The River Tyburn Allday Guided Walking Tour with Paul Talling (Author of London's Lost Rivers)

Event information

An all-day guided (above ground) walking tour of the River Tyburn's course from South Hampstead (Swiss Cottage) to the River Thames in Pimlico.

This will be a relaxing all-day event walking roughly 7 miles covering so many clues of this now subterranean river and how it defined the area as we head through St Johns Wood, Marylebone, Mayfair and Pimlico with Paul reading from his London's Lost Rivers book and various Victorian publications and referring to archive material, ancient maps and a modern-day one showing the river now used as the King's Scholar Pond sewer which runs partly underneath Buckingham Palace.

The Tyburn gave its name to the village of Tyburn, originally a manor of Marylebone, which was recorded in the Domesday Book and which stood approximately at the west end of what is now Oxford Street. It also gave its name to the predecessors of Oxford Street and Park Lane, which were formerly called Tyburn Road and Tyburn Lane respectively. From the place where the Tyburn crossed Oxford Street, the Great Conduit was built in 1236, to supply water through conduits from the Tyburn to Cheapside in the City. Just off Bond Street, Lancashire Court was developed on what used to be the east bank of the Tyburn. It is said that here ducks once wandered about among the long grass and puddles, women did their washing at the water's edge and a hospital for plague victims was erected here near the open fields.

There will be plenty of tangents along the way such as the Baker Street bank robbery of 1971, Danger Mouse, the Mayfair birthplace of Queen Elizabeth II, Twiggy, Radio Luxembourg, Banksy, Wendy Richard, Phileas Fogg, locations from Denis Waterman era Minder, an abandoned tube station, Harry Nilsson's flat where both (Mama) Cass Elliott and Keith Moon died. Many more musical references en route including Marie Lloyd, Handel, Elgar, Hendrix, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Queen, Kim Wilde, Sex Pistols and Dolores from The Cranberries. There will be a pub stop plus there will be plenty of opportunities for toilet breaks in Regents Park, Paddington Street Gardens and Green Park. You are welcome to bring refreshments to eat along the way. We finish around 5pm (give or take a bit, as there is no rush). You can get home from Vauxhall or Pimlico stations which are a 10-minute walk or stay for a drink with Paul and other walkers in The Grosvenor pub which is a cosy down to earth pub. Prewalk cafe tip: Swiss Cottage Community Centre,19 Winchester Rd, NW3 3NR.

'Paul Talling drills deep beneath the modern city to show how the lost rivers of the capital have left their mark, even telling how certain areas take their names from the rivers that once flowed nearby...' LONELY PLANET