Walking through Docklands in the East of London might not be everyone's idea of a grand day out. Regeneration is all around, and even some parts that have been redeveloped are not attractive. I am including this walk because it traverses an important part of London. One cannot appreciate the development of the capital without appreciating that London Docks which was the powerhouse of the capital's trade until the 1960's has changed completely. There are flats - many much more affordable than in other parts of London. There is business - especially the financial district of Canary Wharf. There is a small airport. Shops. Manufacturing. In fact, pretty much everything except docks. The dockland names live on though: they are either marinas or DLR stations.

The walk starts at Royal Albert. You can reach this station in Zone 3 by taking the Jubilee Line from central London (Bond Street or Westminster for example) and changing to the Docklands Light Railway at Canning Town. Remember to touch your Oyster card on the Reader as you descend the steps at Prince Regent. From the DLR we walk through Beckton Park to Gallions via Cyprus and the Docklands Campus of the University of East London. Here there is a choice of route, either along the lonely river path and across the locks at Gallions Reach, or across the bridge to King George V. hereafter the walk continues along the Thames to finish at the Woolwich Free Ferry.

The walk is 3 miles in length, but you can add an extra half mile by crossing the river to Woolwich. There are two means of doing so - either the free ferry or the Woolwich Foot Tunnel, opened in 1912 (note: there are steps at each end). Alternatively, having admired the sight of the Thames Barrier in the distance, you can take a bus from the bus station, or walk for 6 minutes to the King George V DLR station.

This walk is part of the Capital Ring. You can download a map of all 15 walks in the Capital Ring and full instructions.

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This walk starts only a few minutes from where I live, and should be easy to finish in 1 hour 15 minutes. It starts at Queensway Underground (Central Line Zone 1) and finishes beside Harrods where you can take the Piccadilly Line from Knightsbridge Station.

Queensway was a fashionable shopping district in the Edwardian era. Whiteleys department store was the largest shop. It was built in 1867 and received Queen Victoria's royal warrant in 1896. The present building dates from 1911. It ceased trading as a department store and was empty for some years before being redeveloped as an upscale shopping centre.

After crossing Bayswater Road, the walk crosses Kensington Gardens by way of Broad Walk. There are lovely views to the East. Near Kensington Palace is the Round Pond, where we veer off diagonally towards the Rose Walk and the Albert Memorial. Recently refurbished at a cost of £11.2 million, the memorial is one of the most important Victorian constructions in the UK. Albert the Prince Consort sits larger than life covered in gold under a gothic soaring canopy topped by an ornate gold cross. Friezes around the memorial celebrate continents and countries, poets, painters, scientists, architects, musicians and sculpters.

The walk continues through South Kensington, passing Imperial College London, the V&A, Science Museum and Natural History Museum. These free museums are the legacy of the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Turning left on Cromwell Road, we then pass Brompton Oratory which is the second Roman Catholic church in London after Westminster Cathedral. It was built in 1884 and sits cheek by jowl alongside the UK's most successful evangelical Anglican church - Holy Trinity Brompton ("HTB"). HTB is the home of the Alpha Course.

From HTB's quiet churchyard, the rest of the walk passes charming mews, garden squares, and roads which all delight the eye and are relatively free of traffic noise. Suddenly we emerge on Knightbridge near Harrods department store, the largest in the world. Harrods was originally a small shop in the East End, which moved to Brompton to take advantage of the Great Exhibition trade. It was burnt to the ground in 1883, but the replacement building was even more impressive and featured an early moving staircase. Intrepid ladies were offered brandy when the alighted, the experience was so novel and scary.

Just beside Harrods in Hans Crescent are the new escalators leading down to the Piccadilly Line.

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It is almost 2 years now since I recorded two episodes of the London Walks podcast. One episode gave advice on how to get to and from London's airports. The other concerned how to get around London by public transport. These episodes are now out of date, and so the time has come to record them once again. This time I am putting all the information in one place, and in only 40 minutes offering a lot of information in one place, from a local as it were to someone who may be unfamiliar with the transport system in this greatest of capital cities.

