• Behind Closed Doors
• Secrets & Splendours of St. Paul's
    
• Secret London
  
   
• The Beatles "In My Life" Walk
  
  

• "Somewhere Else" London
• Inside the Hidden City
   
• Old Westminster – 1,000 Years of History
  
• Literary Bloomsbury & the Old Museum Quarter
  
  
   

• Brunel's Thames Tunnel – Riverside Village, Mayflower...
• The Hidden Pubs of Old London Town
   

• Ghosts of the Old City
  
• Jack the Ripper Haunts
  
  
 

• Additional London Walks on Selected Tuesdays
  
  Okay, now scroll on down for full details of each of Tuesday's London Walks...

10.30 am on Tuesdays (not Dec. 27)
from Covent GardenTube

Let's hear it for the life-giving tingle of new experience. For the tonic of delightful discovery. For a walk that shakes you gently, like a sieve, and drops you into places of long ago...places that you probably wouldn't get into off your own bat. And into is the mot juste. Because this walk has cracked open some doors. We're going into these places. Into the the Floral Hall for a view that will spike your Wow! Factor Graph.

Into "St. Petersburg-on-Thames". Up Nelson's Stairs. Into the venerable - and passing strange - RAF church. Into a stunning early 17th-century room that Shakespeare may have frequented. Into the old Bank of England - be prepared to gasp with wonder! And to crown it all, we'll go into the Royal Courts of Justice to watch a trial (when the Royal Courts are in session). And here's the ace in the hole: Tom, who guides this walk, is a barrister. And Brian, the other guide, read Law at university. N.B., cameras and tape recorders are not permitted in the Royal Courts of Justice.

The Behind Closed Doors Walk takes place
every* Tuesday at 10.30 am

*Except Dec. 27

Covent GardenTube

Covent GardenTube is on
the Piccadilly Line

Guided by Tom or Brian

"If there is such a thing as a shell secreted by man to fit himself here we find it, on the banks of the Thames, where the great streets join and St. Paul's Cathedral, like the volute on the top of the snail shell, finishes it off."
Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, 1922

10.30 am on Tuesdays
from St. Paul'sTube exit 2

"St. Paul's is much more than a place of worship. It is a specific against grossness, brutality and despair." And "to set foot into St. Paul's is to experience that cold shock straight from the past, beauty as a genius conceived it, grace that we had forgotten." Now some practical matters. There's an admission charge to St. Paul's, but there is a Group Rate. More to the point is your other "spend": your time. To refract it through a great guide will "buy" you inestimable riches in St. Paul's. Knowing where to look and what to look for – and seeing these things through the translucent integument of their "stories" – well, it's like going from blurry near-sighted to 20:20. What's more, the new Churchill Gates are in place; centuries-old Temple Bar has come home; and, most important of all, St. Paul's hasn't looked this good – inside and out – for 300 years. In short, the wraps are finally off – the restoration work's done – and our much loved old cathedral is radiant and pristine. Indeed, we'll show you some thrilling "rediscoveries" – wonderful features that were so begrimed they were lost and forgotten. And for some "added value", check this out!

The Secrets & Splendours of St. Paul's Tour takes place
every Tuesday morning at 10.30 am.

Meet Judy or Helena or Margaret 
just outside exit 2 of St. Paul'sTube.

St. Paul'sTube is on the Central Line

Guided by Margaret or Judy or Helena

"Was für Plunder!"
("What a place to plunder!")

Field Marshal von Blucher, on viewing London from St. Paul's after the peace banquet at Oxford 

10.45 am on Tuesdays
from Chancery LaneTube, exit 3



"I love a little bit of secret history", said Dr. Johnson. He would have been well served on this walk through his old neighbourhood. Its concealed courts and alleys are keyholes into London's past, harbouring everything from traces of Roman London to a forgotten Norman crypt; and from the musty cells of an ancient prison to a beautiful but virtually hidden 300-year-old courtyard and hall. Let alone some fine old churches and a venerable inn or two. And betwixt and between Hilary conjures up - out of the bend of a road, the shape of a doorway, an old badge on a wall, a place-name, a custom or ritual, even out of a turn of phrase - a millennium and more of London's history.

The Secret London Walk takes place
every Tuesday morning at 10.45 am.

Meet just outside exit 3 of Chancery LaneTube
Look for Hilary...she'll be right in front of these buildings:

Yes, they're Elizabethan – the finest half-timbered buildings in London!

Chancery LaneTube is on
theCentral Line

Guided by Hilary

11.20 am on Tuesdays
from MaryleboneTube

"There are places I'll remember all my life", sang the Beatles in one of their most evocative songs. Many of those places are in the "London Town" of this walk...so get back with Richard, "the Pied Piper of Beatlemania" (The Miami Herald), to the film locations for A Hard Day's Night and Help, the registry office where two of the Fabs were married, and the apartment immortalised by Ringo, John and Yoko. We'll also see the house where Paul lived with his glamorous girlfriend, actress Jane Asher. Those were the days...for it was in that house that John and Paul wrote I want to hold your hand. And to cap it all we'll go up to St. John's Wood to see the legendary Abbey Road studios and crosswalk. As the Toronto Globe and Mail said of the walk, "A splendid time is guaranteed for all."  "So let me introduce to you, the one and only..." Richard P. Here's a "grab" from the walk. And here's another 'un.

