You love London, don’t you? And you are keen to find out lots more about London and learn how best to share your enthusiasm with other people, right? Well, you’ve come to the right place!
Here at London Heritage Training 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 public-speaking skills so they can 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!
Students on the Westminster Tour Guiding course are taught by our highly experienced team of experts, three of whom are guiding professionals and two of whom are training-and-education professionals.
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, took over as director of the Westminster 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.
Catherine Cartwright trained as a City Guide in 2005-06, as a Westminster Guide in 2006-07 (the first year the Westminster Tour Guiding course ran) and as a Blue Badge Guide for London and the South East in 2007-09. She has been a tutor on the Westminster Tour Guiding course since 2013. Catherine has led a dual life as a London guide and a broadcast journalist for local London news; on the side she produces a podcast about unusual sites around London called London Undone. Sharing stories about London is what she does! As a tutor, Catherine helps other people learn how to share stories about London: its streets, infrastructure, museums, galleries, architecture, institutions and its people. Catherine has a degree in theatre and film and postgraduate degrees in history of art (Birkbeck) and broadcast journalism (City).
Fiona Lukas has been leading walking tours in London since 2001. She is a City of London Guide and a Westminster Guide; she was Best New London Blue Badge Guide in 2015. She has worked on the open top buses and out-of-town coaches, and enjoys the variety of work as a guide. She used to teach juggling and circus skills and trained in the theatre before turning to guiding. Fiona believes the walking tour is an underrated art form, which combines the skills of researching, designing, and delivering a walk, whilst interacting with your clients and the world at large. When it goes well it is immensely satisfying – as is passing on those skills and encouraging students through the Westminster Tour Guiding course. She has an eye for the detail, a love of the silly and was once described as random as gout.
Adam Scott-Goulding has been a tour guide in London since 2005. He can regularly be found leading tours with London Walks covering the capital from Kensington to Mile End and Muswell Hill to Crystal Palace. In 2018 he founded London Music Tours to explore and celebrate the capital’s rich musical history with a genre-spanning programme of walks; popular tours include Beatlemania!, Handel In London and The Music Of Royal London. In 2021 he curated two guided tours for the vibrant King’s Cross arts venue King’s Place. He can also be found leading tours on wheels with Evan Evans, Premium Tours and Music Heritage London. In 2020 as the pandemic hit, Adam found himself in the vanguard of virtual tours. His efforts and innovations in the field of virtual tour guiding were recognised as a Visit England Tourism Superstar Finalist in 2022 along with his London Heritage Training colleague Fiona. He completed the Westminster Tour Guiding course in 2019 with distinction and joined the tutor team the following year.
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 the Westminster Tour Guiding course in 2022-23, the year after taking the City of London course. 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.