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).”
Undiscovered London, Butlers Wharf and Shad Thames
Wednesday, 31 May 2023 @ 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, 31 May 2023 @ 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, 31 May 2023 @ 2.30 pm (This walk goes every Wednesday)
This walk is sold out on May 17th Guided by arts critic Rick Jones, Secretary of the Critics Circle
Medical Tour: All Around the University – Firsts & Inventions in the History of Medicine
Thursday, 01 June 2023 @ 2.30 pm (This walk goes every Thursday)
Just a little prick… from Edward Jenner to AstraZeneca
Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel Tour (Small group tour)
Thursday, 01 June 2023 @ 7 pm (Click here for more dates)
The City Churches Tour
Friday, 02 June 2023 @ 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"
Docklands
Saturday, 03 June 2023 @ 10.30 am (Click here for more dates)
"...the most extraordinary letter in London's alphabet"
The London of Oscar Wilde Tour
Saturday, 03 June 2023 @ 11 am (This walk goes every Saturday)
David Bowie in 1960s London
Sunday, 04 June 2023 @ 10.45 am (Click here for more dates)
Before Ziggy… Before the Thin White Duke… A walking tour of Bowie's Soho 1963-71. Guided by Adam
Kew Gardens in Springtime!
Sunday, 04 June 2023 @ 10.45 am
Spring in Kew Gardens. Includes the newly opened, breathtakingly beautiful Temperate House.
The Street Art Tour
Sunday, 04 June 2023 @ 11 am (Click here for more dates)
"a corkscrew of a route that pops cork after cork of east London's vibrant, heady, dynamic street art scene"
The Archaeology of London
Sunday, 04 June 2023 @ 11.30 am
This walk tells the epic tale of the uncovering of London's past by Archaeologists...
Tudor London – The City of Wolf Hall
Sunday, 04 June 2023 @ 3 pm
an archaeologist-guided portrait of London in the early 16th-Century
Cambridge - "can such places be?"
Thursday, 08 June 2023 @ 9 am (Click here for more dates)
"Miraculum orbis. Wonder of the world, annexe to heaven..."
The Peasants' Revolt Anniversary – 'Summer of Blood'
Sunday, 11 June 2023 @ 10.45 am
follows the events of the Revolt as the Peasants move through London in June 1381
The East India Company – Guided by a Distinguished Diplomat
Sunday, 11 June 2023 @ 10.45 am (Click here for more dates)
"London Walks puts you into the hands of an expert on the particular area and topic of a tour" The New York Times
The Krays In London Walking Tour
Sunday, 11 June 2023 @ 10.45 am (Click here for more dates)
The East End Gangland & The Dark Side Of The Swinging 60s
Classic London Mews & Hidden Passageways
Sunday, 11 June 2023 @ 10.45 am (Click here for more dates)
Urban oases, havens of 19th-century tranquillity
The Peasants' Revolt Anniversary Virtual Tour
Sunday, 11 June 2023 @ 7.30 pm
"see the invisible and understand the inscrutable"
Mrs Dalloway's London – the 100th Anniversary
Tuesday, 13 June 2023 @ 9.45 am (Click here for more dates)
We walk with Mrs Dalloway. Walk her London. See it with her eyes.
Pirates, Press-Gangs and Execution Dock
Saturday, 17 June 2023 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
Discover the dark side of the empire...
Pioneering Paddington
Saturday, 17 June 2023 @ 2.30 pm
"from the deep past to a vision of the future"
The Hampstead Spies – the KGB in NW3
Sunday, 18 June 2023 @ 10.30 am (Click here for more dates)
Guided by former ITN Editor Stewart Purvis CBE. "You got Stewart Purvis to guide Hampstead Spies? That's like getting Dan Rather to guide Dealey Plaza"
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
Secret Islands of Green- Hidden Gardens of the City
Sunday, 18 June 2023 @ 2 pm
Limehouse - Thames - Docklands
Sunday, 18 June 2023 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
"part gentrified, part solidly working class"
The Knifeman Tour - Hunterian Museum
Saturday, 24 June 2023 @ 10.45 am (Click here for more dates)
Follow Dr Barry Walsh in footsteps of the famous surgeon Dr John Hunter
Highbury – Grand Houses & Grander Stadiums
Sunday, 25 June 2023 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
History, architecture, films, the Gunners, a Ripper candidate and for good measure, a short nature walk
Sherlock Holmes - Virtual Tour
Sunday, 25 June 2023 @ 7 pm (Click here for more dates)
'The Game's Afoot!' Follow the fascinating adventures of Holmes and Watson (and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) around London's West End. Guided by Richard IV
The Bridge to London
Friday, 30 June 2023 @ 6 pm
"most of what has passed has left plenty of traces"
Foodies London in the City – Biscuits & Banquets
Saturday, 01 July 2023 @ 10.45 am
"People who love to eat are always the best people" Julia Child
The Power of the Thames – Battersea to Westminster
Saturday, 01 July 2023 @ 2.30 pm
"with a space-age American embassy tucked in behind it"
London's Spymasters
Saturday, 01 July 2023 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
"a murky world marked by treason and treachery, betrayal and murder"
The Regent's Canal - King's Cross, Granary Square, St. Pancras
Sunday, 02 July 2023 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
"unseen, untrodden, unexplored, unknown London beckons"
A Literary Odyssey – Ink & Inspiration in Mayfair & St James's
Tuesday, 04 July 2023 @ 11.30 am
This walk has been specially created for the Mayfair Times Literary Festival. The charge for this walk is £20 (there are no concessions).
