Every November, London flares with fireworks and half-forgotten history. London Walks Capo David traces the story behind the rhyme – Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Plot, and the strange endurance of a failed revolution. From the haunted cellars beneath Parliament to the Tower’s shadowed ramparts, the ghosts of 1605 still stir. The gunpowder never exploded, but its charge is still humming under London’s stones.

What is it about October 31st? This piece roams from Luther’s hammer on a church door to the end of the Battle of Britain, from Houdini’s final curtain to the Celtic bonfires of Samhain. It traces how Halloween began as an ancient threshold between worlds and became the world’s biggest fancy-dress party. Along the way we glimpse Mexican marigolds, Austrian bread for ghosts, Japanese lanterns, and a universal truth: that once a year, humans everywhere like to dance with the dark and laugh at their fears. It’s funny, atmospheric, and full of surprises – a story of thresholds, history, and a date that refuses to stay quiet.

Two parter today. Forget the fake cobwebs and the pumpkin punch – this is the real Halloween experience: history, mystery, and magic in the world’s greatest treasure house. Guided by Marc – host of the award-nominated Extraordinary Stories of Britain podcast – you’ll explore the British Museum after dark, when the crowds are gone and the marble whispers. From the Rosetta Stone to the Elgin Marbles, five thousand years of civilisation glow under the glass dome of the Great Court. Spine-tingling, civilised, unforgettable – it’s Halloween the London Walks way. Followed by: Tucked behind Victoria Gate Lodge lies one of London’s tiniest and most tender secrets – the Hyde Park Pet Cemetery. Born of a little girl’s grief in 1881, it grew into a miniature city of marble headstones for beloved dogs, cats, parrots and rabbits. It’s the Victorians at their most human – sentimental, heartfelt, and quietly profound. Join us among the mossy stones and whispering trees for a story of love, loss, and loyalty – a forgotten corner of London where even the ghosts have wagging tails.

Slip off Oxford Street and into another world – chandeliers, Rembrandts, and the best cakes in Marylebone. Housed in a stately mansion on Manchester Square, the Wallace Collection is London’s most beautiful secret: an 18th-century treasure chest of art, armour, and elegance. A museum that still feels like a home – and, thanks to Rick Mather’s sunlit café, the sweetest spot in the city for tea.

He gleams through the London fog – a man made of gold. The Albert Memorial isn’t just a monument; it’s a love story cast in marble and gold leaf. This episode of London Calling tells the tale of Queen Victoria and her beloved Albert – the earnest, intelligent prince who believed civilisation could be improved by plumbing and hard work – and how his death broke her heart so completely she built a temple to him in Kensington Gardens. It’s absurd, magnificent, and completely sincere: London’s grandest love letter.

They’ve already got the money, the houses, the jets – so why the fever when the bidding starts? Why the thrill of the gavel? In this Daily London Fix, we step inside Sotheby’s, where wealth turns to theatre and possession becomes performance. From a Strand bookseller’s auction in 1744 to today’s multimillion-pound spectacles, it’s part ritual, part sport, part confession. And – grace notes before the curtain falls – we discover why it’s called Sotheby’s, and why the man bringing down the hammer is, delightfully, named Barker.

The world’s most famous auction house was born on a quiet London street. From polite Georgian book sales to multi-million-pound bidding wars, Sotheby’s has mirrored the city’s rise from mercantile capital to cultural powerhouse.

October 25th — St Crispin’s Day. On this date in 1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, London’s first great poet, breathed his last. Fifteen years later, on another St Crispin’s Day, Henry V’s tiny army triumphed at Agincourt. Two centuries after that, Shakespeare turned that muddy field into legend with “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...” This episode of London Calling links those moments – Chaucer’s passing and his London voice, Shakespeare’s stage thunder, and the date that binds them. A tale of bells, battles, and words: how the vintner’s son and the glover’s son together made English – London English – the language of poetry and power.

United Nations Day, a Westminster hall… and a secret Roman flogging and beheading kit. Only in London.

Tapas time on today’s London fix – a double act. We begin in Smithfield with the redoubtable Jonathan, guiding us through London’s old killing ground, where the condemned met gruesome ends. Then David takes up the thread – from the execution ground to the digital gallows. The former Duke of York has been “unduked”; online the dead are “unalived”; the countryside is “UnLondon.” Welcome to the Age of Un – a wry look at our binary, reversible century, where everything can be done, undone, and done again.

Three “newly discovered” chapters of 1066 and All That – on the railways, the internet, and the French – lead to the story of W. C. Sellar, the quiet Scottish schoolmaster who co-wrote one of the funniest books in the English language. From a Gladstone joke in Brent to a trail that runs all the way to Edinburgh, it’s a very London tale of humour, history, and happy accidents.

Brent – the Borough with the oldest name and the youngest spirit. Named for the ancient River Brent – a Celtic word meaning “holy” or “high” – this is a borough where history hums beneath the pavements. From the roar of Wembley to the quiet grace of St Andrew’s Church, from the marble splendour of the Neasden Temple to the laughter spilling out of Kilburn’s Irish pubs, Brent is London in miniature: diverse, layered, endlessly alive. It’s where A. A. Milne met Winnie-the-Pooh, where Gladstone debated the Irish Question, where the Golden Retriever was born, and where the world still comes to play. Short name, long story, big heart.

London runs on rails – and we've got a new tour that explores London's railway stations. Distinguished railway historian Christian Wolmar and elite London guide Sam Jacobs take us on an all-day journey through the city’s iron arteries: from Shoreditch to Paddington, from Victorian grandeur to modern revival. Part history, part adventure, it’s London seen through its railway termini – the people, the power, the ambition, and the steam that made the city move.

Story time, history time – and this one’s about the storytellers themselves. In this episode of Londerful, London Walks introduces Jonathan, the so-called “new boy” who’s been guiding for four years and already won hearts. Warm, witty, and passionate, he’s the kind of guide who turns facts into discoveries.

At the Savoy Hotel, superstition and style sit side by side – and the proof’s in the cat. Meet Kaspar, the sleek black feline carved to save diners from the curse of thirteen at table. Born of tragedy in 1898 and still dining in style more than a century later, Kaspar has shared a table with Churchill, survived a wartime kidnapping, and become the Savoy’s most charming guest. This is London at its best: polished, peculiar, and purring with stories.

Seventh-century saint meets secret London. This episode follows St Etheldreda – or St Audrey – from her royal beginnings in the Fens of Ely to her hidden London church in Ely Place, Holborn. We explore the legend of her incorrupt body, the feast that became tawdry, and the medieval enclave that once stood beyond the City’s law. Shakespeare’s bishops, bombings, beadles, and even a relic of her hand all make an appearance in this vivid talk through holiness, history, and hidden London.

One night. One storm. Winds near a hundred miles an hour. London wrecked, trees flattened, Britain humbled. The Great Storm of ’87 – the night we all remember.

Camden’s not just a postcode – it’s a state of mind. From the quiet grace of Bloomsbury’s squares to the glorious bedlam of Camden Market; from the high wildness of Hampstead Heath to the learned hush of Museum Mile – this is the borough that can keep you busy for a lifetime. In this episode, we go exploring: parks, markets, music, museums, canals, cafés, and everything in between.

From the barristers of Holborn to the buskers of Camden Lock and the poets of Hampstead, this episode climbs right through London’s social landscape. Along the way we meet the borough that built better homes for its people, raised its rates for beauty’s sake, and made “progressive” a point of civic pride. Radical politics, visionary housing, the ghosts of railways and revolution – Camden’s story is London’s story, all packed into eight and a half square miles.

In the inaugural Get to Know Your London episode, we land in Camden – and David takes us on a visual decoding of the borough’s logo. You’ve seen it a hundred times on street signs – that little green circular symbol above the word Camden. Most people assume it’s a recycling logo. It isn’t. Look closer. It’s actually four pairs of hands, thumbs almost touching, arranged in a circle. They’re meant to symbolise connection – the borough and its community linked hand in hand. The official line says they stand for unity, giving, receiving, and voting. But of course, there’s the droll, alternative reading – that it looks like a green elephant’s foot. Or perhaps the footprint of the Abominable Snowman. A bit of wry humour tagged onto a municipal design – classic London.