The Daily Constitutional from London Walks®

London Spy 310112

2012-01-31T17:00:00.000Z

Five Headlines.

Five Stories.

Five Minutes.

The Daily Constitutional's Round Up Of London In The News.

LOCAL ISSUES: Funding Cut For Award-Winning Kilburn Adventure Playground – Kilburn Times

ARCHITECTURE & PLANNING: The New Exhibition Road – The Guardian

HERITAGE: Mediaeval Barn Saved – BBC

THEATRE: Record-Breaking West End Audiences – The Independent

OLYMPICS: Enjoy London Without A Ticket – The Times Of India

The London Reading List No. 29

2012-01-31T10:46:00.000Z

Tuesday is great London books day on The Daily Constitutional. Give us your own recommendations at the usual email address

Adam writes… The graphic novel makes its debut on our London Reading List!

When talking to London Walkers out there on our walking tours, I am always pleased to get a recommendation for something new and London-flavoured to read. Over the years the title that has come up more often than any other has been The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
By Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill

It is the fag end of the 19th Century and the Empire is in peril. The new century looms and with it a new world order armed with an alarming array of new fangled machines of evil. Only the most extraordinary characters can save us now…

As a blend of fact and fiction, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen would be fun enough. The added dimension of mingling fictional characters of the past with newly minted creations, however, creates a new level of fascination. The interweaving of adventure story and Alternate History adds further piquancy. The project’s crowning glory, however, is that it can blend these already tantalizing elements with a further cocktail all its own – that of words (By Alan Moore) and dazzlingly crafted visuals (courtesy of Kevin O’Neill).

“What makes a graphic novel different from a mere comic?” is the commonly asked question. Simply the richness, depth and multi-leveled approach as detailed above. If all this makes it sound heavy weather, lumpen with clod-hopping cross references and literary namedrops, then perhaps now is the time to point out that it’s also rattling good fun, fast paced and thoroughly exhilarating. The reader need not get a single one of the references either to 19th Century fiction or the history of the fin de siècle period in which the action is set. The narrative itself is enough to awaken the swashbuckler in even the most jaded reader.

Our heroes – the League of the title (including one Extraordinary woman) – are characters from 19th century adventure fiction. Mina Murray (Dracula’s Mina Harker reverted to her maiden name), Alan Quartermain (of King Solomon’s Mines fame), Captain Nemo (from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), Doctor Jekyll (and therefore Mr Hyde from the imagination of R.L Stevenson) and Hawley Griffin (AKA Wells’s The Invisible Man).

The members are recruited by Campion Bond (an original character to the novel, but the grandfather of James Bond) of British Intelligence to help save the British Empire from the combined evils of Fu Manchu and Professor Moriarty.

London as a backdrop is lovingly detailed. The League hole-up at The British Museum; Limehouse is home to the evil Fu Manchu’s lair; the doss house that Quartermain and Murray investigate has separate entrances for men and women – exactly like the one that can still be seen on our Jack The Ripper walk.

Such attention to detail elevates this work to a level way above my preconceptions of the graphic novel – and in finally reading it I have learned what millions of graphic novel aficionados have known for years. This is so much more than a comic.

If You Do One OTHER Thing in London This Week…

2012-01-31T06:00:00.001Z

Our weekly slot in which we point you in the direction of other great happenings and events in our great city. A new exhibition, a gig, a museum, a pop-up-shop – the best of London within a few minutes of a London Walks walking tour.

We mentioned this a couple of weeks ago – but we think it's worth repeating! London Walks walkers can get a whopping 20% discount on the admission to the Museum of London’s Dickens & London Exhibition.

For more info on the discount, click HERE.

For more on the exhibition, click HERE.

In and Around London... West Of The Bars

2012-01-30T09:44:00.002Z

Monday is mute on the London Walks Blog (well, almost mute) – because Monday is the day when we post five images captured in and around London by London Walks Guides, London Walkers and Facebook friends. Collated on a theme or an area, if you've got some great shots of our capital and want to join in send your pictures to the usual address.

This week’s shot were captured near the start of the West Of the Bars walk on Saturday 20th January. They are the work of London Walker Tony Makepeace who has a number of albums captured on London Walks at his Flickr page. You can view his pics HERE.

Thanks for shooting – and thanks letting us post them here on our blog Tony!

London Spy 290112

2012-01-29T17:00:00.000Z

Five Headlines.

Five Stories.

Five Minutes.

The Daily Constitutional's Round Up Of London In The News.

SHOWBIZ: Diamonds Are For Never Say Spice Girls? Daily Mirror

ROYALS: Baby On Hold Until After Olympics, Jubilee? Daily Mail

FASHION: Stella McCartney at Selfridges – Vogue

FOOD: Save Gabi’s Deli! – Daily Telegraph

LANDMARKS: Bollards of London Reaches 200! – www.bollardsoflondon.co.uk

Thanks To All London Walkers...

2012-01-29T13:00:00.001Z

...who joined us on the Free Walks this weekend in association with Walk London.

This cheery bunch (above) are pictured at the end of this morning's Subterranean London walk.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Tenter Ground: The Saturday Street

2012-01-28T10:46:00.000Z

The Saturday Street is our weekly series in which we unlock the stories behind the names of London's famous thoroughfares. It's compiled by London Walks guide Karen – listed by Travel + Leisure magazine as The World's Greatest Tour Guide. You can find Karen on Saturdays guiding her Old Westminster and British Museum walks. If you've got a London street query or suggestion, email Karen at the usual address

Tenter Ground E1
Location: Spitalfields

The name is derived from an area once used for drying newly manufactured cloth. The wet fabric was hooked on to frames called tenters and stretched tight so that it would dry flat. It is from this process that the phrase “to be on tenterhooks”, i.e. the feeling of being suspended in a sense of great tension, is derived.

Tenter Ground is in Spitalfields an area famed for its weaving and cloth making heritage.

London Spy 270112

2012-01-28T06:00:00.000Z

Five Headlines.

Five Stories.

Five Minutes.

The Daily Constitutional's Round Up Of London In The News.

DESIGN: Classic Underground Poster – Going Underground Blog

TRAVEL: Air Fares – Beware The Tax – USA Today

PHILOSOPHY: Atheist Temple For London – The Guardian

MUSEUMS: Commonwealth Institute Revived as New Design Museum – World Architecture News

LONDON LANDMARKS: Rio De Janeiro In North London? – The Daily Mirror

Something For The Weekend…

2012-01-27T16:33:00.001Z

Bombing with Banksy and Co. – Graffiti & Street Art in Shoreditch takes place at 10.45 am on Sunday, January 29th. Meet Pepe outside the Bishopsgate exit of Liverpool StreetTube.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE at www.walks.com

Plaque of the Week No.104: Bentley

2012-01-27T10:46:00.000Z

Our Favourite Shops No.4

2012-01-26T11:00:00.000Z

Every Thursday we bring you The Daily Constitutional guide to the best of London shopping – independent, one man- and one-woman bands, unique boutiques, singular emporia and London institutions.

These are our favourite shops. To nominate your favourite shop for inclusion send us an email with a short description and a brief reason why you think it is the best shop in London.

The Button Queen

What: Buttons, buttons and more buttons

Where: 76 Marylebone Lane W1

Why: What links the following: Domed; Half ball; High ball; Double flats; Madeleine?

Architectural terms? Sports jargon? Cocktails?

None of the above, thanks for asking. They’re all button coverings.

London has one shop specializing in antique and modern buttons – The Button Queen in Marylebone. Establishments such as The Button Queen remind us why Johnson’s oft-abused dictum – “for in London there is all that life can afford” – gets trotted out after every meal and twice before bedtime.

A shop dedicated entirely to buttons. What a delight.

A London institution, the business moved to Marlborough Court just off Carnaby Street in the late 60’s under the auspices of Toni Frith, the original Button Queen. Moves to St Christopher’s Place and latterly Marylebone Lane followed, as did celebrity clientele such as Shirley Bassey and Bob Hope.

Still going strong, you can find The Button Queen at 76 Marylebone Lane W1U 2PR. Call them on 0207 935 1505 or visit their website www.thebuttonqueen.co.uk.

Keep it in mind. And next time the conversation turns to matters of haberdashery, you can say, “I know just the place” with a great deal of satisfaction.

2012-01-26T10:45:00.000Z

Five Headlines.

Five Stories.

Five Minutes.

The Daily Constitutional's Round Up Of London In The News.

SHOPPING: Special Offers At the V&A Shop – V&A E-Newsletter

RESTAURANT REVIEW: East At 34 – The Guardian

EXHIBITIONS: Animal art At The Grant Museum – Culture 24

BEER: Help Find A Home For Truman’s Beer! – Truman’s Beer Website

SPORT: Synthetic Pitch For Saracens Rugby? – Daily Telegraph

Après Walk

2012-01-26T01:57:00.006Z

Here's an example of a new feature that's going to be worked into the weave of the "mothership" - www.walks.com - and that should prove more than a little useful for London Walkers. Called Après Walk - or in Tom's case here Après le tour - it's a quick, guide-written "guide" to a few of the local possibilities (refreshment, cultural, etc.) in the neighbourhood where any given London Walk finishes. This is the one Tom's banged out for Après his Tuesday morning Behind Closed Doors walk (which goes at 10.30 am from Covent Garden Tube).

Après le tour

Behind Closed Doors
Nearby Fleet Street is littered with lunch opportunities, including three famous pubs. Ye Old Bank of England, now a pub, was once a branch of the Bank, located close to the law courts allegedly so they could get the Government its money when it won caes. It's close to the fabled site of Sweeney Todd's barber shop and naturally has a good range of pies. Further along is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese where Charles Dickens raised a glass or two and Le Coq tavern. El Vino wine bar looks as if it could have come out of Rumpole of the Old Bailey whilst off the beaten track in Carey Street, behind the Courts, is the little Seven Stars which is a 'gastro-pub', 410 years old this year.

