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OXFORD
& THE COTSWOLDS Explorer Day Return to top
MAYFAIR
- "the best address in London" Now here's a champagne cocktail of a walk. It's a marriage made in heaven: "the best address in London" and a bon vivant of a guide - a boulevardier and a place where Old Masters and old money, Rolls Royces and glamour, titles and butlers are par for the course. It's hob-nobbing with knobs on it - because Mayfair's been home to Admiral Nelson (and his mistress Lady Emma Hamilton), Clive of India, Disraeli, Handel, Florence Nightingale, Peter Sellers, Jimi Hendrix, Dodi Fayed, and the Earl Mountbatten, to name but a few. Last but certainly not least, it boasts London's best village within a village - Shepherd Market, a charming little nest of alleys that hasn't lost a jot of its 18th-century scale and village atmosphere, let alone its raffishness. This walk takes
place every Monday and Thursday at 10:30am.
HISTORIC
GREENWICH - "Versailles with a riverfront" We begin with an overture: the best boat ride in London. The Tower, Tower Bridge, Docklands, and then, three miles downstream, the Thames bursts into one of the sublime sights of English architecture: "the most stately procession of buildings in England." Moments later, another frisson: the mast and spars, the web of rigging of the Cutty Sark, the hauntingly beautiful old tea clipper. As the poet said, "they mark our passage as a race of men; earth will not see such ships again." Welcome to Greenwich! Maritime Greenwich. Royal Greenwich. Greenwich the home of time and centre of space. The Greenwich of crooked lanes, bric-a-brac shops, and bustling antique and flea markets. Greenwich the "green village." Greenwich of the Queen's House, Old Royal Observatory, Gypsy Moth, Royal Naval College, the world's largest nautical museum, the Millennium Dome, and the Cutty Sark itself! Richard or Gillian or Nick or Chris or Hilary will turn the pages of its history for you. This walk takes place every Tuesday, every Thursday and every Sunday at 11:00am. N.B. The boat trip costs £4 (a good discount); Richard, Gillian, Chris, Nick or Hilary go with you on the boat. Return to top
THE
FAMOUS SQUARE MILE - 2,000 Years of History This is the great classic London Walk. It explores the very heart of the City - the most historic part of the capital. Threading their way through an intricate network of narrow alleys and cobble-stone lanes, Graham or June chronicle the 2,000 years of London's rich and tumultuous history. And illustrate it by drawing upon everything from street names to ancient customs to the frozen music of London's great buildings, among which are the ruins of the Roman Temple of Mithras, the Bank of England, the Lord Mayor's Mansion House, and ancient Guildhall. (The walk includes, whenever possible, a visit inside Guildhall!) This walk takes place every Thursday at 11:00am and every Sunday at 10:30am. Return to top
THE
BEATLES MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR Guided by "the pied piper of Beatlemania", this is a chance to Imagine Beatlemania and the Swinging 60s. It's a Magical Mystery Tour of the Beatles' London haunts: their Apple offices, where they played the famous rooftop session Paul McCartney's headquarters; and the world famous Abbey Road Studios and the Abbey Road crosswalk. Richard P., recaptures the era when London was the cultural capital of the world and the "Fab Four" were its rulers. This walk takes
place every Wednesday at 2:00pm N.B. We make a short tube journey to Abbey Road, so getting a Two Zone Travel Card is a good idea. Return to top
OLD
KENSINGTON - London's Royal Village Meet by the forecourt fountain in the shopping arcade just beyond the ticket barrier This one's special. It's rarely the first - or even the second or third walk people go on, but when they do get round to taking it, they often say it's the one they liked the most. And no wonder, because Royal Kensington is London at its best - picturesque, stimulating, and full of character. Its parts are as delightful as London can provide: everything from warmly handsome old Kensington Palace, home to Princess Margaret and the late Princess Diana, to Kensington Gardens (all meadows, shaded walks, bowers, and flower gardens, it might be the grounds of a stately home in some rural shire) to cobbled little soigne lanes and mews, girt with pretty cottages and charming old shops; and from millionaires' row and regal avenues to beautifully kept squares and a clutch of the world's greatest museums; let alone Europe's largest - and most breathtaking - roof garden, the secluded town house of the greatest Londoner of the 20th-century, an American president's flat, the most astonishing small literary house in the world, acres of gentility, and more history and colourful characters than you can shake a stick at. Afterward you can visit the State Apartments or take tea at the Orangery at Kensington Palace. This walk takes place every Thursday and every Saturday at 2:00pm. Return to top
"Kensington,
especially in a summer afternoon, has seemed to me as delightful as
any place can or ought to be, in a world which, sometime or other,
we must quit."
