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London Ghost Walks And Jack The Ripper Tour

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Our Jack the Ripper London walk is still taking place seven chilling nights a week and departs from Exit Four of Aldgate East Underground Station.

This is the only Jack the Ripper Walk that starts right in the heart of the area where the infamous murders took place between August and November 1888. By following the carefully laid out route that we have devised you get a much better idea of how the murders unfolded, the effect they had on the area and how they increased in ferocity as the so called “autumn of terror” rolled by.

For the full deatils of the Jack the Ripper Tour can be found at the relevant page on this website.

The other popualr one of our London walks is the London Ghost Walk. This takes place mostly on Friday and  Saturday nights and takes you on a wonderful and creepy journey thorugh the older streets of London.

To book on to the London Ghost Walks please pay a visit to the relevant pages on our website.

Richard has been out today putting the finishing touches to the Free Riverside Pub Walk, which is due to go live in May and which will allow you to visit several pubs that literally face out across the River Thames. These places are steeped in history and we know you’re going to love this and the other free London walks that we’ll be rolling out in the coming months.

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The Harry Potter London walk

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

We recently changed the Harry Potter London walk to incorporate the fact that the photograph of the Harry Potter actors is no longer on display at the National Portrait gallery.
Both the website and the Harry Potter London tour PDF have been updated to incorporate this change, albeit since the tour actually still passes the National Portrait Gallery it is worth popping in if you have the time.

Otherwise the Harry Potter tour of London is up to date as of March 2010 and can be obtained by the simple, magical ruse of sending an email to harry-potter-pdf@discovery-walks.com.

This is now a totally automated system so the owl responds within minutes and drops the downloadable pdf into your mail box. It’s that simple.

The great thing about our DIY London Walking Tours is that you are able to do them at your own pace. You don’t have to turn up at a scheduled departure point, and you most certainly don’t have to be crammed onto a tour with a large group of people.

Our DIY walking tour format has proved incredibly popular and we’re going to be adding a lot more of them this year. The first to go live will be the Riverside Pub tour, which has been mapped out and is now just waiting to be written up. As with the Harry Potter Tour the Riverside London Pub Walks will be laid out in such a way as to provide plenty of history, lots of atmosphere and they will also incorporate a pub quiz and treasure hunt that will keep you occupied throughout!

We’re planning on the London Pub Walks being as popular as the Harry Potter tour, as our DIY format lends itself perfectly to exploring the city’s haunted pubs.

So keep an eye on our blog for more details of the coming Free London walks.

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The Top Ten London walks.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

We get many requests from people asking which of the London Walking Tours we offer is the best. Obviously this is a difficult question to answer since those who explore London on our Walks nearly always go away raving about what they’ve seen and heard.

Much has to do with your interests. Some people love Jack the Ripper Walks around the East End of London, whilst others find the London Ghost Walks that we offer are more to their liking. Indeed we often get questions about these two walks as to which one we would suggest as a must do.

Well, in truth, they’re both great walks albeit both are very different.

The Jack the Ripper Tour tells the full story of the Whitechapel Murders that rocked London in 1888. It is a story that is as much about social history as it is about crime and murder. You are taken through the very streets where the murders occurred and shown the places where the victims of Jack the Ripper lived and which were known to them.

The Haunted London walks on the other hand are a little more light hearted. They combine fascinating history with tales of ghosts and cover the places where ghosts have been seen.  There are two ghost walks that we conduct on a regular basis. On Fridays we offer the Ghosts, Ghouls and Graveyards Tour and on Saturdays we offer the Alleyways and Shadows old City London Ghots Walk.

So these three regular walks are up there on our list of top ten London walks.

So, in closing, here is that list in full.

1. The Jack the Ripper Tour.

2. Alleyways and Shadows: - The Old City Ghost Walks.

3. Ghosts, Ghouls and Graveywards.

4. The London of Dickens and Shakespeare.

5.  The Secret City:- A Walk Back in Time.

6. A Journey Through Dickens London.

7.  The Inns and Taverns of Old London.

8. Clerkenwell:- London’s Secret Village.

9. The London Story.

10. Pirates and Pressgangs:- A Docklands Pub Tour.

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A London Pub Walks Update

Monday, November 9th, 2009

The Paracon 2009 in Dublin went well and Richard gave his talk on the supernatural aspects of the Jack the Ripper case. Saturday night saw him joining a ghost hunt at Wicklow Gaol that finished at 2.30am.

Sunday he flew back to London and is now updating his new series of London walks. Today he is off to stroll the banks of the River Thames adding the finishing touches to the Riverside London Pub Walk. There are a few creases to iron out before it goes live and photographs are going to be added to the finished London walk. In addition we’re looking at adding something slightly unique to this particular London walk.

The response to these free London walks has been great and many of you have written to say how much they have enjoyed taking the walks we offer in London and in Rochester.

We are even looking at our next free walk PDF and it is likely to be a wander around the London of William Shakespeare.

This will, of course, include the area of Bankside where the Globe Playhouse was located, but it will also include the lesser known aspects of Shakespeare’s Lost City. Another one of the Free London Walking Tours that is currently being worked on is a tour London sightseeing bus tour that you will be able to do using your Oyster or Travel Card.

