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PODCAST

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.

society & culture places & travel

All Episodes

00:15:25

London gets up a head of steam

London Walks ·

2025/11/29

On November 29th, 1814, in a cramped London workshop smelling of hot metal and wet ink, Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Bauer’s steam-driven printing press thundered into life – and the world quietly tipped into its modern age. The Times secretly ran its entire issue on this whirring mechanical wonder, doubling – no, quadrupling speed overnight. Londoners didn’t know it, but the very rhythms of their city – news, politics, scandal, the spread of ideas – had just been turned up a big notch. On the

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00:19:02

Hampstead’s Wicked Little Secret

London Walks ·

2025/11/28

Fade in. Church Row, Hampstead. Late Victorian London. A perfect Georgian house, all calm exteriors and candlelit windows. Inside, one of the most explosive figures of the age paces like a caged star. Bosie: aristocratic beauty, agent of chaos, lover and undoer of Oscar Wilde. This is the widescreen version. A story of forbidden passion, furious fathers, courtroom tragedy and a golden boy on the run from the chaos he helped create. Hampstead becomes a film set, and Bosie the dazzling, dangerous

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00:14:48

Tree-mendous London

London Walks ·

2025/11/27

Step into London at its most dazzling. From designer hotel lobbies to elegant Georgian squares, from grand department stores to quiet, candle-scented churches, the city becomes a forest of firs, each one dressed to the nines in baubles, ribbons, and stories. This is the tale of how Christmas trees travelled from the hearth fires of Germany to the palaces of Hanoverian royals and finally into the hearts of Londoners. It’s a romp through centuries of tradition, invention, and good old festive

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00:13:17

When Christmas Came Back to London

London Walks ·

2025/11/26

The year London got its Christmas back.

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00:14:05

Whodunnit, and Still Doin’ It

London Walks ·

2025/11/25

On November 25th, 1952, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap opened in a still-sooty, post-war London — and never stopped running. London Calling strolls down West Street to tell the tale of the world’s longest-running play: its famous first night, the legends behind the “Holman performances,” the stars who got their start, the stubborn little clock that’s ticked through seven decades, and why the curtain can never quite fall. A whodunnit that became a what-on-earth-keeps-it-going.

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00:13:46

The Day the Thames Stopped

London Walks ·

2025/11/24

Twice, on the same date 281 years apart, the River Thames froze solid – first in 1434, when London’s lifeline turned to stone, and again in 1715, when it became a carnival ground. From famine fears to frost fairs, this is the story of a city brought to a standstill by winter, and how Londoners turned disaster into revelry.

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00:14:07

Cutty Sark – the Ship that Raced the Wind

London Walks ·

2025/11/23

A high-speed voyage through the life and legend of the Cutty Sark – the world’s last surviving tea clipper and one of London’s brightest maritime icons. From her birth in 1869 on the Clyde to her record-breaking races home from China, we follow her glory days, decline, and resurrection in Greenwich. Along the way, we meet the Scots poet who named her, the witch who inspired her figurehead, and the sailors who made her the fastest thing under canvas. A story of craftsmanship, competition, and sheer

en-GB

00:15:09

London on the Day the World Changed

London Walks ·

2025/11/22

A turn through London as it was on 22 November 1963. Evening crowds spilling out of offices, Christmas lights warming up the West End, the city in its ordinary hum. Then the flash: the news from Dallas, arriving like a cold wind through pubs, Tube stations and shopfront radios. A portrait of London on the day it paused, listened and felt the shock of a distant tragedy ripple through its own streets.

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00:13:56

Empire in a Cup – How Tea Took Over Britain

London Walks ·

2025/11/21

Advancer for the distinguished diplomat Lisa Honan's Upcoming Empire in a Cup – the History of Tea Walk. A lively, anecdote-soaked ramble through the surprising story of how a humble leaf conquered Britain. From locked tea caddies and clipper ships to wartime tea stockpiles and family feuds over the proper order of milk, this is the tale of a drink that shaped a nation. A warm, cinematic wander steeped in history, charm, and the sort of fun only tea can brew.

en-GB

00:13:02

The Night the Darkness Lost

London Walks ·

2025/11/20

On the evening of 20 November 1944, after five long years of wartime blackout, London turned on a few of its street lights again. Londoners stepped out to see it for themselves, faces tilted up to lamplight they had almost forgotten. It was only a handful of streets, a tentative first step in a city still at war. But the glow above the pavements felt like a promise that the worst might finally be behind them.

en-GB

00:12:16

London, Caught in a Flurry

London Walks ·

2025/11/19

"I’m looking out the window and what do you know, it’s snowing. Yes, snowing. In November! Ok, it's just a few flurries, but the white stuff it is..."

