*ALL INDIVIDUAL GUIDES FEATURED ON THIS PAGE ARE MEMBERS OF LONDON HISTORIANS*
Laura Agustin
Laura Agustín, a professional researcher and author, qualified as a guide to bring the stories of poorer working folks that often go unmentioned in history to the guiding scene. As an expert in the history of efforts to help and even ‘rescue’ the poor from lifestyles they often didn’t want to be rescued from, she illuminates lives on their terms. She has blogged for 15 years as The Naked Anthropologist, and her book Sex at the Margins changed the global conversation on undocumented women’s migrations.
Her blog: The Naked Anthropologist
Email: lauritaagustin@gmail.com or Contact form
Twitter: @NakedAnthropolo
Facebook: lauramariaagustin
London Historians Member
Hazel Baker
Hazel, a personable and accredited guide offers fun, engaging and well-researched public London walks and private walking tours. These explore particular themes from the capital’s past and by digging a little deeper bring its history to life. They include Victorian London, Georgian London, Street Art tours, Literature and Art tours and explorations of London’s sinister side. “I love a good story. I share factual accounts of people who have lived and loved in London, who used its dark corners to hide from justice and of those who have contributed to making London the world city it is today.”
As well as tours Hazel provides both public and private cultural treasure hunts in London. They are an ideal way to give your brain and legs a work out while learning the history of London along the way. There’s no running or lycra involved, just lots of fabulous fun!
Book all London walks and Treasure Hunts online via London Guided Walks website
Read the latest reviews of Hazel’s walks and treasure hunts on TripAdvisor
Hazel offers a 25% discount for London Historians members on all public walks, please use discount code “LH25”
Also see her web site & blog London Guided Walks
Email: LHenquiries@londonguidedwalks.co.uk
Mobile: 07545 020406
Twitter: @Guided_Walks
London Historians Member
Tina Baxter
a.k.a. Miss B Takes a Walk
Tina adores the City of London, and her lively presentation style provides enjoyable and informative walks. She particularly likes the history of early London – the Medieval and Tudor periods, with a special interest in the history of food and drink. The City also offers plenty of scope to follow up others areas of interest, such as modern architecture and the many gardens and open spaces in the City. As well as the literary greats Chaucer and T S Eliot.
Tina is a City of London Guide and is an associate member of the Institute of Tourist Guiding. Tina is also working as a volunteer guide with the National Trust at 2 Willow Road the home of Erno Goldfinger.
London Historians Member
Web: www.missbtakesawalk.blogspot.com
Email: missbtakesawalk@gmail.com
Mobile: 07963 778213
Secret London Walks
Diane Burstein is one of London’s best known Blue Badge tour guides with over twenty years’ experience of leading tours in the capital’s most vibrant and historically interesting districts.
Aimed at both visitors and Londoners, Diane’s tours explore some of London’s lesser known districts. Visit https://dianesguidedwalks.london/ and click on GROUP BOOKINGS for details of Diane’s wide repertoire of walking tours or email Diane directly to obtain details of the latest bookable walks and visits for individuals to join. Prices on application but please mention your London Historians membership when emailing.
Twitter: @guidediane
London Historians Member
Brian Cookson
Brian Cookson is a Blue Badge Guide and author, an expert specifically on the Thames and its bridges, but much more besides. His books include Crossing the River and London’s Waterside Walks.
Member Discount
Brian offers London Historians group bookings at £90 instead of the standard £125. Contact Brian directly via his web page, here
London Historians Member
Colin Walks London
Colin Davey is a qualified City of Westminster Guide, City of London Guide and National Trust Guide. Colin has lived in London for over 30 years, and has worked in the West End, mid-town, and the City. Doing guided walks has been a natural extension from all the lecturing and public speaking he has done. He spent many years as a partner in a major law firm, and brings Legal London tours alive in a unique way.
Colin offers a 25% discount for London Historians members, for example £6 for an £8 tour.
London Historians Member
Contact Colin via his blog
Twitter: @colinwalklondon
Colin Del Strother
Colin is a London Blue Badge, Clerkenwell & Islington and City of Westminster guide. He holds the Blue Badge 2012 venues accreditation. Some suggested walks he could offer to LH members include:
- Christian Heritage : From St Paul’s to Charterhouse Sq;
- From the City to Southwark : From the Monument to the New Globe.
- Regent’s Park and the Regent’s Canal
- The Embankment
- The New River in Islington
- Little Venice, Paddington Basin and the canal network
- Pimlico
London Historians Member
Colin offers LH members 25% discount on most walks in groups of minimum four people.
Contact Colin by email or phone 07535 787 745 or 020 8948 1166.
