Walking Tours

English (United Kingdom)

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Essential London

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Walking Tours

Walking Tours

Come and burn some London pavement. Discover London on foot with a Blue Badge Tourist Guide. Walking is a great way to see Europe's global city. Great buildings... great views... great stories...

There is no better way to stroll around London, than in the company of a professional Blue Badge Tourist Guide. London's Blue Badge Tourist Guides are world famous for the accuracy of their information and their enthusiasm for sharing with visitors to Britain and Londoners alike, the amazing past and present of lively London.

For some additional ideas on what to do in London look at the "Major London Sites" part of our website

Essential London (weekends/holidays)

Essential London (weekends/holidays)

This two-hour walking tour will take you past a great many of London's most important sights as well as along part of the ceremonial route that the Queen followed on her…

2000 Years in 2 Hours

2000 Years in 2 Hours

What did the Romans do for us? Well, 2,000 years ago they founded London on the site that now encompasses the City of London, the world's financial centre.

Legally London

Legally London

The Inns of Court and Royal Courts of Justice... London's lawyers train and work in one of the most picturesque parts of the city, and they have been here since…

Shakespeare at Home in London

Shakespeare at Home in London

William Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, but it was in London where he found both fame and fortune.

Whores, Rakes and Greasepaint

Whores, Rakes and Greasepaint

Covent Garden attracts visitors today with its lively Piazza, buskers and mimes, former fruit and flower market halls, historic opera house and nearby theatres.

Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

When fear stalked the streets of London... The Victorian police were completely unprepared for a serial killer who took away body parts and posted them, accompanied by gloating letters.

In Search of Sherlock Holmes

In Search of Sherlock Holmes

Follow in the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson as they pit themselves against the Victorian underworld.

Well-heeled and Arty

Well-heeled and Arty

Think of Chelsea and what springs to mind? Porcelain, pensioners, buns... and a whole lot more. This is where some of the brightest and best writers and artists, wits and…

The Write Stuff

Bloomsbury architecture

Known for its elevated circle of writers, the Bloomsbury Group, who lived in squares and loved in triangles. Bloomsbury is one of those parts of London where a tour with a…

Sex in the City

Sex in the City

London's sauciest neighbourhod, Soho, has always been a little bit different, and that's still the case today.

London's Larder

London's Larder

London's one-time larder until the 1960s and now home to City Hall and some fine urban design, this area south of the Thames was once a mass of wharves and…

Theatrical London

Theatrical London

Come and join a tour of London's Theatreland covering a selection of the most historically interesting theatres in the West End. You'll learn about the development of London theatre…

True Blue

True Blue

Elegant Mayfair is where the truly wealthy and aristocratc have been spending their time and money for well over four centuries.

Monarchs and Gentlemen

Monarchs and Gentlemen

When Henry VIII decided to build himself a new palace in St James's, the area's future success was assured.

Plagues, Priories and Executions

Plagues, Priories and Executions

Clerkenwell, on the northwestern edge of the medieval city, is one of London's oldest `suburbs'.

Canary Wharf and Docklands

Canary Wharf and Docklands

This tour showcases art and architecture of the 21st Century. This spectacular part of the Docklands began as an integrated commercial development with significant investment in design and public spaces.…

Charles Dickens' London

Charles Dickens' London

Follow in the footsteps of the author we most associate with London and hear his life story - from his arrival in London as a 10-year-old boy to his elevation…

Silks and Spices

Silks and Spices

Spitafields and Brick Lane... The East End has always been a poor cousin of the City of London. Over the centuries it has hosted waves of immigrants in search of…

The Emerald City

The Emerald City

Welcome to an Irish-themed London walking tour. A chance to discover some of the defining moments of Irish history where they actually happened - on the streets of London.

Mayfair and Handel's House

An elegant residential, shopping and business district that grew up in the ‚ÄòGeorgian' 18th Century. In 1723 the composer George Frederick Handel chose to live here.

The Great Fire of London

Tour the world's financial centre, the City of London. Imagine as it was in 4th September 1666 after a fire broke out in a baker's oven.