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00:13:08

The Day London Stood Still – Wellington’s Last March

London Walks ·

2025/11/18

A brisk, atmospheric wander through the day the Duke of Wellington’s funeral stopped London in its tracks. The piece sweeps the listener into the crush of half a million Londoners lining the streets, the clatter of the colossal funeral carriage, and the peculiar mix of awe and disorder that only a Victorian spectacle could summon. It’s a story of a nation saying goodbye to its greatest hero, but also a peek at the London of 1852: smoky, chaotic, sentimental, and gloriously itself.

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00:18:32

Islington – London’s Sparkling Mischief Maker

London Walks ·

2025/11/17

A lively, anecdotal wander through the London Borough of Islington – from its Saxon beginnings as Giseldone, “the hill of Gisla,” to its current status as London’s most eclectic, outspoken patch of ground. Once rural pastureland where Londoners came for milk and fresh air, Islington grew into a hotbed of politics, art, and attitude. The piece takes readers down Upper Street and along the Regent’s Canal, past Bunhill Fields and the Emirates Stadium, pausing to salute the borough’s famous sons and

en-GB

00:13:22

Size Matters – the Rise and Fall of the Codpiece

London Walks ·

2025/11/16

A lively, irreverent romp through the history of the codpiece – that flamboyant flap of cloth that began as a modesty patch and ended up as the Renaissance’s most outrageous brag. From its humble medieval origins to its glorious, padded, jewel-encrusted heyday under Henry VIII, the piece traces how the codpiece became both fashion and farce, weapon and wink. Stuffed with anecdotes, double entendres, and a dash of scandal, it explores how this unlikely garment strutted its way through art, politics,

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00:12:03

Fortnum’s – The Unexpected Second Helping

London Walks ·

2025/11/15

Just when you thought the Fortnum’s Christmas tale was complete, the shop quietly unveiled its most spectacular secret in centuries. Hidden for two years behind a cheerful Zebedee Helm collage, a brand-new Double Helix Staircase has now risen at the heart of 181 Piccadilly. Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci and hand-built by master craftspeople in Sussex, it is part architectural marvel, part swirling artwork, and entirely Fortnum’s. This unexpected addendum returns us to Piccadilly for a second

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00:13:32

Fortnum & Mason – Where London’s Christmas Begins

London Walks ·

2025/11/13

This London Calling podcast opens with Fortnum & Mason glowing across Piccadilly like London’s Christmas signal flare. It introduces the store as the elegant grand duchess of Piccadilly, tracing its history from 1707 when William Fortnum and Hugh Mason turned candle stubs and ingenuity into a legendary shop. It goes on to sketch Fortnum’s reputation for refinement and playful luxury, from its royal associations to its famous hampers and teas. The Scotch egg origin story makes an appearance, along

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00:13:51

The King, the Booze-up and the Birth of Clapham

London Walks ·

2025/11/13

Clapham begins as a riverside outpost on the Archbishop’s side of the Thames, a little upstream from the City’s bustle. Its story kicks off with the memorable wedding feast of Osgod Clapa’s daughter, a moment of Anglo-Saxon high life set against reed thatch, woodsmoke and river mud. From there, the place grows by accretion and accident: manor lands, market gardens, pious foundations, and in time a Georgian dreamworld of airy squares where the great and the good came to polish their consciences. The

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00:15:37

From Chaos to Elegance – The Story of Art Deco

London Walks ·

2025/11/12

We begin on High Street Kensington, where two grand department stores – Barkers and Derry & Toms – stand as gleaming monuments to the Art Deco age. From there, it’s off on a journey through one of the most elegant design revolutions of the twentieth century. Art Deco: what it is, where it came from, what to look for. The clean lines, the geometry, the glamour – a “return to order” after the chaos of the Great War. Paris leads the dance, London joins in, and the world never looks quite the same

en-GB

00:10:38

Dickens’ London – The Real Thing, Not the Replica

London Walks ·

2025/11/10

There's a lot to be said for a journey into the real Dickens’ London – not the sanitised, stage-managed version you find in theme parks or TV reconstructions, but the city itself. The stones, the mist, the narrow courts where the man himself walked. It’s about how much of Dickens’ world is still here, hidden in plain sight – if you know where to look. The alleys that inspired him, the workhouses that haunted him, the law courts that fed his satire. We separate myth from memory and see how London

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00:14:46

William Hogarth – the Man Who Drew London Naked

London Walks ·

2025/11/10

It’s London, 1697 – the city bawling, bustling, brawling its way into the 18th century – and out of Smithfield mud and mischief comes William Hogarth, the man who drew London naked. This episode of London Calling follows the boy from Bartholomew Close who grew up to be the city’s mirror, moralist, and mischief-maker. From A Harlot’s Progress to Gin Lane, Hogarth painted a London of drunks, dreamers, rakes, and rogues – and in doing so, invented the modern comic strip, fought for artists’ rights, and

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