At the outset, I must make it clear I am giving you my personal recommendations. You may find some aspects conflict with what you have been told or with what you have read elsewhere. Listeners who live in London may disagree with me, but I offer you my advice based on what I do myself, with no axe to grind and nothing to gain from what I suggest you do.

The podcast is in 3 parts. Firstly I talk about London's airports. Secondly I mention the trains to and from continental Europe. Thirdly I discuss ticketing systems in London, and advise what are the best choices in our integrated transport whether you are staying one day, one week, one month or even longer.

London has 5 airports. London City in Docklands is the smallest and is mainly used for business travel. It is easily and quickly accessible from central London via the Underground and the Dockland Light Railway (DLR). Listeners from abroad to the London Walks Podcast are more likely to arrive at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted or Luton. These are all large airports, ranging from 20 - 40 miles from the City. All are easy to reach by public transport, and I advise on the choices and the tickets to buy.

My top tips are:

1. It is easier and maybe even quicker to use the Underground rather than the Heathrow Express, when you take into account the time taken getting to and from Paddington, buying a separate ticket, and waiting up to 15 minutes for the next train. This advice is particularly relevant now that Terminal 5 has opened if your plane arrives and departs from Terminal 4 which is no longer directly served by the Heathrow Express Train. The Underground is also much cheaper, costing less than a fifth of the total price for most journeys.

2. If you have 2 or more in your party, consider taking a taxi. The total price might be as much as £45 - £50 but divided between as many as 5 passengers a cab is affordable. You also get to hear the political views of your friendly and garrulous cab driver. She or he will have done The Knowledge - a fearsome test taking more than 2 years study. Once qualified, cab drivers will know hundreds of routes by heart, most streets in Greater London, and all the places on those routes. The cabs are clean, undamaged and tightly controlled by the quaintly named Public Carriage Office. A great way to travel.

3. I do not recommend the Gatwick Express. It is expensive (costing up to £17.90) and no longer more modern, more comfortable, or even very much quicker than alternative trains. Look for the Southern train which is clean, modern and comfortable. It stops once or twice, adding a few minutes on to the journey but costs half the price.

4. Luton and Stansted are easy to reach by train. Luton is cheaper by far, but both take around the same journey time. Travellers on a budget can save huge amounts by taking the Easybus, which costs as little as £2.

5. It is no longer sensible to fly from London to most places in nearer continental Europe. The Eurostar is very fast indeed - you can spend 10 hours in Paris on a day trip and pay a good price for your ticket if you plan ahead. My top tip is to look at a wonderful personal web site by The Man in Seat 61. This is a comprehensive guide to getting around Europe by train. Please consider making a donation towards his work (after you have donated to London Walks using the Pay Pal button at http://londonwalks.org).

6. It makes no sense to use cash on London's transport. Paying cash is prohibitively expensive by design. If you are staying one day, buy a paper Travelcard. If you are staying longer, get a pay-as-you-go Oystercard. You can buy one with a £3 deposit when you arrive, or get a visitor Oystercard for £2 from some travel agents worldwide which can be charged with cash and used from Heathrow right off the plane.

Links:

Transport for London - start here

What is Oyster?

Buying Oyster cards from overseas agents

Oyster ticket stops

How to use Oyster cards for visitors to London

Stansted Express

Gatwick by Southern Railway

About London's airports from BAA the current operator

Ordering transportation tickets from USA

National Express Dot2Dot transfers to Heathrow

Eurostar

Spitalfields does not sound an attractive place, but the area East of the City takes its name from, a priory hospital known as St Mary's Spital founded in the late 12 th Century. Most of the area was built after the great fire of London in 1666 after the plague the previous year caused such devastation to the local population who were traders and market stall holders.

 

Nowadays Brick Lane is a centre of Bangladeshi culture beloved of Londoners for the hundreds of restaurants that line the street on both sides. Banglatown is the most recent incarnation of a neighbourhood that welcomed successive waves of immigrants. First it was the Huguenots fleeing religious persecution in continental Europe. They brought with them sklills in weaving, especially silk yarns. Their beautiful houses adorn Fournier St, Princelet St and Wilkes St. Our walk passes along all three of these lovely roads.

