Rambling London

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Kosti
Rambling London

Professional Blue Badge Tour Guide based in London. Contact me for tours of Classic London, Art Galleries, Street Art, Oxford + more!
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I offer general overview tours or more bespoke ones, getting into the nitty gritty of London!

18/04/2024

I was recently lucky enough to attend a wedding reception at Wax Chandlers’ Hall in the City of London and, of course, I spent an inordinate amount of time admiring the fireplace… 🔥
While the current hall dates back to the 1950s, they’ve been based on the site since 1501. This is their 6th building on Gresham Street! And that little ol’ wooden frame above the fireplace is attributed to none other than Grinling Gibbons. Now, that name might not mean too much to most, but he was *the* wood carver of the 17th century (yes, I am a huge history nerd 🤓). I mean, just look at the detail!
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The other exciting thing about the Wax Chandlers is their Royal Charter from Richard III (1484). Now, he was only King for 2 years in the 1480s, so Charters from him are incredibly rare (only 3 have survived) and this is, in fact, the sole surviving impression of his Great Seal. And it was just hanging right there on the wall!!!
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The Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers are one of the 111 Livery Companies in the City of London. They are ranked in order of precedence and the Wax Chandlers are number 20 in that list (so they’re a pretty big deal). They’ve been knocking about since before 1330 (a lot of them are so old, they don’t have a formal foundation date), but the important date is when they got their Charter from Richard in 1484. Once upon a time, they were involved in regulating the candle industry, whereas nowadays they have a much looser association with that trade. Although they do retain some links to candles, including donating candles to St. Paul’s Cathedral ⛪️, supporting the conservation of bees 🐝, and I thought it was brilliant that one of the party favours at the wedding was a Wax Chandlers candle 🕯️!
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09/04/2024

I have just been notified by a dear friend that today is National Unicorn Day! 🦄 Unicorns are particularly dear to us here in the UK because they are the national animal of Scotland (don’t ask - we find it best not to question these things) 😂 so you’ll find them all over the country.
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The unicorn in question here comes from the Queen Elizabeth Gate in Hyde Park, which was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993. Funnily enough, it’s not named after her but after another Elizabeth, her mother, and was commissioned to celebrate her 90th birthday (remember, she lived to 101!). It definitely divides opinion - architect Richard Rogers described it as “romantic candyfloss” 😅 - but it’s certainly striking! It’s like spotting an old friend every time I go past it on the bus.
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Unicorns have been knocking around much longer than 1993 though! One of the earliest known references comes from around 398BC from a Ctesias of Cnidus, who says of the unicorn: “There are in India certain wild asses… Their bodies are white, their heads dark red, and their eyes dark blue. They have a horn on the forehead which is about a foot and a half in length.” Europeans have long been obsessed with unicorns and, in particular, unicorn horns. Right up until the 18th century, European collectors would buy “unicorn horns”. Little did they know, however, they weren’t actually buying the horn of a unicorn but of a narwhal instead!! Definitely not on “porpoise”! 😅😅 Oops. There were also all sorts of stories about the magical healing properties of unicorn horns. Even Queen Elizabeth I, in the 16th century, would drink from a golden goblet carved from a “unicorn horn” because she believed it would purify her water and protect her from poisoning 👑
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31/03/2024

A tour guide’s work is never done! I was actually on my way to minigolf when I spotted these intriguing houses, bathed in the gorgeous afternoon light!
They were originally built in the early 1860s as a terrace of artisans’ shops and flats. They’re in the Arts and Crafts style and we’re designed by Philip Webb, the architect behind William Morris’ Red House in Bexley (another giant in the Arts and Crafts scene). The point of the Arts and Crafts movement was to champion traditional craftsmanship and materials, a backlash to the Industrial Revolution.
This terrace replaced a series of “miserable, ill-ventilated, tumble-down” buildings which had been on the site. It was a charitable project and the buildings were meant to be affordable. Sadly, bespoke construction and traditional craftsmanship is always going to be more expensive than mass production, so the rents were pretty pricey!
Each house had a naturally-lit basement workroom, a shop at street level to sell the wares, and then a 3-storey dwelling above. The idea that you could live and work in one unit. I love the addition of the public drinking fountain at the end as well (sadly no longer in use, but you can see where it once was in photos 3 and 4)🚰💧
Although they look a little bit dilapidated now, they still add so much character to an otherwise very modern-looking street! 🏠
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 ! I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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19/03/2024