The Beatles In My Life Walk takes place:

every Tuesday at 11.20 am
and every Saturday at 11:20 am

Meet Richard P. just outside the exit of
MaryleboneTube. 

MaryleboneTube is on
the Bakerloo Line

N.B., we take a short tube journey to Abbey Road, so getting "a ticket to ride" - an Oyster Card or a 2-Zone Travel Card - is a good idea.

Guided by "Beatles genius" Richard P.

2 pm on Tuesdays
from EmbankmentTube

What a wonderful goulash of a walk this is. It gets you into streets that you'd never find off your own bat - streets that look like an old movie shot through a vaselined lens. Into a neighbourhood that precious few Londoners have seen, let alone visitors. It's a thrilling discovery - the real deal. There's no better sense of place in London - and no finer architectural effect. Yellow brick, perfectly preserved, all unselfconscious self-respect, real Cockney - unaltered Dickensian London. And the miracle is that it's still there, embedded in central London - screwed in to the big city. That discovery alone makes this one of those bewitching "somewhere else" London Walks. And getting there is a bit of all right too - because there's a dramatic river crossing, a stroll along the Thames, the world's foremost arts complex, London's best loved old theatre, a real London street market (instead of a tourist trap), a stunning bird's eye view of the capital (and there's a lift, so we won't have to climb hundreds of stairs!), and buckets of character.

The "Somewhere Else" London Walk takes place
every Tuesday at 2 pm
and every Saturday at 10.30 am.

Meet Steve or Stephanie just outside
the exit of EmbankmentTube
(they're normally outside the exit that leads out towards the Thames).

EmbankmentTube is on
theCircle, Bakerloo, District & Northern Lines

Guided by Steve or Stephanie

2 pm on Tuesdays 
from WestminsterTube, exit 4

This is the cornerstone, the seminal London Walk. Miss it and you've missed London. For Old Westminster is London at its grandest: the place where kings and queens are crowned, where they lived, and often were buried. It's the forge of the national destiny, the place where the heart of the Empire beat, the Mecca of politicians throughout the ages. The past here is cast in stone and we take it all in: ancient Westminster Hall, the Houses of Parliament, the Jewel Tower, and Westminster Abbey. And to see it with a great guide is to have that past suddenly rise to the surface...like seeing a photographic print come up in a darkroom. It doesn't get any better than this. And embarras de richesse, we'll also explore the private face of Westminster - the London equivalent of Georgetown! Unlike the tourist hordes, we'll get to see the hidden and ever so picturesque Georgian back streets where all the political salons are! We end at the Cabinet War Rooms, the fortified bunker that housed Winston Churchill's centre of operations during the war. You'll get an extremely handsome discount on the price of admission if you want to visit the War Rooms.

The Old Westminster Walk takes place
every Tuesday at 2 pm,
every Thursday at 2 pm,
every Saturday at 11 am,
and every Sunday at 2.45 pm

Meet just outside exit 4 of WestminsterTube.

WestminsterTube is on
theCircle, District & Jubilee Lines

Guided Tuesdays by Judy, London Tourist Board Guide of the Year Award winner!
Guided on Thursdays by Shaughan or David
Guided Saturdays by Karen, London Tourist Board Guide of the Year Award winner!
Guided on Sundays by Graham

"The lamps of London uphold the dark
as upon the points of burning bayonets."
                        Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, 1922

7 pm on Tuesdays (not Dec. 27)
from TempleTube

"The History of London is the history of its taverns;
to know one is to know the other."

Welcome to cheek-by-jowl, higgledy-piggledy, quintessential London. To gnarled, brooding back-alleys, secluded courtyards and tortuous zigzag passages. Oh there are famous sights, but to get to them we have to walk crookedly, through a maze of curiosities. We set our course by the best old pubs in town - including the most famous London inn of all. Old pubs that are, as every English pub should be, a solace and a delight...and all the more special for being hidden away down this or that dark alley, like precious gems in rumpled velvet. Here, like no other place in town, we have 2,000 years of London and its inns in the palm of our hand. The echoes are of Roman tabernas and Shakespearean ale-houses and Dickensian coaching inns...of feasting and wine and song...of the souls of poets dead and gone...the very zeitgeist of London. And what better company to keep than the shades of Dr. Johnson, Oscar Wilde, and Dickens himself.

The Hidden Pubs of Old London Town Walk takes place
every* Tuesday at 7 pm.

*Except Dec. 27

Meet Steve or Andy just outside the exit of TempleTube.

TempleTube is on the Circle & District Lines 

Guided by Andy or Steve

7.30 pm on Tuesdays
from St. Paul'sTube exit 2

"how easy it is to awaken the unwanted attention of things that should sleep quietly in their tombs or hiding places"

At night the ancient City is deserted... And eerie. Exploring its shadowy back streets and dimly lit alleys we might be in a medieval citadel, in overpowering stone. The very street names – Aldersgate, Cloth Fair, Charterhouse, Threadneedle – take us far back. We're alone... Or are we? For this is the hour when the She Wolf of France glides through the churchyard, the hour when the dark figure on Newgate wall rattles his chains, the hour when the Black Nun keeps her lonely vigil, and something inexpressibly evil lurks behind a tiny window. We're on their trail... Or are they shadowing us? Guided by the Man in Black.