For additional cultural experiences, a short distance away is Somerset House, home to the Courtauld Institute, one of the best small galleries in Europe. Its renowned collection includes famous worked by Manet, van Gogh, Gaugin, Monet and Degas. Close by why not also visit the spectacularly restored 19th century Kings College, Chapel?

Happy Birthday Robert Burns

2012-01-25T08:41:00.001Z

For Burns Night – the annual celebration of the birth of Scotland’s national poet…

A bench down Richmond way, on the bank of the River Thames.

“A Scotsman and a Londoner” – five words that also sum up The Daily Constitutional’s Editor perfectly. Happy Burns Night to one and all.

Streets Ahead

2012-01-24T14:46:00.012Z

Streets Ahead is the new occasional column from London Walks' Pen David Tucker…

Here's David - hoeing away (again) at our row…

A great walking tour is an education. (Okay, a mini education.) You see things you won't have seen before.* And you learn things - interesting things. The unknown is suddenly - satisfyingly - "shown". Things - and the way they fit together - snap into focus.

Sometimes it's a literal, physical, "facts on the ground" thing. Getting the vantage point exactly right. Getting you, for example, to the exact spot, the only spot, where you can see - can understand, can grasp - the magnitude of the Londinium fort, the Roman fort. The which is the necessary prelude to the follow-up: the full implications of that "picture".

Sometimes it's purely mental derring do. An example? The extraordinary linguistic connection between London's guilds, the world of academia, and knights in shining armour. Comes up on my Shakespeare's and Dickens' Old City walk.**

And as for a parting shot about a walking tour being a (mini) education, try this for size. Both of the examples - the lingistic and the physical (the "vantage point" example) - are from my (David's) Shakespeare's and Dickens' Old City walk. (Yes, the old Roman fort has a cameo role in that walk.) But what else would you expect given that Shakespeare was the first author to use the word "educate" in its "to provide schooling" sense? "Do you not educate youth at the Charg-house on the top of the Mountaine?" (Loves Labours Lost, v. i. 77)

*Even if you've been there before - and how satisfying is that!

**And, yes, this is just a hint, a whiff. Necessarily so. You want to tuck into this dish properly you'll have to come on the walk. Not being cagey here. It's simply a question of not handing things on a plate (so to speak) to the knock-offs.

Kensington Gore: The Saturday Street

2012-01-21T09:40:00.000Z

The Saturday Street is our weekly series in which we unlock the stories behind the names of London's famous thoroughfares. It's compiled by London Walks guide Karen – listed by Travel + Leisure magazine as The World's Greatest Tour Guide. You can find Karen on Saturdays guiding her Old Westminster and British Museum walks. If you've got a London street query or suggestion, email Karen at the usual address

Kensington Gore
Location: Kensington

Gore is defined loosely as “a narrow strip of land” and was once a royal possession – the modern name may grow from Kyngsgore. In theatrical circles it is a punning name for a trademark brand of fake blood for use on stage and in special effects.

Plaque of the Week No.103: Edward R. Murrow

2012-01-20T10:47:00.004Z

You've seen them all over the city: discs, tablets, cameos and plaques commemorating the great and the good of London Town. Friday is our new day for tracking down London plaques (Blue or otherwise) and putting them centre stage on the Daily Constitutional. This week…

103: Edward R. Murrow

Where: 84 Hallam Street, Westminster

Edward R. Murrow (1908 – 1965), the American broadcast journalist who worked at CBS for his entire career, moved to London in 1937 to head up the network’s European operations.

During the war he reported on air from Blitz-beleaguered London. He is famed in both broadcasting circles and the folklore of World War Two for his famous intro and sign off.

His broadcasts always began with the words “This… is London” – always with a slight, but dramatic pause after the word “This”. There were few places more dramatic than London in 1940.

His sign off is equally famous: “Good night. And good luck.”

Murrow’s ear had been caught with the oft-repeated simple phrase “good luck”, which was appended to many a conversation at the height of The Blitz – a time when Londoners knew not what the night would bring, or indeed if that would ever usher in a morning. Even Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) had used it in a radio broadcast (“good night and good luck to you all”). Murrow incorporated it as an off the cuff ad-lib in 1940 and a catchphrase was born.

Our Favourite Shops No.3

2012-01-19T16:00:00.001Z

Every Thursday we bring you The Daily Constitutional guide to the best of London shopping – independent, one man- and one-woman bands, unique boutiques, singular emporia and London institutions.

These are our favourite shops. To nominate your favourite shop for inclusion send us an email with a short description and a brief reason why you think it is the best shop in London.

3. Marchpane

What: Children’s Bookshop

Where: 16 Cecil Court WC2

Why: Marchpane is no ordinary children’s bookshop. It specializes in secondhand first and collectible editions. What better gift than a first edition of a loved one’s favourite book from childhood? What better way to introduce a child to that favourite book than with a colourful classic edition?

The proprietor also has a wonderful weakness for punk rock, which results in the odd copy of the rare punk fanzine Sniffin’ Glue nestling in amongst the Winnie The Pooh’s. Bargains are to be found on the outside table, everything from old copies of Living London magazine to lobby cards from famous movies. And where else can you pose the question, “How much is that Dalek in the window?” Yes, a real Dalek. Sadly, it’s not for sale, but it adds to the unique atmosphere of this great bookshop.

Web: www.marchpane.com

God Save The Cabbage

2012-01-19T08:59:00.002Z

Fascinating Ann is at it again. Her next Foodie Walk goes on Saturday 21st January. Here’s an appetiser…

“January. Time to perhaps regret that extra mince pie, and the second helping of pudding. Time then to celebrate that seasonal vegetable, the January King. The King is a cabbage – and before you dismiss it as fodder for school dinners, remember that the Egyptians thought cabbage was a hangover cure (eat a lot of cabbage before you start drinking).

Cabbage has been around for around 4000 years. It was peasant food in this country in the Middle Ages, and later Battersea became known for its cabbages. A visitor from Venice in the C17 went into raptures about their quality: ‘I think I have already mentioned the size of the cabbages, which sometimes weigh 35 lbs. the pair, to such an enormous size do they grow.’

And, of course, it’s good for you – lots of vitamin C, hardly any calories. Hence the appearance of cabbage soup as a miracle diet. Perhaps the weight loss occurs when you get so sick of your dinner consisting of a bowl of cabbage soup.

So go and buy a January King – and if you don’t want to eat it, just keep it in the kitchen for decoration. A surprising number of artists have done it justice– shades of green just tipped with purple, a firm shiny heart, and frilly outer leaves.

And for your next pub quiz, which country produces the most cabbage? Answer: China, with 36 million tonnes – runner up is India with 5 million tonnes.

And there'll be more fodder for a foodie pub quiz on my Foodies walk on Saturday. Join me at 10.00am on January 21st, Monument Tube, Fish Street Hill exit.”

For a YouTube preview of Ann’s Foodie Walks, click HERE

London Spy 190112

2012-01-19T08:51:00.002Z

Five Headlines.

Five Stories.

Five Minutes.

The Daily Constitutional's Round Up Of London In The News.

THEATRE: The Old Vic In New York – The New York Times

FOODIE LONDON: Chinese New Year Dining – Evening Standard

CULTURE: Get Kids Into Museums Campaign – Culture24

EXHIBITIONS: Captain Scott At The Natural History Museum – Daily Telegraph

TRANSPORT: West End Parking Ban Overturned – BBC

In and Around London... Three Over, One Under, One Gone

2012-01-16T10:46:00.000Z

Monday is mute on the London Walks Blog (well, almost mute) – because Monday is the day when we post five images captured in and around London by London Walks Guides, London Walkers and Facebook friends. Collated on a theme or an area, if you've got some great shots of our capital and want to join in send your pictures to the usual address.

Three Over: Views from London bridges on a gloriously sunny winter day last week.

One Under: An eerily empty Woolwich foot tunnel beneath The Thames.

One Gone: London Walker Michelle Seidel sends us a shot of the old London Bridge now in Arizona (scroll down to picture no.5). Thanks Michelle! See you soon.

Michelle writes: “London Bridge, Lake Havasu AZ. This tiny town has a bridge that was dismantled from England, its own Occupy protest still underway (4 people) and a yoga studio next door to a gun store.”

Goswell Road: The Saturday Street

2012-01-14T10:46:00.000Z

The Saturday Street is our weekly series in which we unlock the stories behind the names of London's famous thoroughfares. It's compiled by London Walks guide Karen – listed by Travel + Leisure magazine as The World's Greatest Tour Guide. You can find Karen on Saturdays guiding her Old Westminster and British Museum walks. If you've got a London street query or suggestion, email Karen at the usual address

Goswell Road, EC1
Location: The Borough of Islington & The City of London

Takes its name from a garden named Goswelle owned by the Earl of Suffolk. Mr Pickwick lodged here in Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers (when it was known as Goswell Street), but the road is most comment worthy as the thoroughfare that scuppers the old chestnut about there being “No roads in The City of London”, i.e. no highways named “road”. In truth Goswell Road cuts through the north eastern corner of The Square Mile.

Font Of All Knowledge…

2012-01-13T19:03:00.001Z

Here’s Ann, on a different blog beat to the one you’re used to reading…

When you’re reading a book, do you ever think about the type face in which it’s printed? The font used for tube stations and on the buses? Or even Times New Roman, the type face being used for this blog. Maybe you listened to ‘Just My Type’ last month, Radio 4’s book of the week, and heard that Steve Jobs was the man responsible for offering such a choice of fonts on computers.

Come to Hammersmith on a typographical adventure and hear about the designer of that London Underground font, and his neighbour who 100 years ago created one of the most beautiful typefaces ever used. Here’s a sample:

And visit the house of a man better known for wallpaper and Socialism than for printing. But William Morris set up his private press in Hammersmith – and you will see one of the actual presses on which Kelmscott Pressbooks were printed.