One of my favourite details in the Houses of Parliament is this statue of Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland in St. Stephen’s Hall. No, not because it’s yet another statue of a white man in London, but because of the woman who broke it!
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If you decide to venture into the Palace of Westminster, see if you can find the statue of the Viscount and have a closer look at the back of his right boot. You might spy that he has a broken spur!
Let me take you back to 1909. Women were still 9 years away from getting the vote and the campaign for women’s suffrage was in full swing. On 27th April 1909, 4 women entered St. Stephen’s Hall and, in protest, chained themselves to the statues. Chains that they’d concealed under their dresses. A woman called Marjorie Hume ended up attached to the leg of the Viscount. They cried “Votes for women!”, “Deeds not words!”, and the shrill cry of police whistles rang out through the hall! To remove the women, security had to break the chains with bolt cutters and in the process the statue’s spurs were damaged and never fixed.
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 ! I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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03/03/2024

You’ve probably never noticed this unassuming street in Lincoln’s Inn before, but it has a pretty tumultuous past 🕵️‍♀️
If you have a closer look at the stonework, you’ll notice quite a bit of damage. In London, we often associate this with the Second World War, but in this case, it actually comes from slightly earlier! This is surviving shrapnel damage from Zeppelin bombing in the First World War.
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Not only is the building still marked, but there is a stone circle in the road (see photos 2 and 3), identifying exactly where the bomb fell on the night of 13th October 1915. It wasn’t the only bomb either. The chapel nearby was also damaged by another blast. Luckily, no one appears to have been hurt.
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Another intriguing part of this building is what’s inside: the Inns of Court and City and Essex Yeomanry. The Inns’ very own regiment! It is part of the British Army Reserve and has maintained a corps of volunteers in times of war since the 1580s, when 95 lawyers of the Inns of Court made a pledge to protect Elizabeth I against the Spanish Armada! In the early 19th century, George III gave them the name “The Devil’s Own” which remains attached to the regiment to this day 😈
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 ! I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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26/01/2024

So, I love afternoon tea ☕️ And what’s great about my line of work is I can go to lots of afternoon teas and call them “research” 😅 (because I often get asked for recommendations!). And back in November, I enjoyed a fab afternoon tea at Kai Mayfair!
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I’ve done quite a lot of classic teas now, so I like to try ones with a little twist. This one is Chinese-themed, so you get bao buns instead of sandwiches and the sweet treats include a little chocolate which looks like a mah-jong tile! I thought it was all pretty delicious and my favourites were the Bao with Chopped Vegetables and the “Potion of Eternal Youth”, which was this amazing savoury broth. The cocktail at the beginning, a Tea Truth Potion, was also a yummy addition! 🍸
I’d say, for the whole experience, decor, and food at a Michelin starred restaurant, the afternoon tea is pretty reasonable priced at £52 per person. I was certainly full at the end!
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I also liked that the building is next door to an intriguing blue plaque (see the last 2 photos 📷) to Constance Spry. It’s a lovely description on the plaque too: “Designer in Flowers” 💐 Spry worked at 64 South Audley St for over 25 years, from 1934 to 1960, and English Heritage describe her as one of the most fashionable and revolutionary florists of the 20th century. Born in Derby in 1886, she started off designing small flower arrangements for friends’ dinner parties while a headmistress in Hackney and went on to create floral commissions for Queen Elizabeth II’s wedding and Coronation! She was a fascinating woman and there’s so much more I can’t fit into an Instagram caption so I think a full blog post may be necessary to do her justice! Watch this space 👀
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25/01/2024

