Unusual Walks
“London Walks makes the new familiar and the familiar new.”
So every London Walk – by definition – is “unusual.”
But what we mean here by the term “unusual” is walks that aren’t immediately obvious. For the most part they fall into two categories.
1. Walks – like Brook Green: The Secret Side of Hammersmith – that go off the beaten path, that explore an unfamiliar, largely unregarded part of London – a part of London it wouldn’t have occurred to you to visit. A part of London you perhaps haven’t even heard of.
2. Walks – like T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land Tour – that follow a rarefied thread. A thread you hadn’t noticed – or didn’t know was there – through an otherwise well-known part of London.
And don’t be under any misapprehensions – these are not “junior varsity” walks. Every one of them is A-List* – they’re just A-Listers that are less well known. See, by way of example, the review, below, of Rick Jones’ Wasteland Tour.
*Jessica’s February 2022 review of The Waste Land Tour: “In 20 years of London Walks, I think this is the best one I have ever been on. Rick is simply marvellous. I studied the Waste Land extensively at university but I never understood it the way I did after this tour. The stops are thoughtfully chosen to illustrate certain passages and Rick peppers in sprinklings of music and literature and history – he also sings beautifully and tells stories beautifully – it gives the Waste Land a new depth and humour. He recites long passages of the poem so that you can hear the music in them and speaks in the voices of the characters – all at once you recognize them as people, the kind of people who weave in and out of the streets all around you. It’s a beautiful homage to the City, to London, to Eliot, and to thousands of years of history that swirl around in the Waste Land. (But to be clear, even if you don’t care about this poem, this is still a WONDERFUL walk – the poem just serves as the anchor and you bob in and out of the poem and the history).”
Rock'n'Roll Covent Garden
Monday, 15 August 2022 @ 7 pm
The history of Rock and Pop in the West End.
Undiscovered London, Butlers Wharf and Shad Thames
Wednesday, 17 August 2022 @ 10.45 am (This walk goes every Wednesday)
Four words* that make my blood race: “hasn’t yet been discovered.” *Right up there with hidden places, hidden history
T. S. Eliot – The Waste Land Tour
Wednesday, 17 August 2022 @ 11.30 am (This walk goes every Wednesday)
"in 20 years of London Walks this is the best one I've ever been on"
The Tate Modern Highlights Tour
Wednesday, 17 August 2022 @ 2.30 pm (This walk goes every Wednesday)
Guided by arts critic Rick Jones, Secretary of the Critics Circle
The City Churches Tour
Friday, 19 August 2022 @ 10.30 am (This walk goes every Friday)
"Fan vaulting, Bow bells, a Mediterranean courtyard, a sermon timer and a mighty organ beneath Christopher Wren's most beautiful dome"
The London of Oscar Wilde Tour
Saturday, 20 August 2022 @ 11 am (This walk goes every Saturday)
Whitehall Affray – Statues of Discord
Saturday, 20 August 2022 @ 11 am
"he was so angry he ended up sculpting a horse urinating"
Great Balls of Fire
Saturday, 20 August 2022 @ 2.30 pm
Temperatures of more than 1000° meant everything was consumed in the inferno...
The Krays In London Walking Tour
Sunday, 21 August 2022 @ 10.45 am (Click here for more dates)
The East End Gangland & The Dark Side Of The Swinging 60s
The Regent's Canal – River Tyburn to Little Venice
Sunday, 21 August 2022 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
"we step into a different world here, a different world bouquet’d with incidental delights – 'The Upside Down House', for example..."
Cambridge - "can such places be?"
Wednesday, 24 August 2022 @ 9 am (Click here for more dates)
"Miraculum orbis. Wonder of the world, annexe to heaven..."
Docklands
Saturday, 03 September 2022 @ 10.30 am (Click here for more dates)
"...the most extraordinary letter in London's alphabet"
Foodies' London - The West End
Saturday, 03 September 2022 @ 10.45 am
"the King's nickname was Tumtum, he had a 47" waist, and every night a cold roast chicken was placed beside his bedside..."
Grand Surrey Canal, Royal Navy Victualling Yard, Greenland Dock
Sunday, 04 September 2022 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
A get away from it all walk – down on that towpath it's 200 years ago.
Brook Green – the Secret Side of Hammersmith
Sunday, 11 September 2022 @ 10.45 am
the fun, the delight of getting to know a London neighbourhood that's a complete revelation
The Devil's Acre
Saturday, 17 September 2022 @ 2.30 pm
Phwoar! Wrong side of the Westminster tracks – crime, grime and where the bodies are buried
The Regent's Canal - King's Cross, Granary Square, St. Pancras
Sunday, 18 September 2022 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
"unseen, untrodden, unexplored, unknown London beckons"
London's Spymasters
Saturday, 24 September 2022 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
"a murky world marked by treason and treachery, betrayal and murder"
The Music Of Royal London
Monday, 26 September 2022 @ 7 pm
Scandal! Death! Adultery! Our royal story is an opera in itself – and this tour traces the soundtrack from Handel to The Beatles via Louis Armstrong & Purcell.
Horses Past, Horses Present – Horse Power in London Society
Saturday, 15 October 2022 @ 10.45 am
"reveals the vast importance of horses in asserting the position of those in power"
The Regent's Canal – Mile End to Limehouse
Sunday, 16 October 2022 @ 2.30 pm
"from the Age of Canals to cutting edge, 21-st century London"
William Morris & Friends
Saturday, 22 October 2022 @ 2.30 pm
"special not least because we'll be walking along one of the loveliest stretches of the Thames"
London, A Heart of Stone
Saturday, 22 October 2022 @ 2.30 pm
"a feast of stunning art and architecture"
The Regent's Canal: King's Cross-Granary Square-Camden
Sunday, 20 November 2022 @ 2.30 pm
The London of a couple of centuries ago. A London of tunnels and bridges and narrowboats and locks.
Elizabethan Clerkenwell
Sunday, 27 November 2022 @ 2.30 pm
Now a chic London neighbourhood but then 'a haunt of thieves and whores'
David Bowie in 1960s London
Sunday, 08 January 2023 @ 2 pm
Before Ziggy… Before the Thin White Duke… A walking tour of Bowie's Soho 1963-71. Guided by Adam
The Rolling Stones In 60s Soho
Sunday, 18 June 2023 @ 10.45 am (Click here for more dates)
Celebrating 60 years of the Rolling Stones. Guided by Adam