Wombling Free

'Thank You For The Music'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 13:36:00 +0000

And finally...

It's been a lot of fun picking the song titles with which I've headed each of my blog posts.

It was sometimes difficult to choose the song that seemed most appropriate to the theme of each post, and - while sometimes I've had to stretch the relationship a little, or crowbar in a reference to something I might otherwise have ignored - on the whole I think I did pretty well. And more importantly, most of the songs are actually ones I'd already heard of, and indeed listen too on a regular basis.

So, for anyone who's interested, I've put together a Spotify playlist of all of the songs, in the order they appear in my blog - it can be found here:

Wombling Free Playlist

And, really, it's not a bad old playlist!

Enjoy!

'So What?'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 12:05:00 +0000

So...

...it’s just over a week since I completed my self-imposed challenge to visit every station on the London Underground Map in alphabetical order, and – now that I’ve had a chance to reflect on the whole thing – I thought I’d share a few of my musings with you. Was it worth it? Have I learnt anything? Would I do it again? What do I do next? Hopefully I’ll find some of the answers to these questions.

My first thought is to wonder whether – in fact – anyone has actually been following this journey alongside me (metaphorically at least) by reading this blog. The thing about blogs is that you write them without the least knowledge of whether or not they’ll get an audience. I know there are ways of gathering statistical information, and indeed I can tell you that over the course of its existence, this blog has had a total of 8046 ‘pageviews’, and that well over half of these are unsurprisingly from people in the UK.

Slightly more unexpected is the fact that I’ve had a smattering of views from people from Romania, Canada, Ukraine and Spain, and a whopping 1132 pageviews from Russia. Clearly Eastern Europeans are fascinated by the London Underground.

On the other hand, I have no base-line by which to make a comparison as to whether this is a reasonably high – or pathetically low – level of traffic in blog terms.

What I do know is that I have the rather laughable total of just three followers.

Clearly this doesn’t reflect the actual number of people who have been reading the blog – I’ve posted links on Twitter and Facebook for every blog entry, and I know that my friends and family have been using those to keep up to date with my progress – though how many people unknown to me have been reading it regularly, I have no idea.

But there was something rather heartening about getting my first few followers. I hoped for a kind of rolling dialogue between us as we travelled the tube lines together (always accepting that this might include some less than complimentary comments on my literary style or my bias for or against a particular locale). However, despite a few initial comments, I have for the most part been sending out the blog equivalents of a message in a bottle – never knowing whether or not it will be picked up and read.

So do feel free, if you haven’t already, to get in touch with me and let me know what you think of this whole malarkey – I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts.

My next area of pondering centred around what I might have learnt on this journey.

Well, the first and most obvious thing I’ve learnt is that if I were head of Transport for London I’d institute a comprehensive and wide-ranging review of the way they name their stations. In particular (you won’t be at all surprised to hear me say, if you’ve been following this blog with any regularity) I would rename any station currently introduced by an epithet such as “North”, “South”, “East” or “West” so that this locational descriptor comes after and not before the name of the place.

Thus:

East Acton – becomes Acton East

North Acton – becomes Acton North

South Acton – becomes Acton South

West Acton – becomes Acton West

Which therefore means that they fall neatly (and more logically) into the alphabetical progression begun by their neighbours Acton Central and Acton Town:

Acton Central

Acton East

Acton North

Acton South

Acton Town

Acton West

Far more sensible!

Oh, and as a side-issue – do we really need a new tube map to be published every six months or so?

Maps - from start to finish

Not only does it waste a heck of a lot of paper, but it also gives them the excuse (shamelessly seized at every opportunity by the powers that be at TFL) to stick a load of new stations onto the map while no-one’s looking – completely buggering up the alphabetical list I’ve so lovingly prepared.

(Not that I paid any attention to these arriviste upstarts – I had my original list and was sticking to it!)

In total, since I started my journey, a further 7 maps have been issued following the December 2013 map I used as the basis of my list. On the latest of these the number of stations now in existence which weren’t on the original map is 71 – or (If I were tempted to visit them all, which I’m definitely not. Absolutely no way. Under no circumstances. I mean it. Forget it. Shush now!) approximately another 3½ month’s travelling.