This is the photo taken during the last tour I did back on 3rd January. I spent a wonderful 4 days with the students and staff/chaperones from Putnam City in Oklahoma. They were here to perform in the London New Year’s Day Parade. There were thousands of students involved and 110 of us guides showing them around - what a mammoth job! 🎉
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I love these tours because the students always give it 110%. Whether that’s exploring the Tower of London in the torrential rain or dealing with London’s crowds. Here we are in Clock Court at Hampton Court Palace.
And true to form, when I told them that I needed them to be suitably impressed by the stunning King’s Staircase, they fully committed to the “ooohs” and “ahhhs”. Hampton Court was the favourite palace of King Henry VIII in the 16th century. Clock Court was where Henry VIII had his apartments and and was also home to the apartments where his 3rd wife, Jane Seymour, gave birth to his longed-for son and heir, the future Edward VI. Apparently, he was so terrified of his son getting sick that he ordered that the walls, floors and ceilings of the rooms should be cleaned several times a day!
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It’s a bit surreal to have had the last 3 weeks off, but that’s because the same day this photo was taken, I was admitted to A&E with acute appendicitis! I’ve been recovering from surgery since then and it’s a relief to be on the mend, but what a way to start 2024!!
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 ! I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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24/01/2024

Visiting this chapel, I always feel like I’m stepping back in time. I know they’re not real, but it’s the closest I feel to being in the stories of the legendary King Arthur! This is St. John’s Chapel in the Tower of London and it’s one of the best surviving examples of Anglo-Norman ecclesiastical architecture in the country.
It’s in the White Tower, built by William the Conqueror in the 11th century. Sadly, he died before it was completed so he never had the chance to worship in his new chapel.
One event which did take place in the chapel, however, was the climax of the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. The only time the Tower of London fell in the castle’s history. After the peasants stormed the Tower, they entered the chapel and seized Simon Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury, while he was at prayer. He was dragged to Tower Hill, where he was executed.
Despite a little blip (between the 14th and 19th centuries when it was being used as storage for important state records!), this is still a working chapel. What a story.
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 ! I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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26/11/2023

Nixxy sunbathing at the Tower of London 🐾☀️
She’s a new member of the family at Tower and lives with one of the Yeoman Warders in this incredible castle! What a place to call home.
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Behind her, you can see the King’s House, the white and wood half-timbered house. It was built during the reign of King Henry VIII in 1530. It’s now the Constable’s house, Sir Gordon Messenger. Nixxy’s neighbour! He is the first Royal Marine to hold the post and, historically, was in charge of the day to day running of the Tower of London. Nowadays, it’s largely a ceremonial role. But once upon a time, in return for his service, the Constable was given the right to seize any swan that swam under London Bridge 🦢 and any horse, ox, cow, pig or sheep that fell into the Thames from the bridge 🐴🐮🐷🐑 He could also claim any cart that fell into the Tower of London’s moat 🏰
There have to be some perks to the job!
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 and, if you’re really keen, subscribe to my newsletter!
ramblinglondontours.com/the-badger-bulletin/
I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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16/11/2023

Oh my gosh, what a fun couple of days with Nathan and Sarah! We had a great time. And thank you for your review! 🏆
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St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, a bit of the City of London, Tate Britain, and wow, what a great afternoon tea at ! 🫖 Despite the chaos of a parade, tube closures, a protest, and a recovering broken foot, we still managed to see everything!! (Even, at one point, accidentally joining the Lord Mayor’s Show just to get onto Blackfriars Bridge! 😅)
It was a joy to show an English teacher Chaucer’s tomb in Westminster Abbey and to highlight our Shakespeare-themed paintings in Tate Britain! 🎨
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Here we’re standing in front of ‘Ophelia’, painted by John Everett Millais between 1851 and 1852. It’s absolutely gorgeous and definitely benefits from seeing it in person - you spot so many more amazing details! Ophelia, wrecked and driven mad with grief after her father’s murder (worse still, at the hands of her beloved, Hamlet), is picking flowers by the riverside. She loses her balance, falls into the river, and allows it to take her. Around her are her gathered flowers, some of them from Shakespeare’s original words, others added by Millais. Bright red poppies, representing death. Daisies for innocence. Blue forget-me-nots. She is even wearing a necklace of violets, symbolising faithfulness, but also chastity and death.
The model was Lizzie Siddal, a favourite model of the Pre-Raphaelites and later wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 and, if you’re really keen, subscribe to my newsletter!
ramblinglondontours.com/the-badger-bulletin/
I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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15/11/2023