Jill Finch
Jill is a qualified City of London Guide and an associate member of the Institute of Tourist Guiding. She also guides in St Paul’s Cathedral, the Guildhall Art Gallery and will soon be taking visitors around the church of All Hallows by the Tower. From Smithfield to the Tower, Jill is passionate about the City – its history, its churches, its river and its literary connections.
Walks include :
- Shardlake’s London
- Urban Waters
- Print & the Press : Exploring Fleet Street
- Wren Watching
- The Market & the Monastery : A Stroll through Smithfield
- The City by the Book
Email : jillsfinch@aol.com
Mobile : 07760450108
Twitter : @CityGuideJill
London Historians Member
Footprints of London Guide
Anne Fletcher
Anne is a qualified City of London Guide, historian, and published author.
She studied history at Oxford University and enjoyed a career creating tours and exhibitions at some of the most exciting heritage sites in the country including St Paul’s Cathedral, Tower Bridge & the Tower of London.
Anne’s expertise in storytelling and passion for making history accessible has led her into guiding. She has a growing portfolio of tours which focus on the people that made the City of London and on experiencing history where it happened. She loves to surprise her guests with the hidden stories and sights of the City’s 2000-year history.
For example:
City Highlights – A tour of the must-see sights of the City of London plus some unexpected surprises.
London’s Burning – Uncover the story of London’s two most devastating fires: The Great Fire of London and the Blitz. A tale of destruction and tragedy but also of survival and resilience.
Money! Money! Money! – Discover how the City of London grew from a Roman trading post to one of the world’s great financial centres.
Anne offers both bookable public walks and bespoke tours. 25% discount is offered to members of London Historians on public walks.
Email
Mobile: 07930 410 397
Vania Gay
Vania is a qualified London Blue Badge Guide, City of Westminster, City of London, St Paul’s Cathedral and Hampton Court Palace Guide. She is also a Windsor and Eton Accredited Guide. Vania was born in southern Brazil and has lived in London for over 30 years. Her tours are informative, fun and can be adapted to suit families, friends, companies or organisations.
Her portfolio of walks includes among other: Gentlemen London, Royal Westminster, Square Mile Highlights, Churchill in London, Posh Chelsea. She can tailor any tour to suit your requirements, whether you want to visit Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, art galleries, museums, parks, or the shops and entertainment venues of Covent Garden and Soho. If you wish to adventure outside London, she can also plan a wonderful day out to some of the beautiful and charming places in England such as Windsor, Oxford, Bath, Canterbury, Salisbury, Stratford-Upon-Avon and the Cotswolds.
Vania’s web site.
Facebook.
Twitter: @oilondon
London Historians Member
Footprints of London Guide
Karen Golanski
Karen is both a qualified guide of City of London, City of Westminster and Camden with bags of enthusiasm for central London and a growing portfolio of walks. These include ‘Bart’s and Barber Surgeons’- a medical themed walk, ‘Beaks and Barristers’ looking at crime and punishment in the city and ‘Jewish Characters and Connections’. Also areas such as Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury and Covent Garden on themes including David Garrick and 18C theatre and Pioneering Women in Medicine and Science. Karen can also provide bespoke walks on a variety of themes such as Fleet Street and the publishing industry, London’s River and the Supernatural City.
2 hour walks cost £10 (£8 for members of London Historians).
Email: karengolanski@gmail.com
Mobile: 07775 531287
Twitter: @KaggyGol
Karen’s web site.
London Historians Member
Marilyn Greene
Marilyn is a qualified City of London Guide, a member of the City of London Guides Lecturers’ Association and an Associate of the Institute of Tourist Guiding. Brought up in North London, she started guiding at the Modernist National Trust property, 2 Willow Road on its opening day in 1996. Formerly the Curator of Hampstead Museum, Burgh House, she has been creating and delivering walks in the Hampstead area for more than 15 years.
Known for her friendly style of guiding, she loves discovering interesting nuggets of London history and is fascinated in how places develop and change as well as what lies beneath the ground. She has developed a number of walks focusing on artists and their connections with places and the stories of individual buildings. As well as guiding in the City and Hampstead area she also guides for the City Lit and for London Transport Museum’s Hidden London programme and can give bespoke tours at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Walks vary from 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours and can be tailored for different ages and requirements
Footprints of London rates apply to London Historian members
E:mail: “marilyngreene@hotmail.co.uk“mailto: marilyngreene@hotmail.co.uk
Twitter: @marilyngreene10
London Historians Member
Footprints of London Guide
Rachel Kolsky
Engaging, knowledgeable and well-researched Rachel Kolsky is a prize-winning London Blue Badge Tourist Guide. Covering all areas of London and specialising in the East End, women’s history, shopping, quirky off-beat areas and the Jewish community, memories of all aspects of London’s rich and varied social history come flooding back. Before embarking on her career as Guide and Lecturer Rachel, a qualified librarian, worked as an information professional in the financial services industry for over 25 years. Rachel’s first book, a guide to, “Jewish London”, was published in March 2012 and she has been thrilled to be a guest lecturer on cruises since 2009.
