London Walks

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 i...

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 t...

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 histo...

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,...

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 o...

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 Lo...

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 i...

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.

An exploration of what “Georgian” really means — the look, the feel, and the deeper story behind London’s calm, symmetrical 18th-century architecture.

Michaelmas Eve – when the year tips into the dark. The last geese sizzle, the last debts get squared, and the devil, they say, is out spitting on the blackberries. It’s a night for charms, for peering into bowls of water to see who you’ll marry – or if you’ll die – and for hoping St. Michael, sword flashing, is on duty. Because after tonight, the dark takes over.

Dan’s taking London’s Spymasters out for a spin this afternoon – so we couldn’t resist giving you a sneak preview. Picture him in Horse Guards Parade, spinning the yarn of Operation Mincemeat, weaving in the James Bond connection, and – just for good measure – putting us tantalisingly close to unmasking the real 007. Pull up a chair, lean in. Here’s Dan.

A night of fire. A very grand historic old house in ruins. And an image that came to define the Blitz

September 25, 1818 – the day London made medical history. Guy’s Hospital. A patient is bleeding out. London surgeon James Blundell rolls the dice on an untested idea: take blood from one person, inject it into another. No blood typing, no antiseptic, just urgency, ingenuity, and a syringe. Against the odds, the patient lives. We’ll meet Dr. Blundell, part mad-scientist, part visionary, who turned...

The wind howls, the candles gutter… London, 1717: a child is born beneath a sky that seems to know it’s witnessing trouble. He will grow up to conjure castles full of ghosts, corridors thick with secrets, and gossip sharp enough to draw blood.

On a hushed September morning in 1939, as war loomed over London, Sigmund Freud drew his last breath in Hampstead. This is the story of that extraordinary passing.

Right, gather round — this one’s a bit of a lucky dip. Here’s what’s rattling about in the bag: 📚 A cracking book recommendation from one of our celebrity guides — proper page-turner stuff. 🚶 A London Walk so good it’s gone — yep, Sold Out (but all is not lost). 🍜 A delicious little amuse-bouche from a Chef’s Tour in Kuala Lumpur — have a sniff, have a taste. 🇮🇹 An Italian guest’s rave review —...