Join Ann with William Morris and Friends, Saturday January 14, 2 pm, meeting at Stamford Brook tube.

Plaque of the Week No.102: Brian Epstein

2012-01-13T10:46:00.000Z

You've seen them all over the city: discs, tablets, cameos and plaques commemorating the great and the good of London Town. Friday is our new day for tracking down London plaques (Blue or otherwise) and putting them centre stage on the Daily Constitutional. This week…

In the month that sees the anniversary brouhaha start all over again for The Beatles – it was 50 years ago this January that they came to London for the unsuccessful Decca audition – we remember the man without whom…

Brian Epstein was The Beatles' manager and the man who polished them up for fame. The Fifth Beatle? Well that particular parlour game can rage into the small hours – what about George Martin? Neil Aspinall? And on and on…

Upon Epstein’s death in 1967 George Harrison said, “He was one of us.” John Lennon described him as “an intuitive theatrical guy”. Paul McCartney once said that “Brian was very much part of the group”. And there seems little doubt that Epstein’s theatrical nous was invaluable to The Beatles' rise in the staid world of early 1960s show business.

His first office in London was at Seven Dials, in modest Monmouth Street in London’s West End, a hop-skip-and-jump from Denmark Street, London’s Tin Pan Alley. And it is in Monmouth Street where his plaque can be found. It was unveiled by his other long-lasting protégé Cilla Black.

For more legends of rock'n'roll see the Rock'n'Roll London walk every Friday meeting at 2pm Tottenham Court Road Stn (Exit 2)

Our Favourite Shops No.2

2012-01-12T10:46:00.000Z

It's Neat to Know

2012-01-12T00:11:00.003Z

That it's also a vent. The world will have seen it. But not seen it. Because it's just around the corner from the London "branch" of Occupy Wall Street in front of St. Paul's Cathedral. London Walkers see it. And see it. On, for example, Adam's Ghosts of the Old City Walk on Tuesday night (7.30 pm, St. Paul's Tube). On their way to haunted and haunting London.

London Spy 110112

2012-01-11T14:31:00.000Z

Five Headlines.

Five Stories.

Five Minutes.

The Daily Constitutional's Round Up Of London In The News.

Music: 100 Club Fails To Make The Charts – NME

Fashion: The Many Looks of the Duchess Of Cambridge – Washington Post

Football: New Manager For Queen’s Park Rangers – Daily Telegraph

Theatre: West End Appeals To Olympians – The Stage

Beer: Brewed In Hackney – The Hackney Citizen

It's A London Thing No.60: Ghost Stations on the Underground

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000Z

If You Do One OTHER Thing in London This Week…

2012-01-10T14:31:00.000Z

The London Reading List No. 28

2012-01-10T10:46:00.000Z

Tuesday is great London books day on The Daily Constitutional. Give us your own recommendations at the usual email address

Something of a Russian Doll in this week’s installment – a map to lead you to 87 great London bookshops where you can browse for the 27 titles featured previously in our London Reading List.

The London Bookshop Map is a not for profit publishing project funded by donations from participating bookshops. Of the 87 shops listed on the map – a thing of beauty in itself designed by Ray O’Meara and Luke Gold – we can particularly recommend the following three from our own personal experience:

Black Gull Books

Enlivening East Finchley’s High Road with an often seditious countercultural window display. Great stock (a particularly good London section), nice folks.

The Dover Bookshop

The copyright free image bookshop at Seven Dials is a cornucopia of weird and wonderful gifts from paisley patterns to paper dolls. www.doverbooks.co.uk

Marchpane

Rare and first edition childrens’ books in Cecil Court. www.marchpane.com.

We picked up our copy of the map at the Dover bookshop – but we're sure if you ask your local independent bookshop for a copy, they'll be able to oblige.

London Spy 090112

2012-01-09T18:00:00.000Z

Five Headlines.

Five Stories.

Five Minutes.

The Daily Constitutional's Round Up Of London In The News.

London To Get Europe’s Largest Free WiFi Zone – Mashable

Best Destinations For 2012 – Including London, Of Course! – NY Times

Britain, Great In Olympic Year – Reuters

The Best In London Dining – Elle

Behind The Scenes With A West End Maître d' – The Guardian

Jolly Old London

2012-01-09T12:55:00.001Z

Dear Daily Constitutionalists,

How’s your Monday going? Were there many smiling faces on The Tube this morning? If not, we wanted to share with you two tales of Jolly Londoners this weekend who brightened up our day…

A big shout out to the Security Guards at Paternoster Square who waved a welcoming hello, good evening and called out “Happy New Year” to our London Walkers on the Ghosts of the Old City Walk on Saturday night. Thanks guys.

And a big “Hello!” and thanks to the very cheerful Rachel and the other guys on reception at The Museum of London yesterday (Sunday) for a jolly welcome to the wonderful Dickens and London exhibition.

Who said Londoners were a grumpy bunch?

In and Around London... The Dead Centre of East Finchley

2012-01-09T06:00:00.000Z

London Spy 070112

2012-01-07T14:01:00.001Z

Five Headlines.

Five Stories.

Five Minutes.

The Daily Constitutional's Round Up Of London In The News.

Great Apps For Airline Passengers – USA Today

Cumberbatch Defends Sherlock Nudity – The Capital Times

Duchess of Cambridge: Fashion Icon – The New York Times Magazine

Roman Brothels In London: The Truth…? – Times Literary Supplement

David Starkey to Curate At Greenwich Museum – The Guardian

LAST MINUTE DOT COME WALKING

2012-01-07T11:06:00.005Z

Bit of breaking news. The Roof Garden (that's "The" Roof Garden, "the largest and most astonishing roof garden in Europe") is open today (Saturday, January 7). So Angela's Old Kensington Village walkers are in for a very special treat indeed. The walk goes at 2 pm from High Street Kensington Tube.

Lombard Street: The Saturday Street

2012-01-07T06:00:00.001Z

The Saturday Street is our weekly series in which we unlock the stories behind the names of London's famous thoroughfares. It's compiled by London Walks guide Karen – listed by Travel + Leisure magazine as The World's Greatest Tour Guide. You can find Karen on Saturdays guiding her Old Westminster and British Museum walks. If you've got a London street query or suggestion, email Karen at the usual address

Lombard Street EC3
Location: The City of London

Named for the Lombard merchants of Northern Italy who settled in this area in the 1100’s. In the 1980s, the decade that saw the rise of acronyms to describe certain demographic groups, “Lombard” was used a derogatory epithet for someone who was rich but ultimately shallow. In other words: Loads Of Money But A Right Dickhead.

Lights!

2012-01-06T13:58:00.001Z

A shot of the old PLA building near Tower Hill. The blue cranes are carrying lights for filming - the building is being used today as a location for the next James Bond film.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Post-Christmas Quiz Part 3

2012-01-06T12:00:00.000Z

Part Three of our traditional post-Christmas quiz as compiled by LW guide Nick– scroll down for Parts One and Two. The theme this year is London Food. Click on the pic below to enlarge. Good luck!

WE’LL POST THE ANSWERS NEXT WEEK

Ann’s next Foodie Walk is on 21st January 10.00 a.m from Monument tube – click HERE for our London Foodie Website.

See Nick’s Greenwich film HERE.

The Pub Quiz Walks season kicks off again in March. Click HERE for more info and HERE to watch our Pub Quiz Walks Film.

Plaque of the Week No.101: The Roundhouse

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000Z

You've seen them all over the city: discs, tablets, cameos and plaques commemorating the great and the good of London Town. Friday is our new day for tracking down London plaques (Blue or otherwise) and putting them centre stage on the Daily Constitutional. This week…

The plaque on The Roundhouse at Chalk Farm reminds us of the original purpose of the building that is now a Grade II* Listed structure. But it is not as a railway shed that this building has become a London legend.

As a theatre in the 1960s it played home to the famously controversial revue Oh! Calcutta! as well as Hamlet – directed by Tony Richardson and starring Nicol Williamson and Marianne Faithfull.

Ms Faithfull’s 60’s beau Mick Jagger performed here with The Rolling Stones. The Doors played a legendary show here in 1968. Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix and The Ramones all graced the space with their varied talents.

Currently thriving again as a live venue after years of uncertainly, this beloved London performance space will play home to CircusFest later this year, a feast of contemporary circus. The Roundhouse website is HERE.

For more legends of rock'n'roll see the Rock'n'Roll London walk every Friday meeting at 2pm Tottenham Court Road Stn (Exit 2)

London Spy 050112

2012-01-05T18:00:00.000Z

Five Headlines. Five Stories. Five Minutes. The Daily Constitutional's Round Up Of London In The News.

Ramsay’s Bread Street Kitchen Reviewed – Bloomberg

Expansion For Big Savile Row Big Gun – Fashion United

Hirst At The Tate, Hockney At The Royal Academy – The Guardian

Hitting The West End Theatre – Australian Times

London In Winter by Rick Steves – Canada Post

The Post-Christmas Quiz Part 2

2012-01-05T12:00:00.000Z

Part Two of our traditional post-Christmas quiz as compiled by LW guide Nick– scroll down for Part One. The theme this year is London Food. Click on the pic below to enlarge. Good luck!

WE’LL POST THE ANSWERS NEXT WEEK

Ann’s next Foodie Walk is on 21st January 10.00 a.m from Monument tube – click HERE for our London Foodie Website.

See Nick’s Greenwich film HERE.

The Pub Quiz Walks season kicks off again in March. Click HERE for more info and HERE to watch our Pub Quiz Walks Film.

Our Favourite Shops No.1

2012-01-05T06:00:00.000Z

The Post-Christmas Quiz Part 1

2012-01-04T11:24:00.000Z

Christmas may well be over for another year… but the seething resentment left from the London Walks Christmas Party will last until next Christmas.