Rachel’s web site: Go London Tours Rachel’s email
Ian McDiarmid
Ian is a lively and entertaining guide with a particular interest in history and finance. He has worked as a banker and financial journalist, and has written numerous articles for, and given lectures to non-expert audiences. He is a qualified City of London guide, and studied history at the Universities of Cambridge and London. Among his guided walks Coffee, Cash and Commerce, explains London’s origins as a financial centre, what the City actually does, and its importance to the UK. Walk Roman London offers an up-to-date overview of the history and archaeology of London’s beginnings. Ian offers a 25% discount for London Historians members on all public walks, please use discount code “LH25”. Bookable online on London Guided Walks website.
Private tours also bookable 24/7 online.
Email: ian@londonguidedwalks.co.uk
Website.
Walk the Lines - London Underground, Overground
Join author and journalist Mark Mason on one of his trivia-packed walks which uncover London’s history by following a section of a Tube line … at street level. When a city is as littered with intriguing curiosities as this one, you need a framework to make sense of it all. What better framework than the Underground system? Join me as we take a stroll along a stretch of Tube line, learning about the secrets and oddities we pass along the way.
Each walk takes approximately 90 minutes and costs £8. Unless you’re older than Churchill was when he became Prime Minister (65), or younger than the number of stations on the Victoria Line (16), in which case you’re welcome along for £6. I’m also happy to arrange specially-tailored walks for private individuals or groups – please drop me an email for details.
More info on Mark’s web site: The Importance of Being Trivial.
London Historians Member
Jane Parker
Jane has been leading guided walks since 2017, sharing her wealth of knowledge and observations in an inclusive, open and friendly manner. It’s often said that her enthusiasm is infectious. She is particularly interested in the architecture of our ever-changing streets, evident in hand-painted signage, mosaic doorways and Art Deco embellishments. Subjects range from gas lamps, ghostsigns, markets and mosaics to Agatha Christie, Oscar Wilde, Daniel Defoe and Jazz Age theatres. Jane has an eye for hidden details and, as such, you are sure to see or learn new things as you investigate alleyways and explore rarely-visited backstreets.
Online and in-person talks are also available.
www.janeslondonwalks.com
Email: jane@janeslondonwalks.com
Twitter: @janeslondonwalks
Facebook: janeslondonwalks
London Historians Member
David Poyser
(David is the shortie in the middle! He was Mayor of his London Borough 2018-19 and retired from local politics in 2024). As a Dad himself, David loves working with families – and, of course, history enthusiasts.
David gained his Blue Badge in 2018 and his honorary Islington Guided Walks (formerly CIGA) Badge in 2019.
David does guiding with many companies, including London Walks (www.walks.com various walks from How the City of London Got Rich to a sing-song with songs from the obscure 50s/60s US satirist, Tom Lehrer – that one has a trip to pub in the middle of the walk)
Before being a guide, he was Producing and Directing TV Programmes for the Open University, the BBC, ITV, Discovery and C4, including BBC history programmes with his friend the science historian, Adam Hart Davis.
He also enjoyed taking London Historians on his George Orwell Walk
Contact david.poyser@blueyonder.co.uk
London Historians Member
Westminster Walking
Joanna Moncrieff is a Londoner and qualified Westminster Guide. Her tours specialise in food, drink and retail. If you wish to learn about historic shops, the best pubs, restaurants in London, or where to find the most cost-effective cream teas, Look no further. Joanna offers London Historians members 25% discount for both public and private walks.
London Historians Member
Blog
Footprints of London Guide
Twitter: @wwalks
Robin Rowles
Robin is a City of London Guide with a growing portfolio of walks. Robin’s walks include highlights tours like Treasures of the City, or thematic walks such as Sherlock Holmes in the City. Robin is also willing to create bespoke walks. The normal price for a walk is £8 but only £6 for London Historians!
Contact Robin at www.strollintime.co.uk or r_rowles@hotmail.com.
Footprints of London rates apply, LH members can claim discounted rate per code as advertised in Members’ newsletter.
London Historians Member
Footprints of London Guide
Laurence's Walks
Laurence Scales is a guide specialising in offbeat historical walking tours and lectures focusing on intriguing and amusing tales of discovery, invention, medicine and intelligence, and even offers a mathematical history tour. He has also set the Talk Science pub quiz for the British Library. Laurence is an archive volunteer working at the Royal Society of Arts and formerly at the Royal Institution and London Canal Museum. Surprising life stories, eccentric personalities, startling achievements, and forgotten oddities particularly relating to science, technology, medicine and espionage are his passion. Welcoming both residents and visitors who want to look beyond the main London attractions, he reveals a wealth of lesser known historic sites and offers a double-take on some famous ones.
