London Walks

"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..."

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.

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 daughters – from John Wilkes to Johnny Rotten. It's part history, part love letter, full of wit, colour, and contradiction, capturing a place that has always refused to sit quietly while London goes about its business.

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, and amour before quietly retreating from the stage. A story of swagger, status, and sheer nerve – proof that in Tudor England, size really did matter.

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 helping, celebrating a staircase that is already becoming a landmark in its own right.

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 with a quick portrait of what makes the perfect one. The heart of the podcast is the store at Christmas, especially this year's spectacular displays. The windows are described as miniature theatrical worlds with whirling teacups, musical tins and a giant hamper that seems to open itself. The façade becomes a glowing advent calendar, and inside you step into a swirl of scent, sparkle and festive indulgence. For good measure the listener gets a suggested two-hour Fortnum's experience. First, slow, ceremonial browsing through the ground floor food hall and Christmas room. Then ascending for refined calm in the Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon for tea, cakes and a view over Piccadilly. Finally, a gentle wander back through the upper floors and out into the winter street. Podcast ends by declaring Fortnum & Mason the perfect opening chapter for a series on London's great Christmas shops.

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 Clapham Sect take the stage, plotting abolition and reform over prayer meetings and polite tea. Then comes the nineteenth century, the railways, the villas, the commuters, the whole swirling transformation of London pushing south. By the time we reach the present day, Clapham is a patchwork of leafy commons, handsome terraces, lively high streets and echoes of the visionaries who once made it a moral powerhouse.

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 again. There's a stop in Paris for a feast of Deco at the Louvre – and a little feast of another kind at Le Hangar, my favourite Paris restaurant – before we return home with news of new London Walks, new guides, and Christmas just beginning to sparkle

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 shaped Dickens, and how Dickens, in turn, helped shape London's image of itself.

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 showed us ourselves, warts and all. It's the story of London's first true visual journalist: sharp-eyed, streetwise, full of bite and wit. The man who proved a picture really can be worth a thousand sins.

Ann's at it again – prowling through London's backstreets, history purring at her heels. Her walk, A Cat Tails – A Feline Take on London History, is just what the city ordered: playful, surprising, and full of sharp little claws of insight. Expect stories of moggies and monarchs, ship's cats and literary felines, from alleyways to palaces. She'll be teasing out London's long, tangled relationship with the creatures who've ruled our hearths – and sometimes our hearts – for centuries. This is the advancer: a sneak peek before the cat's out of the bag.

It's November 8th, 1674. The rain drifts softly over London as the light fades early and a blind old poet slips away in Bunhill Fields. This London Calling podcast follows John Milton – born in Bread Street, schooled under St Paul's, hunted near St Bartholomew-the-Great, dictating Paradise Lost in Petty France – through the London of his life and death. We meet “the Lady of Christ's,” the young scholar who became the thunderous voice of English verse; the blind visionary who saw eternity more clearly than most. From the alleys of the City to the stained-glass glow of the Milton Window in St Margaret's, Westminster, it's a portrait of the Londoner who gave the world its most magnificent lines.

On Helen Suzman's birthday, David takes us from apartheid-era South Africa to Hampstead's Vale of Health – to the very house where Suzman's actress niece Janet Suzman lived with director Trevor Nunn. It's a story of courage, art, and a family of difference-makers who refused to take the easy script.

Meet the saint who looked after London's grafters – from blacksmiths to Shakespeare's mates.

From Saxon arches to Wren's soaring spire, from the rebel hanged at its doors to the golden dragon that's ruled the skyline for three centuries, St Mary-le-Bow has witnessed a thousand years of London life. Its bells gave birth to the Cockneys, its court judged the clergy, and its crypt hides a mystery stretching all the way to Wall Street. Fire, faith, riots and rebirth – this is the story of the church that quite literally defines London.

London Calling gets ambushed by events – from Dick Cheney's death to a hawk called Breeze patrolling Lincoln's Inn. A day of coincidences, literary echoes and London surprises, wrapped up with Francis Beaumont's poem On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey. Proof, if ever you needed it, that London never stops writing the script.

From couvre feu to Cockney – how St Mary-le-Bow's bells became the sound that shaped London's identity. Once they told Londoners to bank their fires; centuries later, they told Dick Whittington to turn again. These were the curfew bells, the comeback bells, the heartbeat of a city that never stops ringing.