A Lover's Guide to Greenwich

This is a light hearted walk, hand in hand, with some of English histories most famous lovers. Discover the spot where Henry VIII danced with Anne Boleyn, hear how a…

Greenwich Old and New

Location, Location, Location Greenwich's fortunes have always been dependent on its Riverside position. This gentle walk along the River Thames will tell the story of Greenwich from medieval fishing village to…

Multicultural London

Around one in three of all Londoners belong to an ethnic minority group. One in two black and Asian Britons is under 25. Londoners include residents from over 90 countries who…

Westminster Politics

Parliament Square is a World Heritage Site, dedicated to the development of Parliamentary Democracy. Look around you at some of the most iconic buildings on earth ‚Äì Big Ben, the…

Stepping out in Stepney

Step out in Stepney to discover the hidden depths of this ancient London borough.

Island Exploration

Discover the Isle of Dogs Have you ever wondered about the origins of this mysterious name and why inabitants of this area call themselves Islanders? Why is there a station…

The Statues of Stoneheart

Follow the route taken by young George Chapman in Charlie Fletcher's cult book about un-London, Stoneheart.

Royal Kensington

Enjoy the varied landscapes of Kensington Gardens from the fountains of the Italian Gardens to Kensington Palace via the beautiful vistas of the Long Water and Serpentine, with a quick…

Royal Docks

New industry and business has flowed into the space left by departed world shipping. Future Olympic venue ExCeL stands surrounded by new hotels, restaurants and apartments, some converted from warehouses.

Shakespearean London

See the site of London's first purpose-built theatre.

Regent's Park

Grand terraces and grand vistas Enjoy a healthy walk in the fresh air of Regent's Park in the middle of London. Admire splendid Regency terraces and wonderful vistas of gardens…

Greenwich: Where Time Begins

At the stroke of midnight 1999, the World's attention was focused on a small London Riverside town. Home of the World's Prime Meridian, the new Millennium could truly be said…

Old Jewish East End

On this walk we follow the trail of London's Jewish community from the 17th century through to the 20th century while discovering the fascinating area of Spitalfields and Whitechapel. This…

Blackfriars & Sir Anthony van Dyck

The 16th & 17th century art world

Notting Hill

Explore the streets of London's most fashionable village. The site of Europe's biggest carnival, London's most famous street market and one of the UK's most popular movies.

From Royalty to Artists

Kensington has always been of London's most desirable areas thanks to its royal connections. The Royal Borough was birthpace to Queen Victoria and Kensington Palace will forever be associated with…

London Under London

A subterranean guide to the capital A must for all who have ever stopped to think what lies beneath their feet. And whilst it's not possible to get underground exactly,…

Londinium - The Roman City

In today's financial district, discover the origins of London - Roman Londinium - the walls, bathhouses, forum, temple, amphitheatre and fort of the largest Roman city north of the Alps.

Financial City

‚ÄòOld Jewry' says it all. In 1066 William the Conqueror brought with him his personal Jews to handle the money side of his Conquest. Old Jewry was London's first ghetto.…

City Churches

Christopher Wren has to have been the canniest architect in the history of architecture! He came along just as a new King was enthusing about the latest rage in Continental…

Secret Southwark

Many people are now familiar with the sites of Bankside but this tour delves into another side of Southwark away from the tourist trail. Two small art galleries, a former…

British Black History

Hammersmith in West London is built on the sugar trade. In the twentieth century it attracted a lot of British/Black history.

Blackheath

Once the haunt of highwaymen and revolting peasants, and setting for occasions of royal splendour, Blackheath boasts some glorious architecture - from 18C speculative building to 20C experimentation.

A Thames River Walk

Fulham Reach Beyond Putney Bridge, the Thames slows, forgetting the industrial lower river downstream. Here one encounters a better class of flotsam - champagne corks and half eaten strawberries.

Ghostly Walk of Legal London

This is a walk through the darker side of London's past. With ghosts, ghouls, blood and gore to recount as we wend our way along the Thames and through the…

The Rotherhithe Peninsula

A Page in London's Docks' Regeneration Story. The tour tracks some of the network of channels and waterways dug out centuries ago to harbour London's timber, whale blubber, grain etc.…

Tower Hill to Wapping

Explore streets once lined with pirates' pubs and brothels bulging with sailors.

Heart of Hackney

Hackney's fascinating, modern, local museum, housed in the new Hackney library, tells the story of Hackney, from the Saxons to C21.

East London Parks and Gardens

Industrial pollution destroyed most of East London's nurseries, market gardens, botanic gardens and splendid parks.