And it’s all Nick’s fault with his fiendishly tough Annual Christmas Quiz.

Every year the LW Guides get together for a Christmas bash and to take a tilt at Nick’s London-themed quiz. This year’s theme was food – no surprises that the team headed by our foodie expert Ann won first prize.

And it’s become something of a tradition here at The DC to share the quiz with London Walkers in early January – so here we go, part one of three (click the pic below to enlarge). Good luck!

WE’LL POST THE ANSWERS NEXT WEEK

Ann’s next Foodie Walk is on 21st January 10.00 a.m from Monument tube – click HERE for our London Foodie Website.

See Nick’s Greenwich film HERE.

The Pub Quiz Walks season kicks off again in March. Click HERE for more info and HERE to watch our Pub Quiz Walks Film.

It's A London Thing No.59: The F.A Cup

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000Z

It’s a London Thing is our Wednesday series in which we turn the spotlight on a unique aspect of London – perhaps a curious shop, sometimes an eccentric restaurant, a hidden place, book or oddity. The subject matter will be different every week. The running theme, however, will remain constant: you have to come to London to enjoy it. It’s A London Thing.

The F.A Cup. It’s A London Thing.

The world’s oldest knock-out football competition was established in London in 1871 at a meeting held at the offices of The Sportsman newspaper.

The competition is open to English teams big and small – from the mighty Chelsea to the humble Dulwich Hamlet. And it is traditional that the Third Round of the competition is the stage at which the Big Guns join in.

This weekend is Third Round weekend.

The secret to the great romance of the F.A Cup is the tantalizing prospect of David versus Goliath encounters. And the Holy Grail of F.A Cup aficionados everywhere is… Giantkilling. In 1992 League Champions Arsenal fell foul of this phenomenon when defeated by lowly Wrexham, who had finished 91 places below the North London side in the League.

Back in 1871 only 15 teams took part and the first goal in the history of the competition was scored on 11th November 1871. Jarvis Kenrick was the scorer for London side Clapham Rovers.

The first winners were Wanderers – a London-based team comprised largely of old Harrovians – who defeated Royal Engineers 1-0 at The Oval in Kennington, South London.

London is the traditional home for the F.A Cup Final – Kennington, Crystal Palace, Stamford Bridge and Wembley Stadium have all hosted the climax to the competition. King George V became the first monarch to attend the Cup Final, in 1914 at Crystal Palace.

The first (and only) non-League team to win the competition was Tottenham Hotspur in 1901, of North London. Spurs are this year drawn against Cheltenham Town. The two clubs are separated by 66 places – and two divisions – in the League. Superstition has it that Tottenham Hotspur always do well in The Cup in years ending in 1…

The big London derby – a game between two London-based sides – in the Third Round is Fulham versus Charlton. Charlton last won The Cup in 1946. Fulham have yet to trouble the engravers when it comes to winning the trophy – but they did make a famous All London final in 1975 when they lost narrowly to the East End’s finest West Ham.

The F.A Cup. It’s A London Thing

London Spy 030112

2012-01-03T14:20:00.000Z

Five Headlines. Five Stories. Five Minutes. The Daily Constitutional's Round Up Of London In The News.

London’s New Year Fireworks – BBC

Key 2012 Olympic Dates – Daily Mirror

Fashion Hits The Museums in 2012 – The Independent

British Athletes at the 2012 Olympics – The Independent

Looking Forward to the Olympics – BBC

If You Do One OTHER Thing in London This Week…

2012-01-03T14:13:00.003Z

Our weekly slot in which we point you in the direction of other great happenings and events in our great city. A new exhibition, a gig, a museum, a pop-up-shop – the best of London within a few minutes of a London Walks walking tour.

… It's not often that we encourage you to sit in front of the gogglebox, but… watch the BBC documentary The Story of Musicals on BBC4. Featuring contributions from the great and the good of the London stage, including Lord Lloyd Webber, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Sir Tim Rice, Elaine Paige and Willy Russell.

Click HERE for the BBC website.

The London Reading List No. 27

2012-01-03T11:15:00.002Z

Tuesday is great London books day on The Daily Constitutional. Give us your own recommendations at the usual email address

The Austerity Olympics: When the Games Came to London in 1948

By Janie Hampton

“We Will Not,” boomed the headline on The Daily Telegraph last week, “Host An Austerity Games.”

As I read the headline I found myself thinking: Why ever not? We made a jolly good fist of doing just that in 1948.

Janie Hampton’s wonderful book on the 1948 Olympics tells the tale of London’s second hosting of the Games.

For those of you stifling a yawn at this point, perhaps anticipating lists and times and heights and team sheets and medal tables, well think again. Hampton’s narrative is just that: a narrative, a tale well told, mercifully free from dry match facts and mere sports reporting.

Instead, Hampton treats us to the stories of the people who made the Games: the posh rower who thought his official Olympic blazer to be of such poor quality that it must have been “cut with a spoon”; then the athlete who found her blazer so smart that she wore it to her sister’s wedding. There are tales of the American and Canadian teams sharing their ample rations with the deprived European teams – and of the French captain complaining strenuously about the British food!

Every corner was cut, every penny pinched. Teams were put up not in a swish Olympic Village, but in schools and army barracks. One official even expected the cycling competitors to be able to ride their own bikes to Herne Hill for the races!

The Dutchwoman Fanny Blankers-Koen remains the heroine of the ‘48 Games, winning four gold medals on the track. Despite the fact that she beat British girls into silver position to take three of those golds, the London crowds took her to their hearts. And her journey is here too – from Nazi occupied Holland to the Hunger Winter of ’44 to the winners’ podium at Wembley.

But it is the unsung heroes who make the story such a delight. The overall tale that emerges is humane and moving, nuanced and rich, truly Olympian. Left to a sports reporter, there’s every chance this book would have garnered as many gold medals as the British track and field competitors in 1948 – none at all. In the hands of Janie Hampton, it’s a story as garlanded as the great Fanny Blankers-Koen herself.

Janie Hampton’s website is www.janiehampton.co.uk.

In and Around London... Fitzrovia

2012-01-02T06:00:00.000Z

Monday is mute on the London Walks Blog (well, almost mute) – because Monday is the day when we post five images captured in and around London by London Walks Guides, London Walkers and Facebook friends. Collated on a theme or an area, if you've got some great shots of our capital and want to join in send your pictures to the usual address.

David’s been out and about in Fitzrovia – here are just some of the results. For the full photo essay click HERE.

In the meantime – have a look at the LONDON PHOTO COMPETITION on The Mothership www.walks.com.

The next Fitzrovia Pub Walk goes on Saturday, March 3rd meeting at Goodge Street Tube at 7.15 pm.

It's A London Thing No.58: Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T23:59:00.000Z

It’s a London Thing is our series in which we turn the spotlight on a unique aspect of London – perhaps a curious shop, sometimes an eccentric restaurant, a hidden place, book or oddity. The subject matter will be different every week. The running theme, however, will remain constant: you have to come to London to enjoy it. It’s A London Thing.

London Walks Guide Adam writes…

For many, there’s a ho-hum quality to Big Ben. We’ve seen it a million times. It’s like when Hey Jude by The Beatles comes on the radio – it’s so much a part of the aural furniture that many of us hardly even pay attention any more.

Yet Hey Jude is still a great song. More than great. Maybe you could make it a New Year resolution to listen to it more closely next time it comes up on shuffle or on the radio,

Similarly, Big Ben is a really great clock. A fantastic clock. In fact, let’s not mess about – especially at this time of year – it’s the finest clock on God’s green earth.

There. I’ve said it. I’ve got a bit of a thing about Big Ben. In many ways it’s not just A London Thing… it’s THE London Thing.

A cliché? Absolutely. If any lazy filmmaker wants to establish that we are in The Big Smoke, he can do so with one frame of Big Ben. My own personal New Year’s Resolution is to stop using the clapped out epithet “iconic” – but given as how it’s still 2011 as I type, here’s one last turn around Parliament Square for the tired old cliché: it’s a London icon.

But it’s the sound of the bell, rather than the look of the thing that truly floats my boat.

For a year or so, many years ago, I lived in Pimlico. And in the dead of night, with the wind blowing in the right direction, I could hear Big Ben chime the hours. The sound made every dark night of the soul just that little bit lighter.

To this day I find it reassuring: I know I am home. Home in London. I love leading London Walks from Westminster that meet at the top of the hour – it gives me a chance to hear the bell again. I never tire of that sound.

At six o’clock on BBC Radio 4 the chimes of Big Ben herald the news. To me, it is a familiar and kindly old friend preparing me gently for the tales of war and fiscal calamity to come.

If I’m not in the room when the bell chimes, my four-year-old daughter calls for me so that I don’t miss it. Often I’ll switch the wireless off after the bells, not wishing the news to besmirch the warm feeling engendered by my two favourite sounds: my daughter’s voice and London’s most famous bell.

Just this very evening, as I typed this piece at the computer, my wife turned up the volume on the kitchen radio so I could hear it at the other end of the house. It was a lovely New Year gift: exactly what I wanted.

I’m setting this post to publish at 11.59p.m on the 31st December 2011. The last minute of the old year. A minute later, Big Ben will chime in London’s third Olympic year, the fireworks on the Thames will burst into life and the revels will begin. Amid the chaos I will hear the bell and smile to myself and be thankful. Thankful that I am a Londoner, and that Big Ben is my local town clock.

Big Ben: It’s A London Thing. Happy New Year.

Poetry on New Year's Day

2011-12-31T17:51:00.003Z

Pictured above is a statue (erected in 2007) in the forecourt of the National Theatre. The smarties amongst you might know that that is Laurence Olivier playing Hamlet but do you know which speech from the play he is declaiming?

