Walking with friends: Barbican to Tower Bridge... and beyond

Thursday March 27, 2025.

Having celebrated my birthday, yesterday, I was eager to use my day off to visit London. With my girls at school I roped in my friend, Gary, to join me for the walk.

I took a bus to meet Gary at Rickmansworth station, where we caught a fast Aldgate-bound Metropolitan line train to Barbican. 

Our first stop was a visit to Postman's Park and the G.F. Watt's Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, which Gary had never seen, before we continued our walk south towards St Paul's Cathedral.

Turning on to Foster Lane I spotted the two open blue doors and, after climbing the three stone steps, we found ourselves in a secluded courtyard. This courtyard, once part of a graveyard, is a public garden that is owned by the church of St Vedast-alias-Foster.

A tree acts as a centrepiece to the slabbed and pebbled space, with various potted plants and shrubs dotted around the space. Two white walls are in juxtaposition with the brick walls, while the covered arcade adds an almost Mediterranean feel to this tranquil space. A framed display of Roman pavement pieces along with various plaques adorn the walls, while a relief sculpture of Canon Mortlock, by Jacob Epstein, is affixed to another wall.

But, I was here to see a rather obscure brick. It is a mud brick, etched with cuneiform writing, that was unearthed in Iraq and is almost 3,000 years old. Strangely, there is no plaque or marker, so I had to do some research on this piece of ancient history, on my return home.

Just metres from this 'secret' garden we saw a London Plane tree, growing in the grounds of the former St Peter West Cheap Church grounds. This platanus x acerifolia tree is said to be the oldest tree in the City of London.

From here we continued our route, by following Cannon Street, to Eastcheap, before turning down Pudding Lane, passing the Monument, before reaching Lower Thames Street, where we visited the Church of St Magnus-the-Martyr.

The Church of St Magnus-the-Martyr is a wonderful Grade I listed church, which was one of the first buildings to be destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666. Although this church dates from 1687, there has been a church here since the 11th century. 

Inside this church there is a model of the Old London Bridge, which was created by David T Aggett, a member of the Metropolitan Police who rose to the rank of Detective Superintendent in the Fraud Squad. He was also a keen model maker and this model of Old London Bridge took almost three years to complete. As he was also a liveryman of the Plumbers' Company, he donated the model to St Magnus Church, which is the Plumbers' Company church. As a little joke he placed a Metropolitan Policeman on the bridge, which people can seek to find when admiring the model.

Having found the Policeman and some of the other interesting parts of the model we explored the rest of the building, before leaving the church and continued our walk along Lower Thames Street.

We stopped at Tower Hill Market for a bite to eat, which we ate on the square outside All Hallows by the Tower. The sun, by now, had burnt away the fog and mist, causing the temperature to soar, as we made our way across Tower Bridge to the south bank.

Having travelled as far east as we wanted to, we headed westward along Tooley Street, towards Borough Market. As the first part of our day had been all about history, the second part of our day would be about visiting some film locations, of which London has many.

The first of these was Park Street, opposite Borough Market, where various scenes from Guy Ritchie's 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' (1998) were filmed.

From here we headed south, along Redcross Way, passing the Crossbones Graveyard and Garden of Remembrance followed by the Red Cross Garden until we reached Marshalsea Road. Here we turned right on Sanctuary Street and headed to the Gladstone pub, where scenes from Julian Farino's 'The Union' (2024) were filmed, with Mark Wahlberg. 

After I had my photo taken, in the seat where Mark Wahlberg had once sat, we took our drinks upstairs to the small roof terrace and enjoyed the rest.

On leaving the Gladstone Borough High Street took us to Newington Causeway and Elephant & Castle. We then turned west, along Brook Drive, until we reached Sullivan Road. 

Here, at the junction of Walcot Square and Sullivan Road is Walcot Stores, a shop that was used in Peter Medak's 'The Krays' (1990).

Sullivan Road brought us on to Monkton Street, then Oakden Street before we headed south along Kennington Road. Turning onto Black Prince Road we spied the Black Prince pub, which was used in Matthew Vaughn's 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' (2014). Unfortunately, for us, it was closed, so we could not go in.

So, we continued along Black Prince Road until we spotted the Jolly Gardeners pub, which we entered. A few people were sitting outside enjoying the weather, leaving the pub deserted. After ordering our drinks we looked around this spacious pub and began talking to the barmaid. 

She told us about the pub and a bit of its history, also mentioning that the bar was used in Guy Ritchie's film 'Snatch' (2000). She then pointed out the piano, looking worse for wear in the corner, explaining that this particular piano was played by Charlie Chaplin Senior, as a way to "keep punters in the pub so that they spent more money". I think this piano should be restored and a plaque placed next to it.

As the pub began to fill we made our way out, back on to Black Prince Road, continuing west. Here the road passes beneath the mainline railway from Waterloo and, like the tunnel on Centaur Street, this one has ceramic and mosaics on its walls. The ceramics are to honour the area's history with Lambeth wares by Doulton, while the mosaics depict the Black Prince.

Arriving at Lambeth High Street we spotted an incredibly detailed and ornate building which looked completely out of place with the rest of the street. This is Southbank House, former headquarters of the Doulton Pottery complex in Lambeth.

Behind Southbank House is the London Fire Brigade Museum, which has painted firemen adorning its walls, which we both had our photos taken with.

Following Lambeth High Street we discovered the Windmill pub, so we entered to escape the heat of the day. The inside was wood panelled and by far the busiest pub that we had seen, so far. The walls were covered in beer related memorabilia, while watercolours told the history of the pub. One drawing, in particular, caught our attention as we sipped our drinks. It was a huge drawing of various celebrities, but their names had been subtly changed to match places on the London Underground. It is entitled 'If Places were Faces, London' by Heretic, 2016.

After finishing our drinks, and having played a game of pool which Gary won, we headed back onto Lambeth High Street and headed for the Albert Embankment. We stopped at the Garden Museum, in the hopes of climbing the Church tower, but it was closed for repair, so we made our way across Lambeth Bridge and Westminster.

Once on the north bank we walked along Horseferry Road, before heading north along Dean Bradley Street, where we stopped for refreshments at The Marquis of Granby.

Suitably refreshed we headed through Smith Square, then Gayfers Street and Tufton Street, before heading along Great College Street to the Palace of Westminster. 

The Jewel Tower and the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster (Westminster Abbey), were next, before walking around Parliament Square and on to Great George Street. 

Here we turned down Storey's Gate and visited the Westminster Arms. This pub was busy, with tourists mingling with businessmen and women, all enjoying a drink in the afternoon sun.

We decided that, as time was getting on, we should start making our way homeward. So, we headed north along Storey's Gate and crossed onto Horse Guards Road, where we stopped at the National Police Memorial.

From here we walked along The Mall and entered Green Park and headed for Green Park station, descending the escalators to platform level and a Jubilee line train to Baker Street. Typically, at this time of day, the train was busy with commuters, tourists and Londoners trying to get home. Fortunately we only had two stops until we reached Baker Street. 

At Baker Street a Watford-bound was waiting, at Platform 4, but we decided to wait the extra 5 minutes for a semi-fast Watford-bound train to arrive at Platform 2.

It was yet another great day out discovering more of London's history and hidden gems, while also visiting places that we had never been.

Distance travelled:

• Bus - 3 miles
• Cable Car - 0.0 miles
• Car - 0.0 miles
• DLR - 0.0 miles
• Ferry - 0.0 miles
• Overground - 0.0 miles
• River Boat - 0.0 miles
• Taxi - 0.0 miles
• Train - 0.0 miles
• Underground - 35 miles
• Walking - 8 miles