Museum of London

Guided Walks

Get walking and uncover London’s secrets!

From ancient ruins to modern day facades, London is a city of many stories. Join experts from the Museum of London and professional guides as they lead all kinds of special walks and visits with something in the programme for everyone. So put on your walking shoes and find out where a Museum of London walk will take you!

Booking

Book your place on a walk by calling 020 7001 9844. Our Box Office will advise you on booking where the walk will start from.

Saturday morning Soho

Sat 13 Feb, 10.30am – 12.30pm
Book in advance £8
Explore Soho at its least crowded. Stroll through the heart of the West End to Chinatown and Old Compton Street, discovering historic attractions and scandals. Find out more about the evocative heartland of London's entertainment district, from cinemas and theatres to clubs, pubs and characters.

Old Limehouse to Chinatown

Sat 13 Feb, 2-4pm - SOLD OUT. Due to demand a second walk has been added 10.30am-12.30pm
Book in advance £8
Aided by vintage photographs and his personal experiences, Brian Grover leads a tour through the streets of Limehouse, site of London's first Chinatown. Chinese sailors began to settle here in the 1880s and soon bestowed a distinctive character on the area. Limehouse became infamous as a haunt of opium fiends and criminal gangs, but was this reputation deserved? This walk reveals legacies of the old Chinatown and separates the myths from the truth about this fascinating part of East London.

Stories behind the stores

Sat 20 Feb, 11am – 1pm
Book in advance £8
Napoleon called the British 'a nation of shopkeepers' and today we are also a nation of shoppers. Our tour, in and around London's premier retail street, discovers how shopping has developed in London and small shops from centuries ago have become household names across the world. The tour includes the first store in London to allow browsing, an 'olde English sweet shoppe' and how to tell if the Royal Family shops at your favourite store. The walk also covers the development of shopping in the West End particularly department stores such as John Lewis, M&S, Selfridges and Debenhams. In between we hear about the impact of the tube, the growing middle classes and the facilities that women demanded when coming up to town to shop.

The London look 1700-2010

Sun 21 Feb, 2-4pm
Book in advance £8
At one and the same time, London has the reputation of classic conservative elegance in the bespoke craftsmanship of Savile Row suits catering for the 'English Gentleman' and for cutting edge street fashion for the young. Once the aristocracy came to town for the social Season, the market was created on which manufacturers and traders in fine bespoke goods depended. To the present day the quality of these classic, understated but perfectly cut bespoke is admired around the world. At the other end of the scale are the flourishing street fashions for which London is known – from punk to Gothic, from Stella McCartney to looks created by the young themselves. This walk takes in shops and outlets which reflect the development of and influences on fashion, particularly as worn in London.

Old Jewish East End

Fri 5 Mar, 11am – 1pm
Book in advance £8
The Jewish community may no longer live in Spitalfields but the streets and buildings still evoke memories of the synagogues, schools and soup kitchens. Leisure too with Yiddish theatre and the 'Vapour Baths', not forgetting the markets of Spitalfields itself and Petticoat Lane. Our walking tour also weaves in the stories of other immigrant communities such as the Huguenots and Bengalis who also made this area their home.

Stepney Way

Sat 6 Mar, 2-3.30pm
Book in advance £6.50
Walk leader Cwti Green guides this East End London walk that looks at the development of the suburbs outside the City of London. Learn how areas changed rapidly from quiet countryside to vibrant, exciting and sometimes dangerous places to live. Find out how industry, poverty, immigration, faith and crime impacted on the people who lived here and on their life chances.

Docklands art and architecture

Sun 7 Mar, 2.30-4pm
Book in advance £6.50
Docklands contains some of the most spectacular architecture in London, from the impressive early nineteenth century warehouses of the West India Company to the iconic No 1 Canada Square - the tallest building in Britain. View the two remaining great warehouses that survived the Blitz and now contain the Museum of London Docklands, as well as the old Ledger House where records were kept, the Dock constable houses, excise office and guard house. Cross onto Canary Wharf itself to discuss architecture ranging from the post-modern to state-of-the-art Modernist buildings by architects such as Norman Foster and Cesar Pelli. Gain an insight into the forces that have shaped the appearance of the Wharf today, from its tube stations to lamp posts and park benches. Discover works of art both in the squares and within the buildings themselves and a wonderful English-style country 'park' with a winding stream and elm trees.

Upstairs downstairs

Sat 13 Mar, 2.30-4.30pm
Book in advance £8
Belgravia is one of the most exclusive areas of London, but at the end of the nineteenth-century it was also home to an army of domestic servants, most of them women and girls. The basement stairs and attic windows of the grand houses are a reminder of when those in service 'lived at the top but worked at the bottom.' Join this tour that gives centre stage to the work and lives of cooks, maids and 'tweenies.'