Then, of course, you can still join our nightly guided Jack the Ripper Tour of London. This goes seven chilling nights a week and costs just £7 per person.

As with our Free London walks we like to make our Jack the Ripper Tour different in that we are the only one of the companies offering London walks that limits the number on our Jack the Ripper walk to a sensible and manageable number. To help us do this we ask you to book in advance.

So keep an eye on our blog as there are some great new walks and tours comin up over the next six months.

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Updates to our free London walks.

Friday, November 6th, 2009

We’re in the process of updating our free walking tours of London and its surroundings. Those of you who have been following our blog for some time will be familiar with our belief that we should offer you as many ways of seeing London as possible.

Our Walks of London website (www.walksoflondon.co.uk) has over the years proved a great resource for those of you who want to see more of London. We give you step by step directions that enable you to find parts of London that you would never dream existed.

But, in addition, we pack our free London walks with information about the historical figures and the places that you will encounter as you enjoy our tours.

We’re putting the finishing touches now to a free Riverside pub walk which will take you to some lovely old pubs that, literally, hang over the Thames! There will be all manner of fun things to do as you follow our detailed step by step instructions. That is important to us. We don’t think that we should tell you to go and sit in a pub and just read about the places that are nearby.

We tell you how to get to those places and then, when you are there, we tell you all about them.

How?

Well our free London walks are print off PDF’s that you download, print off and do when you want and at your own pace.

This is a much better way of doing Riverside London Pub Walks than joining a scheduled tour because you can spend as much time in the pubs as you want.

Think about this? If you explore London’s Historic pubs on regular London walks you will be arriving at the pub in a group that might number 50 or more people. If the walk lasts two to two and a half hours then that means you get an average of 20 minutes in each pub. It takes a barman round about a minute, a little longer for a pint of Guiness, to pull a pint. Then, he has to take the money, ring it up and give you your change. Even if those 50 people are in groups of 3, that’s 16 or so groups who are buying drinks.

Well, as they say in America, you do the math! Are you really going to enjoy the pub’s ambience when up against the clock like that? Suppose you want to eat at the pub? Do you honestly think 20 minutes is enough time to get a meal and eat it!

A London pub walk is best done in a small group at your own pace. So that is where our free London walks make the difference. You can spend as much or as little time in the pub as you choose.

Suppose, for example, it’s a Friday night and one of the Riverside pubs is bursting at the walls it’s so crammed with local office workers. If you were on a scheduled walk you’d have to battle to the bar, get a drink, finish it in the twenty minutes allocated for the stop and then continue to the next crowded pub. Would that really be fun?

With our free Walks you would turn up at the pub, see that it was crowded and so make the decision to move on to the next pub. And, because our London Walking Tours are about you having the choice, we will always offer suggestions for alternatives nearby. It’s a win win situation and that’s why on our walks you will always discover a welcome difference.

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London Pub Walks - Let’s Raise A Glass

Monday, October 5th, 2009

Amongst the various London walks that we offer, some of our most popular are our London Pub Walks. Why?

Well, quite simply, they combine fun and fascination in equal measure. What other activity gives you the opportunity to discover some true slices of bygone London whilst, at the same time being able to sample the ambiance at some truly historic pubs. That is what makes them such a popular part of our London walks offerings.

Add to this the fact that you will also learn some fascinating facts and you can see why our London Pub Walks are a popular way for offices, social clubs and even groups of friends to go out and discover more of London.

Anyway, we’ve put together a little video to give you a taster of our Walks around London’s pubs.

Like many of our London walks, the pub tours are available to groups of 20+ and can be done at any time and on any day to suit the group.

You can even, if you wish, end the tour with a meal in a private room at one of the pubs you encounter in your journey around the pubs of London. An additional fun thing to do at the end of one of the Historic London Pub Walks is to end the tour with a quiz in which the participants have to answer a series of questions concerning the things they have seen on their journey around the old pubs of London.

In addition to the Pub Walks you can also have a Jack the Ripper Tour that stops of at a few pubs along the route, so these pub walks can be about all themes.

Back to our main London walks page.

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Our Free London walks - Beyond Harry Potter

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

In 2003 Richard Jones launched his series of free London walks. Since then many people have explored London following the careful step by step directions that Richard has paced out for them.

London walks should be a liberating experience and it is our belief that our customers should have a choice. To that end we are the only London walks company that offers you both pay and join tours of London or the free print off and do it yourself option.

Our Harry Potter London walks have blazed quite a trail across the London sightseeing scene. Thousands of people have asked for the PDF of the Harry Potter Tour and treasure Hunt around London. One family, who were following the route, even had the amazing experience of encountering Daniel Radcliffe and a film grew shooting scenes for the next Harry Potter Film in Westminster.

Indeed this PDF has been so popular we’ve now decided to roll out a whole series of walking tours which will commence in November and which will feature all manner of subjects. Our Riverside London Pub Walk will be the first to go live and will take you to some amazing Riverside hostelries that have changed little in over a hundred and more years.

