Secret Gardens of the City of London

For centuries the City of London was the most densely populated place on Earth. Today countless millions live in Greater London but only a handful of people live in the original City of London. They are outnumbered by their long dead predecessors that rest in ancient graveyards. We will explore these and much more in the Secret Gardens of the City of London Tour..

Christopher Wren rebuilt most of the City churches after the Great Fire of London. Whilst many survive, several were all but destroyed in The Blitz during WW2 leaving nothing but picturesque ruins and tranquil, hidden oasis in the middle of the financial capital of the world

This very special walking tour will take you to secretive green spots not known even by most Londoners. All with a special story to tell and with a quiet and peaceful beauty.

We probably won’t see another tourist all tour.

We will visit St Olave’s in Mincing Lane, a rare survivor of the Great Fire and rather reminiscent of a country church. Samuel Pepys lived here and is buried here too. Charles Dickens went so far as to proclaim it “my best beloved churchyard”

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.”

A particular favourite of mine is the churchyard of St Dunstan’s in the East. The ruins of a Wren church have been overgrown with wisteria and creepers to create a garden of magnificent romance, where almost no-one goes. You can sit here within the nave surrounded by high walls on all sides, punctuated with soaring Gothic lancet windows hung with leafy vines which filter the sunlight in place of the stained glass that once was there.

Visiting St Mary Aldermanbury in Love Lane with its intricate knot garden is a must. Here we will see the bust of William Shakespeare, commemorating John Hemminge and Henry Condell who published the First Folio and are buried there.

See gardens made out of WW2 bomb ruins.

The yard of the bombed out Christchurch Greyfriars in Newgate St is another essential point. Now only the walls and steeple of the church remain though there is dense border planting that occupies the space where once the congregation sat.

A memorial to WW2, another Secret Garden of the City of London.

Other beautiful spaces that we will visit include St Lawrence Jewry-next-Guildhall, Gresham St., St Michael Paternoster Royal, College St., St Michael Cornhill and last but not least the hidden gem that is Postman’s Park with its incredible memorials.

We will see much more and often visit a wonderful roof garden too.