OLD
WESTMINSTER - 1,000 Years of History This is the cornerstone, the seminal London Walk. Miss it and you've missed London. For Old Westminster is London at its grandest: the place where kings and queens are crowned, where they lived, and often were buried. It's the forge of the national destiny, the place where the heart of the Empire beat, the Mecca of politicians throughout the ages. The past here is cast in stone and we take it all in: ancient Westminster Hall, the Houses of Parliament, the Jewel Tower, and Westminster Abbey. And to see it with a great guide is to have that past suddenly rise to the surface...like seeing a photographic print come up in a darkroom. It doesn't get any better than this. And embarras de richesse, we'll also explore the private face of Westminster - the London equivalent of Georgetown! Unlike the tourist hordes, we'll get to see the hidden and ever so picturesque Georgian back streets where all the political salons are! We end at the Cabinet War Rooms, the fortified bunker that housed Winston Churchill's centre of operations during the war. You'll get an extremely handsome discount on the price of admission if you want to visit the War Rooms. This walk takes
place every Tuesday and Thursday at 2:00pm; Return to top
WEST
SIDE STORY - A Village in the West End 2:00 pm Bond Street,
meet on the corner of Davies Street and Oxford Street Let us now praise a brilliant walk. Brilliant because of the sheer voltage of the finale: here is the loveliest set-piece in London, the final expression of a classical age, "a definition of western civilization in a single view". Brilliant because it's our greenest walk. Brilliant because it takes us into one of the private worlds that London excels in. Brilliant because there's no other neighbourhood in which the streets are so different from one another - it's like a series of flashbacks to every bit of old London you've ever seen. Brilliant because of the private mansion we'll go into for a quick look at a couple of world-famous paintings and a superb collection of armour. Brilliant, finally, because everything locks into place like the lines of a sonnet. This walk takes
place every Thursday at 2:00pm N.B. This is one of our "weather proof" walks - if the weather is completely foul, we'll spend more time in the gallery. Return to top
CHELSEA
- London's Riverside Village Chelsea is a many-hued prism! Here is the shale of the past, locked in the embrace of the Thames. And seeping through it - like shining rivulets - the avant-garde. Here is one of the grand set-pieces of London architecture: Wren's Royal Hospital. We'll go inside - cross a threshold into another era. Because the "pensioners" - old soldiers - are wearing 300-year-old uniforms, the garb of British soldiers - Redcoats! - in the 17th-century! Here is Whistler's Thames - best seen in the afternoon with the sun like a blob of melted butter burnishing the luminous water. Here is Sir Laurence Olivier's house - and Carlyle's - and Mick Jagger's - and Oscar Wilde's "Tower of Ivory" - for these village streets are as clamorous with great names as rooks in a wood. Here are artists' studios and the old Apothecary Garden that changed the course of American history and Sir Thomas More's church and Crosby Hall (historical frissons don't come any more intense - because Crosby Hall was built nearly 20 years before Columbus discovered the new world - and Richard III was staying in it when he heard the news about the little Princes in the Tower). N.B., this walk is substantially different from the Old Chelsea Village Pub Walk on Sunday nights. Return to top
IN
THE FOOTSTEPS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES "The game is afoot!" It's time to go sleuthing with Corinna or Jean and their Baker Street Irregulars! You'll explore an area whose "everchanging kaleidoscope of life" intrigued Holmes and Watson. You'll follow their adventures in Charing Cross, the Strand's gas-lit alleys, and Covent Garden with its Opera House and colourful market stalls, ending, where else? at the superb re-creation of Sherlock Holmes's study. Housed in the building immortalised in The Hound of the Baskervilles and featuring many artefacts donated by the Conan Doyle family, it's a place "where a dream becomes reality". And best of all, it's free to visit! N.B. This is a completely different walk from Tuesday's Sherlock Holmes walk. Return to top
"UPPER
CRUST" LONDON - and Classic Pubs This is the walk to finish the day in style. The neighbourhood is a must see, a movie-set corner of London. It's Upstairs-Downstairs land, profoundly English but also exotic. And what a cavalcade of residents: Maragret Thatcher, David Niven, Vivien Leigh, Lord Lucan, Mozart, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Omar Shariff, and other rare plumages.If you want to do some world class name dropping, this is the London neighbourhood to get to know! And because we're going to see it through the peep-hole - threading our way through its cobbled little lanes and mews - past secret escapes and vistas of sudden surprise - we'll make some wonderful discoveries. For good measure we'll call in at a couple of pubs that are small masterpieces - the haunts of those who know. (Food is available.)