Of course, if any of you wish to take up my mantle, please feel free to visit them yourselves. They are, in alphabetical order (what else?):

Addington Village

Addiscombe

Ampere Way

Arena

Avenue Road

Beckenham Road

Beckenham Junction

Beddington Lane

Belgrave Walk

Bethnal Green (OG)

Birkbeck

Blackhorse Lane

Brentwood

Bruce Grove

Bush Hill Park

Cambridge Heath

Centrale

Chadwell Heath

Cheshunt

Chingford

Church Street

Clapton

Combe Lane

Dundonald Road

East Croydon

Edmonton Green

Elmers End

Emerson Park

Enfield Town

Fieldway

Forest Gate

George Street

Gidea Park

Goodmayes

Gravel Hill

Hackney Downs

Harold Wood

Harrington Road

Highams Park

Ilford

King Henry’s Drive

Lebanon Road

Lloyd Park

London Fields

Manor Park

Maryland

Merton Park

Mitcham

Mitcham Junction

Morden Road

New Addington

Phipps Bridge

Rectory Road

Reeves Corner

Romford

St. James Street

Sandilands

Seven Kings

Shenfield

Silver Street

Southbury

Stamford Hill

Stoke Newington

Therapia Lane

Theobalds Grove

Turkey Street

Waddon Marsh

Wandle Park

Wellesley Road

White Hart Lane

Woodside

The next thing I’ve learnt is that blog-writing, and in particular this specific type of blog-writing, takes a lot longer than you might think.

When I set out on this journey – three and a half years ago – I foolishly envisioned it being completed in about four to five months.

I imagined I could average about four or five stations a day, and – assuming time off for weekends, holidays, and the like – would therefore expect to tick off approximately 100 stations a month.

What I hadn’t reckoned on was the time it takes to both research each location in advance of my travels, and to then edit the photos and write up my blog following each trip. It turned out that – while I was indeed averaging 4-5 stations a day – each of those days would require an entire week of pre- and post-travel work. Hence the project taking rather longer than initially imagined.

However, the one thing I think I’ll truly take away from this whole experience, and a lesson for all of us in these hectic modern times, is best expressed in this quotation from that great philosopher of the late 20^th Century – Ferris Bueller:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and take a look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

And with that – I’ll take my leave of you for the final time.

Or at least – until I think of some other ridiculous project to undertake……..

'The End'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 22:30:00 +0000

Day 100

Woodside Park - Woolwich Arsenal

In the words of Bagheera the Panther, from Disney's 'The Jungle Book':

"Well, it's happened. Took a little longer than I thought, but it's happened..."

Yes - today is my final day of alphabet-based tube travelling. This is it. The Big One. The Final Frontier. The Undiscovered Country. The End Of The Road...

I'VE DONE IT!!!

In Calendrical terms, it's taken just over three and a half years to get here, having started on February the 25th 2014. However, in terms of actual days spent out on the tracks, so to speak, today marks - rather neatly - exactly 100 days of Wombling. A fittingly round number, I'm sure you'll agree.

I've left myself just two stations to visit today, and they're both - in their own way - 'Final' stops.

Firstly, Woodside Park is the final tube station (alphabetically speaking) on the network. So - had I originally confined myself to visiting just those 270 stations, it would have been here that I finished my journey.

Since, however, I was foolish enough to include both the Overground and DLR lines, I will actually 'cross the finishing line' at one of the latter - Woolwich Arsenal.

There's also quite a lot to see - certainly at Woolwich - so having only the two stations on my list today gives me plenty of time (I hope) to do them both justice.

***
So - off to Woodside Park first of all then.

It's up on the Northern Line's High Barnet Branch, in a largely residential area.

Woodside Park

I exit the station by what I soon discover to be the 'rear' exit - to the north - which leads to a road called Holden Road.

Being at the back of the station, there's only a relatively small and unimpressive sign giving its name - but just in case it's the only one I can find, I think it wise to take a photo of it anyway. I'd hate to leave here with this being the only station I didn't photograph.

Just outside the station, on the back fence of one of the local properties, is a small notice on A4 paper.

Oooh... creepy!

I can't pretend to have any belief in the supernatural or occult. To my mind there's more than enough wonder in the physical world, without needing to convince yourself that there are 'more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...'. So I greet this sort of nonsense with a snort of contempt. I mean, how on earth do you measure the 'hauntedness' of a place to be able to claim it as the 'second most haunted village in England'? Is it the number of supposed sightings? In which case, surely it's the 'second most gullible' or 'suggestible village in England'.

And even if there were such things as ghosts - why the hell would they hang about on street corners for the convenience of a bunch of misguided numpties flashing their torches around?

Please - take your £9, and buy a copy of Brian Cox's 'Wonders Of The Universe' on DVD, or something equally mind-expanding...

Anyway, minor rant over.

I head onto Holden Road, which runs roughly north to south, and at the northern end of which is the bottom of the Whetstone Stray - a long stretch of parkland following the line of the Dollis Valley Green Walk. This, you may remember, is something I've encountered at various points along its length - for example at Totteridge & Whetstone, the next station to the north of here.

Before I reach the park, though, I first stop at an insignificant looking house about halfway along Holden Road.

