Hidden Gardens of London Walking Tour

Join us for a special walking tour as we discover the City's unexpected green spaces and their fascinating history. We usually think of the Square Mile as a maze of narrow, built-up streets and high-rise modern buildings. However, there are in fact some 200 gardens here, oases of calm in the City’s busy life. They’re big and small, public and private. Most of them came about because of two devastating events: the Fire of London in 1666 and the Blitz in 1940. On this walk we will visit some of these green spaces and learn their fascinating history. Most of the green spaces are the churchyards of churches destroyed in one or both events such as St Olave’s, St Mary Aldermanbury, St John Zachary, Postman’s Park and Christchurch Greyfriars. We will also visit the public gardens of two Livery Companies – the Barber Surgeons and the Salters and walk along the new garden in the air of Alphage Highwalk, see the columns of a defunct portico of the Old Bailey and finishing at Christchurch Greyfriars churchyard, said to be haunted by two quarrelling ladies.