After Buckingham Palace's Changing the Guard: A Royal London City Walk to St James's Park

Buckingham Palace's Changing the Guard guide covers which dates are left this month, how to tell Guard Change apart from the Captain's Inspection, when to arrive, and how to choose between the forecourt and the marching route — none of that is repeated here, so follow the link first if that's what you need. This one picks up from the next question: once the ceremony itself is over, the two routes the guards actually march, plus St James's Park right next to the palace, turn into a walk that never doubles back, running from wherever the guards set off all the way to Trafalgar Square.

The whole thing adds up to roughly 2-3km. The park section alone, at a normal pace with stops for photos and pelican-spotting, takes about 60-90 minutes. Below: the two routes the guards themselves march, then how to actually walk the park, then what to plan around for rain, distance and accessibility.

Before the change: how the two marching routes work

The outgoing and incoming guards don't take the same route in and out of Buckingham Palace — and both routes are worth walking in their own right, not just a backdrop while you wait for the ceremony.

The outgoing guard sets off from St James's Palace (a few minutes' walk east of Buckingham Palace, another working royal residence), specifically from Friary Court, then goes along Marlborough Road onto The Mall — a straight avenue lined with tall plane trees and red-brick courtyards, running directly to the Victoria Memorial (the white monument in front of the palace gates) at Buckingham Palace's front door. The whole stretch is roughly 10 minutes on foot, just under a kilometre.

The incoming guard sets off from Wellington Barracks instead (an active-duty barracks just south of the palace), marching up Birdcage Walk (literally "bird cage walk" — the name comes from a royal aviary that once stood along this stretch) to Buckingham Palace. This leg is shorter, about 7-8 minutes, roughly 600 metres. The barracks itself isn't open to the public — you can only watch the troops assemble and set off from the pavement along Birdcage Walk, so don't expect to get close enough for a tight shot of the band forming up.

Both of these are just the daily changeover — nothing like the scale of Trooping the Colour (the monarch's official birthday parade every June, held at Horse Guards Parade, which you'll walk past later on this route). That's a once-a-year event involving well over a thousand soldiers and much wider road closures. What's covered here is a routine marching route, a much smaller formation confined to these two streets — don't file it under "parade" the way Trooping the Colour is.

Which dates have a changeover, when to arrive, and how to choose between the forecourt and the marching route are all covered in the companion guide, so they're not repeated here. As far as how these two routes connect for a walk: they both converge around the Victoria Memorial in front of the palace, and the entrance to St James's Park is just a few dozen metres south of the memorial. Whichever route you watched the ceremony from, heading toward the park afterwards is the natural next step — no need to cut back across the forecourt.

After the change: 60-90 minutes in St James's Park

Coming out of the palace forecourt, don't head for the tube — a short path along the palace's east side, just south of the Victoria Memorial, leads straight into St James's Park, the royal park that sits closest to the whole cluster of royal buildings in central London.

Head for the lake first. St James's Park Lake runs across the middle of the park, and the Blue Bridge is the one spot on this route worth lingering on: look west from the bridge and the lake, the trees and the roofline of Buckingham Palace line up into a classic view — The Royal Parks' own site recommends this exact angle for watching the palace. Turn around and look east instead, and the view switches to Horse Guards and the London Eye in the distance — one bridge, two completely different pictures. The bridge itself isn't wide, so if it's busy, don't block it for long while you're taking photos.

Keep walking along the lake and watch the water for pelicans — St James's Park has kept pelicans since 1664, and they're a common sight along the lake, but the park doesn't publish a fixed feeding time. Spotting one is a matter of luck rather than schedule, so don't build "see the pelicans get fed at X o'clock" into your itinerary — just walk slowly and keep an eye on the water.

Continue east along the lake and the park opens out toward Horse Guards Parade — a large open parade ground, and the actual site of Trooping the Colour. If you happen to pass through on a Buckingham Palace guard-change morning, you might catch the Household Cavalry's own separate changing ceremony here too — that's a different event from the one at Buckingham Palace (as the companion guide's closing note mentions), so it's worth a glance in passing rather than something to wait around for.

From Horse Guards Parade, there are two ways to continue. To keep exploring the centre: head north up Horse Guards Road for a few minutes to rejoin The Mall, then east for a few more minutes to Admiralty Arch (the stone archway where The Mall meets Trafalgar Square) — walk through it and Trafalgar Square opens up in front of you, with the National Gallery facing straight onto the square. To extend the walk to Westminster instead: head north through the archway in the middle of the Horse Guards building itself, which puts you directly onto Whitehall (the street lined with government departments and Downing Street), then south for 10-15 minutes to Big Ben and the Westminster area — that archway is a genuine shortcut Londoners use daily, not some secret route.

Add it up: the park section alone is roughly 1.5-2km, and with the two marching-route legs on either side of the ceremony, the whole City Walk comes to somewhere between 2 and 3km — at a normal pace, with stops for photos and pelican-spotting, that's 60-90 minutes to reach Admiralty Arch. Once you're at Trafalgar Square, Zaizai's National Gallery guided tour in Chinese is right there on the north side of the square — a half-day tour that covers the museum's must-see works, and it picks up exactly where this route ends, with no extra backtracking required.

What to plan for on this route

This walk doesn't depend on the ceremony actually happening — even if it's cancelled on the day, or you miss it entirely, the stretch from St James's Park to Admiralty Arch stands on its own as a walk through central London.

Rain: the lakeside paths and the Blue Bridge's wooden decking get slippery once wet, so slow down and don't run across the bridge; benches around the park will hold water after rain, so check before you sit. If it's raining hard enough that you'd rather cut the outdoor walking short, compress the park section down to "walk in, get one photo at the Blue Bridge, walk out," then switch to the Whitehall direction after Horse Guards Parade — the churches and buildings around Westminster give you more cover from the rain. The park itself has no real shelter to speak of, so don't count on finding somewhere to wait out a downpour partway through.

Heat and distance: the full route comes to 2-3km on top of however long you spent standing for the ceremony itself, so the actual walking and standing for the morning adds up to more than it looks on paper. In summer, bring a bottle of water — there are refill points in the park — and remember the park bans barbecues and open flames, and swimming in the lake isn't allowed either, so shade is your only way to cool down along the way. If you're short on stamina, or travelling with older relatives or young kids, treat Horse Guards Parade as a natural halfway stopping point — there's a tube station nearby — rather than pushing on to Admiralty Arch.

Accessibility: the paths inside the park are flat and well-maintained, with no real obstacles for wheelchairs or pushchairs, but step-free access at the tube stations can vary day to day — use the "step-free" filter on TfL's Journey Planner before you set off, rather than assuming any given exit has a lift. For the exact locations of toilets, accessible toilets and water points, check the Royal Parks website's park map before you leave — it's quicker than searching for one once you're already there.

The whole route comes down to direction: once the ceremony's over, there's no need to walk back the way you came — just keep going the same direction the guards marched, on into St James's Park and the centre of town. For which dates have a changeover, when to arrive, and how to choose your spot, see the Buckingham Palace Changing the Guard guide; for the route itself, three landmarks are all you need to remember — the park entrance on the palace's east side, the Blue Bridge looking both ways, and Horse Guards Parade splitting off toward either Trafalgar Square or Westminster.

The routes, street names and walking distances above reflect information checked at the time of writing — road closures, construction and park facility status on the day should take priority over anything written here.