Kilburn and the side roads

Kilburn's High Road is no mere NW London suburban High Street - this is a Roman freeway - check the straightness. In the Middle Ages pilgrims trudged up here to…

Women Behaving Badly

Suffragettes' London. Follow the battling Pankhursts - a mum and three daughters at the beginning of the 20th century - as they smashed, defaced and finally bombed their way into…

William Morris to Walthamstow Village

Walthamstow is the birthplace of the ‚ÄúArts and Crafts‚Äù movement with William Morris, and ‚ÄúThe Village‚Äù is custodian to some rich and important historical monuments and architecture from Tudor England…

The Big Knickers Walk

Bridget Jones' Diary What DOES come after happily ever after, Bridget?

Wanstead

This very popular walk shows a rare gem in East London with its three village greens and associations with a vast number of famous names such as Sir Isaac Newton,…

Walter Sickert's Camden Town

This walking tour will look at artist Walter Sickert's life & work in Camden Town: the character of Camden Town, and what drew Sickert there; the underworld of prostitution, slum…

The Mayfair Mitfords

1920s High Society, seen through the eyes of an exceptional family. The Mitford Girls went on to become a national institution, producing writers, campaigners, & socialites. Writer Nancy, the Duchess…

Virginia Woolf's London

Virginia Woolf, author of "The Waves", "The Years", "To the Lighthouse", "Mrs Dalloway" and many other classic literary works of the early 20th century, lived at several London addresses. We…

Turner, Tobacco and a Mystic Swede

Wapping is an area whose history is inextricably linked with the development of wharves and docks and it is still characterised by remarkable remnants of its industrial [and criminal!] past.

The Village on the Hill

Historic Highgate

The Peace Walk

On July 7th 2005 London's streets and Underground again became a war zone - having known peace since the IRA's renunciation of violence. The Peace Walk celebrates peace and all…

The James Bond Walk

Enter the world of spies - up-scale Mayfair was the inspiration for a middle aged, middle class British gent who created the 20th century's most popular fictional character. Ian Fleming…

The Canary Wharf Story

Walk the most pristine pavements you will ever see in London! What has made vibrant Canary Wharf the most talked-about chapter in the Dockland's regeneration game? Drop yourself bang in…

The Beat Goes On

London's Rock Landmarks. We trace the footsteps of those rock music legends and strike a chord in London's own Tin Pan Alley. We uncover the birthplace of British rock'n'roll ‚Äì…

Thames River Pirates Walk

The Thames has always been London's jugular. It has always attracted blood-suckers. Come for a stroll through Wapping beside old Father Thames.

Symmetry, satire and shoe polish

A walk round Chiswick. This is a walk in a forgotten corner of London. We start with a leafy walk through a famous eighteenth century garden and then marvel at…

Statues and memorials of the famous and forgotten

London has more statues than any other city on earth. On this walk we see just a small percentage of them, erected to the great and the good and to…

Sovereigns, Sailors, Skulls and Shipwrights

Deptford is one of London's most historic Riverside towns.

South Bank

Stunning views and murky history The South Bank of the Thames is not just a great place from which to view London's cityscape, day or night.

Rushes from The Bush

Shepherds Bush in West London is the spiritual home of British cinema. This is the home of Steptoe and Son, the Daleks, Monty Python, Little Britain. See early cinemas like…

Pottery, Philanthropy, Princes and Politics

Henry Doulton pioneered art pottery in Lambeth from the 1870s, and the Black Prince built a grand palace in the C14th at the heart of what is still an important Duchy…

Multicultural Brixton

London's melting pot. Trace Brixton's development from farming community and affluent early 19th C suburb, via the railways, the theatres and the Empire Windrush, to London's most diverse and…

Londongrad

Russian London from Bayswater to Kensington. Laid out by Edward Orme from proceeds of money made from selling gravel to Tzar Alexander 1st, the streets he created have attracted a…

London Fields to Spitalfields

London Fields - a village green in the heart of Hackney, home of London's only Olympic-size Lido. Stroll through the market, across the canal, to Hackney City Farm.

Little Venice

Explore the poetic Regent's Canal, the romantic houseboats and the Italianate mansions of the rich & famous. Discover one of London's most delightful hidden locations.

Ladies of Note

Women of Westminster. Enjoy at walk around the heart of London, discovering the stories behind some of our greatest, inspiring and most memorable women, ahead of their time.

