Spitalfields and Brick Lane Self-Guided Audio Walk: Christ Church, Huguenot Houses and Whitechapel
1 hour and 15 minutes
About this experience
London kept its unwanted things outside the City gate: a hospital, a burial ground, a market, the cheapest beds in the capital. It was also where refugees could afford to land, and each wave reused the brick the last one left. Start at Bishopsgate and walk a lane of Huguenot silk merchants to Hawksmoor's white stone Christ Church and the 1720s weavers' houses of Fournier Street, with wide windows where looms once stood. Walk Brick Lane past a 1743 chapel that became a synagogue and then a mosque, remember the five women of 1888 where they lived, and end in Whitechapel at its Art Nouveau gallery, Altab Ali Park and the foundry that cast Big Ben. Eleven stops, about 1.7 km (a little over a mile), level, about 75 minutes, at your own pace.
- Experience type
- Day tour or activity
- Duration
- 1 hour and 15 minutes
- Guide
- English
- Audio guide
- English
- Categories
- Walking tour · Cultural and theme tours · City tours
What's included
Self-guided audio tour in English: 11 stops, 1.7 km, 75 minutes Stops at Hawksmoor's white stone Christ Church, Fournier Street's weavers' windows, Whitechapel Gallery and the old bell foundry GPS map and walking directions in your phone browser, no app needed Lifetime access: start any day, at any hour, and replay it
What's not included
A live guide: you set the pace and the pauses A fixed start time: begin whenever you arrive Museum and monument tickets, all optional extras Tip or gratuity Food and drinks Entry or admission fee
Please note
To start the tour, enter the ticket code from your confirmation on the Roamer redemption page linked there. Do this before you set off, while you still have signal. The tour then opens in your phone browser, with no app to download. Bring a charged phone and earphones. Mobile data helps; if you have none, open the tour on wifi before you set off. Best time: A weekday from Tuesday to Friday, starting between 10am and 2pm: the lanes are calm, the Whitechapel Gallery is open (it closes on Mondays) and you finish in daylight. Brick Lane is at its busiest on Sundays and on Friday and Saturday evenings, when stopping to listen on its narrow pavements is hard. Christ Church usually opens to visitors only on Sunday afternoons. Altab Ali Park is quieter after dark. Getting to the start: Liverpool Street station is served by the Elizabeth, Central, Circle, Hammersmith and City and Metropolitan lines and by trains to East Anglia; the walk begins on the Bishopsgate pavement outside it. For step-free routes, check TfL's journey planner before you travel. Checked 7 October 2026. Getting home: the walk ends on Whitechapel Road, a few minutes from Whitechapel station (District, Hammersmith and City, Elizabeth line and Overground) and about ten minutes from Aldgate East (District, Hammersmith and City). Buses 25, 205 and 254 run along the road. Checked 7 October 2026. Christ Church Spitalfields (stop 4) says it is open to the public on Sundays from 1pm to 4pm, with the vestibule open on Mondays and Tuesdays from 10am to 3pm; services are on Sundays at 11am and 5pm, and it asks visitors to check it is not closed for an event (spitalfields.church). Checked 7 October 2026. Old Spitalfields Market (stop 3): Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 10am to 8pm, Thursday 8am to 6pm, Saturday 10am to 6pm, Sunday 10am to 5pm; shops and restaurants keep their own hours (oldspitalfieldsmarket.com). Checked 7 October 2026. Whitechapel Gallery (stop 9): displays free, one ticketed exhibition each season (8.25 to 18.15 pounds), closed Mondays, late opening on Thursdays to 9pm with Pay What You Can from 6pm (whitechapelgallery.org). Checked 7 October 2026. The Whitechapel Bell Foundry (stop 11) has been closed since 2017 and is for sale: there is no visit or shop. Checked 7 October 2026. Artillery Lane, Gun Street and Adler Street are narrow streets with some traffic and narrow pavements: they are not traffic-free, so keep to the edge. Cross Bishopsgate, Commercial Street and Whitechapel High Street only at the signals the route uses; Whitechapel High Street is crossed in two stages with a central island. Whitechapel Road is a busy trunk road with street stalls on its pavements on many days. Brick Lane's pavements are narrow and very crowded on Sundays and on Friday and Saturday evenings; restaurant staff may approach you. Step to the side to listen. Altab Ali Park has gates. If they are shut, stop 10 works from the pavement at the park's west gate on the main road, where the Shaheed Minar is still in view. The Brick Lane mosque and the synagogue on Sandys Row are working places of worship, and the houses of Fournier Street and Wilkes Street are private homes: look from the street. The streets of 1888 are ordinary streets where people live and work today. Public transportation nearby
Itinerary
- 1Day 0
Liverpool Street: The Edge of the City
Liverpool Street station, Bishopsgate entrance, EC2M 7PY, London
Just outside the old City gate. Bishopsgate follows a Roman road, and beside the station lay Bedlam, a burial ground used from 1569 to 1739.
