James Bond was born on paper in 1953, but he was made in a war. Before Ian Fleming wrote a single novel, he spent the Second World War in naval intelligence, in a room just off Trafalgar Square, working for an admiral many people later saw in M. Decades on, the films brought Bond back to these same streets. This walk follows both stories: the real one of Fleming's war, and the screen one of Daniel Craig's Bond in Skyfall and Spectre, with a stop at the building that appears in five Bond films. You start in front of a painting in the National Gallery, walk down Whitehall to Westminster, then follow the Thames upriver, rewinding one famous chase as you go, to the real home of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. The story jumps between the 1930s and the 2010s, and you'll hear clearly each time it does. Spoilers ahead. This is an unofficial walk, not made with or endorsed by the Bond producers, their studios or Ian Fleming Publications. It's one of our self-guided walking tours, about 4 kilometers from Trafalgar Square to Vauxhall Cross.

Before you set off

The walking takes about 55 minutes for 4 kilometers, so with stops allow around an hour and a half, or more if you go inside the National Gallery. The route is flat the whole way, with three river bridges and long stretches of riverside sidewalk. Charing Cross and Leicester Square stations are both close to the start, and you finish beside Vauxhall station, with tube, rail and buses.

The National Gallery is free to enter. If you want to see the painting from Skyfall, check which room it hangs in on the day. The Old Admiralty Building is government offices, so you see it from outside only. The Old War Office is now a hotel with public bars and restaurants. The MI6 building is a working intelligence headquarters: enjoy the view from the bridge and the riverside, keep moving near the gates and don't film its security features. Whitehall and Westminster Bridge are crowded at most hours, so mornings are calmer.

National Gallery

You're at the National Gallery, on the north side of Trafalgar Square. If you have time, step inside, because the first scene of this walk happened in one of its rooms, in front of one particular painting.

It's Skyfall, from 2012. Bond sits on a gallery bench here, facing a painting by J. M. W. Turner called The Fighting Temeraire. This is where he meets the new Q, and the new Q is young. The two of them briefly discuss the picture in front of them before they get down to business.

Look at the painting, or picture it if you're staying outside. It shows an old wooden warship, HMS Temeraire, being towed by a small, smoking steam tug up the Thames to Rotherhithe, to be broken up for scrap. Turner painted it in 1839, and he loved it. He called it his "Darling." It came to the nation in 1856 with the rest of the Turner Bequest. For the film, it's a perfect picture of Bond himself: an old fighting machine in a new age that might not need him.

There's another reason the painting belongs right here. The Temeraire served at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. You're standing in the square named after that battle.

One thing has changed since filming. When Skyfall was made, the painting hung in Room 34. The gallery now lists it in Room 40, so check the room on the day.

That's the screen Bond. Now for the man who created him, and to meet him, we go back to 1939. Cross Trafalgar Square to its south-west corner, where the great arch stands at the top of The Mall. About four minutes.

Admiralty Arch & Old Admiralty

You're at Admiralty Arch, at the top of The Mall. Look beside and behind the arch for the red-brick and Portland-stone Old Admiralty Building. Its design won a competition in 1888, and it was built in stages up to 1907. Today it's government offices, so you see it from The Mall and from Horse Guards Parade.

It's May 1939. War is coming, and Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Britain's Director of Naval Intelligence, needs a personal assistant. He picks a man named Ian Fleming. Fleming gets a codename, 17F, and he works out of Room 39 here at the Admiralty, at the heart of naval intelligence.

He doesn't just push paper. During the war, Fleming creates a commando unit, 30 Assault Unit.

Here's the part that matters for this walk. When Fleming later wrote his Bond novels, Bond's chief was known only as M, and many people saw Admiral Godfrey in that character. He is widely seen as a model for M, though that's how readers saw it, not a settled fact. And Godfrey, by one account, was not amused.

Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale, appeared in 1953. Everything that came after, the films, the gadgets, the cars, traces back to an admiral's assistant in Room 39 in this building.

Now jump forward to 2015. The films came back to this spot too. In Spectre, a car chase begins at the top of The Mall, right where you're standing, and a doorway just beside the arch played the exit of an MI6 safe house.

From here, the walk heads for the building the films kept coming back to. Walk back to the top of Whitehall and head south. The Old War Office is the huge stone building on your left. About six minutes.

The Old War Office

The Old War Office on Whitehall, London

You're outside the Old War Office, on Whitehall. It's an enormous building, designed by William Young and built between 1898 and 1906. Winston Churchill and Lord Kitchener both worked here.

If you've watched Bond films, you've seen this facade. It appeared in five of them: Octopussy in 1983, A View to a Kill in 1985, Licence to Kill in 1989, and then Skyfall and Spectre.

Today it has a new life. On the 29th of September, 2023, after an eight-year restoration, it opened as Raffles London at The OWO, a hotel with private residences. Its bars and restaurants are open to the public.

You may hear that Bond was conceived inside this building. That's hotel marketing, not history. Fleming's wartime post was in Room 39 at the Admiralty, the building you just left.

Now, a flash forward to near the end of Skyfall. After everything, Bond stands on a London rooftop, and Moneypenny brings him M's ceramic bulldog, left to him in her will. It's a small, sad, perfect scene. People often assume it was shot on the roof of this building. It wasn't. It was filmed on the roof of 55 Whitehall, a government building nearby, at the time the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The roof isn't open to the public.

And in Spectre, at the very end, Bond and Madeleine Swann drive away along Whitehall in his Aston Martin DB5. We'll get to how they got there.

Next, back to Skyfall and a chase underground. Continue south down Whitehall as it becomes Parliament Street, all the way to Parliament Square. Westminster station is on the corner. About eight minutes.