Yes, it's Adam – the Shadow Walker. He of the spectral face like a lantern hanging down a dark alley. N.B., there's a spooky little video trailer of this walk here.

The Ghosts of the Old City Walk takes place
every Tuesday at 7.30 pm
and every Saturday at 7.30 pm.

Meet Adam or Shaughan or Angela
just outside  exit 2 of St. Paul'sTube.

St. Paul'sTube is on theCentral Line

Guided on Tuesdays by Adam
Guided on Saturdays by Shaughan or Angela

And you're going to like this. If you roll up early for the walk and you want a sit-down and a coffee, well just make your way to Casa di Caffe - it's directly behind exit 2 of St. Paul'sTube (at the top of the exit 2 staircase do a U-turn and walk toward St. Paul's Cathedral, Casa di Caffe is on your left, half way between the cathedral and the tube stop. And why Casa di Caffe? Well, it's the best coffee shop in the neighbourhood for one. And for two, London Walks has carved out some "added value" for you. If you print this page out and show it to Mehran and his wonderfully international staff - Estonian lasses, a Chinese chap, etc. etc. etc. - you'll get a whacking great 20 percent discount on whatever you order, whether it's a cappuccino or one of their delicious paninis or this, that or the other. Can't be bad! And it's just an attractive place for a sit-down: light streaming in, brightly coloured overstuffed chairs, a view of the cathedral. YUM YUM!

7.30 pm every night of the week
from Tower HillTube

Please tread carefully and keep away from the shadows -
you are about to enter the abyss...

He came silently out of the midnight shadows of August 31, 1888. Watching. Stalking. Butchering raddled, drink-sodden East End prostitutes. Leaving a trail of blood that led...nowhere. Yes, something wicked this way walked, for this is the Ripper's slashing grounds. We evoke that autumn of gaslight and fog, of menacing shadows and stealthy footsteps as we inspect the murder sites, sift through the evidence - in all its gory detail - and get to grips, so to speak, with the main suspects. Afterward you can steady your nerves in The Ten Bells, the pub where the victims - perhaps under the steely gaze of the Ripper himself - tried to forget the waking nightmare. And if you'd like a bang-up-to-date independent assessment of our Ripper walk - "an eerie experience" - here are some choice words from the Toronto Star. Now, anyone for some audio? Want to hear the man who is "internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper" in action? I thought so. Click here. And here. And for a pictorial or two, click here.

And this is pretty neat: Adam's made a handy little video to help out anybody who's arrived late for the walk. It's called The Jack the Ripper Catch Up Film. If you arrive late and the walk's moved off, well, just get your cell phone out, bring up this page and click here and hey presto you'll be able to catch us up.

The Jack the Ripper Haunts Walk takes place
every* single night at 7.30 pm.

Meet your guide just outside the exit of
Tower HillTube.

N.B., on Saturdays there's also a Ripper "matinee".
It goes every* Saturday afternoon at 3 pm.

Tower HillTube is on
theCircle & District Lines  

*except December 24th & December 25th

Guided by Donald & Molly on Tuesdays
Guided by Steve on Wednesdays
Guided by Angela and Shaughan on Thursdays
Guided by Donald or Shaughan on Fridays
Guided by Fiona on Saturday afternoons
Guided by Steve on Saturday evenings
Guided by Donald on Sundays
Guided by Donald & Molly on Mondays

N.B. Let's call a spade a spade. Going on Donald Rumbelow's walk is as close as you're going to get to nailing the Ripper. Donald is the author of the best-selling The Complete Jack the Ripper, the definitive book on the subject. He's been the chief consultant for every major television and film treatment of the Ripper for the last 20 years. In the words of The Jack to Ripper A to Z (the bible of Ripperology studies): "Donald Rumbelow is internationally recognised as the leading authority on the subject". The former Curator of the City of London Police Crime Museum and a two-time Chairman of the Crime Writers" Association, Donald is Britain's most distinguished crime historian. And I hasten add, he's not some dry-as-dust academic. He spent 25 years on the City of London Police Force - which in effect means you'll be taken over some of the most famous crime scenes in the world by a law enforcement professional. Oh and I almost forgot - he's also a professionally qualified Blue Badge Guide!

But a word of warning: never part with your money or set off with anyone until you're absolutely certain you're with Donald or - if it's another night - one of his London Walks colleagues. Donald (and co.) will be holding up copies of the distinctive white London Walks leaflet. And remember, Donald and his colleagues never ever start the Jack the Ripper walk before 7.30 pm. In short, don't let anyone pull a fast one on you. In the words of the Toronto Star: "rip-off tours...capitalize on his[Rumbelow's] popularity and try to confuse people who show up knowing that this is the place for Ripper Tours, but haven't got the details straight."