A new walking tour will let Londoners follow in the footsteps of posties from the past.

The Postal Museum is known as the home of the underground Mail Rail ride at its base in Clerkenwell.

But this Saturday (April 18) museum experts will leave Islington and venture onto the city streets for the first in a series of guided tours.

A postman walks through central London – ticketholders on the new walking tours will follow a route exploring the people, places and post boxes of the capital. (Image: Courtesy of The Postal Museum)

They will explore London’s postal past including the people, places and post boxes that kept the capital connected over the decades.

Before emails and instant messaging, it was scribbled letters, bustling sorting offices, and horse-drawn mail coaches that kept everyone in touch.

Now this history tour will follow in the footsteps of the posties who kept correspondence moving through the streets of the city.

The route of the debut walking tour starts at St Mary Woolnoth Church by Bank Station and takes in the very first post offices, and the Postman’s Park near St Paul’s where touching tales of people who died rescuing others are commemorated.

A London postman in Trafalgar Square in 1938. (Image: Courtesy of The Postal Museum)

The 1.7 mile tours last around 90 minutes and finishes at The Postal Museum in Phoenix Place – right next to door to one of Royal Mail’s busiest sorting offices at Mount Pleasant.

The museum itself covers the 500-year history of the British postal system from the world’s first adhesive stamp The Penny Black to telegrams, uniforms, pillar boxes and a ride on the underground train that carried post across London.

Walking tour tickets cost £15 per person and must be bought in advance from The Postal Museum website at postalmuseum.org.

Tours run 18 April, 2 May, 16 May, 30 May at 11:00am from St Mary Woolnoth Church, Lombard St, London, EC3V.