries were early climate‑hackers.
What else? Well, look out for The Rock Garden. It’s the oldest in Europe, built with stones hauled from the Tower of London and Icelandic lava.
And be sure to see The Glasshouses – warm, slightly steamy Victorian survivors where citrus, vines, and exotic medicinal plants flourish.
And not forgetting London’s largest Olive Tree. And yes, it fruits. Mediterranean swagger in SW3.
Hey, if you’re lucky, you’ll see bees drifting lazily from foxglove to nasturtium, completing a pollination cycle that’s been humming along here for centuries.
And for a curtain call, let’s meet a few of the stars of the show. Or if you prefer, let’s go in for some Garden Gossip.
This is where the garden really comes alive—every plant has a story.
Meet the Mandrake. It’s the Gothic novelist of the beds. Medieval lore swore its human‑shaped roots screamed when pulled, killing the digger. Here it squats peacefully, its leaves a whisper from the witchy past. Picture monks harvesting it with dogs on strings, ears plugged, just in case.
And then there’s the Deadly Nightshade. The garden’s femme fatale. Glossy black berries look temptingly edible—but don’t. Renaissance ladies used its juice to dilate their pupils, all the rage in Venetian boudoirs. Beauty, in this case, was literally deadly.
And look, here’s the Foxglove. A fairytale spire of purple bells that bumblebees crawl into like they’re exploring a tent. It’s also the source of digitalis, a heart medicine that’s saved countless lives. A perfect Chelsea paradox: lovely, and lethal if you get the dose wrong.
My personal favorite, the Nasturtium. Like me, a cheerful chancer. Round, coin‑like leaves, fiery orange flowers, and a peppery bite in salads. Victorians called the dew on its leaves “jewels,” and its seed pods pickle into “poor man’s capers.” It looks like it’s having a laugh while all the serious herbs do their homework.
And last but not least, the Ginkgo Tree. The elder statesman. Dropped its fan‑shaped leaves on dinosaurs 200 million years ago, shrugged at the fall of empires, and still stands smug in Chelsea. People take its extract for memory. The tree itself is a walking memory.
Every step through the Chelsea Physic Garden is a little theatre of science, superstition, and survival.
So that’s our 350-year-old botanical time capsule. Except to say, yes, rest assured, yes, there’s a cafe for tea and cake. A cafe surrounded by green calm. After the river and streets, it’s like a breath of Eden.
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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.