After the Huguenots came Irish weavers and Askenazy Jews. The Mosque in Brick Lane was originally a Huguenot chapel, but saw use for the Methodists, as an outreach to the Jews, and then a Synagogue.

Other sights along the walk are the churches of St Botolph - two of them dedicated to the same saint - and the famous Christ Church Spitalfields. Petticoat Lane Market occupies the streets around Wentworth St and Petticoat Lane itself (best visited during the week or on Sundays) and Old Spitalfields Market - now a trendy retail and catering venue off Bishopsgate.

The walk ends at Liverpool St Underground, after passing through Exchange Square and looking down over the mainline railway station below.

Paths for Google Earth:
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KMZ file

"The Lambeth Walk" is a song from the 1937 musical Me and My Girl (with book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose and music by Noel Gay). The cockney lyrics are simple:

Any time you're Lambeth Way
Any evening, any day
You'll find us all
Doing the Lambeth Walk. Oi!

Every little Lambeth pal
With her little Lambeth pal
You'll find 'em all
Doing the Lambeth Walk. Oi!

Lambeth is the area south of the River Thames around Waterloo Station where we start our walk. Waterloo is on the Northern, Bakerloo, Waterloo & City, and Jubilee lines as well as being a mainline station in zone 1. Exit the Underground from the Jubilee Line and turn into Waterloo Road towards the Old Vic Theatre. Turn into Lower Marsh and continue until you come to Archbishop's Park at the rear of Lambeth Palace, official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

After walking through the park we come to the redundant church of St Mary at Lambeth, home of the Tradescant Trust and the Museum of Garden History. From here we walk along the Albert Embankment by the River Thames with wonderful views of the North bank including the Houses of Parliament. We pass St Thomas's Hospital and Medical School named after the English martyr St Thomas a Becket, County Hall and the London Aquarium, the London Eye and the lion which used to stand by Hungerford Bridge before the demolition of the Lion Brewery.

Just before the Royal Festival Hall we cross one of the Golden Jubilee foot bridges and the walk ends at Embankment (District & Circle lines) or Charing Cross (Bakerloo and Northern lines) both in Zone 1.

Robbery, murder, prostitution, fraud, bankruptcy - it's all here in this walk. Once again we return to the Fleet River, all but invisible today but an erstwhile open sewer flowing through the most desperate neighbourhoods of London.

The walk starts at Blackfriars Underground (Circle & District and Overground zone 1) and ends at Farringdon (Metropolitan, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Overground zone 1). There is not much left to see of the places described, so you will have to use your imagination. Some aspects of the walk are lurid and unsavoury, so my advice is that the sound file should be heard by over 15's unless you have listened to the walk in advance. The walk is best enjoyed on a weekday, as it passes through part of the Inner Temple and the route chosen might not be open during the weekend.

We kick off with the unsolved mystery of Roberto Calvi who was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge, weighed down and with his pockets full of money. The route takes us through the site of the former Fleet Prison and the former Bridewell royal palace and prison where convicted prostitutes were publicly flogged to entertain the curious and encourage other offenders to cease and desist from their ways. Many of the prostitutes plied their trades in the prisons themselves, encouraged by the warders and governor who made a tidy sum out of the business.

Lawyers did their business in one of the inns of court (see my Legal London walk) and on this route they jostled and fought with the criminal fraternity in the Whitefriars/Alsatia area outside their gates. An early example of physicians curing themselves, or perhaps not.

We cross Holborn Viaduct and get a fine view over London towards the River Thames before descending into Shoe Lane, another notorious place where respectable people would not be seen dead, or if they were they might if you see what I mean. Here cutpurses would routinely relieve them of their money and maybe sell their cash back to them shortly afterwards. Here also was Mother Clap's Molly House, a male brothel.

Rest assured the locality is far more respectable nowadays, and the site of Farringdon - terminus of the world's first underground railway hoves into view up Greville St where the walk ends. Little more than a stroll really, and as I say it's not the most attractive part of London but stuffed full of history, much of it of the worst kind.

