London in April can feel like several seasons compressed into one afternoon. This Roberts London film, published on 23 April 2017, begins at Victoria and follows a spring walk through the ceremonial centre of the city before ending among the bakeries and coffee shops of Seven Dials.

The original idea was part practical guide and part seasonal expedition. April often brings Easter, the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race and the London Marathon into the same stretch of the calendar. Their exact dates move from year to year, while the weather remains even less predictable. In 2017 Easter Sunday had already passed on 16 April; the film appeared one week later, on the day of that year’s London Marathon.

From Victoria to Buckingham Palace

The route starts at Victoria Station and heads towards Buckingham Palace. Spring sunshine has brought a large international crowd to the forecourt, where the palace, its balcony and the Victoria Memorial provide the first extended stop. The film explains the flag convention then in use: the Royal Standard indicated that Queen Elizabeth II was in residence, while the Union Flag flew when she was away.

From the palace the camera turns east along The Mall. This half-nautical-mile ceremonial road links the Victoria Memorial with Admiralty Arch. Its red surface suggests a vast carpet laid towards the palace, while Green Park, St James’s Park and Horse Guards frame the route on either side.

The walk also anticipates the London Marathon. Its final approach runs through this ceremonial landscape and finishes near Buckingham Palace. On race day the roads fill with spectators, elite athletes and amateur runners, many of them raising money for charity. In the film, however, the journey is deliberately less athletic: the immediate objective is a hot cross bun.

Trafalgar Square and St Martin-in-the-Fields

Admiralty Arch opens onto Trafalgar Square, one of London’s most adaptable public spaces. The film recalls the free cultural celebrations staged there through the year, from Chinese New Year and Diwali to St Patrick’s Day and Africa on the Square. At Christmas the square changes again when the tree given by Norway becomes the focus of its seasonal programme.

The next destination is St Martin-in-the-Fields. After a quiet look inside the church, the film descends below ground to the Café in the Crypt. A café had operated in the crypt by the mid-twentieth century, and the space was developed more fully as a commercial venture in 1987. Its brick vaults, historic stones and central location make it unlike an ordinary London café.

A hot cross bun and a wider reflection

The seasonal search succeeds at the counter. The hot cross bun is simple: a lightly sweetened spiced bun containing dried fruit and marked with a cross. Traditionally associated with Good Friday, it was already widely available for a much longer season by 2017. This one cost £1 and arrived without butter, but proved fresh enough to work on its own.

At this point the film becomes more reflective. The café’s connection with the work of St Martin-in-the-Fields prompts a personal discussion about homelessness, giving and the difficult question of how charities balance costs with results. These are presented in the film as Barry’s own views rather than a verdict on the sector. The lasting recommendation is straightforward: visiting the café supports the institution through ordinary custom while giving visitors an affordable meal in an extraordinary room.

Seven Dials, Bread Ahead and Monmouth Coffee

The final section heads north through Covent Garden to Seven Dials. The monument stands at the centre of the junction, while seven streets radiate into a compact neighbourhood of shops, cafés and theatres. The film briefly notes the familiar curiosity of the column: it has six sundial faces, with the column itself acting as the seventh dial.

Bread Ahead supplies the more extravagant answer to the day’s seasonal theme. Better known for bread, baking classes and its Borough Market roots, its Seven Dials shop also displayed the filled doughnuts that had become one of the bakery’s signatures.

The hot cross bun doughnut combines spiced seasonal flavours with a soft filled doughnut and delivers the decisive taste of the afternoon. A black filter coffee from Monmouth Coffee, a few doors away on Monmouth Street, provides the final stop before the walk closes in Seven Dials.

Seen now, the film is less a fixed guide to April events than a record of how London joined its places together in 2017: royal ceremony, a marathon route, a church crypt, seasonal baking and an independent coffee stop, all within one walk across the West End.