Have you ever noticed the statues on the front of St. Andrew Holborn in the City of London? ⛪️ You’ll find them dotted all over London in their distinctive blue jackets because they represent students from the old Bluecoat Schools 💙 Bluecoat Schools were charitable schools set up between the 16th and 18th centuries. The students ended up wearing blue because that was apparently one of the cheapest dyes available when the earliest schools were established!
These statues come from St. Andrew’s Parochial School on Hatton Garden, which became a Bluecoat School in 1696. They were originally over the Cross Street entrance, but were moved here after the Second World War. While most of the schools, including this one, no longer exist, a few have survived against the odds, like Christ’s Hospital.
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The current church was completed in 1687, designed by Christopher Wren, but the site itself has been used for worship for over 1,000 years! The first known reference to the church was in the 950s AD, when it was already being described as an “old wooden church”. So who knows how old it is?! 🤯
One of my favourite anecdotes comes from the the early 19th century, when drinkers from the nearby gin palace, which by law had to close at 11am on Sundays, would then make the short trip over the road to St. Andrew’s and heckle the Vicar during his sermons! 🤭
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 and, if you’re really keen, subscribe to my newsletter! Link in bio. I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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03/11/2023

This photo comes from one of my favourite tours this year 🥰 Thank you for your lovely review!! I had such a fabulous morning with Rupa, Vikram, Sahana, and Niki! We spent most of the tour in the Tower of London and Tower Bridge and then headed over to Borough Market for lunch. On the way, we got chatting about pineapples (as you do), and I was telling Sahana and Niki that pineapples used to be so expensive that you wouldn’t even dream of buying one. You’d just rent it 🍍 Minds blown 🤯 You’d just have it on display at your dinner party to impress all of your neighbours.
I said there was even a painting from the 17th century, the sole purpose of which was to show Charles II being presented with one of these legendary fruits.
And here we are recreating that painting in Borough Market 😂😂 (You can see the original if you swipe left 👈) I think we’ve done a pretty good job!
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 and, if you’re really keen, subscribe to my newsletter!
ramblinglondontours.com/the-badger-bulletin/
I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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02/11/2023

Guess where this is? 🗺️🔍
Tucked away, just 5mins from King’s Cross Station! It’s St. Pancras Old Church.
A mostly 19th century Catholic church, which has been a site of worship since at least the 11th century. It’s believed to be possibly one of the oldest sites of worship in the country 🤯
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✍️ It’s where Mary Wollstonecraft married in 1797, one of our earliest feminist writers, who was also pregnant at the time with her daughter. That daughter was Mary Shelley, the future author of ‘Frankenstein’!
🏛️ It’s the final resting place of architect, John Soane, whose tomb incidentally was said to have inspired the famous red telephone box over 100 years later!
🪦 And strangely enough, it’s where future author Thomas Hardy worked as a lowly architect’s apprentice when he was a young man! He was involved in the clearing of over 10,000 graves after the cemetery closed and in the mid-1860s part of the churchyard had to be dug up to make space for Midland Railway’s new St. Pancras station and train lines 🚂 What a horrible job that must have been!
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 and, if you’re really keen, subscribe to my newsletter!
ramblinglondontours.com/the-badger-bulletin/
I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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31/10/2023

Today I was chilling with the baboons at the Tower of London 🐒 Did you know that the Tower used to be a zoo??
For 600 years, it was a Royal Menagerie. So right up until 1835, people came to the Tower to visit the lions, the polar bear, an elephant, wolves, and of course, the baboons! In fact, there was even a baboon famous in the 19th century for smoking a pipe?! Great for tourism… not so great for the baboon 🙃
By 1828, there were at least 60 different species at the Tower of London - talk about a full house! And as recently as the 21st century, we’ve been discovering evidence of the zoo. In 2008, archaeologists found the skulls of two Barbary lions in the Tower moat - one of them potentially 750 years old!! 🦁
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 and, if you’re really keen, subscribe to my newsletter!
ramblinglondontours.com/the-badger-bulletin/
I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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30/10/2023

