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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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90 episodes
daily
Avg 12 min
English

Episodes 90

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Yesterday · 14 min
Barnet: Blood, Battles and Bad Hair Days
A kingmaker killed in the fog. A fair that gave Cockneys a word for their hair. From bloody battlefields to ancient trees and world-changing ideas, Barnet is full of surprises.
Tuesday · 19 min
Camden Town: Judith’s Home Turf
Meet Judith, veteran London Walks guide and Camden Town insider extraordinaire. She’s lived right above Inverness Street Market, in the thick of Camden Town, for half a century. Who better to show us round and tell us its stories?
Monday · 11 min
Enfield: You Don’t Know the Half of It
Poets and palaces. Rifles and spies. The world’s first cash machine and a country house where German generals were secretly listened to. Welcome to Enfield, the London borough that’s full of surprises.
Monday · 19 min
The Knock on the Door that Changed English Poetry
The young John Keats, a cottage on Hampstead Heath, and the remarkable Leigh Hunt, the poet, journalist and troublemaker who opened his door to some of the greatest literary talents of the age.
Sunday · 12 min
The Little Piece of Ely in London
Tucked away behind its gates, Ely Place is one of London’s strangest survivals, a little world of saints, bishops, strawberries, Tudor power and centuries-old privilege.
Saturday · 12 min
Tawdry
A seventh-century queen, two unconsummated marriages, an incorruptible body and a medieval fair. Meet St Audrey, the remarkable woman hiding inside the word “tawdry.”
Friday · 11 min
A Brush with Fire
Parliament is burning, London is watching, and out on the Thames Turner is turning catastrophe into art.
October 15 · 14 min
The Night Edward Gibbon Had His Great Idea
On October 15, 1764, amid the ruins of Rome, a young Londoner had an idea. Edward Gibbon would spend the next 23 years turning it into one of the greatest works of history ever written.
October 14 · 14 min
William Penn: The London Rebel Who Founded Pennsylvania
Born near the Tower of London, jailed for his beliefs and determined to change the world. Meet William Penn, the London rebel who founded Pennsylvania, and the twelve stubborn London jurors who helped make legal history.
October 13 · 17 min
The First Knight of the Stage
Bradford may have got his death. But London got his life. Meet Sir Henry Irving, the first actor to be knighted and the man who made the Lyceum Theatre the centre of London’s dramatic world.
October 12 · 7 min
Sid and Nancy: Punk Rock in Little Venice
A stone’s throw from the quiet waters of Little Venice, Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen were living one of rock ’n’ roll’s most turbulent love stories.
October 11 · 11 min
Christie’s: The Gallery Where Everything’s for Sale
One of London’s greatest art galleries is hiding in plain sight, and everything on the walls is about to disappear.
October 10 · 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.
October 9 · 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.
October 8 · 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.
October 7 · 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.
October 6 · 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.

Showing 1–20 of 90 episodes