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Walking tours in London ...mostly. My book 'Why is Downing Street Painted Black?' is available now. Each about 2.5hrs(ish).

'Pay what you want' London tours that currently take place most weekends. The groups are kept small, which means that you're guaranteed to get a better experience. You will just need to contact me through the website and say which walk you'd like to book on. The weekend walks work on a 'pay what you want' basis and during the week I do 'private' tailor-made walks for which I have set fees. Weekend Walks

There are two Saturday walks and a Sunday walk. SATURDAY 10.30am - Trafalgar Square to St Paul's. SATURDAY 2.30pm - St Paul's to Monument

SUNDAY 11am - My neck of the woods (east end)

For more detailed descriptions and dates please regard the website.

05/11/2026

As today is the 5th Nov, it seems the right day to resurrect this old vid from three years ago (so it's 421 years, not 418 as stated in the vid) when I skulked around in a cloak pretending to be either a gunpowder plotter or one of the guards. Who knows?

Either way, Guy Fawkes (the poster boy for the whole failed plot) was caught beneath the House of Lords in the Royal Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament to you and me) with 36 barrels of gunpowder by guards, searching with candles. The explosion was supposed to take place during the State Opening of Parliament, so each year, when the ceremony takes place, The Yeomen of the Guard (the monarch's official bodyguard) still search the cellars beneath parliament. ...just incase. Better safe than sorry.

03/11/2026

The City of London is where the Romans originally settled (Londonium) in the year 48. Today it is a separate city within Greater London, something which goes back to the Norman Conquest in 1066, when the City, known as London by then, paid William the Conqueror to be left alone, then had it put in writing in Magna Carta in 1215.

As such, the City of London have their own rules, regulations, taxes, mayor and ...police force, the City of London Police. Founded 10 years after the Metropolitan Police Service the City of London police have larger, taller helmets (called Custodian Helmets), because they replicate the helmets worn by the Roman soldiers who were part of the original settlement 2,000 years ago.

27/10/2026

In 1894, George Busson du Maurier published his second novel, Trilby, a gothic horror story involving a young artist's model called Trilby who comes under the spell of evil hypnotist Svengali.

The book was a huge success and a stage adaptation in London swiftly followed. In the production the titular character wore a very specific type of soft hat with a snapped back that became so popular with audience members that hat makers reproduced it to meet demand. It was named after the character; Trilby and reached peak popularity in the 1950s and 1960s.

George du Maurier was buried in Hampstead, his fame arguably eclipsed by one of his grand-daughters, Daphne du Maurier.

22/10/2026

In 1587, Philip Henslowe founded The Rose, the first Elizabethan theatre on London's Bankside. He put on hundreds of plays (alongside his son-in-law Edward Alleyn), all the details of which he meticulously recorded, a diary which still exists today. The Rose hosted performanes by Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd and the first ever performance of William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.

In 1989 much of the Rose Theatre's foundations were found after a 1950s office block had been demolished ...along with much historical information and about 700 objects from the period. Developers were keen to erase all trace of The Rose but a campaign supported by the likes of Dame Judi Dench, Ian McKellan and strangely Dustin Hoffman saved it.

The remains were sealed in a bed of sand, water and cement and the new building forced to incorporate this now Scheduled Ancient Monument (a lake) into their ground floor.

37 years later and still no excavation, but it looks like that might all change as are on a mission to raise £2 million for that very reason ...and will hopefully happen in the next year or so.

So watch this space and you can support by joining them on guided tours of the area, extended until the 26th Nov.

18/10/2026

On 4th Dec 1957 in Lewisham, south east London, one of the worst train crashes in UK history occured close to St John's station.

Thick fog had caused havoc on London's railways that night and a Hayes bound train, carrying 1,500 passengers from Charing Cross was halted as it was about to veer off from Lewisham towards Ladywell. A steam train carrying about 700 people to Ramsgate smashed in to the back of it, causing untold damage and a bridge to collapse on to two carriages.

90 people lost their lives that night with over 100 requiring hospital treatment.

Today the victims are remembered on plaques at both Lewisham and St John's stations.