As we explained back in June the London Pub Walk will include a quiz and treasure hunt as well as lots of fascinating facts and history about the streets through which you walk and the pubs that you visit.

The finishing touches are just being done now and then it will go through are usual rigorous quality control whereby it will be walked several times by an independent assessor to ensure that the route and directions work and then it will be offerred up as one of our Free London walks PDF’s that you will be able to download and do as and when you choose.

Of course, if you are looking for a private group tour or an office social or team building you can book a tour guided tour with us from just £7 per person.

So there you have it, more choice of ways to see London than any other Walks company. So why not get to know us and Experience a Welcome Difference?

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Why taking a London walk is good for you

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Walks make a great way to see London and keep fit.

We all want to keep fit these days. But, if you’re anything like me, the thought of jogging for mile after mile, working up a sweat and pushing yourself to extremes is, to say the least, not too appealing.

But with London walks you can actually get healthy whilst also exploring some of the great treasures and hidden places that London has to offer.

Walking is good for your body and discovering the historic places of the City on our walks is good for the mind. Health and information in one fell swoop - how’s that for an exercise regime!

We offer a whole series of popular London walks. Each walk is done at a gentle pace with regular stops for the guide to highlight points of interest, give you something of the history of the site you have stopped at, and also tell you about some of the characters and anecdotes associated with the site.

Our London Walking Tours cater for all ages, all needs and all tastes. There is the ever popular Jack the Ripper Tour which we offer seven chilling nights a week. There are the equally popular and highly acclaimed Haunted London walks which take place on Friday and Saturday nights.

Perhaps you are looking to explore London as an office outing or with your social club? No problem we offer Shakespeare walks, Dickens Tours and even Historic London Pub Walks, which can even include a quiz at the end.

So whatever your requirements in London why not join us on one of our many and varied London walks and historic tours and learn something of the history of this great city whilst enjoying the health benefits of Walking in London.

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Introducing Free Walks Of London

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Free London walks and tours can be a bit of a conundrum. There are several organisations that offer free tours of London, but these are often led by students new to the capital who have simply learnt a script and who are dependent on hassling you for tips in order that they might make a living.

Whereas these can be fun, you never know for certain if the information you are hearing on these free London walks is actually accurate.

Also these tours can often be extremely crowded so that you lose the intimacy of discovering London’s hidden away and secret places, since you are vying with 50 or so other people to hear and see the guide.

Now there is an alternative in Free London walks.

In January 2009 Richard Jones, the founder of Discovery Walks and one of London’s most innovative and experienced guides, began offering free PDF’s of his London walks.

The first one to go live was the Harry Potter London Tour and since this has proved extremely popular we would like to announce that we are now launching a whole series of free walks around London.

The next PDF to become available will be the Riverside Pub walk that will introduce you to the streets and pubs of London’s 16th century sin city.

The advantage of this free London Pub walk over joining one of the scheduled London walks is that you will be able to do the pub tour at your own pace and in your own time.

Unlike the scheduled London walks that depart from a specific station at a set time you won’t be crammed on to a tour with 40 or 50 other people (think what a nightmare that can be when you get to the bar inside the pubs visited).

You won’t be dependent on when the guide says you are going to leave the pub, (imagine if you’ve just bought your drink and the guide announces it’s time to leave - how frustrating would that be!), and if you decide that a pub is worth spending a little extra time in then you’ll be able to dally at your leisure and leave when you want to.

Best of all these London Pub Walks are all part of our commitment to providing you with a choice. You can join us for one of our scheduled London walks or you can print off our detailed, well researched PDF Riverside Pub Walk and head off on your own in search of the wonders that London has to offer.

We hope to launch the new free Pubs Of London Walk in late July. Like our free Harry Potter London Tour you will be able to request it as an email attachment which you download, print off and do.

We’re very excited about these new free London walks and, judging by the feedback we have received, so too are the people who have done them.

So watch this space for that day in a few weeks time when we make the big announcement that the second of our Free London walks is live!

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London Pub Walks

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Of all the London walks that we offer some of the most popular our our range of historic pub walks of London.

What is a London Pub Walk?

One thing a pub walk isn’t is a pub crawl! It’s not about binge drinking but rather about a gentle stroll through an historic neighbourhood stopping off to enjoy the hospitality at some of the lovely old pubs in the area explored.

It is a fantastic and intriguing mix. A nice stroll through old streets that our cobwebbed by time. You learn about the characters who have lived in the area and hear about the history of the area. You get to see some great neighbourhoods. Then, just, when your legs are getting slightly weary hey presto your guide opens the door of a pub and you have a fifteen to twenty minute break to have a sit down, enjoy a drink and explore its interior. How good is that?

Your thirst slaked its off into the streets to find and experience more historic buildings and more history.

In addition our London Pub Walks are a great way of socialising. You are going round with a group of people who, at first might be strangers, but who, by the end of the evening have become drinking buddies.

Since each of these London walks that explore the pubs of old London is a true gem, chosen for its ambiance, there is much to talk about, much to discuss and much to comment on.

So if you are looking for a night out with a difference then choose a gentle strol through historic London and enjoy socialising the way people used to before technology took over our lives! Cheers!

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