This walk can take 90 minutes or all day if you want to visit the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge Experience. It is a circular stroll from Tower Hill Underground on the Circle & District Lines, Zone 1.

What makes this walk special are the stunning views across the River Thames. Moving from one vantage point to another, the eye is filled with wonder as vistas open up at every turn.

Starting at Tower Hill, we walk under the road and admire the colourful enamel panels depicting the history of the Tower of London, some of it tragic and gory, little of it glorious.

Continuing around the Tower in a circuit down to the river, we pass the Traitors' Gate and Dead Men's Hole. From here we pass from the bustle of a prime tourist site to the relative quiet and calm of St Katharine's Dock. Refurbished after its original purpose was superseded, the basins now host a mixture of traditional sailing vessels and expensive motor boats, moored alongside fashionable bars, restaurants, shops, apartments and penthouses.

There is an opportunity to continue walking the Thames Path to Shadwell and Canary Wharf, but we return past the Tower Hotel to cross the river by Tower Bridge towards the Engine Room, where we descend the steps and walk along Shad Thames as far as the Design Museum.

Here we stop and admire what is arguably the best view of Tower Bridge, the Gherkin, Tower 42, the Tower of London and City Hall in a broad sweep with Dixie paddle steamers in the foreground.

Unusually the bridge opened twice during the time I was recording the walk, but if you want to see the bascules raise you can consult the daily schedule for opening times.

Files for your GPS, Google Earth and Maps:
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A circular walk from Wimbledon Underground and Mainline Station, Zone 3. The best way of reaching the start is by taking the District Line to Wimbledon from Central London, or by changing to the District Line Wimbledon Branch at Earl's Court. The walk is 3.8 miles long.

This is a charming, picturesque, historical and interesting walk on high ground through Wimbledon Village and around the Common. There is also a chance to visit the Wimbledon All-England Club, home of the most famous lawn tennis tournament in the world.

We first climb Wimbledon Hill from the railway station, and pause at St Mary's Church. This is the fourth place of worship on this site extending back more than 1,000 years. The present church was opened in 1843. It was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott. In the chancel are wonderful mediaeval painted beams and a memorial to Sir Joseph Bazalgette, the engineer of London's sewerage system. His mausoleum is in the church yard.

We then pass through Wimbledon Village and then along the south side of the Common with its large Georgian houses. After taking some refreshment at one of the many charming pubs around the Common and walking into the Crooked Billet, we walk up the west side where the houses are even bigger and grander. The largest is Cannizaro House (pictured) which is now a hotel. The grounds are owned by the London Borough of Merton and can be visited. Here you will find over 400 species of trees and shrubs. The collection of rhododendrons and azaleas is said to be one of the finest anywhere in England.

From a little enclave of houses built on the Common and a preparatory school associated with William Wilberforce who owned a house nearby before starting his campaign to abolish slavery, there is the chance to take a diversion to look at an iron age hill fort or the Wimbledon Windmill Museum. There are also many other rides and walks throughout the Common.

Finally the walk returns to the starting point across the Common and down several tiny alley ways, crossing the line of a prehistoric path and back to the new town centre.

Files for your GPS: GPX

History lovers and those who are fond of spooky alleyways and secret spaces in the mediaeval City of London will love this walk. It covers the same territory as the City walk west of St Paul's a couple of years ago, but there are only two places we visit again so this is genuinely a new delight. Mind you, it will be essential for you to have your wits about you when you do this walk - we dive in and out of tiny entrances almost invisible to tourists, and walk through part of the City you would never find without a guide.

During the walk, we see a memorial to ordinary folk who gave their lives to save others and who would be forgotten except for the good offices of the symbolist painter G F Watts. We walk underneath the Old Bailey and visit St Sepulchre where there is a stained glass window dedicated to musicians and especially the father of the Proms Sir Henry Wood. His ashes are interred in the floor. In the same church is the bell tolled the night before executions in Newgate Prison and a poem exhorting the condemned souls to repent.