Jamestown 400th Anniversary

See where modern America began The founding of Jamestown in Virginia in 1607 created America's first permanent English colony and sparked a series of cultural encounters that helped shape the…

It's not all SEX in Soho

London's sauciest district has always been just a little bit different - and that's a tradition which continues to this day. For centuries, Soho has been home to oddballs and…

Hampstead - Village London

Come and explore village London. Hampstead has been home to poets, painters and novelists.

From the Cockneys to the Krays

The Sinister Side of The East End of London For centuries the East End of London has had its sinister side. This walk shows some of the more notorious and…

Fitzrovia

The Camden Town Group, the Omega Workshops & the Vorticists

Finding Neverland

Peter Pan's Kensington Gardens. Say quickly that you believe in fairies! After Princess Diana died, some of the money collected was spent refurbishing the old JM Barrie Playground at the…

Epping Forest

A walk around Epping Forest (‚ÄúThe Lungs of London‚Äù) - East Enders called it ‚ÄúA day out in the country‚Äù.

Elizabeth David's Chelsea

The Chelsea few know. The Cadogan Estate, Sloane Square and Ebury Shopping Village.

East End Markets

(Sundays only) The East End of London has a vibrant market scene which is best explored with a knowledgeable guide.

Contrasts on the City borders

London is constantly revealing and reinventing itself. This tour focuses on the ways that London and its ever-changing peoples are part of an organism which allows all kinds to work…

Cockney Reminiscences

Pubs and the Penniless!

Clapham

The elegant suburb with a distinguished history. A remarkable group of evangelical Christians, known as the Clapham Sect, made their homes around Clapham Common in the late 18th century and…

Camden Unlocked

Historic Camden Town Camden is an area that is full of contrasts from leafy crescents to "urban grunge". Learn of this area's development and the effect of the railways which…

Bethnal Green to Brick Lane

Dollshouses, Town Houses and Bath Houses Wealthy merchants and silk weavers used to live around this village green.

Belgravia

From Sloane Square to Belgrave Square and beyond. See where the great and the good, and the not so good, have lived and still live today in the grand stuccoed…

Beatles' London

The Beatles are associated with Liverpool but they hit the big time here in London. Let your guide transport you back to "Swinging London" with a visit to Beatles haunts…

Asparagus and Aristocrats

A walk through Fulham Fulham has roots going back to the Middle Ages and is now an interesting mix of the grand and the humble.

A River Runs Through It

Hammersmith Terrace - West London's Riviera The Thames is London's largest open space. You can see it here for sure, at Furnival Gardens where every March Oxford and Cambridge hold…

Bow

Bow is an ancient area of East London which borders the London 2012 Games site. It was also the site of the Match Girls dispute in 1888 which changed the…

Dalston

Multicultural London in a Nutshell. Dalston's transformation from scruffy north-east London suburb to ‚Äúthe coolest place to live in Britain‚Äù (Guardian 2009) has been amazingly rapid. Come and walk the…

Bloomsbury - its Buildings, Squares and People

Hear about a few surprises in 'the godless college in Gower Street' and the buildings of Bloomsbury where many from elevated circles lived in squares and loved in triangles.

Leyton & Leytonstone

One of London's 2012 Games host boroughs, this also is the birthplace of David Beckham, Sir Alfred Hitchcock and many other famous names.

Pert Primrose Hill meets Chaotic Camden Town

Discover chic and bohemian Primrose Hill, one of London's prettiest villages, and home to a multitude of actors, rock stars & models.

Seen and Unseen Golders Green

Green spaces, hidden places and famous faces in NW11

Stratford East

New Eurostar Gateway and Olympic centre, Stratford was once a village in a rural Essex of mills and monasteries, then transformed into London's industrial workshop and centre of radical politics.

East End - Old and New

London's poorest borough has over the centuries hosted waves of hopeful immigrants in search of a better life. All have left their imprint on the area, bringing new trades from…

Bloomsbury and the Foundling Museum

Old and new, art and architecture, music and philanthropy, children and adults ‚Ä¶just some of the things included in this walk!

Shoreditch and Hoxton

Clowns and Clubs Shakespeare was here. From the site of London's first purpose-built theatre, we see how the performing arts have developed, from Music Hall to modern theatre, from Hitchcock's…

Three Mills to Stratford

Walk along quiet paths by waterways, past mills where corn was once ground to feed London.

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