Ann's Foodies London – The West End walk is coming up By way of an appetiser, she's whipped a little dish of culinary history (and nostalgia) for us. About Lyons' ice creams (this is their centenary, after all). And make not mistake, Lyons' ice creams were more than desserts – they were time capsules. From the Zoom rocket to the Fab lolly, each one tells a tale of pop culture, post-war hope, and good old British fun in the sun.

Every November, London flares with fireworks and half-forgotten history. London Walks Capo David traces the story behind the rhyme – Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Plot, and the strange endurance of a failed revolution. From the haunted cellars beneath Parliament to the Tower's shadowed ramparts, the ghosts of 1605 still stir. The gunpowder never exploded, but its charge is still humming under London's stones.

What is it about October 31st? This piece roams from Luther's hammer on a church door to the end of the Battle of Britain, from Houdini's final curtain to the Celtic bonfires of Samhain. It traces how Halloween began as an ancient threshold between worlds and became the world's biggest fancy-dress party. Along the way we glimpse Mexican marigolds, Austrian bread for ghosts, Japanese lanterns, and a universal truth: that once a year, humans everywhere like to dance with the dark and laugh at their fears. It's funny, atmospheric, and full of surprises – a story of thresholds, history, and a date that refuses to stay quiet.

Two parter today. Forget the fake cobwebs and the pumpkin punch – this is the real Halloween experience: history, mystery, and magic in the world's greatest treasure house. Guided by Marc – host of the award-nominated Extraordinary Stories of Britain podcast – you'll explore the British Museum after dark, when the crowds are gone and the marble whispers. From the Rosetta Stone to the Elgin Marbles, five thousand years of civilisation glow under the glass dome of the Great Court. Spine-tingling, civilised, unforgettable – it's Halloween the London Walks way. Followed by: Tucked behind Victoria Gate Lodge lies one of London's tiniest and most tender secrets – the Hyde Park Pet Cemetery. Born of a little girl's grief in 1881, it grew into a miniature city of marble headstones for beloved dogs, cats, parrots and rabbits. It's the Victorians at their most human – sentimental, heartfelt, and quietly profound. Join us among the mossy stones and whispering trees for a story of love, loss, and loyalty – a forgotten corner of London where even the ghosts have wagging tails.

Slip off Oxford Street and into another world – chandeliers, Rembrandts, and the best cakes in Marylebone. Housed in a stately mansion on Manchester Square, the Wallace Collection is London's most beautiful secret: an 18th-century treasure chest of art, armour, and elegance. A museum that still feels like a home – and, thanks to Rick Mather's sunlit café, the sweetest spot in the city for tea.

He gleams through the London fog – a man made of gold. The Albert Memorial isn't just a monument; it's a love story cast in marble and gold leaf. This episode of London Calling tells the tale of Queen Victoria and her beloved Albert – the earnest, intelligent prince who believed civilisation could be improved by plumbing and hard work – and how his death broke her heart so completely she built a temple to him in Kensington Gardens. It's absurd, magnificent, and completely sincere: London's grandest love letter.

They've already got the money, the houses, the jets – so why the fever when the bidding starts? Why the thrill of the gavel? In this Daily London Fix, we step inside Sotheby's, where wealth turns to theatre and possession becomes performance. From a Strand bookseller's auction in 1744 to today's multimillion-pound spectacles, it's part ritual, part sport, part confession. And – grace notes before the curtain falls – we discover why it's called Sotheby's, and why the man bringing down the hammer is, delightfully, named Barker.

The world's most famous auction house was born on a quiet London street. From polite Georgian book sales to multi-million-pound bidding wars, Sotheby's has mirrored the city's rise from mercantile capital to cultural powerhouse.

October 25th — St Crispin's Day. On this date in 1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, London's first great poet, breathed his last. Fifteen years later, on another St Crispin's Day, Henry V's tiny army triumphed at Agincourt. Two centuries after that, Shakespeare turned that muddy field into legend with “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...” This episode of London Calling links those moments – Chaucer's passing and his London voice, Shakespeare's stage thunder, and the date that binds them. A tale of bells, battles, and words: how the vintner's son and the glover's son together made English – London English – the language of poetry and power.

United Nations Day, a Westminster hall… and a secret Roman flogging and beheading kit. Only in London.

