London Heritage Training
Our mission here at London Heritage Training is to be a centre of excellence for the training and education of London tour guides.
We enable every student to develop the skills they need to fulfil their potential and become the best tour guide they can be.
We believe that tour guiding is a form of performance art. Our intention is for all our students to identify those aspects of London’s heritage they find most fascinating, and to develop their research and public-speaking skills so they can design their own tours and convey their knowledge with panache.
If you are ready for the adventure, all you need to bring is your curiosity and creativity, your willingness to collaborate and your commitment to stretch yourself. Come and join us on the journey to discover your inner tour guide!
Our team
Students on our Tour Guiding course are taught by our highly experienced team of experts, which is made up of a mix of guiding professionals and adult education professionals.
Course tutors
Dr Caroline Dunmore
Director, London Heritage Training
Dr Caroline Dunmore is a born-and-bred Londoner with a special interest in London’s cultural heritage. She is a dedicated lifelong learner and it’s her vocation to support other people with their lifelong learning process. Caroline’s academic qualifications include an MA in the history of art (Courtauld), an MA in museum and gallery management (City) and a PhD in the history and philosophy of science (KCL), and she was a Research Fellow for three years at the University of Oxford. Her professional qualifications include a Certificate in Learning and Development Practice, a Certificate in Coaching and Mentoring, a Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology and Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. Caroline qualified as a City of Westminster Guide in 2008, qualified as a City of London Guide in 2009, began teaching her Tour Guiding course in 2011 and is the author of two guiding-related books, “A Tour Guide’s Way” and “Westminster Miscellany”. Caroline has worked as a trainer and educator in the private and public sectors and her leisure activities include ballroom dancing, choral singing and hand drumming.
“Caroline will take you from whatever walk of life you come from and polish you into a box-fresh tour guide. Her teaching method is remarkable: it is both rigorous and academic and delivered in an engaging and effective way… Caroline’s USP is her ability to build confidence in each student and to foster team spirit.”
Pamela Gawn (class of 2024-25)
Louise Halfpenny
Louise Halfpenny has worked as a journalist and press officer before leading communications teams in NHS hospitals. She has switched from her busy job in the public sector to become a full-time tour guide. Louise loves London, its art, architecture and history (in that order!). She offers walking, jogging and coach tours and enjoys showing off the alleyways of the City and the wonders of Westminster just as much as London’s many museums and galleries. Louise also creates and leads week-long educational trips for overseas students on a wide range of subjects. Louise qualified as a City of London Guide in 2013, as a Westminster Guide in 2016 and as a London Blue Badge Guide in 2025.
Emmanuel Lebaut
Emmanuel Lebaut qualified as a City of Westminster Guide in 2014 and as a City of London Guide in 2015. A born-and-bred Parisian, he fell head over heels for London after moving here in 2003, and now proudly claims to know more about his adoptive city than his native one. Guiding is a passion project alongside a busy full-time job in the corporate sector. Emmanuel’s walks explore themes as wide-ranging as the LGBT+ history of Soho and London during the World Wars; his greatest fascination is the River Thames. He co-created a hit walking tour for London Walks, The Power of the Thames, with a fellow graduate from his cohort, tracing the river’s influence from Battersea to Westminster. He also co-presented a documentary exploring the Thames and the communities along its banks, which was selected for two UK documentary festivals. A decade on, what Emmanuel still enjoys most is guiding alongside the friends he trained with – a testament to the strong sense of community the course inspires.
David Lloyd
David Lloyd is a qualified City of London Guide (2012), Camden Guide (2019) and City of Westminster Guide (2023). For many years he taught history, politics and law in London schools. Given London’s riches in those areas it is not surprising that David’s walks often focus on those themes, although not exclusively so. He retreats indoors regularly to take tours of Trinity House, the Guildhall Art Gallery, the Foundling Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. In addition he helps recently-arrived Hong Kong immigrants to familiarise themselves with British culture and history and also provides some outdoor distraction to the parents of children undergoing treatment at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Susan Pettit
Susan Pettit is a full-time professional guide and has extensive experience of guiding individuals and tour groups. She is a Blue Badge Guide for London and the South East and also holds guiding qualifications for the City of Westminster, Clerkenwell & Islington, Camden and Lambeth. Susan has an MA in garden history and loves to guide in parks and gardens; she also has a particular interest in industrial history. Susan believes that a guided tour should be a memorable experience: “It is such a thrill to walk an area with a guide’s eyes and notice details and unusual occurrences. Then, after your research, it is so rewarding to impart your knowledge to your audience, who express their surprise and excitement and wish to find out more.” Susan is a course tutor for both the London Heritage Guides and the Lambeth Guides and also teaches on the London Blue Badge course.
Guest speakers and examiners
Catherine Cartwright
Catherine Cartwright has a bachelor’s degree in theatre and film and postgraduate degrees in history of art (Birkbeck) and broadcast journalism (City). She qualified as a City of London Guide in 2006, as a City of Westminster Guide in 2007 and as a Blue Badge Guide for London and the South East in 2009. Catherine has led a dual life as a London tour guide and a broadcast journalist for local London news; on the side she produces a podcast about unusual sites around London called London Undone. She is also an award-winning architectural stained-glass artist whose work can be seen in both the City of London and the City of Westminster. Catherine was a member of Caroline’s tutor team from 2013 to 2024, helping students learn how to share stories about London: its streets, infrastructure, museums, galleries, architecture, institutions and its people. In the 2024-25 academic year, Catherine graduated to a role as an examiner.
Sean Patterson
Sean Patterson is an actor and began his interest in guiding as a result of gaining a master’s degree in London Studies at QMUL. He developed several tours based around Charles Booth’s so-called Poverty Maps and then trained for the guiding badges for Clerkenwell & Islington, City of London, City of Westminster, and finally the London Blue Badge. As well as specialising in social history and literature tours, Sean enjoys guiding in the National Gallery, Tate Modern, Westminster Abbey, British Museum and much more besides. Sean has been a colleague on Caroline’s Tour Guiding course team for many years, either as a tutor or as an examiner. He started as an examiner back in 2015-16 and has examined several cohorts of students, both on the interior exam at the National Portrait Gallery and on the exterior exam in Marylebone.
Stephen Willis
Stephen Willis enjoys a busy life as a guide in London. A former teacher, he finds that guiding enables him to re-use skills developed in the classroom in many new and exciting ways. He took our Tour Guiding course in 2022-23, the year after taking the City of London course, and joined our tutor team the following year. A number of Stephen’s tours explore musical themes and as a former choral scholar of St John’s College at the University of Cambridge he finds it hard to resist bursting into song when guiding! He can often be found along The Mall, where his years spent as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace mean he is always delighted to field visitors’ questions about the royal family and English history. He also greatly enjoys leading walks for school communities and believes guided walks and tours are a great way for people to get to know others, to re-connect and to explore and develop shared interests. Stephen is currently undertaking the London Blue Badge course and will be an examiner on our 2025-26 course.