Welcome to Richard's London walks

Welcome to the web’s leading resource for information about free London walks..

This is not a commercial website but rather a free resource intended to help Londoners and visitors get the most out of London.

Walks offer a great way to explore the capital’s better known and lesser known sites and sights as they enable you to get away from the busy main roads and venture into those hidden alleyways and secret places where history was made and time stands still. If you enjoy exploring London on walks, then this site will provide solid information for you. Each of the tours is mapped out for you step by step to enable you to explore one of the world's greatest cities in your own time and at you own pace. No other London walks offer you this freedom and convenience.

ALL THESE FREE LONDON WALKING TOURS HAVE BEEN DEVISED BY A GENUINE EXPERT.

Richard Jones has an impeccable pedigree when it comes to the history of London and of devising walks around the city. He has been a pioneering figure on the London walking tour scene for the last 25 years. He is the author of the acclaimed books Memorable Walks in London; Walking Haunted London; Walking Dickensian London; Haunted London; Uncovering Jack the Ripper's London and the soon to be published History and Mystery Walks of London. He does conduct a scheduled Jack the Ripper Tour and London Ghost Walks around the haunted capital and is widely acknowledged as far and away the capital’s best ghost walks guide. But it is his love for London and of its diversity and history that has encouraged him to put together this free website featuring his favourite walks.

You will be able to enjoy and discover London on walks that will follow in the footsteps of Jack the Ripper. You will explore the darker and spookier recesses of London’s haunted places. You will be able to walk in the footsteps of Dickens and Shakespeare or venture into the gas-lit courtyards of the Inns of Court where time well and truly stands still. You will be able to enjoy the historic pubs of old London.

The walks will get you well away from the busy main roads and into those back streets and hidden places where history really was made. It is in these places that London’s past comes most vividly to life and you can so easily become convinced that you've been transported back in time.

You can also join Richard on a scheduled guided tour of London.

From September 2007 Richard will also be offering regular tours of London. Walks guided by an established guide with a long and impressive pedigree of devising and leading entertaining excursions around London. Obviously Richard will want to keep the numbers to a manageable and sensible number on these new London walks so you will be asked to book for them.

But booking, if you think about it, makes sense. If a company tells you there is no need to book and just turn up they have no way of knowing how many people will do just that and just turn up. Richard has long maintained the ethos that he’d rather his London walks were heard not herd and so he always asks people to book in advance.

This way he will limit the numbers on his new guided tours to a sensible and manageable number.

Who better to join on a Sunday morning Dickens walk than the author of the book Walking Dickensian London?

What better way to enjoy a Sunday afternoon than taking a walk around Shakespeare’s Hidden City than with the writer and presenter of the drama/documentary Shakespeare in London?

What better way could there be to spend a Friday night than touring the ancient inns and taverns of old London in the company of the author who was commissioned by the brewers Taylor Walker to research and write the history of their most historic pubs in London?

Richard Jones has always been an innovator on the walking tour scene. He was the first to devise and conduct Beatles London walks. He was the first to offer Jack the Ripper Walks seven chilling nights a week. He has devised and written over 150 different walks around London and from September some of those London walks will be available on a regular basis. So watch this space for the new service coming soon.

BUT THESE WALKS ARE NOT JUST ABOUT LONDON

Obviously London is the main focus of a site about London walks. But Richard has also written books on Oxford, Bath, Cambridge, Stratford-Upon-Avon, York, Chester, Edinburgh, Dublin, Windsor, as well as the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula on Ireland’s west coast. So throughout 2007 and 2008 you will find walks being put up on this site that cover these cities.

Again they will all be totally free and will feature directions on how to get to these places by rail or road. Simply make your way to these wonderful locations by your favoured means of transport and do the walks around them at your own pace and in your own time. We’re even going to be putting up a Stonehenge trip that will tell you how to get the most from your visit to this mysterious ancient monument. And since each of our out of London walks will include bus and train time tables, the likely journey times and the best times to travel in order to avoid the crowds, you will be able to plan every leg of your journey in advance and know exactly where you’re going. Indeed, because each trip’s description features evocative photographs of all the locations visited, you will be so familiar with them before you set off that, even if you have never been there before, on arrival it will be as though your are making a return visit!

In addition - as befits the author of books such as the international best seller Haunted Britain and Ireland; Myths and Legends of Britain and Ireland; Haunted Castles of Britain and Ireland; Haunted Inns of Britain and Ireland and Mystical Britain and Ireland – you will also find this site becoming packed with information on all aspects of historical and mysterious Britain and Ireland, a true and useful resource which is, after all, what the web is meant to be about.

YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO BE IN LONDON TO ENJOY THESE WALKS.

That’s right, since each walk features a wealth of narrative and accompanying photographs they can be enjoyed simply sitting at your screen anywhere in he world. Whether you are in Baltimore or Bombay, Singapore or Sydney, Paris or Perth, Amsterdam or Auckland, Munich or Miami you can explore London on virtual walks that will really give you the feel and flavour of a city that has centuries of fascinating history crackling away both on and beneath its streets.

So get ready to don your walking shoes and experience the many and varied magical treasures that London has to offer on a series of fascinating walks that will take you through the past and present of a city that has spent 2,000 years preparing for your visit.

RICHARD JONES’S LONDON WALKING TOURS.