BERMONDSEY – FROM TANNERS TO TREND-SETTERS (3hrs)
An area rich in history and atmosphere, it is now re-emerging from Victorian dockland, industrial area and notorious slum, into a desirable riverside residential area. Now dominated by the Shard it is one of London’s ‘coolest’ areas, but there are still traces of its industrial history including the Leather, Hide and Wool Exchange noted by Dickens for its noxious miasma …now of course  gone!. (walk could end with a meal in fashionable Bermondsey St.)

BEDFORD PARK  (CHISWICK) – LONDON’S ARTISTIC SUBURB
The opening of the tube westwards to Chiswick in the mid 19C prompted the development of a purpose-built suburb of grand houses set in leafy streets, many designed by Norman Shaw, complete with a church, schools, shops, pub and social club.  Inspired by the social ideals of Ruskin and William Morris it became the haunt of artists, poets and eccentrics. (Could end with meal in www.cote.co.uk or www.megans.co.uk)

BORN-AGAIN BRIXTON – A thriving market and a story of revival and regeneration
A walk that explores the centre of Brixton, including its colourful market, but also visits an award-winning redevelopment of a once notorious ‘sink’ housing estate, and Zaha Hadid’s Sterling Prize winning Academy.

EXPLORE THE BOROUGH – Bermondsey’s lesser-known neighbour.
Second only in age to the City, the Borough is now another fast-changing area but still full of history from Roman times onwards. Known to Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens – fragments of the Marshalsea prison where his father was imprisoned for debt feature on this walk. The area is an eclectic mix of elegant Georgian terraces, narrow cobbled streets, new urban architecture and repurposed industrial sites. It now competes with Bermondsey for millennial haunts…eateries, galleries and warehouse conversions.

CAMDEN – FROM PRIMROSE HILL TO MORNINGTON CRESCENT
The walks starts along the villa-lined elegant streets of Primrose Hill, featured in the films Paddington 2, and Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van.  Camden Town is a complete contrast – an assault on the senses, busy, noisy and fun, – the home of counter culture . The walk ends opposite London’s most bizarre and dramatic Art Deco building – the erstwhile Black Cat cigarette factory in Mornington Crescent.  (could end with at a meal in local pub www.lytteltonarmscamden.co.uk)

CHELSEA VILLAGE
A walk exploring what the locals would call ‘Chelsea Village’. Starting mid-way down the Kings Road, it is a walk of 2 halves, the first concentrating on the narrow streets round St. Luke’s church (where Dickens’ married) and the Kings Road of the swinging 60s, the second walking through the artists’ quarter to reach the original riverside Tudor village, site of  Henry VIII’s manor house and home to Thomas More. The walk ends along Cheyney Row, the Physic Garden and back to the Kings Road.  (2 ½ hrs).

CHISWICK – GEORGIAN RIVERSIDE AND THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT
Walk starts with a brief exploration of Bedford Park, (see above for walk of Bedford Park in detail) designed by Norman Shaw, as the first experiment in garden suburbs. then goes under A4, to the 15c. Chiswick riverside village and continues along Chiswick Mall finishing by William Morris’ Kelmscott House and the 17c. Dove Pub (3hrs – approx 3 miles).

CLERKENWELL – MONKS, MEAT- MERCHANTS, MARXISTS  AND THE MEDIA
Still preserves its village ‘green’, church and pub and is steeped in 1000 years of history. Now home of the loft-conversion set and the media agencies, yet it still retains its slightly raffish and alternative feel.

DISCOVERING DEPTFORD
Still a poor area of London, but one with a long and varied history, starting with the foundation of Henry VIII’s naval dockyard, traces of which still exist.  With the closure of the dockyard in the 19c, increasing industrialisation and 2nd World War bombing it declined into poverty.  Mainly overlooked by the property developers (except sadly now along the river front) Deptford has evolved as a proud working class, multicultural area. (3 ½ – 4 hrs).

