The Mall runs from Buckingham Palace to Admiralty Arch. It was created in the 1910s as a ceremonial route and recently the road surface was made red to give a ‘red carpet’ approach to the palace. 

Green Park, on your left, was made a royal park by Henry VIII. For a time it was a duelling ground then, in 1668, Charles II made it a deer park. It was named for the king’s wishes to have few buildings, lakes or ornaments in the park, only mature trees and grassland. Here, in 1749, Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks was first played to a huge pyrotechnic display initiated by King George II to celebrate the end of the War of Austrian Succession (1740 to 1748).

• Take Queen’s Walk on your left that leads through Green Park to Piccadilly.

This promenade runs alongside the gardens of two important royal and aristocratic residences. The first, Lancaster House, dates from 1825 to 1840. It was built in a mix of Georgian and neo-Classical styles for a son of King George III but then became a private residence – for a time the most expensive in London. It is now a government building and rooms are sometimes used by TV and movie companies as a stand-in for those in Buckingham Palace.

A little further along is Spencer House, built in 1756-1766, for John, 1st Earl Spencer, ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales. It has a wonderful Palladian facade in front of a garden recently restored and replanted with shrubs in the style of the 1790s.

The last plaque on this walk can be seen on one of the last houses overlooking this park - Henry Pelham, Prime Minister in the eighteenth century.

At the end of Queen’s Walk, on Piccadilly, is the Ritz Hotel. Built in 1905 in a French Belle Epoque Parisienne style, the hotel’s guests and patrons have included King Edward VII, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and royalty and presidents from several European countries.