Elizabethan Clerkenwell
Sunday, 09 July 2023 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
Now a chic London neighbourhood but then 'a haunt of thieves and whores'
Horses Past, Horses Present – Horse Power in London Society
Saturday, 15 July 2023 @ 10.45 am
"reveals the vast importance of horses in asserting the position of those in power"
William Morris & Friends
Sunday, 16 July 2023 @ 2 pm
"special not least because we'll be walking along one of the loveliest stretches of the Thames"
Rock'n'Roll London Explorer Day – Barnes, Twickenham & Richmond
Friday, 21 July 2023 @ 9.30 am (Click here for more dates)
A full day Rock'n'Roll exploration of historic southwest London - guided by Adam.
Foodies' London – Pie Crust to Upper Crust
Saturday, 22 July 2023 @ 10.45 am
"People who love to eat are always the best people" Julia Child
Harlots – Covent Garden's sordid history (N.B. adults only)
Wednesday, 02 August 2023 @ 4.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
"tiny gas-lit alleyways, unknown even to many Londoners..." N.B. Guide Ian donates all of his fee to the World Jewish Relief's Ukraine Crisis Appeal!
Foodies' London - The West End
Saturday, 05 August 2023 @ 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..."
The Regent's Canal – River Tyburn to Little Venice
Sunday, 06 August 2023 @ 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..."
The Music Of Royal London
Sunday, 20 August 2023 @ 10.45 am (Click here for more dates)
Scandal! Adultery! Big Bangs! Our royal story is an opera in itself. Guided by Adam.
Brook Green – the Secret Side of Hammersmith
Sunday, 27 August 2023 @ 10.45 am
the fun, the delight of getting to know a London neighbourhood that's a complete revelation
The Devil's Acre
Saturday, 02 September 2023 @ 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-Camden
Sunday, 03 September 2023 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
The London of a couple of centuries ago. A London of tunnels and bridges and narrowboats and locks.
Islington Between the Wars
Sunday, 24 September 2023 @ 2.30 pm
This unusual, highly original walk – indeed, it's sui generis...
The Regent's Canal – Mile End to Limehouse
Sunday, 01 October 2023 @ 2.30 pm (Click here for more dates)
"from the Age of Canals to cutting edge, 21-st century London"
London Before and After the Roman Invasion
Sunday, 29 October 2023 @ 11.30 am (Click here for more dates)
London Before London – Prehistoric London Virtual Tour
Sunday, 29 October 2023 @ 7 pm (Click here for more dates)
henges, barrows, hill forts, hut circles and genetic evidence
Rock'n'Roll Covent Garden
Saturday, 11 November 2023 @ 2 pm (Click here for more dates)
The history of Rock and Pop in the West End.
Chaucer's Medieval London
Sunday, 12 November 2023 @ 11.30 am (Click here for more dates)
Your boon companions on this tour of London in the Middle Ages are a Museum of London archaeologist and the greatest medieval poet of them all.
Christmas with Jane Austen Virtual London Tour
Saturday, 23 December 2023 @ 7.30 pm
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen devotee must be in want of this virtual tour"
Tours available upon request
We run a ton of private walks. If you to go on any of the walks below, it’s eezy peezy as well. Just give Fiona, Peter, Niamh or Mary a ring on 020 7624 3978 – or email us at [email protected] and we’ll set it up for you and make it happen.
Mountain Building & Meteorites – the City a professional geologist sees
Rocks of Ages – Urban Geology in the City (guided by a professional geologist)
Myths & Legends of London May Day Special Virtual Tour
"we look at evidence for 'Celtic' origins of London and how May Day was celebrated in London"
Quack Doctor's Tour
"the general rule in medicine in Stuart England is ‘better out than in’"
The Rugby Tour – to Accompany the Six Nations Tournament
"with a fine disregard for the rules"
The Decline and Fall of Roman London
What is the evidence? And can we trust it? Archaeologist-guided.