After walking through run down and abandoned parts of the old Smithfield Market ripe for redevelopment, we walk into a private road of elegant houses that is technically in Cambridgeshire. Half way up the road is St Ethelreda's Roman Catholic Church and through a hidden gap the most out-of-the-way pub in the whole of London. This is the spookiest part of the entire walk and full of atmosphere.

We then pass through the old Barnard's Inn, once part of the Court of Chancery but now the home of Gresham College where free lectures are given to all comers. We revisit Gough Square where Dr Johnson's cat Hodge is set in bronze on a copy of the famous Dictionary with an opened oyster. Finally we return to St Paul's and Paternoster Square after standing right under the site of the spire which once was the centre of the Blackfriars monastery church and we see the preserved crypt of Whitefriars behind glass in the basement of the Freshfields law office building.

Files for your GPS: GPX

This is more of stroll through part of London's extensive Theatreland. It lasts just over 80 minutes and starts in Trafalgar Square (Charing Cross Underground - Zone 1 - Bakerloo and Northern Lines) Take the exit from the subway marked 'Trafalgar Square' and walk to the base of the Nelson Column facing towards the Tower of Big Ben.

After an extensive description of Trafalgar Square and the Nelson Column, we walk aroud the square and look at the grand buildings, including Admiralty Arch, Canada House, National Gallery, St Martin-in-the-Fields and South Africa House.

The walk then continues down to the River Thames and the Playhouse Theatre. From here, depending on the visibility and the weather, there is a choice of crossing and re-crossing the river by way of the Golden Jubilee bridges, from which there are unrivalled views of the London skyline in both directions, or walking under the Arches to Embankment Underground and thence back to Charing Cross station forecourt - the centre of London as measured from mileposts and mapping.

Most of Little Adelphi is covered on my Covent Garden walk, but we do walk along John Adam Street and look at the lovely buildings in the streets, including the home of Samuel Pepys near the old Watergate, and the Royal Society of Arts. Returning to The Strand, we admire the glass fronted Coutts Bank with its revolving full-size tree and haunted banking hall.

From this point on, it's all about the theatre. We pass the Adelphi with its fantastic Art Deco facade. Nearby is the Vaudeville. By Carting Lane we visit the old Coal Hole Tavern, once the haunt of Thames barge coal heavers. Then we enter Savoy Court with its world famous luxury hotel (now being refurbished) and the Savoy Theatre, originally showcase of the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas.

After that, we pass the Strand Palace Hotel, the Lyceum Theatre, Drury Lane, the Aldwych Theatre (pictured above) and Bush House, home of the BBC World Service.

The walk ends with a choice. You can either walk up Kingsway to Holborn Underground (Central Line Zone 1) or end at Covent Garden Piazza just off to the left up Drury Lane. The Covent Garden Underground station is on the Piccadilly Line, and is near all the attractions of Covent Garden, including the Royal Opera House and the newly refurbished London Transport Museum.

This is a most enjoyable walk through Islington, starting at Angel Underground (Zone 1 - Northern Line, Bank Branch) and ending at Highbury & Islington (Zone 2 - Victoria Line and Overground).

The first part of the walk passes through the antiques market area along Camden Passage. The middle section follows the line of the New River - neither new nor a river. This man-made watercourse took fresh water from Hertfordshire to New River Head. Little of the river is visible nowadays, but the route is clearly visible and there is a charming garden were we walk alongside the water by formal gardens near Canonbury Grove. The last part of the walk passes Canonbury Tower and House. The Tower was built in the early years of the 16th century as a manor house on the site of an Augustinian Priory owned by the canons of St Bartholomew's in Clerkenwell (which we pass on the Well, Well, Well... walk).

The walk should take about an hour, and includes references to such people as Charles Lamb, Sir John Spencer, Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell. Upper Street is also the site of a restaurant in which Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are said to have discussed the timing of the transfer of the leadership of the Labour Party, and hence the office of Prime Minister.

Most of the route is quiet and free of heavy traffic. The houses are predominately 18th century terraced properties, and the area is well known not only as a smart and expensive place to live, but where the left wing intelligentsia of the capital prefer to hang out. It also reminds me of the British Monopoly board - the Angel Islington is a modestly priced light blue property on which it is much more affordable to build hotels than on places further from 'Go.'

