Spies, palaces, royal guards and secret intelligence services… this London walk from St James’s Park and Buckingham Palace to Victoria is packed with hidden history most people walk straight past without knowing. We start at 55 Broadway, the revolutionary London Underground HQ designed by Charles Holden, featuring radical artworks by Epstein, Gill and Moore that nearly got removed for being too controversial. Then we step into the shadow world of MI6 on Broadway, where Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service once operated in complete secrecy behind an ordinary office building, with spies, match sellers and Cold War deception all part of the story. From there we join the guards at Wellington Barracks and explore the history of the Household Division before walking Birdcage Walk, once reserved for royal falconry and later opened to the public. At Buckingham Palace, we uncover how a private house became the world’s most famous royal residence, including George IV, John Nash, Marble Arch, and Queen Victoria’s legacy. The route continues through Buckingham Gate, Caxton Hall, suffragettes, celebrity weddings, Cold War intelligence links, hidden filming locations, and some of Westminster’s most unusual buildings including Greycoat Hospital, Channel 4 headquarters, and the London Scottish Regiment. We also visit cinematic locations used in James Bond style espionage stories, political scandals, wartime history, and iconic British culture from The Goon Show to modern TV and film. Finally we arrive at Victoria Station, a station built from rivalry between railway companies, passing the Grosvenor Hotel, Little Ben, Victoria Palace Theatre, and ending at Westminster Cathedral, one of London’s most striking and underrated architectural masterpieces. This is not just a walk through London. It’s a journey through spies, royalty, war, film, politics and hidden stories hiding in plain sight.
Music by Tom Carradine!