London Historians Member
www.laurenceswalks.co.uk
Nigel Smith
Nigel is a qualified Clerkenwell & Islington guide, leading walking tours throughout the area and elsewhere in London. His tours cover social history, arts and culture and he also leads a range of walks with a specific focus on cinemas and cinema-going in the capital. In addition to public tours, private tours are available on request. You can read reviews of Nigel’s tours on TripAdvisor and book tickets via Eventbrite. London Historians members get a 20% discount off Nigel’s public walks with the code LH20.
Contact: hello@nigelsmithwalks.com
www.nigelsmithwalks.com
Instagram
Twitter/X
Facebook
London Historians Member
Rob Smith
Rob is a member of Clerkenwell & Islington Guiding Association.
“Despite my 20 years in London” he says “I’m always amazed how you can find a new street that’s got an amazing story to tell. The thing I like best about London is how a tiny thing, like a decoration on a building can tell a really big story. When you’re walking your following the footsteps of Londoners from the past, it makes the history come to life much more than just reading about it”
London Historians Member
Footprints of London Guide
Rob’s web page
Sue Sinton Smith
Sue Sinton Smith is a fully qualified Clerkenwell and Islington Guide who is particularly keen to show people the less well known parts of Islington and Newham where she lives. Friendly and well informed, Sue hopes you’ll return after your walk to explore some more. Sue is happy to adapt her walks for people with a sight and hearing impairment and can lead the walks in French by arrangement. 25% discount is offered to members of London Historians.
Contact Sue for a private booking or to discuss a bespoke walk.
Email: suesintonsmith@hotmail.com
Tel: 07968 424738
London Historians Member
Twitter: @suesintonsmith
Paul Surma
Paul Surma is a qualified City of London Guide and associate member of the Institute of Tourist Guiding. His tours are informative and engaging and friendly, bringing history to life in an open and accessible style which brings history to life to people from all walks of life.
Paul especially enjoys the early history of London and the stories of the people who lived in those times, with a special interest in the secret, hidden spaces which show the rich depth and diversity of London’s past. Paul is also a ghost enthusiast and enjoys hosting walks through some of the capital’s most haunted neighbourhoods and alleys.
Footprints of London
City of London Tourist Guide
Email: paul.surma@btinternet.com
Mobile: 07782398642
London Historians Member
Footprints of London Guide
Richard Watkins
Richard is a native Londoner, and passionate about bringing to life London’s rich and contrary history. Richard is a City of Westminster Guide, a trained and experienced actor and worked for twenty plus years in the civil service in Whitehall. On his walks, he shows the characters and stories behind the buildings, and explores the great social developments and upheavals as well as the eccentric and funny events. Richard is one half of trailsofthecity.co.uk. Check out his walks on the Trails site, or get in touch for tailor-made walks.
London Historians Member
Katie Wignall
Award-winning history blogger and prize-winning Blue Badge Guide, Katie runs Look Up London. Look Up London celebrates history hiding above your eyeline
and her fun, engaging tours are full of juicy history and human stories. Walks take place most weekends and cover a variety of London areas.
Contact: katie@lookup.london
Website: www.lookup.london
Instagram
Twitter
Facebook
London Historians Member
Cabbie Walks London
Rob Woodford, a ‘cockney cabbie’ invites you get under the skin of London and meet its notorious historical characters. A Lecturer on the Cab Guide Course (accredited by ‘City University’) training London cabbies to become Taxi Guides – his own taxi arrives in traditional black, teak interior, leather seats – enjoy a ‘Classic Tour in style!
Rob, a ‘City of London’ and a ‘City of Westminster’ Guide takes a trip through the heart of London to explore its drinking culture and complex relationship between healing and imbibing, excess and distress in One for the Road
Fit to Rule is a tongue-in-cheek look at our rulers’ connections with Harley Street, whether they were fit to rule physically, mentally or morally.
Walks (2 ½ hours) cost £10 including an exclusive interior tour of the Royal College of Physicians’
Email rob@blackcabheritagetours.co.uk or call 07853-128823 for bookings offering ‘London Historians’ members 25% discount.
Footprints of London
Footprints of London is a group of independent guides who have undertaken some professional course of study, and are recognised by and are members of one or more of the guiding associations that cover London. All Footprints guides have considerable experience of researching, creating and leading walks. By using a qualified guide that is a member of a guiding association you can be assured that you will enjoy your booked walk, and that the guide is covered by third party insurance.
Many Footprints guides are also Members of London Historians.
Web site.
