London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
Hail fellow well met, London Walkers!
A very good day to you. Wherever you are. It’s Monday, October 20th. And, yes, your daily London fix coming up.
Change of pace today. Or I suppose you could say, we’re veering off the main line. The metaphor nails it. Because this one’s about the new walk that’s coming up on December 11th. It’s not cut from the same cloth as an ordinary London Walk. It’s an all-day tour. Costs more of course. It’s a double act. It’s got two guides. One of whom is the world-renowned transport historian Christian Wolmar. Christian’s sidekick is superstar elite professional guide, Sam Jacobs. Anyway, the two of them have created a dazzler, a walk that explores all of the main London Railway Stations. The walk’s called The Secret History of London’s Railway Stations. And because of who guides it – and because it’s a one-off – and because it’s never been done before – well, there was nothing for it but to set it out here. Let the word go forth.
So, yes, here’s a preview of The Secret History of London’s Railway Stations. Which takes place on December 11th. Here’s what we say about it.
All aboard for The Secret History of London’s Railway Stations…
Yeah, you could say this one’s got star power…
It’s guided by Christian Wolmar and Sam Jacobs.
Christian’s a best-selling author, broadcaster, historian, and Britain’s undisputed railway sage. If it’s got rails, wheels, or a story, Christian’s your man. He’s written Fire and Steam, Cathedrals of Steam, and half a dozen other wonderful journeys through the history of transport. Christian’s got that rare gift – he can make timetables sing and signal boxes tell tales. A lifelong Londoner with a journalist’s curiosity and a historian’s eye, he knows railways aren’t just about trains – they’re about people, politics, and the city itself.
And as for Sam – well, top-flight, professionally qualified guides don’t come any more top-flight. (Did I just say flight? Wrong mode of transport, right sentiment.) Sam’s the real deal: razor-sharp, endlessly engaging, and one of that elite handful of guides who can turn information into revelation. Sam’s poster says it all.
Put the two of them together and sparks fly – the walk comes alive with stories, insight and atmosphere.
A meeting of mind and mileage – Christian bringing the big picture, the sweep of history and Sam threading it through the streets, the stations, the hidden corners. Between them, they’ll show you how the railways built London. And how London, in turn, built the railways.
So yes, grab your metaphorical ticket — we’re heading out.
All aboard for one of London’s great adventures.
Led by our dream team – world-renowned transport historian Christian Wolmar and elite professional guide Sam Jacobs – this all-day exploration takes you behind the timetables and into the beating heart of London’s railway story.
This isn’t just a trainspotter’s paradise (though trainspotters will be in heaven). It’s a deep dive into the way rail built modern London – the iron web that drew the city together and changed everything it touched: its skyline, its suburbs, its society.
We’ll begin in the East, where the old meets the new — the ghosts of Bishopsgate and Broad Street, and bustling Liverpool Street, Cannon Street, Blackfriars, Farringdon, and Shoreditch High Street, each with its echoes of Victorian grandeur and industrial grit.
Then it’s northwards, to the city’s grandest gateways – King’s Cross, St Pancras (“the finest railway station in Europe”), Euston and Paddington. The “Big Four.” Cathedrals of Steam. A skyline of ambition in brick, glass, and iron. Here’s London at full throttle — where Gothic dreams meet Midland money and Brunel’s genius still whispers from the girders.
And then we’re bound south, to Victoria, Charing Cross, London Bridge and Waterloo – stations of empire, of soldiers and sailors, commuters and refugees. The stations that sent London out into the world and brought the world to London.
Every platform tells a story. Every departure board holds a clue.
Bears repeating: Christian and Sam are the perfect double act for this journey. Eminent historian and creme de la creme guide. Both gifted storytellers. Both London obsessives of the highest order. Christian’s* the country’s leading authority on all things rail – the man who can make a signal box sing and a timetable sound like poetry. Sam’s the Sam. Nonpareil London guide. Erudite, entertaining, and endlessly engaging.
Between them, they’ll take you on a journey through time, technology, and the tangled human web that grew up around the rails.
*Christian’s not just a writer — he’s an international authority, a broadcaster, a speaker who’s lectured from London to Los Angeles, from Brussels to Brisbane. When he’s not writing best-selling railway histories (Fire and Steam, Cathedrals of Steam, The Great Railway Revolution), he’s on air or on stage, illuminating the past and making sense of the present.
So, yes, you could say we’ve pulled into the right station.
THE TEN
Yes, it costs more. Here’s why. And why it’s worth every penny.
CODA
It’s a day that’s part detective story, part time travel, and entirely London. Steel and steam, ambition and architecture,
soot and splendour – the city’s pulse, told through its platforms.
All aboard for The Secret History of London’s Railway Stations…
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 £25 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 Jack the 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.