London Walks

The year London got its Christmas back.

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 curt...

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.

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...

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 street...

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 st...

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...

"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 a...

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...

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 entendre...

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...

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 roya...

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...

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...

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 t...

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, dreamer...

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...

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 sc...

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...

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 g...