Welcome to the Camden Guides newsletter for September 2025, and before we get into our listing of walks for the coming month, there are two special announcements. The first is the opportunity to:
Become a Camden Tour Guide – Our Next Course is Enrolling Now
If you would like to learn how to guide as well as learn about and explore the borough of Camden that extends from St. Giles and Tottenham Court Road to Highgate and Hampstead, and contains the jewels of British Museum, British Library and the Bloomsbury Squares then now is your opportunity to apply.
There is a free meet the guides event on the 10th of September, details and booking here at the following link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/meet-the-guides-camden-tour-guides-association-free-walk-tickets-1444593621409
Local London Guiding Day
This year, Camden Guides will again be taking part in Local London Guiding Day:
The Camden Guides walk is:
For details and to book (or just turn up on the day), please visit the following Eventbrite link: https://camdenllgd25.eventbrite.co.uk/
And now for our listing of walks by Camden Guides over the coming month:
Historic Homes of Hampstead Village
Since its development from a village to an 18th Century spa town and then a Victorian suburb, Hampstead has retained its unspoilt Georgian charm with many listed townhouses and terraces.
In the 19th and 20th Centuries this made it very popular with artists, intellectuals and creatives of all kinds and there are many stories of influential figures who are former residents who left their mark on the area.
This includes several generations of architects, such as Norman Shaw, Ewan Christian and Erno Goldfinger, many of whom built their own homes there, adding to its architectural variety. Furthermore, in the 20th Century the area gained a reputation as the location of several modernist architects’ experimental housing projects for wealthy clients, including Hopkins House and Maxwell Fry’s Sun House.
Join our knowledgeable guide on this walking tour to learn more about the people and buildings that have shaped Hampstead, where you will be introduced to a selection of the area’s finest architects’ homes, historic houses, and modernist masterpieces.
This walk takes place on the 20th of September and can be booked by clicking here.
Primrose Hill and the Navvies Who Built the Railways
The neighbourhood radiates brilliant industrial solutions of Victorian engineers, but who built it? This walk celebrates Railway 200, the 200th anniversary of the modern railway, putting hard-living navvies at the centre of the story. Plans for the development of Primrose Hill area changed drastically in the face of the railway’s smoke, grit and noise. Camden railway landmarks include an Hydraulic Accumulator Tower, a roundhouse, the tunnels that working horses used to get to the Goods Yard, the site of the Stationary Winding Engine and numerous street details. The story of Primrose Hill’s creation also takes us to a beautiful stretch of the Regent’s Canal — also dug by hand by navvies — and the top of the famous hill with its superb views, as well as artists’ studios and pastel-painted streets. We end at a high street free of chain shops where good pubs abound, and it’s all minutes from Camden Market.
This walk takes place on the 21st of September and can be booked by clicking here.
Secrets of St. Giles and Seven Dials: a walk through London’s dark past
Join Elena to discover a fascinating neighbourhood that not many people know.
We will delve into the darker chapters of London’s past as we uncover the secrets of this infamous neighbourhood.
We will wander through the alleys where tales of poverty and crime once echoed (Dickens will get a mention or two, of course…) and discover the remnants of centuries-old buildings that bear witness to St Giles’ tumultuous history.
As we wind our way from the ancient church built on the site of a leper colony to the site of the infamous rookeries and gallows, now replaced by some of the most striking modern architecture in London, we’ll talk music, pubs, executions and developers’ greed. There is something for everyone!
This walk takes place on the 26th of September and can be booked by clicking here.
From Old St Pancras to New St Pancras: a historic walk
We all know about St Pancras Station.
But what is the history of the area we call St Pancras? Was there just a church?
We will begin our walk inside St Pancras mainline station on the upper level. Take the stairs or the escalator up from the area with all the shops. Near the front of the station, inside, you’ll find a very big statue of two people embracing. It’s called….The Lovers statue. That’s where we’ll meet.
From here we’ll start by exploring the area where the OLD St Pancras church can be found. By the last century it was known as Old Saint Pancras, because a NEW Church – “New Saint Pancras” – had been built.
Our walk will then take us through the area of SOMERS TOWN, where we will explore the amazing examples of social housing and uncover the history of two other churches along the way. Finally we’ll arrive at the NEW St Pancras Church where our walk will end, just opposite Euston Station.
This walk takes place on the 10th of October and can be booked by clicking here.
Gin Lane: Thieves and Thief-takers in the Night-Cellars of St Giles
The Seven Dials area of St Giles is now pretty, but in the 18th century it was notorious for poverty and crime. With no organised police force, thieves, highwaymen and fences bribed those hired to catch them, meeting in low-down dives where they spoke a secret language called flash. Notoriously corrupt thief-taker Jonathan Wild captured popular thief Jack Sheppard more than once, but Jack made dramatic escapes from prison aided by his sexworker-partner Edgworth Bess.
With gin selling at a penny a glass, carousing was full-on in areas called, by outsiders, rookeries, thieves’ kitchens, the Holy Land (because of the Irish presence) and, for Drury Lane’s red-light zone, Little Sodom. A range of middle-class spies, social investigators, reporters and slum-tourists came to look and sometimes join in goings-on they found both appalling and titillating. John Gay portrayed Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild in the characters of Captain MacHeath and Mr Peachum in The Beggar’s Opera, London’s favourite play throughout the 18th century.
This walk takes place on the 11th of October and can be booked by clicking here.
Our next newsletter will at the start of October, and tomorrow we continue with our series of posts for Camden at 60.