A Riverside Walk from Hammersmith to Chiswick

The North Bank of the Thames between Hammersmith and Chiswick holds some of London's most remarkable riverside history. On this walking tour, you'll trace the stories of artists, engineers, and eccentrics who shaped this stretch of the Thames. You'll also discover how their homes, pubs, and workshops survive almost unchanged along one of London's finest riverside walks.

The tour starts at Hammersmith Bridge, the ornate 1887 suspension bridge designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette – a structure the IRA tried to blow up three times. From here, you'll walk west along Lower Mall and Upper Mall, passing Georgian terraces, historic rowing clubs, and riverside pubs with views across the water. As you cross into Chiswick, the route continues along Chiswick Mall, where 17th and 18th-century mansions line the road, occasionally flooded at high tide.

You'll encounter Kelmscott House, where William Morris ran his Socialist League from the coach house, and the Doves Press, where a furious business dispute ended with a typeface being thrown into the Thames. You'll pass Walpole House, the real-life model for Miss Pinkerton's Academy in Thackeray's Vanity Fair, and learn about Chiswick Eyot, the shrinking Thames island that has lost three-quarters of its length since 1900. The tour ends at St Nicholas Church, where William Hogarth is buried and his friend David Garrick wrote the epitaph.

On this 45-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Hear how Sir Francis Ronalds invented the electric telegraph at Kelmscott House, only to be dismissed by the Admiralty
• Visit the Dove Inn, a 17th-century pub whose landlord once explained why the sign showed two doves
• Learn how Edward Johnston designed the Johnston typeface still used across the London Underground
• Discover A.P. Herbert, the MP who wrote a novel set on the Thames and once submitted a cheque written on a cow
• See the remains of the Middlesex Water Company, designed by the same engineer who built Hammersmith Bridge
• Explore Fuller's Brewery, where London Pride has been brewed since 1701

This tour rewards anyone curious about the lives behind London's grand riverside façades.