Tapas time on today's London fix – a double act. We begin in Smithfield with the redoubtable Jonathan, guiding us through London's old killing ground, where the condemned met gruesome ends. Then David takes up the thread – from the execution ground to the digital gallows. The former Duke of York has been “unduked”; online the dead are “unalived”; the countryside is “UnLondon.” Welcome to the Age of Un – a wry look at our binary, reversible century, where everything can be done, undone, and done again.

Three “newly discovered” chapters of 1066 and All That – on the railways, the internet, and the French – lead to the story of W. C. Sellar, the quiet Scottish schoolmaster who co-wrote one of the funniest books in the English language. From a Gladstone joke in Brent to a trail that runs all the way to Edinburgh, it's a very London tale of humour, history, and happy accidents.

Brent – the Borough with the oldest name and the youngest spirit. Named for the ancient River Brent – a Celtic word meaning “holy” or “high” – this is a borough where history hums beneath the pavements. From the roar of Wembley to the quiet grace of St Andrew's Church, from the marble splendour of the Neasden Temple to the laughter spilling out of Kilburn's Irish pubs, Brent is London in miniature: diverse, layered, endlessly alive. It's where A. A. Milne met Winnie-the-Pooh, where Gladstone debated the Irish Question, where the Golden Retriever was born, and where the world still comes to play. Short name, long story, big heart.

London runs on rails – and we've got a new tour that explores London's railway stations. Distinguished railway historian Christian Wolmar and elite London guide Sam Jacobs take us on an all-day journey through the city's iron arteries: from Shoreditch to Paddington, from Victorian grandeur to modern revival. Part history, part adventure, it's London seen through its railway termini – the people, the power, the ambition, and the steam that made the city move.

Story time, history time – and this one's about the storytellers themselves. In this episode of Londerful, London Walks introduces Jonathan, the so-called “new boy” who's been guiding for four years and already won hearts. Warm, witty, and passionate, he's the kind of guide who turns facts into discoveries.

At the Savoy Hotel, superstition and style sit side by side – and the proof's in the cat. Meet Kaspar, the sleek black feline carved to save diners from the curse of thirteen at table. Born of tragedy in 1898 and still dining in style more than a century later, Kaspar has shared a table with Churchill, survived a wartime kidnapping, and become the Savoy's most charming guest. This is London at its best: polished, peculiar, and purring with stories.

Seventh-century saint meets secret London. This episode follows St Etheldreda – or St Audrey – from her royal beginnings in the Fens of Ely to her hidden London church in Ely Place, Holborn. We explore the legend of her incorrupt body, the feast that became tawdry, and the medieval enclave that once stood beyond the City's law. Shakespeare's bishops, bombings, beadles, and even a relic of her hand all make an appearance in this vivid talk through holiness, history, and hidden London.

One night. One storm. Winds near a hundred miles an hour. London wrecked, trees flattened, Britain humbled. The Great Storm of '87 – the night we all remember.

Camden's not just a postcode – it's a state of mind. From the quiet grace of Bloomsbury's squares to the glorious bedlam of Camden Market; from the high wildness of Hampstead Heath to the learned hush of Museum Mile – this is the borough that can keep you busy for a lifetime. In this episode, we go exploring: parks, markets, music, museums, canals, cafés, and everything in between.

From the barristers of Holborn to the buskers of Camden Lock and the poets of Hampstead, this episode climbs right through London's social landscape. Along the way we meet the borough that built better homes for its people, raised its rates for beauty's sake, and made “progressive” a point of civic pride. Radical politics, visionary housing, the ghosts of railways and revolution – Camden's story is London's story, all packed into eight and a half square miles.

In the inaugural Get to Know Your London episode, we land in Camden – and David takes us on a visual decoding of the borough's logo. You've seen it a hundred times on street signs – that little green circular symbol above the word Camden. Most people assume it's a recycling logo. It isn't. Look closer. It's actually four pairs of hands, thumbs almost touching, arranged in a circle. They're meant to symbolise connection – the borough and its community linked hand in hand. The official line says they stand for unity, giving, receiving, and voting. But of course, there's the droll, alternative reading – that it looks like a green elephant's foot. Or perhaps the footprint of the Abominable Snowman. A bit of wry humour tagged onto a municipal design – classic London.

