Across London in the footsteps of Mrs Dalloway

“‘I love walking in London’ said Mrs Dalloway.” And so do I. An urban walk can be full of with interest. And in London this is particularly the case; you can barely move for wedding-cake churches, statues of Victorians in togas, alleyways with fanciful names, commemorative plaques and a whole host of other oddities like these.

I thought following Mrs Dalloway as she sets off from home to buy flowers would be a great London walk. Helpfully, the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain has described just such a walk that also incorporates Rezia and Septimus’s walk to Regents Park. They also provide a wealth of additional detail.

I love the way the narrative in Mrs Dalloway moves effortlessly between the minds of the different characters as they bump up against each other, each of them bringing their own perspectives to the shared events of a day in June. It’s a book, among other things, filled with observations of everyday between the wars London. Researching this blog helped enrich my understanding of many of these.  

“In people’s eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs;  in the triumph and jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.”

Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

Ramble #7

Map and route: OS Explorer maps no good here as you really need street names. An A-Z would be good. I just used the standard overlay in the OS mapping app. I’ve plotted the route I took here.

Distance: 4 miles

Start: Westminster Abbey, TQ 299 795

Description: From outside the main entrance to the Abbey, go through the archway into Dean’s Yard. It was remarkably cool and quiet here after the heat and bustle outside the Abbey. I didn’t manage to walk this route on Dalloway Day, but on a weekday in July and, as in the novel, it was intensely hot and dry. I crossed the Yard, went through the archway in the top left corner and onto Great College Street.

This first section takes the walker through quiet residential streets, with neat window boxes and electric bicycles chained to railings. The area is dense with plaques marking the former dwellings of the great and the good. Even now, it feels like the sort of place Mrs Dalloway and her MP husband would live.

Turn first right into Barton Street, passing T E Lawrence’s house on the right, left into Cowley Street, passing houses of Lord Reith and John Gielgud, then right again onto Great Peter Street. Walking along Great Peter Street you pass a Gilbert Scott-designed church (St Matthew’s), the Embassy of Indonesia and The Speaker pub, where an information board outside provides some interesting facts about the history or the role. At the pub, turn right into the wonderfully named Perkin Rents.

Continue straight ahead as the road becomes Abbey Orchard Street and onto Victoria Street. Here Mrs Dalloway ‘waits to cross’ and hears the bells of Big Ben. The ringing of the bells punctuates Mrs Dalloway’s day. On my walk the road was busy and I did have to wait to cross, but there were no chimes to be heard – the Great Clock of Westminster had been silent for the past five years due to ongoing renovation works.

Turn right along Victoria Street then first left onto Dean Farrar Street. At the end, cross Tothill Street and turn left then immediately right onto Dartmouth Street. Turn left onto Queen Anne’s Gate opposite the Two Chairmen pub. At the end of the road, turn right and cross over Birdcage Walk to enter St James’s Park immediately opposite.

Follow the path ahead and cross the bridge over St James’s Park Lake. After streets pretty much devoid of other pedestrians, the Park was heaving. The bridge in particular was packed with umbrella-wielding tour guides, people taking selfies and folk staring at a line of pelicans swimming past – the pelicans were introduced in the 17^th century as a gift from the Russian ambassador and have been there ever since.

Continue ahead and leave the park onto The Mall. Turn left and then go right along Queens Walk with Green Park on your left. This brings you to Piccadilly. The VWSGB identifies this as the location of the ‘house with the china cockatoo’, which indicated the resident, Baroness Burdett-Coutts, was at home. The cockatoo is long gone, but an engraved stone on neighbouring Stratton House identified this as the home of the Dutch government in exile between 1940 and 1945.

Turn right on Piccadilly and take a stroll up to Hatchards book shop. Mrs Dalloway merely looks in the window, I couldn’t help going inside but managed to restrain myself from purchasing anything – a most unusual occurrence as far as me and bookshops are concerned.

Turn back the way you came to turn right into Bond Street. Here Mrs Dalloway looks in various shop windows. Today the street is all high-end designer stores. The VWSGB helpfully indicates the likely locations of the shops Mrs Dalloway describes. The store with the Dutch picture, tweed and pearls is Ferragamo. The shop with the salmon on ice now appears to be Boss – no fish here. And the location of the store where she buys the flowers is Loewe. Mrs Dalloway hears a car back fire and rumours circulate that inside is the Prince of Wales. On my walk, a laundry service van idled in the narrow road while cabs and cyclists queued up behind it.

Cross Oxford Street, continue along Vere Street and turn right onto Henrietta Place. Turn left at the Royal College of Nursing and along the edge of Cavendish Square (more blue plaques here) and continue onto Harley Street. It’s on Harley Street that Rezia takes Septimus to see a specialist, Sir William Bradshaw. This street exudes a different kind of exclusivity from Bond Street – black railings, marble steps, fanlights, vermiculated rustication, discrete brass plaques announcing aesthetic medicine and fertility treatments. A green plaque commemorates the practice of Lionel Logue of The King’s Speech fame.

 At the end of Harley Street, turn right along Marylebone Road past the entrance to Regents Park tube station. Here Septimus and Rezia hear the woman singing – “ee um fah um so”. It would be quite a feat to hear a singer here today over the roar of the five lanes of traffic.

Turn left into Park Square East, then left onto the Outer Circle and right onto The Broad Walk. I bought a sandwich and drink from the cabin and settled down on a bench to eat my picnic and watch the modern day Septimuses, Richard Dalloways and Peter Walshes.

Continue along the Broad Walk, cross Chester Road to eventually reach the Ready Money drinking fountain that Rezia announces she is going to walk to. Alas, on such a scorching hot day, the fountain was not working. From here, head right diagonally down to Gloucester Gate. From here it’s a relatively short walk to Camden Town tube stop.

Verdict: An easy walk, so take your time and enjoy gazing in the fancy shop windows and look out for plaques, information boards and other snippets and intrigues.