This is one of the many interesting facts you can learn on Lance Pierson’s guided poetry walk on New Year’s Day. The walk winds its way from Waterloo Bridge to Westminster Bridge and visits many sites of poetic interest along the river bank. At each stop Lance will talk about the landmark and read the poem connected with it. Featured poets include Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Donne and Burns but also features stops involving Gilbert and Sullivan, the Festival Hall and the London Eye.

A Poetry-in-Performance Walk – Shakespeare to Wordsworth meets at Embankment Station on Sunday 1st January at 2.30pm.

Ladies And Gentlemen We Present The Lord Mayor Of London and The Duchess Of London Walks!

2011-12-28T11:32:00.004Z

This from London Walks guide Jean…

"On my Dickens Christmas Carol Walk on Christmas Eve, I'd just got to the bit about "The Lord Mayor in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should....." when who should appear but the Lord Mayor himself. He said he wished he had fifty cooks and butlers, and greeted the walkers. Though you might like the picture. Best wishes, Jean."

Fairyland, SW1

2011-12-27T12:35:00.001Z

The Old Palace Quarter. At this time of year this must be the prettiest of all London Walks.

It doesn't start till 2.30 which means that on a typical London winter afternoon an hour or so later the light, what there was of it, is beginning to fade and the old gaslights in Green Park start to emit their dim, misty, mysterious glow.

That's just the Nature bit. Then we plunge into the restrained, electric glamour of Jermyn Street, and just off that we enter Fairyland! The Piccadilly Arcade with its red and gold decorations and streams of fairy lights is simply, stunningly, well… Fairyland.

And to crown it all there, on Piccadilly itself, is the grande dame of retail, Fortnum and Mason. Its window displays are always unique, sometimes eccentric, and this winter the theme is ever so slightly and gloriously mad: The Folies with purple and rose, powdered and feathered showgirls filling the windows.

The Old Palace Quarter goes every Wednesday at 2.30pm meet at Green Park Tube, Green Park exit (meet in the park, by the fountain)

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-25T06:00:00.000Z

Here's David…

888

It's as perfectly round as three pairs of sleigh bells.

And where's it come from?

As in 888 what?

In a word, years. 888 years.

And in another word, the word itself: Christmas.

Christmas, the word, put in its very first appearance in English 888 years ago - in 1123.

In English. Well, Old English actually.

Here it is, that first time, that first glimpse.

Her on Þisum geare to Xpes mæssan heold se cyng Heanrig his hired on Westmynstre.

Translation anyone? "In this year at Christmas the king Henry held his court at Westminster."

And I wouldn't be too troubled if I were you by that X in Xpes (akin of course to Xmas). The X is the Greek letter for Chi, the first letter of course in the word (or name if you prefer) Christ.

So: 1123. 888 years ago. Christmas. Westminster. The King and his court.

And at no little risk of belabouring the obvious, 888 years down the pike all of them - in one form or another - are still very much with us!

But do we have anything else? Anything tangible, anything straight from back then as if 1123 was, well, yesterday?

Boy, do we ever!*

Behold, St. Bartholomew's the Great, the old church over Smithfield way. A good chunk of it is Norman. Indeed, it's the second finest example of Norman architecture in London (the Tower of course takes the Gold).

And the year? You got it: 1123.

A year to remember. Indeed celebrate. The year the word Christmas enters the language and London gets its finest Norman church.

*It's a London thing - symmetries with this sort of muzzle-loading velocity.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS – SEE YOU IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE LATER TODAY (AT 11.00AM & 2.00PM) FOR THE SPECIAL CHRISTMAS DAY LONDON WALKS!

Being A Few Notes & Thoughts In The Wake Of Most Enjoyable London Walks Christmas Party At St Martin-in-the-Fields

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000Z

1. It's official. There are 350 languages spoken in London. (Rex – who's in a position to know stuff like this – casually mentioned this one in passing at the London Walks Christmas Party on Monday.)

2. LW star guide Nick has landed a dream role with the Royal Shakespeare Company: Sir Toby Belch in Twelfith Night.

3. Speaking of Nick, this year he produced another cracker of a Christmas Quiz for "the party". Keep an eye out – it'll go up here in due course. It was a Foodies' London job and sure enough, Ann's table romped home. Took the gold.

4. A vignette from my (David's) Hampstead walk on Sunday: we turn the corner out of Flask Walk and a lovely Israeli couple on the walk let fly – they're giggling for all they're worth. I ask 'em, "what's up?" They say, "we just passed a couple of Israelis who were jabbering away in Hebrew while they were putting up Christmas decorations". That's London.

5. Tuesday's Guardian had a piece whose thesis is: as consumers "the British are more powerful shoppers than ever before, but at work they're becoming less independent". Piece goes on to cite research findings that in a future workforce "only 10-15 percent of us will have 'permission to think'. The rest of us will merely carry out their decisions...graduates will end up on the white-collar equivalent of a factory line".

Now to "cheerify" that note – that ain't us (London Walks guides). And it ain't the people who steer clear of bus loads of packaged tourists – who want no part of that scene, thank you very much. It ain't, in short, you guys – our walkers, the people to whom the London Walks website is dedicated. Here's the word for word: This website [www.walks.com] is dedicated, with respect and admiration, to the modern Marco Polo: to all of you - the tolerant, curious, bright, determined, durable, friendly, funny, switched-on, and ever-gallant London Walkers!

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-23T11:24:00.000Z

London Sight & Sound – The Daily Constitutional Podcast from London Walks will be available for download in the New Year. In the meantime, here are the first two installlments…

Streets Ahead – Christmas Lights Time

2011-12-23T07:00:00.000Z

Streets Ahead is the occasional column from London Walks' Pen David Tucker…

Christmas lights time. So why not shine some light on the question we field every day. Especially from newbies.

“What will we see on the walk?”

You got two hours?

Two hours because that’s about how long it would take to answer that question.

It’d take that long because “what you see” isn’t what you’d see by yourself. Even if you were walking along the same street and looking at the same objects. The reason for that of course is what the guide brings to the party. The guide’s input “informs” what you see; And yes, let’s assay that word “inform”. It’s a two element job: “in” and “form”. Put ‘em together and you’ve got form from within. In short, it’s not just a question of pointing something out – it’s illuminating it, shaping it, lighting it up from within.

The information’s terrific.

And so’s the route. The route’s part of the spun gold of a great walking tour – it’s also what you’re getting, what you’re paying for. It’s the filament the beads get strung on.

And there’s one other “control” the guide’s working in this regard: vantage point. Which turn you take to get into an alley, the side of the street you’re on ¬– those things matter. Get it wrong by a few yards and what you’re looking at is a ho hum. Get those few yards right and it’s sharp intake of breath time – as in, “Wow! Look at that!!

The other thing to stress is a London Walks isn’t just big ticket items seen from the best possible vantage point and illuminated by stunning “Wow, that’s interesting – never knew that” colour gels of information.

It’s also tiny little details that you’d never see – never find – off your own bat.

“What will we see on the walk?”

Here’s part of a two-minute sequence (so less than one percent of the whole) of my (David’s) Along the Thames Pub Walk.

There’s the big ticket item above.

And then – delightful change of register – there’s this.

And this.

And this.

All three of the itty bitties are high up on buildings on a tiny little alleyway that we go down right after the walk starts. Can you see the leopards on the first one? It’s a “hallmark”. Indeed, it’s the oldest hallmark in England. Got started in 1300. It’s the hallmark of the Goldsmiths, the time-honoured London guild. It’s presence high up on the building in question – you have to know exactly where to look to see it – indicates that the Goldsmiths own the land on which the building stands.

And the lads with, respectively, the compass and the pen and paper? They’re over the way from the Goldsmiths-badged building. Their building’s 1871 – Victorian Gothic. It was built for a stationer, John Nichol. Thus the “look” of the medallions – the lads are holding emblems of their trade. (There’s actually a third medallion, but two’s enough for us to be getting on with.)

And how satisfying is this?, You’ve just seen three fascinating little details – and had them illuminated – that Londoners who walk down that little alleyway five days a week will be completely clueless about. Will never have spotted – let alone understood.

And that’s just part of the tapas that gets served up on one tiny little stretch of that walk. And it’s not even the whole story about those particulars. The curious, fascinating history of the word “stationer” is another colour gel of information that gets switched on in the “live performance”.

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-19T10:55:00.002Z

The Friday Postcard From London – 16th December 1938

2011-12-16T08:50:00.004Z

Dear Mr & Mrs Walker,

I'm sure you'll be heading along this way at some point over the next week – Oxford Street! Just as packed with buses then as it is now!

Season's Greetings!

DC

It's a Dog's Life, Being A Turkey…

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000Z

It's Foodie Time again this Saturday. Here's Ann…

As you draw up your Christmas dinner cooking timetable, spare a thought for the turkey. They’ve been around in this country since the 16th Century – Henry VIII had one at his Christmas dinner. But before the arrival of the railways the only way to get them to the London market was to walk them there. Daniel Defoe, travelling in East Anglia in the 18th Century, was told that 150,000 turkeys a year were brought to London by drovers. Each flock consisted of between 300 and 1000 birds, making their slow way to Smithfield, feet sometimes dipped in tar and sand to protect them from the road. Not that we’re talking about the tarmac of the A12.

For young birds there were carts with three or four layers, drawn by two horses, which could make the trip to London in a couple of days.

How drovers carried on their trade is a subject now confined to history. But there are still drovers’ roads crisscrossing the countryside. And lots and lots of pub names remember drovers – my current favourite being the Drovers’ Thai restaurant in Powys.

For more foodie thoughts, join my walk this Saturday December 17 – From Pie Crust to Upper Crust – starting at 10.45 am at Embankment tube.

It's A London Thing No.57: Big Tree!

2011-12-14T19:41:00.001Z

If You Do One OTHER Thing in London This Week…

2011-12-13T12:00:00.000Z

Our NEW weekly slot in which we point you in the direction of other great happenings and events in our great city. A new exhibition, a gig, a museum, a pop-up-shop – the best of London within a few minutes of a London Walks walking tour.