"Everywhere
outside their houses are the citizens' gardens, side by side yet spacious
and splendid and set about with trees. There are also in the northern
suburbs of London splendid wells and springs with sweet healing, clean
water…[where]…crowds of schoolboys and students and young men of the
City take the air on summer evenings…The only plagues of London are
the immoderate drinking of fools and the frequency of fires."
THE
"UNDISCOVERED LONDON" PUB WALK To travel rather than be packaged - that's the name of the game. And here's the walk. It's one you go on because you want to see where it takes you. Because you really do want to discover. Because you want to see the London the hordes never get to see: old dockyards and twisty, crookbacked little alleys and pubs that are the real McCoy - London versions of "Cheers". Let alone the most heart-stopping view of the whole sweep of the river and its ancient city - all the more special because the last Londoners to walk along this stretch of the Thames would have been wearing periwigs, breeches, and buckle-shoes...and carrying snuff boxes. Yes, that's right, it's been 300 years since people were last able to go where we're going this evening. Cheers indeed! Return to top
GHOSTS
OF THE WEST END The West End of London comes alive at night. And so does its other population - its unearthly presences. You'd be well advised to look closely at the men and women we pass - for they say that half the people you see on the streets of London are ghosts! Particularly in the shadowy side streets and gas-lit alleys where we're going. Going in pursuit of the West End's rich tapestry of strange happenings: everything from the Man in Grey to the Strangler Jacket to Jack Lemmon's brush with the supernatural. Perchance you'll see the headless woman in moonlit St. James's Park. You'll certainly see the most haunted statue in London. But take heart, afterwards we'll renew our courage in a superb Georgian pub. This walk takes place every Monday and Thursday at 7:30pm. Return to top
JACK
THE RIPPER HAUNTS Please tread carefully
and keep away from the shadows - you are about to enter the abyss... He came silently out of the midnight shadows of August 31, 1888. Striking terror at the hearts - and throats - of raddled, drink-sodden East End prostitutes. Leaving a trail of blood that led...nowhere. Jack the Ripper! We evoke that autumn of gaslight and fog, of menacing shadows and stealthy footsteps as we inspect the murder sites, sift through the evidence - in all its gory detail - and get to grips, so to speak, with the main suspects. Enroute we'll steady our nerves in "The Ten Bells", the pub where the victims - perhaps under the steely gaze of the Ripper himself - tried to forget the waking nightmare. This walk takes place every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 7:30pm. This walk will not take place on December 24 or 25. N.B., Let's call a spade a spade. Going on Donald Rumbelow's walk is as close as you're going to get to nailing the Ripper. Donald is the author of the best-selling The Complete Jack the Ripper, the definitive book on the subject. In the words of The Jack to Ripper A to Z (the bible of Ripperology studies): "Donald Rumbelow is internationally recognised as the leading authority on the subject". The former Curator of the City of London Police Crime Museum and a two-time Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association, Donald is Britain's most distinguished crime historian. And I hasten add, he's not some dry-as-dust academic. He spent 25 years on the City of London Police Force - which in effect means you'll be taken over some of the most famous crime scenes in the world by a law enforcement professional. Oh and I almost forgot - he's also a professionally qualified Blue Badge Guide! But a word of warning: never part with your money or set off with anyone until you're absolutely certain you're with Donald or - if it's another night - one of his London Walks colleagues. Donald (and co.) will be holding up copies of the distinctive white London Walks leaflet. And remember, Donald and his colleagues never ever start the Jack the Ripper walk before 7:30pm. In short, don't let anyone mislead you. |
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