12/10/2026

In the 1940s, the American military who were based at nearby Norfolk House in St James's Square, used (along with Canadians) The Stafford London as an officers club. During air raids, military personnel would spend their nights sheltering in the hotel's 300 year old w**e cellar. Why not?

Today, the same cellar, which houses about 8,000 bottles of w**e is used for dinners and events, but they've also turned one section in to a miniature museum complete with WW2 newspapers, signs, gas masks, sand bags and all sorts ...in recognition of its wartime use.

The cellar is only open to hotel guests but you are most cordially welcome to have a drink in their American Bar, chock full of gifts left over the years by guests including American Football helmets, baseball caps, signed photos, letters and lots more, a continuation of their connection with America which goes back to the 1940s.

Please Note - In order to make this video I was invited to a drink or two at The Stafford London in their American Bar.

06/10/2026

In the early hours of the morning of the 18th January 1981, a fire broke out at a house on New Cross Road, Lewisham in south east London. That evening two teenagers had invited friends and family to a joint birthday party and approximately 100 young black people came to celebrate. Unfortunately, 13 of them lost their lives that night in the fire which completely gutted the house.

The police response was that the fire had been started accidentally by people at the party, but after decades of racism, violence and discrimination by the public, the press and especially the Police, the local black community suspected foul play. The coroners report was inconclusive and taking matters in to their own hands, about 20,000 people marched from Fordham Park in New Cross, close to where the fire happened to Westminster and Hyde Park. This day of action a month or so later spilled over in to what is either known as 'The Brixton Riots' or 'The Brixton Uprising' depending through which lens you view it.

The youngsters that tragically lost their lives that night are remembered on a plaque on the house where the fire happened. There's also an incredible stained glass memorial window at the church in Brockley where a number of the victims worshipped and a boulder in Fordham Park itself with their names inscribed. The memorials have 14 rather than 13 names as unfortunately, one young man, Anthony Berbeck who survived the fire took his own life 2 years later, probably as a result of his experience in the early morning of the 18th January 1981.

02/10/2026

Continuing my series on London's place name origins. Today is Wandsworth in south west London in the London Borough of Wandsworth, in between Battersea and Putney and the south side of the river Thames from Fulham.

The first bit is a name ...Waendel, very probably some kind of Anglo-Saxon chieftan or landowner who not only gave his name to the area, but the river Wandle which still exists today, flowing through douth London in to the Thames.

The ending 'worth' is an old English word for enclosure seen also in Walworth or Isleworth. It might have been a settlement or farm, but basically means 'Waendel's Enclosure' ...Wandsworth.

Any place London place names you'd like me to do next?

30/09/2026

A massive thanks to everyone who came to the first event in Season 2 of Bowl of Chalk's Curistorian Club.

We were in our new venue at Dirty Dick's pub by Liverpool Street station with our own downstairs bar and were very capably looked after by Josh and Cerys behind the bar.

Our two guests were Victoria Shepherd discussing her book 'Stony Jack and the Lost Jewels of Cheapside' detailing her research into the finding of a massive hoard of Ellizabethan Jewels in 1912 in the City of London and what happened to them.

Victoria was followed by artist Ben Edge Art who talked us through his development as an artist and particularly the years he has spent recording and painting British folk and pagan rituals and traditions. For obvious reasons, he focussed his talk on those that continue to this day in London.

If you'd like to join a future Curistorian Club event, we still have tkts for our Oct, Nov and Dec events with a wonderfully eclectic array of guests sharing with us their own particular London interest or specialism.

Hopefully see you there.

Jonnie

28/09/2026

Continuing my series on London's independent bookshops, may I introduce you (if you're not already familar) with in Brockley, south east London which opened in 2021 and is run by writer Jason Shelley.

Having worked in bookshops himself over the years, Shelley told me that the reality of running his own bookshop 'wasn't a lifetime plan. It just happened'.

It's a proper Alladin's cave of predominantly used books, of which there are thousands, stuffed in to every nook and cranny, but they also have new books; mostly prize winners or shortlisted books and books by authors which Jason considers a 'must', such as Virginia Woolf, Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and others.

Crofton Books is definitely a bookshop to explore, so if you're in the area, I highly recommend popping in.

Crofton Books - 315 Brockley Rd, London, SE4 2QZ.

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https://linktr.ee/bowlofchalk

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