Birdcage Walk – The Saturday Street

The Saturday Street is our weekly series in which we unlock the stories behind the names of London's famous thoroughfares. It's compiled by London Walks guide Karen – listed by Travel + Leisure magazine as The World's Greatest Tour Guide. You can find Karen on Saturdays guiding her Old Westminster and British Museum walks. If you've got a London street query or suggestion, email Karen at the usual address
Birdcage Walk
Location: SW1
A fingerprint on the map from the reign of King James I, Birdcage Walk marks the location of the King’s aviary and menagerie. Until the early 19th Century it was a private road.
In music, Birdcage Walk is both the name of a march composed by Leslie Statham (who also composed the famous BBC Match of the Day theme) and a boogie-woogie piece by Jools Holland – (Doing The) Birdcage Walk – from his London-themed album The A-Z Geographers Guide To The Piano.
In Ian Fleming’s Moonraker, James Bond road tests his new motor, a four-and-a-half liter 1953 Bentley Mark VI on Birdcage Walk.