Ghost Tour Near Me at London Bridge: Lantern Ghost Tours in Southwark

Lantern Ghost Tours UK meets its London Bridge ghost walk outside the Bunch of Grapes pub at 2 St Thomas Street, London SE1 9RS, a minute from London Bridge station. Adult tickets start at £17.50, a family ticket for two adults and two children starts at £40, and the walk lasts about 90 minutes over roughly 2 km of flat streets. For a ghost tour near me south of the river, it is the one that spends its whole evening in Southwark, the borough that medieval London kept outside its walls.

For centuries the south bank at London Bridge sat outside the City's rules, which is why the area filled with prisons, theatres, brothels and bear pits. The tour's script leans into that past. It covers the Bishop of Winchester's Geese, the women who worked in the local stew houses under the bishop's licence, illegal drinking dens, and the blood sports of bear baiting and cock fighting. The operator rates the paranormal content as moderate and advises parental discretion, with a minimum age of ten.

The operator behind it is Lantern Ghost Tours, which describes itself as Australia's largest ghost tour operator, with street tours in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and lantern-lit tours of old asylums and quarantine stations. The London Bridge walk is its UK street tour, booked through its Lantern Ghost Tours UK reservations page, and it keeps the same format: about ninety minutes, a guide and a mix of history and ghost stories.

The walk starts almost beneath the Shard and works its way west through the old streets around Borough Market and Southwark Cathedral. The operator lists the Golden Hinde, the replica of Francis Drake's ship moored at St Mary Overie Dock, and the Clink Prison Museum at 1 Clink Street, built on the site of the prison that gave English the slang word for jail. The tour's description calls the Clink England's oldest prison and says restless spirits still haunt it.

The stop that stays with most people is Crossbones Graveyard on Redcross Way, the unconsecrated burial ground for the Winchester Geese and for the poor of the parish. Today its iron gates are covered in ribbons, notes and tokens left by visitors. The route also passes The Anchor on Bankside and The George, the galleried coaching inn on Borough High Street rebuilt after the Southwark fire of 1676, before crossing London Bridge with Tower Bridge lit up downstream.

Back at the start, St Thomas Street holds one of the strangest rooms in London. The Old Operating Theatre Museum at 9a St Thomas Street preserves an operating theatre in the garret of a church, used in the days before anaesthetic, and the walk tells stories of the surgery performed there. The museum keeps its own daytime opening hours, so if the tale grips you, come back another afternoon to climb the narrow spiral stair and see the wooden operating table.

The tour finishes with a pub stop at what the operator calls a haunted seventeenth-century tavern, where a phantom dog is said to roam. Drinks there are not included in the ticket, so bring a card for the bar. It is a good way to end a ghost walk, because the group can sit down after an hour and a half on their feet and ask the guide the questions that did not fit between stops.

Honest advice: if you are travelling with under-tens, choose a different tour. The ten-plus age limit is firm, and the material about stew houses and surgery without anaesthetic is aimed at adults and teenagers. The Ghost Bus Tours from Northumberland Avenue near Trafalgar Square is rated for ages five and up and runs daily at 6pm, 7.30pm and 9pm, which makes it the easier pick for a family with young children.

Event listings for October 2026 show the London Bridge tour on Saturday evenings from 7.30pm to 9pm, which puts it after sunset once the clocks go back at the end of the month. Halloween 2026 falls on a Saturday, so that departure will be the most popular of the year. Tickets are sold through the operator's Rezdy reservation page, where you choose a date and time and receive an email confirmation, so reserve before you travel to London Bridge.

The booking terms are strict, so read them before paying. There are no refunds. You can change your date with at least 48 hours' notice before your tour for a fee of £5 per order, and you have to pick the new date at the time you reschedule. Non-attendance and late cancellation void the order. If plans are uncertain, the London Walks Ghosts of the Old City walk on Saturdays at 7.30pm from St Paul's is a fallback just across the river, for £20 per adult.

Borough Market is a few minutes west of the start, and walking its covered lanes in the afternoon gives you a daylight look at streets the guide will later fill with stew houses and bear pits. The Bunch of Grapes itself is the obvious place to wait, and the meeting point means you can have a drink inside before the guide arrives. Guy's Hospital and the Shard are across the street, and London Bridge station has entrances on St Thomas Street.

After the tour, the riverside path along Bankside leads west past Shakespeare's Globe to Tate Modern and the Millennium Bridge in about fifteen minutes, and the views of St Paul's across the water are at their best at night. Going east instead, Hay's Galleria and the path towards Tower Bridge take you to the City side by way of the bridge itself, with Tower Hill station on the north bank.

Lantern Ghost Tours UK, London Bridge Ghost Tour, departing outside the Bunch of Grapes pub, 2 St Thomas Street, London SE1 9RS. About 90 minutes and roughly 2 km of leisurely walking on flat paths. Adults from £17.50, family ticket for two adults and two children from £40. Ages ten and over, with parental discretion advised. Bookings are made online, and the confirmation arrives by email after purchase.

The nearest station is London Bridge, on the Jubilee and Northern lines and National Rail, with exits on St Thomas Street and Tooley Street. The route is a street tour, so it goes ahead outdoors and you should dress for the weather. Wear comfortable shoes for the cobbles around Clink Street and Bankside, and keep the end-of-tour pint in your budget.