Brompton

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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