A Sunday snapshot of London in 1975 – Harold Wilson in Downing Street, inflation roaring, Bowie on the airwaves, and a bomb that failed to explode in Westminster. From the smell of petrol and vinegar on the streets to Routemasters, Reliant Robins, and 25p fish-and-chips, this is the city as it really was: battered, brave, and brilliantly alive.

In this episode, Dr Ann Gandhi introduces us to Mahatma Gandhi as we've never met him before – in Tavistock Square, in words that bring him vividly to life. David steps in with his reflections, Adam stirs things up with a seasonal tipple, and together they serve a heady mix of history, humanity, and the best eggnog recipe in London.

Today's London Calling is a double treat. First up, Adam tears into the London Calling Book Club Corner with a book so gripping you'll be ordering it before he's finished talking. Then Dr Ann takes the baton for a taster from her brand-new walk, Nooks & Crannies – Unseen Covent Garden. Books, ghosts, hidden corners – London doesn't get better than this.

Dr Ann's What's the Big Idea Walk takes you through Bloomsbury's squares – the cradle of modern thought. Where ideas were born, challenged, took shape, and still reverberate. A walk as stimulating as the minds that inspired it.

An October evening City of London excursion that begins at the 17th-century Monument and winds through Philpot Lane (where it takes in London's tiniest sculptures) and then on to Leadenhall Market's Victorian splendour before arriving at the modern marvel of the Leadenhall Building – the “Cheesegrater.” The piece tells the story of the building's design, nickname, height, and views, blending history and anecdote with the experience of going up to its soaring upper floors. It's a love-letter to London's layers – from Wren's column to Rogers' skyscraper – all encountered in one golden City evening.

A lively, anecdotal wander through the creamy world of stucco — the material that gave London's grand western terraces their smooth Italianate glamour. From its humble mix of lime and sand to its starring role in John Nash's Regent's Park and Little Venice, this is the story of how plaster and paint pulled off one of the greatest visual conjuring tricks in urban history: turning brick into marble, speculation into splendour, and Paddington into “Venice.”

Gazumped. London Calling's on the case. Sniffs out one of the great London words – gazump! From its East End Yiddish roots to its 1970s rebirth in the city's cut-throat property market, this is the story of how a market-stall cry for “don't get swindled!” became the headline-grabbing curse of London homebuyers. It's a word that sounds like what it means – half comedy, half cruelty – and it could only have been born in London. Pointer David's on the scent again, and he's tracked down a linguistic gem that's equal parts etymology, history, and sheer London mischief.

London told through the creatures that know it best: the rat in the tunnel and the dog on the lead. From the sewers to the parks, from Herbert's scuttling hordes to Ann's faithful pack, this is the secret animal history of the capital – cheeky, vivid, and unmistakably alive.

When Alison leads her Old Palace Quarter Walk into Pickering Place – that exquisite little centuries-old courtyard off St James's Street – a sharp-eyed walker spots a mysterious oval plaque numbered 8100. What is it? Not a relic, not a door number, but a clue to one of London's best-kept secrets: the city's living network of gas lamps.

October 1956: the Bolshoi Ballet lands in London with 80 tons of scenery, KGB minders in tow, and a troupe led by Galina Ulanova and Maya Plisetskaya. Covent Garden reels at their scale and power – 45 minutes of applause, queues in the rain, a stage too small for their vast sets. Meanwhile, across Europe, the Hungarian Uprising explodes. Ballet, politics, glamour, tanks — three weeks that shook London and rewrote the story of British ballet.

October 2nd, 1925: four covered-top double-deckers debut on the Elephant to Epping route, drawing queues of curious Londoners. A century later, their descendants — 8,800 buses, 6,000 of them double-deckers — knit the capital together with 5 million journeys a day and 300 million miles a year. From four pioneers at the Elephant to a red fleet that could lap the Earth 12,000 times or reach the Sun in four months — London's buses aren't just transport. They're a solar-system-sized lifeline, a cosmic commute.

On section 13 you get the best view in London from here on earth...it's unrivalled, it's very high, it's an amazing view

September 30 twice marked history. In 1938, Chamberlain promised “peace for our time.” Eight years later, in 1946, the Nuremberg judges delivered guilty verdicts on Nazi leaders. Hope and reckoning – two dates, one day, history's cruel symmetry.