London Walks walkers can get a whopping 20% discount on the admission to the Museum of London’s Dickens & London Exhibition.

For more info on the discount, click HERE.

For more on the exhibition, click HERE.

The London Reading List No. 26

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000Z

Tuesday is great London books day on The Daily Constitutional. Give us your own recommendations at the usual email address

It’s party season. It’s the season for THAT Dickens story. We’ve combined the two in the menu for Fezziwig’s party…

1. Cake
2. Negus* (see note below)
3. A great piece of Cold Boiled
4. A great piece of Cold Roast
5. Mince pies

(NB: This list does not include beer, the quantity of which Dickens simply lists as “plenty of”; nor does it take into account the pot of porter supplied at the request of the energetic fiddler who, after playing a particularly wild tune, liked to plunge his overheated face into the cooling ale.)

* Negus is a drink of the mulled wine family with port as its central alcoholic ingredient (often mixed with claret). This is hooch with a serious literary pedigree. Not only does it cheer up the proceedings of Christmas Past in London’s greatest ghost story, but also crops up in the pages of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, John Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga, and on numerous occasions in the jottings of the ever-thirsty James Boswell.

Ann’s next Foodie Walk goes this Saturday from Embankment Station 10.45a.m

And for Dickens buffs we’ve got a whopping great 20% Discount for London Walkers on the new Dickens And London exhibition at the Museum of London. Click HERE for more info.

In and Around London... East of Kensington

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000Z

Peterborough Court: The Saturday Street

2011-12-10T06:00:00.000Z

The Saturday Street is our weekly series in which we unlock the stories behind the names of London's famous thoroughfares. It's compiled by London Walks guide Karen – listed by Travel + Leisure magazine as The World's Greatest Tour Guide. You can find Karen on Saturdays guiding her Old Westminster and British Museum walks. If you've got a London street query or suggestion, email Karen at the usual address

Peterborough Court, EC4
Location: The City of London

Takes its name from the bishops of Peterborough who were the landowners here from the 14th to the 19th century. The old Daily Telegraph building on Fleet Street sits next to Peterborough Court and Peterborough remains the name of the diary column in that newspaper.

The Friday Postcard From London – 9th December 1919

2011-12-09T08:58:00.003Z

Dear Mr & Mrs Walker,

The Mansion House remains unchanged – and the cavalier attitude of the London pedestrian is still the same too!

Wish you were here

L.W

Streets Ahead (Continued From Yesterday)

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000Z

Streets Ahead is the new occasional column from London Walks' Pen David Tucker…

Ok, fired up some flares - some Chinese (and Roman) candles - yesterday about the Internet(s) and the London walking tour scene.

And now that they're up there, time for them to do their job. To go off - to flare. Light up the scene down here.

Let's start with that modern Chinese candle (saying):
"Rolex - Number One - Only Look - Best Quality."

Now to get the all-important marker down: there is only one London Walks.

If someone on the Internet is fraudulently using our name - misrepresenting themselves as London Walks - you're being hustled, getting the "Rolex - Number One" treatment.

Don't fall for it, don't be scammed.

The good news is there's less of it today than there was five years ago. Thanks to the trademark. The bad news is they try to get round the trademark by making tiny changes - the Rollex strategy. London walks rather than London Walks being the most favoured now-you-see-it-now-you-don't manoeuvre.

There's a lot to be said for taking a little bit more time before you press the button.

And even more to be said for not pressing it at all. For keeping your options open.

If you want to book with them - you can always do it when you get here. Or not do it - go with us ("London's best guided walks" Time Out) instead.

The advantage being - apart from the calibre of the guiding, I mean - there's no booking, no pre-paying with London Walks. (Providing you haven't been bamboozled - providing you're with the genuine article, the bona fide, real London Walks.) It's convenience itself. You simply decide on the day whether or not you want to go on a London Walk. If you decide "yes", you just turn up and join the group. There's no pre-booking hassle, no pre-payment. No being a prisoner of your planning - no "paying the price" of the vagaries of our weather. Because if it's raining cold ropes you can just change your mind and you're not out a sou.

And in any case, it's a massive misapprehension to think that by "booking" and giving somebody your credit card details you've got everything squared away.

Caveat Emptor.

Case in point. Earlier this month one of our rivals turned up for his Jack the Ripper walk. There were only three people there. He said, "I'm not going to do it - you can go with Donald Rumbelow, who'll be doing his Jack the Ripper walk for London Walks at 7.30 pm from Tower Hill Tube."

His customers protested mightily: "we booked this online".

He finally caved and did do the walk for them. The irony of course is that had they accepted the brush off their "pre-booked" outfit's representative was trying to hit them up with they would have got to go on a Jack the Ripper walk conducted by the man (Donald Rumbelow) who is "internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper".

Do your due diligence. Take your time. Don't buy a pig in a poke. Know what you're getting - what you're forking out for. Forking out your money - and more importantly, your time. (Cue a Gordon Gekko cameo:
"the one thing I learned in jail is that money is not the prime asset in life. Time is.")

Streets Ahead

2011-12-07T23:12:00.000Z

Streets Ahead is the new occasional column from London Walks' Pen David Tucker…

The Internets was a classic Bush malapropism. Right up there with "They misunderestimated me" and "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully" and "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"

Who'd a thunk it - but ten years on, the benefit of hindsight and all that - well, maybe Preznit Duhbya was right. Maybe we misunderestimated that pronouncement - maybe our Internets isn't singular.

Out of the mouths of gibbering fools...

I mean, to put it at its simplest, is there anyone who doubts the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character of the beast? The Good Internet and The Bad Internet.

I love it that thanks to the Internet I can pick up a fine second hand copy of The Folger Facsimile of Shakespeare's First Folio for about 15 percent of what it would cost me new. And in doing so, help a small, local (not local to me but local to its locale), independent bookseller keep the Bezos wolf at bay.

That's The Good Internet.

The Bad One - well, one of the Bad Ones - is the Cyberspace Shopping Mall that should, by law, be required to have a Las Vegas-sized Caveat Emptor neon sign over the entrance.

And tethered to it - for good measure - a huge Chinese kite (or Goodyear Blimp if you prefer) trailing the following streamers:

"It's always easy to fool a foreigner."

"Rolex - Number One - Only Look - Best Quality."

Now - due diligence time - let's define our terms, define the signage.

Caveat Emptor is of course the Roman legal precept: "Buyer Beware!"

"It's always easy to fool a foreigner" is an old Chinese saying.

"Rolex - Number One - Only Look - Best Quality" is a fairly modern Chinese saying. It's what you hear over and over again from the now-you-see-em-now-you-don't street vendors hitting on extremely gullible tourists in, for example, Shanghai's main shopping streets. They make you an offer you can't refuse: a "Rolex - Number One [no less]" for £20.

Well, if you know less - or were born yesterday...

And what's this got to do with London Walks? Well, come on back tomorrow and all will be revealed. Time for a little fireside chat about the Internets and the London walking tour scene generally...

It's a London Thing No.56. Porterford Butcher Shop

2011-12-07T07:36:00.001Z

It’s a London Thing is our Wednesday series in which we turn the spotlight on a unique aspect of London – perhaps a curious shop, sometimes an eccentric restaurant, a hidden place, book or oddity. The subject matter will be different every week. The running theme, however, will remain constant: you have to come to London to enjoy it. It’s A London Thing.

Every year the Worshipful Company of Butchers take part in their annual Boar’s Head Ceremony – in which they bring a boar’s head to the newly created Lord Mayor of London.

“A very jolly bunch they are, too,” says London Walks’ Karen of the members of the Butchers’ Company she met last year as she led the companion walk to the ceremony. “It’s one of London’s lesser-known pageants and is very much A London Thing.”

The ceremony also means that Christmas is on the way. And in the work-work-work world of The City, one little corner glams itself up for the Festive season: Bow Lane. Just around the corner in the famous Watling Street, you’ll find Porterford, a traditional butcher shop.

We’re prepared to wager that had the born-again Ebenezer Scrooge been aware of Porterford, then he would have despatched his boy here for Bob Cratchitt’s Christmas turkey.

The knowledgeable Porterford chaps are old school, very keen to tell you all about their wares, give you cooking tips and suggestions and fill you in on the origins of their goods.

They are also as sharp as their own knives and will never miss even the slightest opportunity to crack a gag. If you go into their shop with the line “I want a bird for Christmas,” be prepared for a veritable gale of satirical banter. Politically correct? Not much. Funny? Good God yes.

This is our favourite:

Customer: I’m here to collect my turkey.

Porterford Butcher: What’s the name?

Customer: Scott.

Porterford Butcher: No, sorry. We don’t have a turkey called Scott. We’ve got one called Tracey, will she do?

The annual Christmas pantomime? Forget it. There are more laughs in Watling Street by far. Expert service, too, don’t forget, but it is the welcome you’ll remember, particularly at this time of year. Never let it be said that Londoners don’t know how to keep Christmas in their hearts.

Porterford the butcher shop: It’s a London Thing.

The London Reading List No. 25

2011-12-06T12:00:00.003Z

Tuesday is great London books day on The Daily Constitutional. Give us your own recommendations at the usual email address

The Longest Cocktail Party – An Insider’s Diary of the Beatles, Their Million-Dollar Apple Empire And Its Wild Rise & Fall…

By Richard DiLello

We were in Savile Row two weeks ago on the London Reading list (click HERE for a reminder) and we’re back again this week. Only this time we’re looking for a very different business.

This business was famed for excess, mismanagement, petty theft on a grand scale, alcohol and drug abuse and upsetting the neighbours. Oh, and they made records, too. Pretty good ones at that. The business was Apple, the proprietors The Beatles.

In the broader history of Savile Row, The Beatles' record label occupies just a heartbeat of time. But its story remains one of the most vivid ever played out on that fabled London street.