Site of Number 127 Holden Road

The original house at number 127 has gone, but a plaque attached to the side of the current property informs me that Mr Spike Milligan, of Goon Fame, once lived here.

I knew about the connection already, having visited the statue in his honour at Stephens House & Gardens, near Finchley Central station. I pointed out then that his house was actually nearer to Woodside Park than to Finchley Central - but this is a day for joining the dots and closing the circles, so it's nice to see the blue plaque confirming the link.

I continue north and reach the Green Walk. I'm mildly disappointed to discover that, like the other encounters I've had with it, this one will be equally uninspiring.

Dollis Valley Green Walk

The problem is that the very thing that most people would be interested in seeing - and the thing that gives the valley its name - is Dollis Brook. I'm sure we all like a bit of running water don't we? But for some reason Dollis Brook always seems to be hidden away behind a mass of dense and impenetrable undergrowth. So the hoped-for photos of a babbling brook in a picturesque setting remain frustratingly unattainable, and I return to Holden Road disappointed.

There's a brook in there somewhere...

Following Holden Road further north, it bends to the east and eventually meets up with Woodside Lane, a similarly residential street.

Another park lies to the north of this street, and it's called - after the small lane that leads to it - Swan Lane Open Space.

Swan Lane Open Space

Much more like it! A wide expanse of greenery, with just enough trees to form a pleasant border to the image, and with a lake off in the distance.

Whether this lake bears the (surely inevitable) name of 'Swan Lake', I don't know and I don't actually venture far enough into the park to see whether any actual swans can be found here, but even so it all adds up to a much more picturesque setting than the last park.

Continuing eastwards, and having crossed a bridge over the tracks of the Northern Line, I eventually end up on the High Road.

High Road, Woodside Park

This is a fairly typical example, with the usual shops, pedestrians and cars parked along its length, but with one particularly noticeable vehicle which - thanks as much to its incongruity as well as its colour - certainly catches my eye.

Is Lady Penelope at home?

I know nothing about cars, and am by no means a 'petrol head' but I have to say there's something about a 'classic' American car that just can't be equalled by a Nissan Micra or a Vauxhall Astra.

After that it's just a case of heading back west to complete the loop, and returning to the station - this time approaching its front entrance via Woodside Park Road.

Woodside Park... again

Thankfully there's a much more traditional station name sign on this side of the building, so I take another photo, and head off to my next - and final - station.

***
So here it is, the end of the line - in more ways than one, as Woolwich Arsenal is not just the final station on my list, but also the terminus of this branch of the DLR.

Woolwich Arsenal

The station is named after the former weapons and armaments factory that once dominated the area by the river, and I'll be heading there to have a look at what's left of it later on.

Firstly though I explore the area immediately outside the station, where the first thing one notices is the huge public square - mainly paved, but with seating on various levels and a large water-feature along one side.

General Gordon Place

This is General Gordon Place, a popular spot with the locals, not least because of the Big Screen TV permanently installed in one corner. It seems to be permanently tuned in to the BBC news channel, so I imagine that the inhabitants of Woolwich must be the best informed populace in London.

Square Eyes

I do happen to know this central area quite well, as close by there's a theatre in which I performed a few years ago - but ,more of that shortly.

Firstly, I head south-west from the square along Wellington Street, to one of the other main historical sights of the area - the Royal Artillery Barracks.

A Builder, who may or
may not be called Bob

Before I get there, I'm accosted by a builder working on one of the many construction sites along the road. He's clearly spotted my camera and insists on posing for a photograph. Happy to oblige, if mildly bemused, I take his photo and he seems to take great pleasure in striking what I'm sure he believes to be a heroic pose. Since he doesn't know me from Adam, and has no way of knowing about this blog, and therefore no chance of ever seeing the photo he posed for, it all seems a fairly fruitless exercise. But it's a friendly enough encounter and puts a smile on my face as I continue on my way.

Just a little further along Wellington Street I reach the north-east corner of The Royal Artillery Barracks. I'll come to the Barracks themselves shortly, but here on Wellington Street is a stark reminder of the times we're currently living in.

Site of the murder of Lee Rigby

It was at this point that Fusilier Lee Rigby, of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was murdered by two Islamic Extremists as he returned to the Barracks.

Having run him down with a car they used knives and a cleaver to kill him, in what they claimed was retribution for the killing of Muslims by British Armed Forces.

In memory of Lee Rigby

The location has become something of a shrine, and both flowers and flags line the railings along the street.

The Barracks themselves occupy a large, roughly rectangular site to the south of Wellington Street, and were built in the late 18th Century to house the Royal Artillery.

The main entrance is on the south face of the building, so I begin to make my way around the perimeter.

Side entrance to the Barracks

36" Mortar

At the north-west corner, opposite a side gate to the barracks, is the first of many pieces of artillery I will see by the end of the day.

