An exact walking route through Westminster’s quiet backstreets from St James’s Park to Victoria, past hidden squares and Westminster Cathedral
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat present the walk that takes you behind the postcard Westminster and into the neighbourhood where civil servants actually live.
The Hidden Westminster Backstreets Walk
Postcard Westminster is Big Ben, Parliament and the Abbey. Real Westminster is narrow 18th century streets, tiny squares, Georgian townhouses, and the only Byzantine cathedral in the UK. This walk is short, quiet, and almost entirely tourist-free.
Start and Finish
Start: St James’s Park Station.
Finish: Victoria Station.
Distance: 1.8 miles.
Time: 45 minutes walking, 2 hours with cathedral visit.
Exact Directions
Exit St James’s Park Station onto Broadway. Walk south, then turn east onto Queen Anne’s Gate, one of London’s most preserved early 18th century streets. The houses date from 1704 onwards. A statue of Queen Anne stands midway.
Continue west from Queen Anne’s Gate, crossing into Tothill Street and then Broadway. Walk south-west through Caxton Street and Christchurch Gardens.
Continue south-west to Vincent Square, a large private sports ground for Westminster School. The school itself (founded 1560, in its present location since medieval times) occupies much of the surrounding land.
Walk west on Rochester Row to Westminster Cathedral (not to be confused with Westminster Abbey; the Cathedral is Roman Catholic, built 1895-1903, Byzantine-style). The 87 metre bell tower has a lift for views. See westminstercathedral.org.uk.
Finish at Victoria Station, 3 minutes west.
What to See
Queen Anne’s Gate. The Blewcoat School (1709, now a NT shop). Westminster School. Dean’s Yard (glimpse of the school quadrangle). Vincent Square. Rochester Row. Westminster Cathedral (free, astonishing mosaics, tower ticketed). Pimlico is a 10 minute walk south for further quiet streets.
Coffee, Toilets, Survival
Coffee: Iris & June, Coffee Affair (Victoria), Notes. Food: Royal Horticultural Halls cafe (events-dependent), the cathedral cafe. Toilets: Victoria Station, Cathedral, restaurants.
The Humour Interlude
Hidden Westminster is the only part of central London where, on a weekday morning, you will see a 73 year old civil servant in a bowler hat walking briskly with a copy of the Financial Times under his arm, genuinely and not ironically. He works at the Home Office. He has worked there since 1974. You will want to photograph him. Do not. A Whitehall satirist has observed that the Home Office operates on two speeds: “urgent” and “last Wednesday.”
Westminster Cathedral is unfinished, by design. The walls are meant to be covered in mosaics, but the project is scheduled for completion by approximately 2200. This is calm planning.
Local Wisdom
Weekday mornings for empty streets. Saturdays for Cathedral services with full sung liturgy. The Cathedral tower is ticketed but cheap and offers a rare westward London view.
For Whitehall satire, see NewsThump.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
Hanna Miller, Journalist and Philosopher
London, UK
Hannah Miller, a proud graduate of the University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, started her career documenting agricultural innovations and rural life in the Midwest. Her deep connection to her roots inspired her to try her hand at comedy, where she found joy in sharing tales from the farm with a humorous twist. Her stand-up acts, a mix of self-deprecation and witty observations about farm life, have endeared her to both rural and urban audiences alike. She is a four-year resident to London and the UK.
My professor said partners of obsessive fans understood it could become a shield against actually attempting change.