Discover Official Walks & Talks

St Bartholomew's Hospital Guided Tour: Fridays

Discover more about this much-loved London hospital, whose history dates back nearly 900 years! It was founded by King Henry I's courtier Rahere in 1123, who's buried in the nearby St Bartholomew the Great Church.

The North Wing of historic St Barts is currently closed for renovation. We hope that some tours will be available as the conservation work progresses and they will certainly resume when the work is complete so watch this space. But while you wait, why not join the City Guides on a walk that will explore the amazing 900 year story of St Bartholomew’s and its surrounding area as well as some of the other fascinating medical stories of the City.

Meeting at the Henry VIII gate outside St Bartholmew’s Hospital (West Smithfield, EC1A 7BE), the walk will visit take in the churches of the hospital, its amazing range of architecture ancient and modern and tell the stories of body snatchers, heroic and pioneering medics.

The walks will run on Fridays at 2.00pm and will finish close to Farringdon Station.

Ticket sales help support the work of Barts Heritage, www.bartsheritage.org.uk

We have a concession ticket for seniors (65+years ) and NHS workers.

Places are limited and must be booked in advance here at Eventbrite

Please note: children must be accompanied by an adult at all times,

Tours cost £12 per adult, £10 concessions (senior citizens and NHS workers), plus booking fee. Accompanied children under 12 are free. 50% of tickets goes to Barts Heritage Appeal for the restoration of the Hospital's works of art and other treasures.  This tour is run in collaboration with Barts Heritage 

Photos: courtesy of Niki Gorick 

We offer daily, weekly and monthly walks around the City of London 

Our daily walks run from the City Information Centre, just south of St Paul's. You need to book via Eventbrite to secure you place. Note: the cut-off time for booking our daily walks is 21:00hrs the night before. If we don't have any bookings then the walk will not take place.

Our weekly walks have individual booking pages and earlier cut-off times, please see the individual listing.  

NEW!

We've added 3 new walks for this season:

Secrets and Symbols, News from Fleet Street, and From Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde

Billingsgate Roman House and Baths open 

This unique site is now open for this season of tours. Find out more.

Leadenhall Market: Beer, Bread and Beans!

This is a limited-edition, evening tour exploring the history of food and drink in and around the market in May and June.  Find out more

Private tours

If you'd like to organise your own walk, lecture or a virtual tour, then please use our Find a Guide section. If you're a member of an Arts Society or a U3A or other group we'd love to take you on a tour of the City. And if you're a company based in the City who'd like to organise a social event for your work colleagues, why not book a walk with us? 

If you've been on a walk recently we'd love to hear from you. Why not leave a review on our TripAdvisor page? We've been awarded TripAdvisor's Travellers' Choice for 2023!