Emily Laurence Baker

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Emily Laurence Baker

I am a Blue Badge guide available for private tours in London and surrounding areas. I will work with you to design your ideal day, walk or site visit.

06/06/2025

I’m so excited that BookBar, the fabulous bookshop and coffee/wine bar that made its name in Islington, has opened in Chelsea.

It’s a warm, vibrant space that will host author readings, wine nights and other events. BookBar’s ethos is all about bringing books and people together and this promises to be a fantastic community hub.

BookBar Owner, Chrissy Ryan, believes that reading is all about connection with other people. This welcoming space brings fresh energy to a neighbourhood filled with historic literary associations.

I’ve already spent an afternoon on the comfy green sofa with a book and a glass of bubbly… what could be better? Maybe spending a morning there with a cup of coffee and a chat about books.

BookBar is at 11 Chelsea Manor Street, just off the Kings Road, and is open every day. On Wednesday-Saturday, the shop is open until 9pm; perfect for a post-work repose.

30/05/2025

I’ve been enjoying the exhibition “Dress Codes“ at Kensington Palace which explores the conventions of royal clothing and what happens when royals push the boundaries and express themselves outside of traditional expectations. Diana, Princess of Wales, comes to mind, as she was known for her statement fashion and using her public persona to project a powerful image.

The best part of the display is the final room where innovative designs of Young Producers reveal how royal fashion inspired them to create trend-setting pieces. Kensington Palace teamed up with three local youth groups for their input in designing the exhibition and some exhilarating fashion.

Diana’s green silk tuxedo-style dress by Catherine Walker inspired a fabulous modern-day glam gown buy Helene. She says, “I was inspired by Princess Diana and Queen Victoria who were not afraid to re-style masculine cuts and take up space.”

And Autumn’s and Allair’s Eclectic Punk suit, which was inspired by the Duke of Windsor’s (Edward VIII) tartan suit, is hugely inspiring.

The exhibition is on until 30 November 2025.

19/05/2025

On this day in 1536, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, was executed within the grounds of the Tower of London. No one will ever know for sure if Anne was guilty of the infidelity (and therefore treason) with which she was charged, but most historians agree that the charges were unlikely to be true.

Truth didn’t seem to matter to Henry; he had already hired the French ex*****oner before her trial had finished. So just three years after she journeyed to the Tower looking forward to her coronation, Anne returned to the Tower to await her ex*****on.

Most traitors against the King arrived through the Traitors’ Gate, but Anne is more likely to have been escorted through a private entrance in the Byward Tower, close to where visitors enter the Tower today.

She is buried in the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula here at the Tower of London.

12/05/2025

The next time you are in Notting Hill/Holland Park area, take a little detour to see this historic gem of a bottle kiln – there are very few left in London.

This one is on Walmer Lane, just by Pottery Lane, so named because of the potteries and brickfields that were established here in the 1800s. One of the reasons this area was chosen for these fiery installations is because this was an impoverished, industrialised part of London, known as the “Potteries and Piggeries."

Pig keepers and pottery workers lived here in conditions described by Charles Dickens as, “a plague spot scarcely equalled for its insalubrity by any other in London.”

This fantastic survivor acted as a chimney to filter smoke and was used to produce bricks from 1821, and possibly in pottery production later on.

06/05/2025

The official coronation state portraits of King Charles and Queen Camilla were unveiled this morning by the King and Queen at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.

In the tradition of coronation portraits, both depict the royals in their Robes of State with their respective crowns, the Imperial State Crown and Queen Camilla's Crown (formerly known as Queen Mary's Crown) nearby.

The portraits will be on display in the Central Hall at The National Gallery until 5 June when they move to the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace.

02/05/2025

It’s an ideal day for a royal walk, don’t you think? We’re going to start at the 14th-century Jewel Tower, one of the oldest buildings in London. It was originally built to house the valuables of King Edward III and went on to serve as Tudor storeroom and records office for the House of Lords.

We’ll walk on past King George V and hear about how the Windsors got their name; past the Palace of Westminster and then head west through several royal parks, finally landing at the understated but delightful Kensington Palace.

26/04/2025

Walking through City of London gardens today with a lucky group who will see some rare and briefly-flowering blooms, most notably, the Handkerchief Tree in Postman’s Park which only blooms for about three weeks and is looking delightfully tissue-y today. We will also see the huge Japanese peonies in the Cleary Garden – again, short-lived flowers.

The wonderful thing about City of London gardens, in addition to their beautiful flowers and trees, is that each one has fabulous stories, some dating back to Roman times.

24/04/2025

I’m delighted to be following Jane Austen’s footsteps in London for VisitBritain. The great author didn’t spend a huge amount of time in London but the city plays an important backdrop in both her writing and her personal development.

As a teenager, Jane visited her Aunt Philadelphia in Orchard Street, today part of the bustling shopping mecca around Oxford Street. Sense and Sensibility is her most urban novel and all of the London addresses and establishments mentioned are within walking distance of her aunt’s former home. So the young writer was already taking notes.

Jane used street addresses to convey social status. Residences just a few streets away from one another sent a message about where you stood on the scale of social standing. And Jane always had her tongue firmly in her cheek.

London looks very different than when Jane was here, but we will seek out those places that are surprisingly similar. Berkeley Square is probably the best example, where the plane trees were planted in 1789, at a time when Jane may have enjoyed tea at Gunter’s Tea Rooms (the site houses Pret a Manger today!).

St George’s Church in Hanover Square, long associated with Society weddings, still stands proud today. In Mansfield Park, Mary Crawford envisions F***y & Henry getting married here.

And White’s Club in St James, London’s oldest gentlemen’s club, looks as elegant as ever. When Jane’s brother, Henry, was invited to dinner here alongside King George III in 1814, Jane wrote, “Henry at White’s! Oh! What a Henry!”

Oh! What a day!

21/04/2025

Everything’s coming up tulips at Hampton Court Palace, where the annual Tulip Festival is on with more than 100,000 blooms across 60 acres of the famous gardens here. It is really worth the 45-minute train journey from London Waterloo to see these spectacular displays. The Festival is on until 5 May.

11/04/2025

I’ve been wondering where the paparazzi had gone. I last saw these intrepid photographers outside the Royal Exchange in the City of London but I see they’ve crept west to Norfolk Square by Paddington Station. They might just be waiting for a glimpse of one of the world’s most famous bears…

The Paparrazi Dogs are just one of many clusters of animal statues by British and Australian artists, Gillie and Marc. Their public sculptures are featured all over the world and are frequently tied in with wildlife charities. The artist duo have raised hundreds of thousands for numerous charities and people love to pose with their delightful creations. Keep your eyes open!

07/04/2025

What a delight to get a tpur of the Hampton Court Palace greenhouses with Jo Ward, . The glorious landscapes the Palace is famous for begin in a modest nursery area, with painstaking efforts by a team of fulltime gardeners assisted by earnest volunteers.

It is a massive job, made challenging by not-so-cutting edge facilities, unwanted insects, the vagaries of hot and cold temperatures, and an army of rats.

There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes!

31/03/2025

What a difference a week makes. These images of the Privy Garden at Hampton Court Palace were taken exactly one week apart.

The team of Hampton Court Palace gardeners work incredibly hard to ensure the palace is continuously framed in beauty.

Privy is a fancy word for private, so these gardens located on the south side of the palace would have been important to the resident monarch.

They began with Thomas Wolsey, and when Henry VIII took over the Palace, he expanded them. Today, they are kept in the very formal style preferred by William and Mary in the late 1600s.

As you can see, they change regularly, so it's always a pleasure to see what is blooming.

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