START: St George’s Church, Bloomsbury Way, WC1A

Despite a ban on people attending Emily Davison’s funeral on 14 June 1913 (after throwing herself under the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby), 5,000 suffragettes followed her hearse from Victoria to Kings Cross, stopping off here for a memorial service the day before her burial in Northumberland. (Walk to next stop, 0.5 miles/10 minutes)

The Gardenia Restaurant, 6 Catherine Street, WC2B Now a food advisory organisation, this was once the vegetarian restaurant where, on 4 March 1912, Christabel Pankhurst and WSPU members plotted a militant demonstration on Whitehall in the top-floor rooms, while a troupe of detectives waited outside to arrest them. (Walk to next stop 0.5 miles/10 minutes)

National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, WC2N; admission free

Head for Room 30 of the National Gallery and place yourself opposite Rokeby Venus by Diego Velasquez. Then imagine suffragette Mary Richardson attacking the painting with a meat cleaver, as she did on 10 March 1914, provoked by the arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst the day before. (Walk to next stop 0.2 miles/4 minutes)

VISTA, The Trafalgar Hotel Afternoon tea, £20 per person; booking required; SW1A

The balcony overlooks Trafalgar Square where hundreds of women gathered to boycott the 1911 census – if they were not counted politically they felt they shouldn’t be counted at all. Ponder Holloway Jingles, an anthology by suffragette inmates, over your tea. (Walk to next stop 0.4 miles/8 minutes)

Downing Street Front Door, Visible from gates; SW1A

In 1909, Miss Daisy Solomon and Miss Elspeth McLellan ‘posted’ themselves (allowed under Post Office regulations) to Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. Sadly, their mission was short-lived when a Downing Street official refused to sign for the “human letters” and sent them back to the WSPU offices. (Walk to next stop 0.3 miles/6 minutes)

Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yard, SW1P; £18; Book in advance

For suffragettes, handbags were a tool for extreme tactics against patriarchy. This is where one unnamed suffragette successfully set off a bomb in Edward the Confessor’s Chapel, close to the Coronation Chair, after ditching her bag in a pew and fleeing. Within the recovered bag was a feather boa and a guidebook. (Walk to next stop 0.2 miles/4 minutes)

Cellarium Café and Terrace, 20 Dean Farrar Street, SW1P

This cafe – set under the arches of a former 14th century store house – is just minutes from the Palace of Westminster where Emily Davison boycotted the 1911 Census by hiding in a cupboard. It appealed to her sense of irony that, as a woman with no right to vote, her place of residence on census night would be the House of Commons. (Walk to next stop 0.4 miles/8 minutes)

Caxton Hall, Caxton Street, SW1H

Now an apartment block, Caxton Hall was the site of the WSPU’s women’s parliament, which took place at the beginning of every parliamentary session from 1907. In 1907 – the day after votes for women was omitted from the King’s speech – Emmeline Pankhurst cried “Rise up women” to 400 suffragettes who answered: “Now!” (Walk to next stop miles/2 minutes)

The Suffragette Memorial, Christchurch Gardens, SW1H

This bronze scroll-shaped sculpture commemorates Caxton Hall’s significance in the movement and includes a faint etching of the WSPU badge. (Walk to next stop miles/4 minutes)

Howick Place Post Office, 7 Howick Place, SW1E

In March 1912, suffragettes Matilde Wolff van Sandau and Katie Mills smashed the post office building’s windows with stones. The suffragettes saw the postal service as a symbol of the oppressive male government. (Walk to next stop 0.7 miles/14 minutes)

Eaton Square, SW1W

Grab a juice from Itsu and stroll through Eaton Square – the same walk nurses and midwives took in 1909 to The Pageant of Women’s Trades and Professions speech at the Albert Hall. Continue to Sloane Square and then join the Fulham Road all the way down to the Brompton Cemetery. (Walk to next stop 2.2 miles/40 minutes)

The Brompton Cemetery, Fulham Road, SW10

At the northern end of the cemetery, beneath a red sandstone Celtic cross, lies the grave of Emmeline Pankhurst who died on 14 June 1928 aged 69. Just 18 days later, parliament gave women over the age of 21 the right to equal votes with men, regardless of property ownership.

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Suffragette cities: walk a mile (or four) in the suffragettes' shoes