Paul McCartney described Apple’s theoretical aim as “Western Communism.” Richard DiLello described the actuality of it as “abandoned cordiality and excessive generosity”.

DiLello worked in the press office at Apple alongside the legendary press officer Derek Taylor. His official role was as Client Liaison Officer, but his unofficial title was that of House Hippie.

His narrative reads almost like a movie script – told in snippets of gossipy conversation, dialogue between the major players of Beatleworld, and DiLello’s own up close observations of the madness that was the fag end of the 1960’s.

Throughout the book we feel as if he is “one of us”, our man on the inside. This is no “My Life As The Fifth Beatle” self-hagiography. His sense of being an outsider – both as a newcomer to The Beatles’ inner circle and as an American in England – creates a feeling of bewilderment out of which the comic observations flow in a wild torrent.

Despite the disintegration of the company – and thus the band – all around him, as the lawsuits fly and the 60s come to a bleak close – the writer’s sharp sense of the absurd remains intact throughout.

Left to rely solely on his own storytelling talent, DeLillo would have written a witty and insightful book about any subject. And the book’s strength is all in the writing. Lesser scribes have had the same cast of characters to work with and have somehow contrived to turn The Greatest Show On Earth into a dreary soap opera.

DeLillo, however, relishes in his walk-on players – headed, of course, by The Beatles themselves, but supported ably by Hell’s Angels (on their way to Czechoslovakia where they planned to “sort out” the political situation back in 1968), a family of hippies keen to spirit John and Yoko away to a Pacific island, Ken Kesey and the local bobbies. He is always at the very least curious about the people in his story – he has no scores to settle, no record to set straight – and it is this humanity that underpins the whole tale.

There are lots of Beatle books out there. Many of them cover The Fabs’ entire career and thus present them as a Liverpool band conquering the world. This one catches up with them toward the denouement of their tale, act three, where they are no longer the fresh-faced lads from up north. At the point where DiLello’s narrative kicks in, they are already bigger than any band had ever been – or, indeed, would be again. Liverpool seems from a distant era: this is very much a London book.

It seems odd in the 21st century that such a vividly told insider’s tale about The Beatles would have struggled to find a publisher. But back in 1973 when it was published by Playboy Press, it had been rejected out of hand by every major publisher in the business. Not unlike The Beatles themselves had been rejected by every major record company back in 1962.

It seems even more unusual that no one has ever made a movie of the book given that it practically reads like a movie script already. Well, that’s about to be put right, too. Liam Gallagher’s In1 Productions is on the case and the picture is rumoured to be ready for release in 2012. If it’s a broad truism that the film is never as good as the book, then the movie makers have got a mountain to climb here. This is among the greatest of all Beatle books, and London books too.

If You Do One OTHER Thing in London This Week…

2011-12-06T11:00:00.003Z

How like a winter hath my absence been 

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! 

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! 

What old December's bareness every where!

Dry your eyes, Willie! There may not be any plays at The Globe until next April, but you can still enjoy the world’s finest Shakespeare exhibition at The Globe. Winter opening hours are 10.00a.m to 5.00p.m. Visit their website HERE.

P.S. Mark Rylance returns to his old stamping ground next year to take on the role of Richard III. We can’t wait!

In and Around London... Tower Bridge

2011-12-05T06:21:00.002Z

Monday is mute on the London Walks Blog (well, almost mute) – because Monday is the day when we post images captured in and around London by London Walks Guides, London Walkers and Facebook friends. Collated on a theme or an area, if you've got some great shots of our capital and want to join in send your pictures to the usual address.

In a break from our usual five images, a single shot this week – we thought it worthy of centre stage all on its own. It's courtesy of David…

Saturday Street: Fleet Street

2011-12-03T08:49:00.000Z

The Saturday Street is our weekly series in which we unlock the stories behind the names of London's famous thoroughfares. It's compiled by London Walks guide Karen – listed by Travel + Leisure magazine as The World's Greatest Tour Guide. You can find Karen on Saturdays guiding her Old Westminster and British Museum walks. If you've got a London street query or suggestion, email Karen at the usual address

Fleet Street EC4
Location: The City of London

Named for London’s largest subterranean river, the Fleet, which flows at the street’s eastern extremity. It is worth £220 on the London Monopoly board and despite there being no national newspapers left there, it remains a metonym for the British newspaper business.

The Fleet Street Pub Walk meets tonight at Temple Station – see a preview HERE.

Your Yery Own Leveson Enquiry – The Fleet Street Pub Walk

2011-12-01T22:00:00.004Z

Scandal and skullduggery in Fleet Street – the Fleet Street Pub Walk is this Saturday night at 7.15p.m meeting at Temple Station. Here's a short video preview…

November WAS Quiz Month: THE ANSWERS!

2011-12-01T06:00:00.000Z

November WAS Quiz Month on The DC – we hope you've enjoyed it, and thanks to all of you who joined in our Pub Quiz Walks over the last four weeks.

The next season of PUB QUIZ WALKS is set for every Thursday night in March 2012 – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

You can also book a private Pub Quiz Walk for your office party or special occasion. WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE

YOU'VE HAD 30 QUESTIONS. NOW 30 ANSWERS…

Question 1: On which building can you find this roof (pictured below)?

A: THE AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSION, ALDWYCH

Question 2: Where did we find this “F”?

A: FOYLES BOOKSHOP, CHARING CROSS ROAD

Question 3: Who is this and where is he?

A: LAURENCE OLIVIER, OUTSIDE THE NATIONAL THEATRE

Question 4: Where is this and what are they doing?

A: ON BANKSIDE – THEY ARE HAVING A FROST FAIR BACK WHEN THE RIVER THAMES FROZE OVER

Question 5: Where is this?

A: CENTRAL ST GILES, WC2

Question 6: Can you name the famous London street where the premises in our picture can be found?

A: SAVILE ROW

Question 7: Whose book is this?

A: DOCTOR SAMUEL JOHNSON – ON HIS STATUE AT THE EASTERN END OF THE STRAND

Question 8: Name this London station (detail pictured below):

A: CRYSTAL PALACE

Question 9: Name the famous album sleeve that features this location (pictured below):

A: ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS (HEDDON STREET)

Question 10: Name this building (detail pictured below):

A: CENTRE POINT

Question 11: Where’s King Henry VIII (pictured below)?

A: ST BART'S HOSPITAL, SMITHFIELD

Question 12: Where’s this (pictured below)?

A: THE ODEON, SHAFTESBURY AVENUE (FORMERLY THE SAVILE THEATRE)

Question 13: Where is this clock (pictured below)?

A: FLEET STREET – FORMER HQ OF THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

Question 14: Where can you find these eyes (pictured below)? And to whom do they belong?

A: ON THE PLATFORM AT CHARING CROSS UNDERGROUND STATION – QUEEN ELEANOR

Question 15: Where is this (pictured below)?

A: BRITISH MUSEUM (AND LET THEY FEET MILLENNIUMS HENCE BE SET IN MIDST OF KNOWLEDGE - TENNYSON)

Question 16: Where is this castle (pictured below)?

A: BARBICAN

Question 17: Mock Tudor… where (pictured below)?

A: SOHO SQUARE

Question 18: Clue: It’s a tube station (pictured below). Clue 2: You can’t see it at the moment. Where is it?

A: TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD

Question 19: Fill in the blank on this Hampstead plaque…

A: ROMNEY

Question 20: Name this 'King of London"…

A: HE'S KING LUD, FROM THE OLD KING LUD PUB AT LUDGATE CIRCUS (NOW A BRANCH OF LEON)

Question 21: Whose inscrutable lips are these…

A: A SPHYNX BY CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE ON THE EMBANKMENT

Question 22: Name this famous building…

A: WE'LL ACCEPT "BIG BEN"

Question 23: Fill in the blank on this South London plaque…

A: GRACE

Question 24: Name this famous London Theatre…

A: THE ROYAL COURT, SLOANE SQUARE

Question 25: Grrr. Where is this lion?

A: CHINATOWN

Question 26: Can you name the structure from the detail pictured?

A: THE O2 ARENA, NORTH GREENWICH

Question 27: Can you fill in the missing word on this plaque…

A: SAVOY

Question 28: Name that spire!

A: WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL

Question 29: Fill in the Soho blank…

A: VADIS

Question 30: What's the missing word…

A: GAP

PUB QUIZ WALKS go every Thursday night in March 2012 – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE

November Is Quiz Month: Q30

2011-11-30T12:00:00.000Z

November is Quiz Month on The Daily Constitutional! 30 Questions in 30 Days!

Question 30:

Last question! Fill in the famous London blank…

Answers tomorrow!

PUB QUIZ WALKS go every Thursday night in March 2012 – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE

It's a London Thing No.55: Fitzroy Square On A Saturday Afternoon

2011-11-30T06:00:00.001Z

It’s a London Thing is our Wednesday series in which we turn the spotlight on a unique aspect of London – perhaps a curious shop, sometimes an eccentric restaurant, a hidden place, book or oddity. The subject matter will be different every week. The running theme, however, will remain constant: you have to come to London to enjoy it. It’s A London Thing.

Fitzroy Square On A Saturday Afternoon. It’s A London Thing.

Trafalgar is more famous. Hanover is posher. Hoxton is more fashionable. Kensington is older. But Fitzroy Square, for me, is London’s best square. Especially on a Saturday afternoon.

While the rest of London is off shopping on Oxford Street, going to football matches or at a matinee in the West End, Fitzroy Square is deserted.

I first discovered Fitzroy Square on a Saturday afternoon about six weeks after moving to London. Out on one of my rambles to try to make sense of the place (project status: 20 years in and still ongoing) I stumbled upon the empty square right in the heart of the city.

So plugged-in to the urban growl had I become that the stillness actually began to freak me out. It felt like some post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie from the 70’s – London laid waste and I, Charlton Heston-like, the only survivor. I turned and headed for the reassuring hum of the main drag.