FITZROVIA – THE FAMOUS AND THE INFAMOUS.
The area around Charlotte St., named Fitzrovia after one of the pubs frequented by the literary, artistic, eccentric, and frankly raffish, became the bohemian centre of late 19c. and 20c. London. An area full of atmosphere, and of good stories.  (The site of the Middlesex Hospital has been demolished and redeveloped except the listed Chapel which the walk will visit (subject to opening hours)

EXPLORING HACKNEY
A series of walks exploring Hackney, one of London’s most historic and fast-changing boroughs

  • DALSTON,  KINGSLAND  AND THE DE BEAUVOIR ESTATE Considered by some to be one of the ‘coolest’ areas in London, Dalston and Kingsland now boasts vegan restaurants and cutting edge art centres. Once brick fields, some of the land was developed by the de Beauvoir and Rhodes families into elegant estates of Georgian and Victorian villas sited on wide tree-lined avenues. A varied walk from the buzzing centre of Dalston, with its hidden garden in an old railway siding and edgy eateries, to the quiet residential streets of the Rhodes and de Beauvoir estates.
  • FOLLOW  THE ANCIENT DROVE ROAD – Hackney to Shoreditch Look at a modern street map of Hackney, Haggerston and Shoreditch and you can see a straight diagonal route cutting across the grid of the modern street plan.  Starting in the 1100’s livestock from Essex were driven along this ancient path to the City meat market at Smithfield. This walk follows approx 3 ½ miles of this path from Hackney to Shoreditch.  It is a way of linking diverse areas and sights from 13c church tower, a city farm, traces of Victorian philanthropy and social housing to finish in ‘millennial’ Shoreditch.  (Can end with an optional late lunch in Cocotte in Hoxton Square. www.mycocotte.uk) (3 + hrs/3 ½ m.)
  • HAGGERSTON…Where? Sandwiched between the City and the Regents Canal Haggerston is an area attracting a property boom.  Victorian terraces, massive neo-gothic public buildings, a city farm on the site of a old gas works, traces of which remain,  and erstwhile furniture warehouses  now being colonised by the new tech workforce.  But still hints of its previous past remain from 1715 alms-houses now the ‘Museum of the Home (the renamed Geffrye Museum) to 60’s council estates and canal-side living. (End the walk in one of London’s original Vietnamese restaurants – www.songque.co.uk )
  • THE ORIGINAL HACKNEY VILLAGE Concentrated on Hackney village itself the walk features a medieval church tower, a Tudor manor house (Nat. Trust – Sutton House) Georgian terraces housing fetching £ms., elegant leafy Victorian estates and proud municipal buildings including the Hackney Empire, Hackney Town Hall. The area is now popular with the new generation of young urbanites, but it still retains its slightly edgy feel.
  • STOKE NEWINGTON + WOODBERRY DOWN A varied walk featuring an ambitious and controversial redevelopment project of the notorious post-war Woodberry Down Estate, Stoke Newington – a hill-top village which became fashionable in 16th century…and again now!, The route passes a wetland centre, goes through the  ‘spooky’ Victorian Abney Park Cemetery and ends through Stamford Hill, home to the world’s 3rd largest community of ultra-orthodox Jews. (3-4m approx 3hrs.)

    • HAMPSTEAD VILLAGE – LONDON’S GEORGIAN ‘HILL STATION’
    Still very much a village, and once a fashionable spa it boasts some grand houses, and elegant gardens. Literary and artistic connections abound – John Keats and Constable to name but two. (could end with meal in a gastro pub www.freemasonsarms.co.uk)

    HAMPSTEAD – AN ARCHITECTURAL WALK – Modernism versus Victoriana
    In the late19c Hampstead saw the development of grand and flamboyant Victorian villas. In the 1930s Hampstead attracted artists and intellectuals and became a hub for German and Austrian émigrés.  It became something of a laboratory for British and foreign architects to experiment with the continental Modernist style. The walk is designed to look at the contrasting styles of Modernist and Victoriana architecture…not forgetting the occasional earlier 17c domestic architecture.

    HIGHGATE VILLAGE
    One of London’s ‘hill top villages’ competing with Hampstead for exclusivity – although Highgate considers its neighbour as rather flash and new money! The walk will explore the village, with its fine 18c. houses as well as modern architecture, It can end at the cemetery, famous for the burial of Karl Marx (no guiding allowed so self-guide in cemetery).

    ISLINGTON AND CANONBURY
    Islington is a historic settlement with many layers of history stretching back to Anglo Saxon times. The walk explores ‘Islington village’ and continues through the many early 19c squares, each with its own character and history. It concludes with a pretty stretch along the banks of the ‘New River’ to Canonbury – with its imposing 19c villas and one of London’s few surviving Tudor buildings, Canonbury Tower. NB  2 ¾ hrs linear ending at Highbury & Islington. (A shorter 2hr.version  possible omitting New River and Canonbury)

    EXPLORING HIDDEN KENSINGTON.
    Forget Kensington Palace and Gardens and Kensington High St in favour of the site of the original medieval Manor of Kensington and the less well-known streets and squares in a series of ‘villages’ south of the high street. The walk goes through Kensington’s two historic squares, and also explores the ‘New Town’- (1840’s!) – 3 distinctive estates each developed by entrepreneurs, who made their money in surprising ways. (could end with meal in Iraqui restaurant www.samadaliraqirestaurant.co.uk /or Holland Park cafe).