This is a 36 inch mortar (so the nearby sign tells me) and was never actually fired in war, but only in tests.

History of the Mortar

I reach the front of the barracks, and am greeted with an impressive façade.

South Façade of the Barracks

The building was originally just the section to the east of the white triumphal arch, but was doubled in length, and the façade added to join the two halves, in the early 19th Century. It is now the longest continuous architectural composition in London and measures 329m end to end.

South façade and parade ground

I'm conscious, as I take one or two photos of the building, that in these days of heightened security my actions may perhaps be misconstrued. Only a few days before my journey, London suffered yet another terrorist attack on a tube train at Parson's Green station, in which a bomb was left. Thankfully the bomb failed to detonate properly and - although 29 people sustained burn injuries - nobody was killed.

But none of the soldiers who pass by me on their way back to the barracks from the nearby Woolwich Common seem to be particularly concerned at my presence, and at least (today of all days) I can back up my claim to innocent interest with an entire blog's worth of similarly harmless snapshots.

Across the road from the south-east corner of the parade ground are the ruins of St George's Garrison Church.

St. George's Garrison Church

This was built in 1863 in order to provide the residents of the Barracks with a place of worship.

History of the Church

A sign at the front gives a potted history of the place, which was ravaged by fire following a direct hit from a V-1 rocket in 1944.

Today the church is shut up, though it is apparently open to visitors on Sundays. I just about manage to get a glimpse of the modern canopied roof that protects the mosaics and other remaining interior decoration inside the building.

Inside the Church

Heading north again, back to the town centre, I pass the massive new 'Love Lane' development.

Apartments in the Love Lane development

This was begun in 2011 and includes several blocks of apartments, the new Woolwich Library, a huge Tesco hypermarket, and a gym.

The Tesco store provided much welcome sustenance to myself and my fellow actors who, between us, played every single character in a theatrical adaptation of "Treasure Island" produced a few years ago at the Greenwich and Lewisham Young People's Theatre (or GLYPT).

This is the theatre I mentioned earlier, and sits on the south side of General Gordon Place, in a converted tram-shed.

Greenwich & Lewisham Young People's Theatre

The company was started in the 1960s and was part of a larger project to provide the area with theatrical culture. As well as GLYPT, which was based around Theatre in Education, the project also included the Tramshed, as a cabaret venue, and a theatre in the centre of Greenwich - the main Greenwich Theatre.

I pass by the station once again on my way further north towards the riverside, and the source of the station's name.

On my way I pass by the entrance to Woolwich Market on Beresford Square.

Entrance to Woolwich Market

The sign over the entrance to the square makes much of the market's history, though I'm afraid that today it seems to be just another collection of stalls selling rather tatty goods.

However, it does stand at the former entrance to the original Royal Arsenal, after which both the station - and of course the football club now based in north London - are named.

Royal Arsenal Gatehouse

The Royal Arsenal began in the 17th Century and as well as manufacturing armaments and explosives, was also the former home of the Royal Artillery before they moved to the barracks I visited earlier.

The busy A206 now stands between the original gatehouse and the remaining buildings of the arsenal, and for the most part these have now been converted into luxury apartments, restaurants, gyms, and offices. However, there remain plenty of reminders of the original purpose of this site.

Cannon to the left of them...

Nike Statue on No 1 Street

Crossing the A206 I come to "No 1 Street" - a green space, with a bar called Dial Arch, and several artistically arranged examples of the cannon maker's art.

A statue purporting to represent the winged goddess Nike stands at one side - celebrating 'Victory' (and not, as you might have thought, running shoes).

There are informative signs dotted around the streets, giving more history of the area, and cannon of various shapes and sizes can be found on pretty much every spare bit of pavement of open space.

History of the Arsenal

And Cannon to the right of them

They like their guns here...

At the riverside, as well as yet more artillery, I find a curious collection of sculpted figures.

"Assembly"

This is called "Assembly" and is by the artist Peter Burke.

One of the cast iron figures

I imagine the figures, which are in the form of hollow moulds or casts, are aimed at representing the casts used to make the cannon that were originally produced here - but that's only my guess.

"Assembly" - looking back towards Woolwich centre

I take a brief look at the river itself - always a must when you get this close to it - and take a couple of photos, including one of the Woolwich Ferry.

The Thames - looking east

This is a free car ferry service crossing from here to the opposite bank of the Thames at North Woolwich. There's been a ferry service here since the 14th Century, though the free service (which one might have thought was a historical hangover from the days before capitalism) was introduced as late as 1889.

Woolwich Ferry

Heading back through the various streets of apartment blocks that now occupy the former arsenal, I find the Greenwich Heritage Centre.