This is Francis Russell, the 5th Duke of Bedford, whose statue you’ll find in Russell Square in Bloomsbury. He was responsible for much of the development of central Bloomsbury in the 18th century, a lot of which is still part of the Bedford Estate to this day. He was a keen agriculturalist, which you can see in his statue: one hand on a plough, ears of corn in the other and sheep at his feet 🐑
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But his most important contribution to history was actually his vehement opposition to a tax on hair powder (yuh huh!). Hair powder was used to freshen wigs, often scented because they were rarely washed 🤢
Now, this is the 18th century - the heyday of the wig! They were so popular, in fact, that the tax had been introduced in 1795 to fund the Napoleonic Wars?! Many aristocratic gentlemen were outraged that the government was taxing their precious powder. One form of protest, pioneered by Russell, was to abandon wigs altogether and he started wearing his natural hair short and unpowdered 💇‍♂️
And then he dared his friends to do the same.
This hairstyle even got its own name: the "Bedford Crop". Doesn't sound like much, but this was one of the most innovative hairstyles in British history 😱 Men's hair has stayed short pretty much ever since. (The government eventually reduced the unpopular tax on hair powder, which never quite generated the amount of money they’d hoped, but it was too late - fashion changes quickly and the wig was already old news!)
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 and, if you’re really keen, subscribe to my newsletter!
ramblinglondontours.com/the-badger-bulletin/
I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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24/10/2023

Have you ever spotted this boat on the river Thames? It’s the HQS Wellington, built in 1934 ⚓️
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Until recently, it was home to one of the 111 livery companies of the City of London: the Honorable Company of Master Mariners 🛳️ which they bought for £2,000 back in 1947.
The livery company is an organisation which provides a membership for Master Mariners and provides funding and support for nautical schools and research. To be a Master Mariner, you have to have the top qualification possible for seafarers - one of the requirements for which is that you’ve amassed at least 1,000 hours of experience as a deck officer!
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The Honourable Company of Master Mariners was made an official livery company back in 1932, making it the first one formed in over 185 years!
Normally a livery company has to have their livery hall in the City of London, but a compromise was made and it was deemed satisfactory that while the ship 🛳️ is in Westminster, the anchor ⚓️ is in the City 😂 (which you can see in the second photo).
Unfortunately, the Master Mariners had to leave the Wellington in April this year over safety concerns, but they’re currently looking for a new floating livery hall! (If you have any suggestions, pop them in the comments 😂👇)
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To stay up to date with me, my tours and general London content, follow me 👉 and, if you’re really keen, subscribe to my newsletter!
ramblinglondontours.com/the-badger-bulletin/
I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike 🔍
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Today I was featured on BBC Radio London… whaaaaat?! 🤯 I know. I still can’t quite believe it! We were chatting about what to do in London during this hot ☀️ weather! You can listen to an extract below or find the full thing here at around the 11.53am mark 📻: bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0g649sm?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Janie the Seal outside the Houses of Parliament 😍

Yep, that is a seal chilling out in the River Thames outside the Houses of Parliament!!! 😱😍 I have named her Janie after Lady Jane Grey (grey seal, geddit, geddit? 😉👑) • This is absolutely incredible!! Obviously the Thames is a lot quieter than it usually is, but you may be surprised to know that even before lockdown hit, the Thames was the cleanest river in the world which flows through a major city! 🏙 • It was declared biologically dead in the 1950s but there has been a massive push since to clean it up, and clearly it’s been paying off! There’s still a lot of work we can do, but nowadays the Thames is home to over 120 species of fish, including 2 species of shark, short-snouted seahorses, and the European eel (critically endangered), and as of 2017 there were 3,500 harbour and grey seals recorded in the Thames Estuary! What an amazing treat to see this today 😍 • For more nerdy facts and beautiful shots of London follow me 👉 @ramblinglondontours! I’m a professional Blue Badge tour guide and I run bespoke private tours for Londoners and visitors alike! • • • #greyseal #thamesseal #londonwildlife #riverthames #centrallondon #housesofparliament #westminster #londonpics #londonphotography #naturephotography #instalondon #londonist #londonlover #londonwestend #londonmuseums #londonhistory #londongalleries #londontourist #londonbylondoners #visitlondon #lockdown #timeoutlondon #virtuallondon #culturetriplondon #londonguide #londontourist #bluebadgeguide #bluebadgetouristguide #ramblinglondon #ramblinglondontours