Participating in a walking tour is a great way to see London. If you have a few hours to kill they’re a much better option than the quick bus or taxi tours, as they offer opportunities to get into the detail rather than just listening to the broad brush strokes and peering down on things from the top deck of a bus. Walking tour guides are also notable for being real history buffs or having a burning passion for their particular subject.
As I was at a loose end yesterday I decided to dip into TripAdvisor and select a walking tour (their site has the most comprehensive list of available tours that I’ve been able to find). I picked out London Detours, fourth on the TripAdvisor list, and plumped for their Southwark Detour. I’m far more familiar with the north and the east of London, so I thought this would be a good way to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge.
Our trip actually started at Monument which is north of the Thames, probably for the sake of convenience as that station is accessible from three London Underground lines. It also gave our guide the opportunity to take us to look at a model of the old London Bridge and a piece of a Roman wharf which can be found in one of the churches nearby (you’ll have to go on the walk yourself to discover which one!). We also had a little game spotting London’s smallest statue, which you’ll find on Philpot Lane…
Then it was across London Bridge itself and into Southwark for a stroll around the main sights in the area. Hayes Galleria, the remains of the Palace of Winchester, City Hall, Southwark Cathedral, Borough Market and Guy’s Hospital all featured, and we also popped inside some of the more interesting commercial enterprises in the area. We watched glass-blowing in the warm surroundings of Peter Layton Glass, had a poke around inside the The Arch Climbing Wall and also popped into The Miller pub behind Guy’s. Seeing street art on both ends of the building (including a pub sign by, I suspect, Ben Eine) I shouldn’t have been surprised at what I found when we stepped inside – it turns out that The Miller is ground zero for intriguing graffiti art indoors as well. Despite some of its modern features, the emphasis of our tour was the contrast between the City and Southwark in centuries past – while the City of London was a place of commerce and industry, Southwark was seen very much as a destination for leisure, in all its colourful and sometimes sordid forms…
In terms of the highlights of London Detour’s Southwark walking tour, I was surprised to discover the monument to Shakespeare inside Southwark Cathedral which I’ve never come across before, and which is accompanied by a stained glass window featuring many of the characters from his plays. I also paid my second ever visit to the Cross Bones burial ground, which contains the remains of thousands of bodies from the 16th to 18th centuries. When I last saw the site it was a working business premises, but as it is now derelict people have taken the opportunity to festoon the gates with mementoes. There are garlands, toys, candles and the like – the white ribbons that you see in the image below provide both a potted history of the site and the hopes of the group who are campaigning for a permanent memorial to the people who are interred here – many of them ‘Winchester Geese’, as the local prostitutes were known. My biggest surprise of the day, however, was the discovery of No 10 Downing St and then immediately afterwards literally bumping into the cast of ‘Jack The Ripper’s London‘ which I wrote about only yesterday!
I really enjoyed taking one of the London Detours walking tours – our guide was knowledgeable, friendly and enthusiastic. If I do have a caveat their tours are rather expensive – £25 per person. However, their walks do stretch to around four and a half hours which is considerably longer than most, so I suppose it represents pretty good value for money. If you’re thinking about trying out a London walking tour, in addition to London Detours I can also recommend Bowl of Chalk, who do a stonking tour from Trafalgar Square to St Pauls, and for those with an interest in all things graffiti, Street Art London. Their guys have an encyclopaedic knowledge about every street artist that has ever raised a spray can to a wall in London. To avoid any misunderstanding, I will just state that I paid the full price for yesterday’s walking tour with London Detours and if you want to see more photographs from the walk just have a look here.
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