The London Winter Solstice Virtual Tour
we use ancient methods to divine what is in store for us in 2023
19th Century East End – Jews, Anarchists & Workers' Rights
...incendiary publications, industrial strife, revolutionary trade unions, soup kitchens, housing charities and shelters for the homeless.
The Grand Union Canal – Kensal Green to Alperton
"there are places along the towpath that are little changed"
Grand Surrey Canal – Rotherhithe, Russia Dock Woodland, Greenland Dock
We could be in 1620. Or May 28, 1940. Or June 6, 1944.
River Lee Navigation – Enfield to Ponders End
"the source and inspiration for one of the great classics of English literature"
The London Equinox and Solstice Walk
As the Sun and Moon move around our skies we look at how Londoners organised and celebrated their year throughout history. Guided by Kevin
St David's Day Welsh Walk – by the distinguished Welsh author Rick Jones
"where they sang, wrote poetry and played rugby"
The History & Archaeology of London Bridge
"London bridge is the key to much of the history of London"
How the British Fell in Love with Curry
"The national dish is no longer fish and chips, it's curry"
Charles Dickens Christmas Festival - Castle, Cathedral, Carols, Costumed Characters, Parade, Reindeer, Guaranteed Snow
The best Dickens Christmas Festival in the world!
Myths, Legends & Halloween Walk
The walk tells the story of London's myths , legends and the celtic origins of Halloween. Guided by Kevin
An American in London: Famous Visitors from Across the Pond
Guided by the author of The Lonely Planet Guide to London
Immigration and Food Walk
Almost a third of all Londoners are now foreign-born, representing 270 different nationalities and 300 languages. Guided by Steve F
Harlots & Bawds - the Georgian sex trade.
Alex takes a look at the world of the 18th Century sex and brothel trade.
Slavery in the City
A story showing people at their worst and best, tells the horrors of the slave trade, the extreme cruelties and yet contains seeds of hope. Guided by Isobel
Saints, Sinners and Sisters
Tradeswomen, writers, lawyers, feminists, martyrs, muses and murderers: women’s stories aren’t always nice, nor are they niche. Guided by Isobel
Coronation Special: Royal Bastards, England's true life game of thrones
Ever since William the Conqueror (aka William the Bastard) hit the scene in 1066, legitimacy has been a life or death issue for the Royals. Guided by Ian
Chaucer's Medieval London
Your boon companions on this tour of London in the Middle Ages are a Museum of London archaeologist and the greatest medieval poet of them all... Guided by Kevin
Great Balls of Fire
Temperatures of more than 1000° meant everything was consumed in the inferno...
The Weird & Wonderful Women of Marylebone
"Marylebone – a magnet for so many inspiring women"
Shakespeare in the City
"William the Conqueror!" N.B. Guide Ian donates his fee to the World Jewish Relief’s Ukraine Crisis Appeal!
Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley in Somers Town
"a place of poverty and political exiles and refugees and revolutionaries"
Grand Surrey Canal, Royal Navy Victualling Yard, Greenland Dock
A get away from it all walk – down on that towpath it's 200 years ago.
When Horses Ran London
"how much horsepower each bus route needed – amazing eye-opener into a lost city"
Riches to Rags – The Huguenot Silk Weavers of Spitalfields
On the Trail of the Huguenot Silk Weavers of Spitalfields. Rich history in a well-preserved neighbourhood.
Monarchs and Maladies
"their excesses, their maladies, their treatment, their cadres of medical attendants, their post-mortems..." Guided by a Physician
The Grand Union Canal – Little Venice & Paddington Green
"a secret corner of London closed to the public for 200 years"
Regent's Canal – Islington to Mile End
Jollying our way along a handsome, tree-lined canal on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Perfect.
The Sherlock Holmes Christmas Walk
We follow the crisscrossing paths of Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson as they solve their only original Christmas-time case, and Arthur Conan Doyle as he reaches a crisis in his professional life.
The Guy Fawkes Tour – Gunpowder, Treason & 5th of November Plot
"Guy Fawkes was hanged, cut down while still alive, castrated, disembowelled... onlookers were never able to forget that he was conscious throughout the process"
Eastcheap & the Tower – Reading the Stones (Urban Geology with UCL Geologist Dr Ruth Siddall)
Urban Geology < Fossils, Volcanoes, Seas, Asteroids and Time
London in Poetry
Free booklet of London poems. Double act. David guides. RSC actor Steve performs the poems.
Old Dulwich Village
Dulwich is a world – a hamlet – unto itself. There's no other place like it in London. Be sure to bring your camera.
Doctors' London – Guided by a Physician
Doctors' London – Pox & Plague, Leeches & Quacks. Guided by a Physician.
The Lure of the Underground
"subterranean London" "there's a whole other world down there" "London created the Underground and the Underground created London"
Cholera & Casanova
"Sex and death, the two subjects everybody's interested in..." Guided by a Physician