- 2Day 0
Artillery Passage: A Lane of Silk Merchants
Artillery Passage, Spitalfields, E1 7LJ, London
A narrow lane once Smock Alley. Archers and gunners drilled beyond it from the 1530s, and Huguenot silk merchants traded round the corner.
- 3Day 0
Brushfield Street: The Hospital's Fields
Brushfield Street by Old Spitalfields Market, E1 6AA, London
A market on a hospital's fields. Spitalfields is named after the priory of Saint Mary Spital, and the market grew on its fields.
- 4Day 0
Christ Church Spitalfields: Stone in a Street of Brick
Brushfield Street facing Christ Church Spitalfields, E1 6AA, London
Hawksmoor's white stone church of 1729. Built under the 1711 act for fifty new churches, it was consecrated in 1729.
- 5Day 0
Fournier Street: The Weavers' Windows
Fournier Street, Spitalfields, E1 6QE, London
Weavers' houses with wide garret windows. Looms stood in these top storeys, and the street was protected as a conservation area in 1969.
- 6Day 0
Hanbury Street: The House That Is Gone
Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, E1 6QR, London
A street with a house missing. No. 29, where Annie Chapman was found in 1888, went with the north side around 1970.
- 7Day 0
Brick Lane: One Building, Three Faiths
Brick Lane Jamme Masjid, corner of Fournier Street and Brick Lane, E1 6QL, London
One building for three faiths. Its sundial on the Fournier Street side reads 'we are but shadow'.
- 8Day 0
Wentworth Street: Five Women, Remembered by Name
Wentworth Street at Brick Lane, E1 7SA, London
The old lodging house district. In 1888 five women murdered in the East End and the City all had beds within a few minutes of here.
- 9Day 0
Whitechapel Gallery: Art for the East End
Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX, London
A terracotta front for art. It was founded to bring the finest art to the East End, and showed Picasso's Guernica in 1939.
- 10Day 0
Altab Ali Park: The White Chapel's Churchyard
Altab Ali Park, Whitechapel Road, E1 7QR, London
The churchyard that named Whitechapel. It is now a park named for Altab Ali, with a Shaheed Minar put up in 1999.
- 11Day 0
Whitechapel Bell Foundry: The Sign Above the Door
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, 32-34 Whitechapel Road, E1 1DY, London
The foundry that cast Big Ben. Bells were made in Whitechapel for centuries; the foundry closed in 2017 and stands empty.
Meeting point
Liverpool Street, London Liverpool Street station, Bishopsgate entrance, EC2M 7PY, London, England, GB
Pick up
Pickup is not provided.
Cancellation policy · Spitalfields and Brick Lane Self-Guided Audio Walk: Christ Church, Huguenot Houses and Whitechapel
Standard Viator policy
- Cancellation 0–24 hours before departure: 100% cancellation fee.
- Cancellation 24–24000 hours before departure: 0% cancellation fee.
Good to know
Operated by Roamer and sold by AGORA. Your voucher and booking reference arrive by email straight after payment.