It’s is an atmosphere that I have grown to love over the years – pockets of peacefulness slap bang in the middle of the word’s greatest commotion. It is contrary old London’s loveliest caprice.

Fitzroy Square also a great spot from which to revel in London’s constant fireworks display of architectural coups d’theatre. Classic stucco cowers as if aware that the Brutalism of the BT Tower lowers nearby. Glimpses of both mews and modernity hide around every corner.

It is dotted with plaques –Virginia Wolf among them. And there are no shops – an unusual and delightful break from commerce. If, however, the millennial urge to splurge seizes you, then French’s Theatre Bookshop is at hand, as well as of outstanding fish and chips at Fishbone in Cleveland Street.

Fitzroy Square On A Saturday Afternoon. It’s A London Thing.

November Is Quiz Month: Q29

2011-11-29T12:00:00.000Z

November is Quiz Month on The Daily Constitutional! 30 Questions in 30 Days!

Question 29:

Fill in the Soho blank…

Answers on December 1st.

PUB QUIZ WALKS go every Thursday night in March 2012 – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE

The London Reading List No.24

2011-11-29T06:00:00.001Z

Tuesday is great London books day on The Daily Constitutional. Give us your own recommendations at the usual email address

The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)
By G.K. Chesterton

"He walked on the Embankment once under a dark red sunset. The red river reflected the red sky, and they both reflected his anger. The sky, indeed, was so swarthy, and the light on the river relatively so lurid, that the water almost seemed of fiercer flame than the sunset it mirrored. It looked like a stream of literal fire winding under the vast caverns of a subterranean country."

The events of G.K Chesterton's outlandish, and at times lurid tale of anarchy, treachery, double-bluff and paranoia, cast an apocalyptic pall over London – the familiar, sedate old city seems on the brink of conflagration by its mere proximity to the narrative of Chesterton's classic.

Gabriel Syme has been recruited by a shadowy branch of the authorities to root out anarchist cells in a political tinderbox London of the early 20th Century. He gravitates toward bohemian Saffron Park, a thinly-veiled fictionalization of then-fashionable Bedford Park in the borough of Ealing. Famed residents of this “most significant suburb of the last century” (as John Betjeman) once described it included W.B Yeats, the actor William Terris, and the painter Camille Pissarro. Elsewhere in fiction it provides the model for Biggleswick in John Buchan’s Mr. Standfast.

In Saffron Park, Syme encounters the wild Lucien Gregory, and is led into the underworld of political London. A literal under-world, as it turns out: the scene in which Syme "descends" into the nightmarish realm of the anarchists, via a seemingly innocent and ordinary London pub, is a vivid set-piece.

Written at a time of great political upheaval (the run up to the First World War) the suspicious, cloak and dagger nature of the piece is, for many, an apposite tale for our security conscious millennial world of today. Chesterton himself, when asked to explain the more complex twists of the labyrinthine narrative, simply pointed to the subtitle of his most famous novel: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare.

You can buy The Man Who Was Thursday (published by Penguin) HERE.

If You Do One OTHER Thing in London This Week…

2011-11-29T06:00:00.000Z

Our NEW weekly slot in which we point you in the direction of other great happenings and events in our great city. A new exhibition, a gig, a museum, a pop-up-shop – the best of London within a few minutes of a London Walks walking tour.

The First Actresses exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery runs until 8th January and turns the spotlight on the first female stars if the London stage from the 17th and 18th centuries. Running concurrently there is a free exhibition of portraits featuring contemporary stars of stage and screen.

Tickets for The First Actresses range from £9.00 to £12.10 and can be booked on 0844 248 5033 or at the National Portrait Gallery website – click HERE.

Also at the NPG website you can enter a fabulous prize draw to win a Fortnum & Mason hamper. Yum. Click HERE to enter.

November Is Quiz Month: Q28

2011-11-28T12:00:00.000Z

November is Quiz Month on The Daily Constitutional! 30 Questions in 30 Days!

Question 28:

Name that spire!

Answers on December 1st.

PUB QUIZ WALKS go every Thursday night in March 2012 – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE

On This Day in London History…

2011-11-28T09:39:00.001Z

This from David, just back from Paris but already out in the field…

92 years ago today – 28 Nov 1919 - Nancy Astor became the first woman in British history to take her seat in Parliament.

Thanks David. You can find her plaque (pictured) in St James’s Square in the vicinity of the Old Palace Quarter walk.

In and Around London... Camden Town

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000Z

November Is Quiz Month: Q27

2011-11-27T12:00:00.000Z

November is Quiz Month on The Daily Constitutional! 30 Questions in 30 Days!

Question 27:

Can you fill in the missing word on this plaque…

Answers on December 1st.

PUB QUIZ WALKS go every Thursday night in March 2012 – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE

November is Quiz Month: Q26

2011-11-26T17:29:00.002Z

November is Quiz Month on The Daily Constitutional! 30 Questions in 30 Days!

Question 26:

Can you name the structure from the detail pictured?

Answers on December 1st.

PUB QUIZ WALKS go every Thursday night in March 2012 – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE

Saturday Street: Cock Lane

2011-11-26T10:02:00.002Z

The Saturday Street is our weekly series in which we unlock the stories behind the names of London's famous thoroughfares. It's compiled by London Walks guide Karen – listed by Travel + Leisure magazine as The World's Greatest Tour Guide. You can find Karen on Saturdays guiding her Old Westminster and British Museum walks. If you've got a London street query or suggestion, email Karen at the usual address

Cock Lane EC1
Location: The City of London

Never ceases to cause a snigger or two on the Ghosts of the Old City walk, Cock Lane is famed as a street where practitioners of the oldest profession could ply their trade within the confines of the law. It has gone by this, or similar name since the 1200’s.

November is Quiz Month: Q25

2011-11-25T19:53:00.002Z

November is Quiz Month on The Daily Constitutional! 30 Questions in 30 Days!

Question 25:

Grrr. Where is this lion?

Answers on December 1st.

PUB QUIZ WALKS go every Thursday night in March 2012 – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE

November is Quiz Month: Q24

2011-11-24T12:00:00.000Z

November is Quiz Month on The Daily Constitutional! 30 Questions in 30 Days!

Question 24:

Name this famous London Theatre…

Answers on December 1st.

PUB QUIZ WALKS go every Thursday night in November – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE

November is Quiz Month: Q23

2011-11-23T12:00:00.000Z

November is Quiz Month on The Daily Constitutional! 30 Questions in 30 Days!

Question 23:

Fill in the blank on this South London plaque…

Answers on December 1st.

PUB QUIZ WALKS go every Thursday night in November – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE

November is Quiz Month: Q22

2011-11-22T12:00:00.000Z

November is Quiz Month on The Daily Constitutional! 30 Questions in 30 Days!

Question 22:

Name this famous building…

Answers on December 1st.

PUB QUIZ WALKS go every Thursday night in November – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE

The London Reading List No.23

2011-11-22T08:00:00.000Z

Tuesday is great London books day on The Daily Constitutional. Give us your own recommendations at the usual email address

Bespoke: Savile Row Ripped & Smoothed

By Richard Anderson

Richard Anderson walked into Huntsman of Savile Row as a callow teenager looking for a job. He left nearly 20 years later as one of the bespoke world’s most respected tailors having learned the trade from suit makers of the old school.

Where he learned to write so well is not a matter of record, but the proof of his ability can be found on every page of his autobiographical account of a working life on one of London’s most famous streets.

His insider’s tale opens up Savile Row tailoring to the layman with wit, affection and not a little drama.

His pen portraits of the irascible old tailors who toughened him up as a young apprentice are vivid and memorable. His discreetly gossipy revelations of the foibles of arguably the most demanding clientele in London make the reader feel that the cost of a bespoke suit would be cheap at twice the price.

Three tales are woven into the narrative. There’s Anderson’s own coming of age story, that of a boy from St Albans who dreamt of being a footballer and who almost blundered into his calling on The Row. It is the work of a seemingly very down-to-earth man whose easy charm and self-effacing wit wins the reader from the off.

The history of Savile Row is the next strand, and Anderson’s delight in the famous old street is infectious. The art of the tailor is the third and potentially most difficult strand. But such is Anderson’s love of his craft, combined with his gift to relate a tale, that the technical details of cutting, measuring and making a suit become more fascinating with every page.

In 2001 he set up his own business on The Row. Richard Anderson Ltd was the first new house to be set up on Savile Row in 50 years.

Each Savile Row tailoring house has its own distinctive style. But I doubt if any of them will ever write a book about The Row that is half as good as this one. No London bookshelf is complete without it.

If You Do One OTHER Thing in London This Week…

2011-11-22T06:00:00.000Z

Our NEW weekly slot in which we point you in the direction of other great happenings and events in our great city. A new exhibition, a gig, a museum, a pop-up-shop – the best of London within a few minutes of a London Walks walking tour.

Time is running out to catch the wonderful Entertaining the Nation exhibition at the Jewish Museum. The stories of the UK’s favourite stars – from rock to sitcom and beyond – take centre stage in a riveting analysis of the Jewish contribution to the world of British showbusiness.

Described by the New Statesman as “a colourful exhibition but also a thoughtful one” it closes on the 8th January 2012.

At the end of the Camden Town Walk you are well placed for a visit to the Jewish Museum.

In the meantime, visit the Jewish Museum’s website HERE.

November is Quiz Month: Q21

2011-11-21T12:00:00.000Z

November is Quiz Month on The Daily Constitutional! 30 Questions in 30 Days!

Question 21:

Whose inscrutable lips are these…

Answers on December 1st.

PUB QUIZ WALKS go every Thursday night in November – a walking tour & a pub quiz with prizes.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PUB QUIZ WALKS SCHEDULE

WATCH THE PUB QUIZ WALKS FILM HERE