I recommend this short walk as a very interesting way to spend an hour - more of a stroll really, past charming houses and lovely residential locales.

New! Click the icon to load an interactive Google map of all the walks with their start points. Find your nearest walk from your current location.

A lovely historic walk through the tiny roads, alleyways, and steps around the centre of Hampstead. Hampstead is about 4 miles north of the centre of London. It is easily reached from stations like Tottenham Court Road, Euston, or Embankment by taking the Edgware branch of the Northern Line. The station is in Zones 2/3.

Turning left outside the Underground station, we have only a few paces to walk on the busy Hampstead High Street before we turn into Flask Walk. The first portion of the stroll is through the area that sprung up around the spa. The water from the chalybeate spring contained dissolved iron and was considered health promoting. The practice died out in the late 19th century, but there are pubs, street names such as Well Walk, and many other associations with this period of Hampstead's history.

More importantly even today Hampstead is more likely to be associated with the rich, the famous, intellectuals, artists, and writers. The list of literati and gliterati is a long one, including nowadays stars of film and TV, but in the past such names as John Galsworthy who wrote The Forsyte Saga here, three generations of the du Mauriers, the painter John Constable, poet John Keats and many many more.

The walk passes  the French and Dutch influenced houses around the William IV public house, and enters Hampstead's parish church dedicated to St John. This is a 1745 gem - a galleried interior of wood painted in two shades of grey with a beautiful plasterwork ceiling. Definitely a must-see, and in the two adjacent burial grounds there are so many famous people that the church offers a tomb walk leaflet to guide visitors around the church yard.

There are wonderful views over London, and we reach a high point of 440 ft above sea level near the Jack Straw public house. The best is kept for last, as we wind our way down a steep hill and enter a tiny enclave of small houses beside a narrow street with another wonderful view to east and west. This leads to steps that conveniently descend to the Underground station where the walk ends.

This is a lovely urban stroll through one of London's most fashionable historic places. There are some steep hills, narrow uneven streets, cars and vans labouring up the inclines, and expensive eating places and watering holes. But for free entertainment and learning about the past, it is a great walk and one especially suitable for families.

This walk starts at the Thamesside village of Hampton. You can reach Hampton by train from London (Waterloo) or by the District Line to Wimbledon and change to a train to Hampton. The station is in Zone 6 - so you can buy a Zones 1 - 6 off-peak Travelcard.

Leaving the station from the South-West train, exit towards the shops and turn left along the High Street. As we walk down the High Street, I tell you about Godaddy.com (for 10% discount use code blu74) and the powernap software Pzizz.com (affiliate number 16992). Click on the links to the right for details and to benefit London Walks.

Continue down to the River Thames and the church of St Mary, which is said to be haunted by Mistress Penn who was a nurse to Edward VI the only son of Henry VIII. Nearby there are two houses which belonged to the actor David Garrick and his eponymous nephew. Opposite Garrick's Villa is a temple which is connected to the house by a tunnel under the road, and housed a statue of William Shakespeare.

Shortly we leave the busy traffic and enter Bushey Deer Park where one should avoid approaching the deer that roam free, especially in May - July and September - October. We walk through the lovely water garden that is little known and generally very quiet, and leave the garden by a gate leading towards the Diana Fountain. This whole area was designed by Sir Christopher Wren who was employed to remodel the Tudor palace of Hampton Court.

After leaving the park we enter the formal grounds of the palace through the Lion Gate. We then walk through the gardens and around the outside of the house, admiring the wonderful facades and marveling at the fact that here we have two entirely separate ages of architecture - Tudor and Baroque. It all happened by accident, but it works well nonetheless. After walking through the gardens, there is a chance to enter the palace.

The walk ends nearby just across the bridge over the Thames at the station of Hampton Court. This is also in Zone 6 and trains run to Wimbledon and into London every 30 minutes. Lunch can be taken in Hampton Court before boarding the train, and I give a recommendation for Cottage Pie in one of the town public houses.