Greenwich Heritage Centre

It wouldn't be a typical day's Wombling if I didn't come across an intriguing and informative local museum, only to find it firmly closed on the one day of the year I happen to be in the area and able to visit it.

Typical...

So, I continue eastwards through the former Arsenal buildings.

From munitions to muscles.

I'm heading to a picturesque little park called Wellington Park.

Outside the park are several huge blocks of metal used in the manufacture of the huge guns produced by the arsenal. They include this beast, which is an anvil weighing 103 tons. It reminds me of the sort of thing Wile E. Coyote would attempt to drop onto the Roadrunner, only to end up being squashed flat by himself.

Beep! Beep!

The park itself is actually the roof of an underground carpark built on the site of a shot and shell foundry.

Wellington Park

And that brings me to the end of my tour of the former Woolwich Arsenal site. I haven't mentioned the football club as yet, partly because - as you'll know by now - I'm not that fussed about football, but also because I dipped my toe into their history when I visited the station in North London that now bears their name.

What's more interesting to me is the fact the team is - directly and indirectly - linked to the names of two stations on the London Underground map. That's quite an achievement.

I head back to the town centre, passing the slightly less picturesque pedestrianised shopping area on Powis Street, to the north of the station and General Gordon Place.

Here you'll find all the pound shops, charity shops, burger chains, and betting shops - in other words the standard, if less than salubrious, establishments of an inner city high street.

Powis Street

Luckily it's easy enough to pass this by as I've already seen all the interesting stuff in the area - and none of it is anywhere near here, so its shabbiness doesn't bring down the mood of my final day's travelling.

Indeed, my day is about to end on a bit of a high, as I have arranged with Mrs Nowhere Man to meet up back at the station. She's here primarily to help me celebrate the grand finale of this long journey, rather than my ending it alone with just a tattered copy of the tube map for company.

But she's also going to be taking the final photograph of this journey. And - for once - it'll be a photograph featuring yours truly, together with an item I picked up some time ago when I visited the Transport Museum at Covent Garden.

So here I am - your cheery guide on this long, foolhardy, but somehow fulfilling journey. And in my hands is a poster from the Transport Museum, featuring the names of most (though not quite all) of the stations I've visited...

...and his Nowhere Plan

The Nowhere Man...

As we're stood on the pavement in front of the station, taking photos of each other, an official voice calls across from the station entrance to ask what we're doing.

I sigh inwardly as I prepare to argue the rights and wrongs of taking photos of a station sign, while standing on a public footpath.

But Damian - the Irish employee of the DLR who has approached us - is thankfully a reasonable and friendly chap, who (despite no doubt secretly thinking that the whole thing is completely bonkers) not only allows us to continue taking photos, but also chats with us about the project and the various stations he personally finds interesting to visit.

The irony is that earlier, at the one place I expected my photography to be challenged (the Royal Artillery Barracks), I was left completely unmolested by the various muscular, burly, and often heavily armed soldiers who observed me pointing my camera through the railings of their building.

And yet here, at the station, where the only thing 'classified' is the adverts in the discarded newspapers, I'm immediately under suspicion.

Still - as I say, it's all handled in a pleasant and friendly manner and I suppose it's the world we live in these days.

And that, O Best Beloved, is how the Wombler finished his Wombling. It's been - on the whole - a lot of fun. Some of the places I've visited will stay in my memory for a long time (though not always for the best of reasons) - while others have already blurred and merged into an amorphous, vaguely London-Shaped blob.

Nevertheless, here they all are in a single image. It's a biggy - so might take a while to load on your screens - but if you view it at full size you should be able to make out which station is which.

If, of course, you're interested in such things...

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

Been there - done that...

'Knock On Wood'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 20:05:00 +0000

Day 99

Woodford - Woodgrange Park - Wood Green - Wood Lane

Well now...

All being well this is the penultimate day of my travels. There are just 6 stations left on my list, and I plan to visit at least three, and possibly four, of them today.

I've already completed every station on the Bakerloo, District, Jubilee, Metropolitan, Victoria and Waterloo & City Lines, and if everything goes to schedule, by the end of today I'll have ticked off the Central and Piccadilly, as well as the Overground, Hammersmith & City and Circle Lines.

Golly!

The first three stations I plan to visit today are all in the East or North-East of London, so are within a relatively easy journey of each other - this will hopefully leave me enough time this afternoon to fit in a fourth, which is in West London and on my way home. Which all sounds so practical and efficient that it's bound to go wrong somewhere along the way. We shall see...

***
The first station - Woodford - is the final station to visit on the Central Line. It's out East, and is the junction at which the trains on the main branch meet up with those that have veered off onto the Hainault Loop.

