Guided walks through the City of London and Westminster

London City Walks: News

During 2009 we have mounted a wide programme of advertised public walks covering both the City of London and the West End.  We contributed to the Story of London Festival in June and to the Festival of London Archaeology in July, and in response to the popularity of our evening bespoke walks for private parties trialled a suitably creepy evening public walk to celebrate Hallowe’en.  In addition, Frances was called on to give two talks to groups in Greater London, and Pete was commissioned to give a tour to the Lady Mayoress and a group of Livery Ladies.

Our bespoke walks have catered for parties ranging from university students to City property specialists, and from two Canadian married couples to a very large party of German schoolchildren.  One of our more challenging and unusual commissions was to arrange a London-wide tour for a German writer seeking locations for a novel spanning high and low life in the London of the early 1890s.

Over the next year, following the success of our Hallowe’en walk, we shall be mounting a number of evening public walks, starting with some dark themes to suit a dark season.  We also plan to introduce regular walks starting from St Paul’s Cathedral on the first Sunday morning of each month, beginning with two new walks, “Time & Tide” and “Hiss the Villain”.  St Valentine’s Day will be marked appropriately with “Londoners in Love”, and later in the year more walks linked to anniversaries and City celebrations will follow.  Needless to say, as our regular walkers already know, all our walks end close to Tube stations and bus routes, and, wherever possible, near at least one good pub.

We are grateful to all our walkers for their friendship and good company, and also for the suggestions that have enabled us to improve and expand our portfolio of walks to its present total of 36.

Pete Smith featured twice in the official programme for The Lord Mayor's Show 2008. Not only was Pete handpicked by the organisers to be interviewed for an article about his guiding but he also was asked to write a piece about Smithfield. Both are reproduced below: