Secret Gardens of the City of London

Private Walking Tour · The City of London · Hidden Gardens & Ancient Ruins

Secret Gardens of the
City of London

The tour most Londoners have never taken — and most tourists never find

Hidden in the heart of the world’s great financial capital lie ancient churchyards, wisteria-draped ruins and secret gardens of extraordinary beauty. We will probably not see another tourist all tour. Every spot has a special story to tell and a quiet, peaceful beauty that stops people in their tracks.

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Departure
10:00am
⏳
Duration
3 hours
🌿
Character
Peaceful · hidden · utterly unique
📍
Location
The original City of London
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Format
100% private — just your group

The Tour That Started It All

For centuries the most densely populated place on earth. Today, hidden within the financial capital of the world, lie ancient gardens of extraordinary tranquillity that almost nobody knows exist.

The original City of London — the Square Mile — has been at the heart of the world for two thousand years. Today countless millions live in Greater London but only a handful of people actually live within the ancient City walls. They are outnumbered by their long-dead predecessors, who rest in ancient churchyards that have become some of the most beautiful and peaceful gardens in Europe.

Christopher Wren rebuilt most of the City’s churches after the Great Fire of London in 1666. Many survive magnificently. But several were all but destroyed again in the Blitz during WW2 — leaving nothing but picturesque ruins that nature has since reclaimed, creating hidden oases of extraordinary romance in the middle of one of the busiest financial centres on earth.

This tour takes you to the most secretive, beautiful and historically charged of these spaces — places not known even by most Londoners. Every spot has a special story to tell and a quiet, peaceful beauty that stops people in their tracks.

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St Olave’s, Hart Street — Dickens’s “best beloved churchyard” A rare survivor of both the Great Fire and the Blitz, St Olave’s feels like a country church transplanted into the heart of the City. Samuel Pepys lived here and is buried here. Charles Dickens called it his best beloved churchyard and wrote about its iron gate adorned with skulls and crossbones with unmistakable affection.
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St Dunstan’s in the East — the most romantic ruin in London The ruins of a Wren church overgrown with wisteria and creepers — a garden of magnificent romance where almost no one goes. You can sit within the nave itself, surrounded by high walls with soaring Gothic lancet windows hung with leafy vines filtering the light in place of the stained glass that once was there.
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St Mary Aldermanbury — Shakespeare, the First Folio & a knot garden An intricate knot garden and a bust of William Shakespeare, commemorating John Hemminge and Henry Condell — the men who published the First Folio and are buried here. Without them, most of Shakespeare’s plays would have been lost to history.
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Christchurch Greyfriars — a garden made from a Blitz bomb ruin Only the walls and steeple remain after the Blitz — but the space where the congregation once sat is now a densely planted border garden of remarkable beauty. A living memorial to the destruction of WW2, reclaimed entirely by nature.
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And much more — plus often a wonderful roof garden St Lawrence Jewry-next-Guildhall, St Michael Paternoster Royal, St Michael Cornhill, and the hidden gem of Postman’s Park with its Victorian memorial to heroic self-sacrifice. And on many tours, a visit to a wonderful secret roof garden high above the City.
St Dunstan's in the East — Secret Gardens of the City of London

St Dunstan’s in the East — a Wren church ruin reclaimed by wisteria and creepers

WW2 bomb ruin garden — Secret Gardens of the City of London

A garden made from a WW2 bomb ruin — nature’s quiet reclamation of London’s darkest chapter

Pricing — 3 Hour Tour

Per Person — Guide Included

Entry fees not included. Child prices on request. Departure 10:00am.

£180
1 Adult
£160
2 Adults
£140
3 Adults
£120
4 Adults
£100
5–10 Adults

Book via the calendar below, by email, or through Viator.

Secret Gardens of the City of London — Amazon #1 Bestseller

As Seen In · As Recognised By

The tour that became a #1 bestselling book — and the lead travel feature in The Independent

The Secret Gardens of the City of London is not just a tour — it is the original. Created by your guide Stephen Liddell, it became an Amazon #1 bestselling book in Travel, was chosen as the lead travel feature in The Independent newspaper, and was ranked the #1 authentic London experience on Viator and TripAdvisor.

Others have tried to replicate it. None have matched it. This is the one that started it all — and it remains, more than a decade on, the most celebrated and decorated tour on this site.

A Global #1 Bestseller

Not just a #1 bestseller in the UK — but a #1 bestseller around the world

The book of the Secret Gardens of the City of London tour has reached the #1 position in Travel on Amazon not just in Britain but in multiple countries around the world. From the United States to Australia, Canada to India — readers everywhere have discovered the hidden gardens, ancient churchyards and wisteria-draped ruins of the City of London through this tour and the book it inspired.

It is a remarkable achievement for a tour that began simply as one guide’s passion for the extraordinary hidden places of his own city — and a testament to just how universal the appeal of Secret London truly is.

Secret Gardens of the City of London — #1 Bestseller Around the World
Secret Gardens of the City of London — Viator #1 Authentic London Experience

Viator · TripAdvisor · The World’s Largest Travel Platform

Listed by Viator as the #1 authentic London experience — out of thousands of tours

Viator — the world’s largest tours and experiences platform, part of TripAdvisor — listed the Secret Gardens of the City of London as the top authentic London experience. Not the most popular. Not the most visited. The most authentic — which is precisely what this tour has always been about.

London has thousands of tours. Only one has been recognised by the world’s largest travel platform as the most authentic experience the city has to offer. This is it.

Book on Viator →

Frequently Asked Questions for the Secret Gardens of the City of London

Departure Time:10 am
City Location: London
Duration of Tour: 3 hours
(Approximate times as all tours are bespoke)

How to book the Secret Gardens of the City of London

To make a booking please use the calendar and form below or contact us above.

Alternatively you can book through Viator below.

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The favourite of Charles Dickens. One of the Secret Gardens of the City of London.
“It is a small small churchyard, with a ferocious, strong, spiked iron gate, like a jail. This gate is ornamented with skulls and cross-bones. Larger than the life, wrought in stone … the skulls grin aloft horribly, thrust through and through with iron spears. Hence, there is attraction of repulsion for me … and, having often contemplated it in the daylight and the dark, I once felt drawn towards it in a thunderstorm at midnight.” he wrote in “The Uncommercial Traveller.”
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