Discover Official Walks & Talks

Dr. Samuel Johnson Guided Walks: Twice Monthly

Come and explore the 18th century London of the writer, critic and lexicographer, Dr Samuel Johnson. Although he was born and brought up in Lichfield, Samuel Johnson spent most of his adult life in the City of London where he came to dominate the 18th century literary world, which was growing up around the established Fleet Street offices of numerous publishers and printers.

Johnson produced a large number of works of many different kinds but is best known for his Dictionary of the English Language published in 1755. This walk concentrates on the life and works of Dr. Johnson, the people he knew and what the City of London was like at the time.

Our Samuel Johnson walk takes place on alternate months on the first Saturday and the third Friday of each month. All start at 2pm.

Walks start and finish outside Dr Johnson's House in Gough Square where Johnson compiled his famous Dictionary.

£12 tickets are available via Eventbrite.  Booking is not essential, however. Please bring cash for tickets not purchased in advance. We meet outside the house five minutes before the walk commences.

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. Read our policy on Refunds. Our weekly walks have individual booking pages and earlier cut-off times, please see the individual listing.  

NEWS! NEWS! NEWS!

We have lots of free tours as part of Open House in September

See how we're involved in the Lord Mayor's City Giving Day and see how you can get involved too

We've added new dates for our tour of St Barts. Find out more here  

Join us and other professional guiding associations on Saturday 5 October for Local London Guiding Day with free walks across London for one day only. Find out more

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 season ends in November

This unique site is now open for this season of tours. 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, a school or another group we'd love to take you on a tour of the City. Or if you're a company based in the City who'd like to organise a social event for your work colleagues, then contact one of our qualified guides, who can put together an evening walk for you.

If you've been on a guided walk with us 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 and 2024!