Woodford

The town of Woodford is a fairly typical example of this area. So much so in fact that when I first arrive I have to double check my alphabetical list of stations and make absolutely sure I haven't come here already by mistake.

The main reason for this strong sense of déjà vu is the fact that the station - in a manner that I've seen fairly recently - straddles one of the main streets through the town, with the shops either side of it seeming to have shuffled grudgingly along a bit to let it through.

Woodford shops on Snakes Lane West

I finally identify the other station which shares this lay-out as this station's next-door neighbour - South Woodford. There - as here - the main exit from the station leads to a car-park, which in turn leads to the top end of the street, while the bottom end of the street is reached via a separate exit.

The street in question at South Woodford was called George Lane, while here it is the more curiously named Snakes Lane - an explanation for which I've been unable to find.

Next to the top end of Snakes Lane is a small green at the end of Charteris Road. The green is named after Sylvia Pankhurst, the leading Suffragette, who lived in Woodford for over 30 years and had a house at this site (as a plaque informs visitors) in the 1930s.

Pankhurst Green

Next to this sign - on the ground in front of it - is a mosaic identifying different leaf shapes, though I'm not sure whether the message "Where We Live", running round the circumference of the mosaic, refers to the people who made it, or to the leaves themselves.

Leaf Mosaic

As well as Sylvia Pankhurst, two other figures from the world of early 20th Century politics are connected to Woodford.

Firstly, Clement Attlee, labour Prime Minister from 1945-1951, lived here in the 20s and 30s, while he was MP for the London constituency of Limehouse.

He had moved away, however, by the time that his political rival, and opposite number, in the Conservative Party - Winston Churchill - became MP for the newly created Woodford constituency in 1945. Churchill went on to hold the seat until 1964, one year before his death.

Snakes Lane East

The town is a pleasant, if unexciting place, and after a brief stroll to the opposite side of the station to see Snakes Lane East, I decide to move on.

***

My next stop is Woodgrange Park, on the Overground Line on the stretch between Gospel Oak and Barking.

For me this means getting off the Central Line at Leytonstone and changing to the Overground Line at Leytonstone High Road.

Now that I'm very near the end of this journey of course, many places previously unknown to me have become a little more familiar, and I give a nod of recognition to the Alfred Hitchcock mosaics at Leytonstone station as I pass by.

Woodgrange Park

Woodgrange Park (like Woodford) is another 'final' station - there are no more Overground stations after this one. And (also like Woodford) I'm afraid it's going out more with a whimper than with a bang.

It's on the main Romford Road, in the Manor Park area of town, and there are several shops and a petrol station nearby. All of these are, however, a little shabby round the edges, and the area seems to be in need of a fair bit of TLC.

Romford Road

To the north of the station is a fairly unremarkable terraced street called Albany Road and about halfway along this - at number 25 - is a blue plaque commemorating it as the birthplace of the actor and comedian, Stanley Holloway.

Stanley Holloway's birthplace

Holloway (best known for his humorous monologues and appearances in the Ealing comedies) began his career as 'The Wonderful Boy Soprano' at the age of 14, while also working as a clerk in a boot polish factory. He would continue to perform right up until the year 1980, when he appeared in the Royal Variety Performance.

A twenty minute walk to the east of the station is a park called Little Ilford Park.

Despite its relative smallness, the term 'little' does not actually refer to the size of the park, but to the fact that the area surrounding it is called 'Little Ilford'. The area now known as Ilford (to the east of here) was originally called 'Great Ilford' and the two are divided by the North Circular Road which runs north to south between them.

Little Ilford Park

The park here is also said to be the inspiration for the Small Faces famous psychedelic pop song, Itchycoo Park. This was apparently the nickname of Little Ilford Park because of the preponderance of stinging nettles found there.

It's a pleasant spot to sit for a few minutes while I write up my notes on the day so far, but time is moving on, and I must be doing the same. So, I'm soon on my way again and heading back to the station.

***
My next stop is on the Piccadilly Line (and yes - it's the last one on that line I need to visit) so I take a slightly more convoluted route than I have thus far today - Overground to Blackhorse Road, Victoria to Finsbury Park, and then Piccadilly up to my destination at Wood Green.

Wood Green

Wood Green station is one that's already familiar to me, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it's the station nearest to the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, which was one of the drama schools to which I applied many years ago when I first embarked on my career in theatre.

I'll come back to the school in a little while, when I visit its location, so more of that anon.

The second reason I'm familiar with the station is that it was at the nearby Wood Green police station that I spent a fun afternoon giving statements and identifying suspects following my encounter with the wrong end of a gun (albeit a replica one) way back towards the beginning of my travels in Bounds Green.

I'm naturally a little biased against the area therefore, and am mildly wary as I walk around, despite being on the busy High Road this time and not (as I was then) on an isolated stretch of canal-side towpath.