    DOING THE LAMBETH WALK
    There is much more to Lambeth than the Imperial War Museum, Charlie Chaplin and William Blake.  Elegant Georgian squares rub shoulders with remains of workhouses and industry, the most flamboyant of which, the Royal Doulton factory, we pass on this walk. Lambeth still retains its working class heritage despite being sandwiched between the massive redevelopments of Nine Elms and Elephant and Castle. And yes, there is a Lambeth walk and we go along it!

    NOTTING HILL AND NOTTING DALE – An area of contrasts
    Notting Hill is a very mixed area of extreme and sudden contrasts of elegant housing, social deprivation and vibrant resettlement.  Originally an area of gravel extraction and brick making, the area was developed with grand villas in the mid 19c. but by 1950s/60s it was an area associated with racial tension and property racketeering ..remember Rachman?  But now it commands some of the highest property prices in London.

    RICHMOND-UPON-THAMES – a circular walk
    The Georgian village around its village green, remains of a Tudor Palace, a riverside walk and a steep climb up through pretty gardens to the top of the hill to see a protected view of the Thames immortalised by Turner, the Star and Garter Home, and gates to Richmond Park.  Then return down Richmond Hill and back through ‘modern Richmond’ to the station.

    SHOREDITCH AND HOXTON
    On the borders of the City yet a world apart, now in the forefront of the ‘tech’ revolution attracting hi-tech start-ups and the new youth culture, including street artists such as Roa, and Stik.   Still many traces of the past from Shakespeare’s first playhouse, to Victorian furniture industry. Old buildings with new uses – a circus school in an old power station, comedy clubs under railway arches. (Could end with meal in Hoxton Square – www.mycocotte.uk)

    SOUTHWARK + ROTHERHITHE – SEEDS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (Pilgrims and Puritans)
    A walk originally developed for the Daughters of the American Revolution, which traces the origins and motivations of some of the first settlers to cross the Atlantic. In Southwark see the site of John Harvard’s home and a replica ship almost identical to the Mayflower.  Take a short bus ride to the Thames-side village of Rotherhithe, to see where the Mayflower took on board 65 passengers to sail on to Plymouth.  The 17c charity school and church where Captain Jones worshipped still survive. (Could end with meal in the riverside Mayflower Inn, www.mayflowerpub.co.uk Rotherhithe)

    DISCOVER WALTHAMSTOW
    Historic Village, Neon Heaven  – to William Morris Gallery (explore on your own)
    (Best done Fri – Sun. if you want to visit Neon Heaven….one of the walk’s high-lights (pun intended!!) Until recently regarded as a working class suburb on the eastern fringe of London, it is now the latest to be sought out by millennials. The walk covers all aspects from Old Walthamstow village conservation area with its 17c church, Orford road lined by eclectic shops and gourmet café’s, ‘Neon Heaven’ www.godsownjunkyard.co.uk, to suburban sprawl and the massive art-deco town hall, and finally the William Morris Gallery and café. www.wmgallery.org.uk, where the walk ends

    WELLS, SPAS AND HIDDEN RIVERS – Angel Islington to Clerkenwell
    A walk with a watery theme, tracing the route of  ‘New River’, from Islington to the New River Head in Finsbury.  From Sadlers Wells the walk traces the hidden Fleet River and ends by exploring Clerkenwell.  A varied walk through Georgian Squares, past Victorian warehouses and social housing, fragments of medieval monasteries, and a notorious prison.

    EXPLORE OLD WIMBLEDON’S HILL TOP VILLAGE.
    (optional afternoon extension to Cannizaro Park, after traditional pub lunch).
    This walk explores the original Wimbledon village on the hill overlooking 19c. Wimbledon in the valley.  The route climbs to reach the original parish church, traces of a royal Tudor manor, and later rich merchants’ houses. The original high street still exists with interesting shops and pubs.  We then skirt the common, to pass more grand houses to end on the original village green, home to 2 village pubs.  (End with lunch at a traditional pub www.thehandinhandwimbledon.co.uk)

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