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London Walks

London Walks is the oldest urban walking tour company on the planet. It’s the gold standard of this profession, this craft. Here you can listen to our guides' stories and anecdotes of London.

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78 episodes
daily
Avg 12 min
English

Episodes 78

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Saturday · 17 min
The Boy Who Learned to Listen
A Hackney boy who talked to imaginary friends grew up to change the sound of theatre. Harold Pinter taught us to listen to the words, the silences, and especially the pauses.
Friday · 14 min
The London Boy with the Rolleicord
Before the battlefields, there was Finsbury Park. Don McCullin had a Rolleicord, hard streets, hard men and an eye that missed very little. London taught him where to look.
Thursday · 8 min
Hats Off to 350 Years
Lock & Co has been putting hats on London heads for 350 years. Princes, politicians, dandies and ordinary Londoners have all passed through its St James’s Street door, and somehow the old firm is still standing, still fitting, still unmistakably itself.
Wednesday · 13 min
109,915 People Under One Glass Roof
On October 7th, 1851, a staggering 109,915 people poured into Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition’s busiest day. So much silver changed hands that the takings needed two hackney cabs to carry them to the Bank of England.
Tuesday · 13 min
“Burned out with London. Needed a bit of a break.”
Jason Lewis was burned out with London and needed a bit of a break. Thirteen years, 46,000 miles, two broken legs, blood poisoning, oceans, rollerblades and a crocodile later, he came home to Greenwich.
October 5 · 14 min
The Day the Sixties Arrived
October 5th, 1962. James Bond walks onto the screen. The Beatles walk into the record shops. Britain wakes up in one decade and goes to bed in another.
October 4 · 11 min
Cable Street: The Day London Said No
Ninety years ago today, fascism came marching into London’s East End. Cable Street answered with barricades, defiance and one unforgettable cry: “They shall not pass.”
October 3 · 10 min
The Night the Bolshoi Conquered London
Seventy years ago today, the Bolshoi Ballet swept into Covent Garden and London rose to its feet. A dazzling cultural moment, with the Hungarian uprising only days away.
October 2 · 15 min
Blow-Up Bridge
A barge packed with gunpowder, sugar and nuts explodes beneath Macclesfield Bridge, hurling debris across Regent’s Park and waking London with a bang. The story of Blow-Up Bridge.
October 1 · 11 min
Croydon: Hiding in Plain Sight
I crossed Croydon knowing almost nothing about it. Forty-two miles into the London Camino, the borough at journey’s end turned out to be one of the biggest surprises of the lot.
September 30 · 9 min
Eight Years to the Day
One date. Two extraordinary moments. Eight catastrophic years. September 30 tells one of the darkest stories of the twentieth century.
September 29 · 15 min
The Man Who Walked a Thousand Miles Without Going Anywhere
One mile every hour. For 1,000 hours. Meet Captain Barclay, Regency Britain’s almost forgotten walking phenomenon, prize-fight trainer and human endurance machine.
September 28 · 11 min
The Mould that Changed the World
A mouldy dish. A sharp eye. A discovery in Paddington that changed medicine forever.
September 27 · 11 min
London Was Talking. I Wasn’t Listening.
Albany Street: a perfectly ordinary London street with an extraordinary amount of history packed into it. Scratch the surface and out tumble grand terraces, soldiers, workhouses, artists, rogues and the great restless churn of London life.
September 26 · 12 min
Four Men, One Zebra Crossing and the End of the Road
Four men cross a London road. The camera clicks. And one ordinary zebra crossing walks straight into history.
September 25 · 13 min
The Doctor Who Put Blood Back In
How do you save a dying patient when medicine’s answer is to take blood out? James Blundell did something revolutionary. He put blood back in.
September 23 · 13 min
Eternal London Haunts Us Still
Thomas Moore wrote one of the immortal lines about London. The delicious twist? He was in Venice when he wrote it.
September 22 · 9 min
W. G. Grace: The Grave That Changed Everything
W. G. Grace was a giant of Victorian cricket, a legend in his own lifetime. Then I came across his grave and read the names above his own, and suddenly the great cricketer became something else: a father.
September 21 · 9 min
The Palace Vanished. The Monsters Survived.
A palace of glass. Victorian dinosaurs. Six million visitors. And a fire that lit up the London sky. The extraordinary story of Crystal Palace, where the monsters survived but the palace didn’t.
September 21 · 28 min
Meet Your Guide: A Photographer’s London
There were 175 people in that room in the Royal Academy. 174 of them - including me – were standing. You were stretched out on the floor, your camera two inches off the floor. What had you seen that nobody else had clocked? What were you photographing?

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