Wood Green High Road

However, I determine to give the place a chance.

The area gets its name from the fact that it was once part of the Tottenham Wood, and in fact was originally called Tottenham Wood Green.

A curiosity of the area is that none of its thoroughfares are 'Streets'. There are plenty of 'Roads', 'Avenues', 'Closes', 'Lanes' and even the odd 'Passage', 'Grove' and 'Mews', but not a single 'Street'.

Historically, Roads and Streets were different entities, of course, and while most people probably know that an Avenue was originally the main approach to a country house, lined with trees, you might not be aware of the difference between a Road and a Street.

Allow me to explain.

A Road is a thoroughfare between two distinct locations (towns, villages, cities and so on) which has been given a surface which allows vehicles to pass along it.

A Street, on the other hand, is a public thoroughfare within a single, built-up, area (i.e. within a town, village or city). It is usually paved, and is a place where people may move about on foot, as well as interact with one another.

Which is all very well, but completely useless as far as definitions go, since everybody seems to have thrown that particular rule-book out of the window. And it's not just a modern failing - the Anglo-Saxons called the roads built by the Romans names like 'Watling Street' and 'Ermine Street', despite the fact that they linked different towns and cities. Meanwhile, the Victorians cavalierly renamed what were obviously streets (being contained within in the City of London) as Roads - thus Gray's Inn Lane became Gray's Inn Road.

Anyway, be that as it may, I find myself on the High Road in Wood Green, which is not only where people are - in time honoured fashion - interacting with one another, but also where there are shops, restaurants, a multiplex cinema, and the imaginatively named 'The Mall' , which is a shopping mall.

I wander though this briefly, but it's more Primark than Marks and Spencer, so I don't linger long.

I grab a bit to eat at one of the usual coffee shops, and then head off to the west of the High Road, to have a quick look at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.

Mountview

Not that there's much to see here either. A few drama students (easily identifiable by the de rigeur black t-shirts and jogging bottoms) are hanging about outside, but most of them will be inside experiencing the joys of acting, movement, clown, mask and voice classes.

Drama Students

The last of these leads me to recall my own audition here back in early 2004.

In common with most aspiring actors, I had applied to many different drama schools, and was used to the format of presenting two contrasting audition speeches, and then participating in a 'sample' class of some kind laid on by the school.

At Mountview the class was voice based, and was an introduction to the differences in regional accents.

The voice tutor (whose name I'm afraid I can't recall) was an American (or possibly Canadian) chap, who asked each of us in turn to chat a little about ourselves - hobbies, favourite food, where we went on holiday, and so on - and would then proceed, with pinpoint accuracy, to identify which part of the country we came from, based on our accents.

Now, my accent has covered rather a lot of ground over the years, since I was born in Yorkshire, and in Sheffield - which has its own particular dialect - but moved to Reading in Berkshire (think Ricky Gervais) when I was 9. I then went to Grammar School, where the yokel edges were smoothed off my Reading accent, before studying languages in London, and beginning my acting life (as an amateur) in Ealing, where I settled in to what I considered myself to have developed a nicely neutral 'RP' - or standard English - accent.

At my parents house I would slip easily back into a tame version of a Yorkshire accent, while with friends in London it was the RP which came most easily from my voice-box.

Nevertheless, without a moment's pause the voice tutor picked up on the fact that I had spent some time in Reading - the accent I had used for the shortest period.

And accents and dialects have fascinated me (and been part of my particular skill-set) ever since.

But that's about it for Wood Green.

Thankfully my visit has been a more uneventful one this time round, and it has left me enough time to fit in one more station before the end of the day.

***

Wood Lane station, you may recall from my recent blog post, is just down the road from White City, and therefore shares all of the same local 'sights'.

Wood Lane

These include the former BBC Television Studios on Wood Lane itself, and the huge Westfield Shopping Centre just around the corner.

The only other thing in the area, and something I didn't look at last time, is the Loftus Road Stadium, which is to the west, and is the home of Queens Park Rangers football club.

Loftus Road

Having been originally (and not surprisingly) formed in the Queen's Park area of North West London, the team moved here in 1917, taking over from the amateur club Shepherd's Bush FC.

The stadium was the first in Britain to make use (in a thankfully short-lived experiment) of an entirely artificial playing surface called 'Omniturf', which was - apparently - not much fun to play on, particularly for the goalkeeper who was expected to dive onto it at regular intervals.

You'll know - if you've been following this blog with any regularity - that my interest in the world of football is approximately on a par with my interest in the statistical analysis of Party Political Broadcast viewing figures, so if you want to know more about QPR, I suggest you spend some time with Mr Google.