Dockyard dictionary

Sun 21 Mar, 11am – 12pm & 1-2pm
Book in advance £5
Spoken-word artist Germander Speedwell marks World Poetry Day by leading a wordy wander around the docks, spotting nautical curiosities and performing en route her factual but fun pieces about the Thames and its dockyards. From ship names and shellfish to curious cargoes and strange occupations, Germander will explain many of the interesting examples of nomenclature and terminology she has found in the Museum of Docklands and elsewhere, and point out examples and evidence along the way. Germander Speedwell collects words and terminology on overlooked or unexpected subjects, and crafts these into spoken word pieces, in combinations that are packed with plosives, littered with alliteration, riddled with rhythm and resound with assonance. Her favourite subject areas are place names, natural history and nautical subjects, and she has researched and written many pieces about the Thames and Thames Estuary.

Theatreland

Sat 27 Mar, 2-4pm
Book in advance £8
Stroll through Theatreland in vibrant Covent Garden on World Theatre Day. Listen to stories of well-known actors who trod the boards as well as writers whose work was adapted for stage, screen and television. Learn more about writers like the ever popular Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and George Orwell as well as Noel Coward, Ivor Novello and Oscar Wilde. Promenade past West End theatres, the Royal Opera House and the London Colosseum and end up in the Piazza, where you can enjoy street performers, restaurants and shops.

Stoke Newington

Sun 28 Mar, 11am – 1pm
Book in advance £8
Find out how Stoke Newington grew from a small village on the edge of north London into a smart eighteenth-century suburb, attracting a large number of the capital's dissenting intelligentsia like Daniel Defoe, and educational pioneers like Letitia Barbauld. With its old sixteenth-century parish church, eighteenth-century parkland now a public space (Clissold Park), extraordinary non-denominational cemetery (Abney Park) and a high street with a provincial air, Stoke Newington now attracts a new fashionable set who continue this special history.

Islington for fun

Sat 10 Apr, 2-4pm
Book in advance £8
In the eighteenth century Islington was home to small pleasure gardens and spas, like Pentonville's Belvedere Gardens and the Islington Spa near Clerkenwell's Exmouth Market. The latter really took off when George II's daughter Princess Amelia became one of its regular visitors, and it renamed itself rather grandly the 'New Tunbridge Wells.' Nearby, Sadlers Wells grew from a small tavern by the New River into a popular entertainment spot, and is marked by the newly-rebuilt theatre in Rosebery Avenue. North of these, at the White Conduit house and garden, there is a link to modern day cricket and the birthplace of the MCC.

Royal Mint to Tobacco Dock

Sat 17 Apr, 11am – 1pm
Book in advance £8
Take a fascinating walk from the old Royal Mint buildings on Tower Hill, through the area of Cable Street and down into Tobacco Dock at Wapping. Look at the social history of an area once dominated by the river and the docks: from its famous parish church built by Nicholas Hawksmoor to the Ratcliff Murders of 1811, from seamen's missions and music halls, to memories of the infamous anti-fascist demonstrations of 1936 known as the Battle of Cable Street.

London on screen

Sun 18 Apr, 2.30-4.30pm
Book in advance £8
Follow in the footsteps of Jude Law, Hugh Grant, Ralph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rene Zellweger and other stars of the big screen to discover some of London's favourite film locations. The capital provides a backdrop for an increasing number of films and on this tour we visit old and new sites in the City and along the Thames, where movies such as 'Closer,' 'Four Weddings and a Funeral,' 'Bridget Jones' Diary' and 'Shakespeare in Love' were made. Find out how filming is arranged, the impact it has on the City, and the history behind selected sites that give a wider picture of London beyond the films.

Borough to Bermondsey

Sat 24 Apr, 11am – 1pm
Book in advance £8
Take an architectural walk from the Borough to Bermondsey. The Borough is experiencing a makeover with new residential, commercial and retail buildings. See how this area, once full of warehouses for the docks, is being transformed into a new cultural zone centred around the newest icon, the Shard.

Blood alley and beyond

Sun 25 Apr, 3.30-5pm
Book in advance £6.50
Historian S.I. Martin explores the galleries and grounds of the West India Docks, revealing stories behind their creation and the diverse communities that settled around them.

London’s bodies

Fri 30 Apr, 2-3.30pm
Book in advance £6.50
Throughout its long history, London has looked after its dead citizens more gently at times than at others. Under our feet, as we walk around the City and its surroundings, rest the remains of Londoners in single burials, plague pits and mass graves. Sometimes killed violently, sometimes interred with pomp and ceremony, they lie in churchyards, by the Thames, in Roman graveyards and medieval churches.

What's on