London walk: St James's Park on a summer's evening, via St James's Square, Pall Mall and The Mall

St James’s Park on a summer’s evening with the sun starting to set is the focus of this walk. I start at Piccadilly Arcade making my way along Jermyn Street and then past Christie’s to arrive at St James’s Square (the gardens were closed by the time I arrived). From there I headed down to Pall Mall, the route of a previous walk I had done in the winter, and onto Waterloo Place before crossing The Mall into St James’s Park. Everyone was out enjoying the August sunshine as it started setting providing shadowy views across St James’s Park Lake across to Buckingham Palace from the vantage point of Duck Island Cottage. With Horse Guards Parade to my left and Birdcage Walk to my right, I passed the Churchill War Rooms and headed towards HM Treasury before turning into Birdcage Walk ending the walk at Westminster and Big Ben all covered in scaffolding. At the end of the video, I have included a couple of extra sections – one of the view from Westminster Bridge along the Thames towards the London Eye and the other taking a very quick peek inside Fortnum and Mason. Finally, if you look carefully to the right around 15:40 in St James's Park, you will see some pretty impressive gymnastic moves.

Route timestamps
00:17 Piccadilly Arcade
01:14 Beau Brummell Bronze Statue
01:20 Jermyn Street
01:40 Fortnum and Mason rear entrance/exit to the left
01:52 Duke Street St James’s
02:09 The Cavendish Hotel
02:32 Chequers Tavern
03:02 View towards Mason’s Yard and White Cube art gallery
03:17 Crossing Ryder Street
04:11 Christie’s London
04:36 King Street
05:48 St James’s Square. There are public opening times but we were a little late, it being a sunset walk.
07:25 Pall Mall, view of the Royal Automobile Club to the right
08:50 Crossing Carlton Gardens
10:21 Guards Crimean War Memorial
10:42 Edward VII Memorial Statue and Duke of York Column
11:05 Sir Keith Park Memorial Statue
11:20 Waterloo Gardens
11:29 Sir John Franklin Statue
11:46 John Fox Burgoyne Statue
13:00 The Mall (crossing at high speed as the lights had changed)
13:14 South African Royal Artillery Memorial
13:20 Looking down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace (which isn’t in view, you would need to walk a few minutes)
13:36 Looking towards Admiralty Arch that leads to Trafalgar Square
14:18 St James’s Park
19:55 St James’s Park Lake
22:03 St James’s Café
25:01 View towards Horse Guards Parade
26:56 Duck Island Cottage
27:44 View towards Buckingham Palace (a bit obscured by the setting sun and distance)
28:21 King Charles Street, Robert Clive Memorial, Imperial War Museums and Churchill War Rooms
28:31 Horse Guards Road
29:00 Her Majesty’s Treasury
29:44 Birdcage Walk
30:53 Parliament Square Garden
30:58 House of Commons, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral in the distance
31:11 Big Ben covered in scaffolding
31:44 View of the London Eye and the River Thames from Westminster Bridge
32:10 Inside Fortnum and Mason

My equipment
DJI Osmo Pocket.
Honestly I’m not that happy with the footage I shot for this video, I seem to be back to my old habits of moving the camera too much. I thought the Pocket had put an end to that, so I’m not quite sure why it came out super-swingy. I’ll try harder next time; I find I work better with the Pocket attached to a phone, so will go back to that again.