I will however mention the fact that the Loftus Road ground was used as the venue for a fundraising football match - with both professional footballers and celebrity players - to raise money for the victims of the nearby Grenfell Tower fire.

Played on the 2nd of September, the match has so far raised a total of over £20K and given a much needed morale boost to the displaced residents.

From the stadium I head back towards the station, but via a slight detour through the pleasant (if misnamed, being in Shepherd's Bush) Hammersmith Park.

Japanese Garden - Hammersmith Park

It's a small park, located on a former Japanese Garden which formed part of the Japan-British Exhibition held at the White City in 1910. The Japanese influence has been maintained, with an area of the park set aside for a modern version of a Japanese Garden with waterfalls, a stone bridge, and a 'dry' garden of rocks and gravel.

'Dry' Garden

And with that, another day is over.

Just one more day's travelling to complete, with just two more stations to visit.

Piece of cake......

'Remember You're A Womble'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 19:28:00 +0000

Day 98

Willesden Green - Willesden Junction - Wimbledon - Wimbledon Park

"The stations went in two by two, hurrah, hurrah..."

Today's travels take me to four stations, coupled together in two locations.

Well, that's not strictly true - as we'll see - but certainly the first two stations are both "Willesden" stations, and the remaining two are both in Wimbledon.

Willesden Green, my first stop, is on a road called Walm Lane, which forms part of the A407 running between Cricklewood just to the north, and central Willesden to the south.

Willesden Green

It's a fairly busy, reasonably well-provisioned, if slightly down at heel shopping street, and the station rather stands out from the shabby buildings that surround it.

Walm Lane

It was the design of one Charles Walter Clark - not one of our more familiar names, though he did also design several Metropolitan Line stations including Farringdon, Great Portland Street and Baker Street. Like these, Willesden Green is now a Grade II Listed Building.

As well as the station and the shops, Walm Lane is home to an attractive and well-preserved church called St. Gabriels - built in 1897.

St Gabriels

The many roads leading off Walm Lane are full of Arts & Crafts era houses and suggest an affluence not quite in keeping with the impression I get from the main street. Perhaps this is the Cricklewood influence.

This theory is strengthened as I head south (away from Cricklewood) on Walm Lane and reach Willesden High Road, which has even more shops and is (sadly) even more down at heel.

There is one building that catches my eye, however, and it's the local library.

Willesden Library

Not only does it have the words 'Inspire And Be Inspired' in large neon letters above its entrance, but it seems to be a strange hybrid of the very modern and the distinctly old-fashioned.

The Victorian part of the library - built in 1894 - was constructed following a poll in which local residents requested such an edifice. When the new complex was being planned in 2012 the initial proposal was to demolish the old building, but again, public opinion (in the form of a petition) held sway and the building was kept - rightly so in my opinion.

The rest of the High Road is, as I have said, a rather shabby collection of shops, and I don't linger too long.

Willesden High Road

Instead I head for my next destination - Willesden Junction.

***
Willesden Junction, despite its name, is not actually in Willesden at all, but in next-door Harlesden.

Willesden Junction

As the latter half of the name suggests however, it is definitely a busy one, being the junction at which the Bakerloo Line, three branches of the Overground Line, and (formerly) the London & North Western Railway all meet.

Some of the many tracks meeting at the station

It sits just to the south of Harlesden town centre, which - like Willesden - is typical of the sort of urban shopping area you get when there's not a huge amount of disposable income flying around.

Harlesden town centre

There are pound shops, amusement arcades, money transfer services and plenty of take-away establishments, but not much in the way of higher end shopping.

Jubilee Clock

At the centre of the shopping area is the 'Jubilee Clock', erected for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. It seems newly painted and adds an element of civic pride to what otherwise seems an area that has seen better days.

The community here is largely Caribbean and the area is (unofficially at least) the 'Reggae Capital' of London. UK based Reggae band 'The Cimarons' were based (and recorded) in this part of town.

Sadly though, the first half of my day has proved less than edifying, and I head off southwards to Wimbledon in the hope that it his a bit more to offer...

***
And the first thing that strikes me as I stand outside Wimbledon station, looking at the main road, is how much cleaner it seems compared to my morning locations.

Wimbledon

The station itself is also a junction of sorts, linking the District Line, South Western Railway, and the relatively new Tramline.

Outside the station I'm greeted by a striking sculpture of a stag, whose name (apparently) is Arthur.

Arthur the Stag

This was commissioned by Merton council and made by local artist Isabelle Southwood in time for the rejuvenation of Wimbledon centre for the 2012 Olympics.

The significance of the stag motif is, I'm afraid, lost on me - unless it has something to do with the area's proximity to Richmond Park, which lies to the west of Wimbledon Common. The poem on a plaque attached to the statue's plinth does little to enlighten me.

Your guess is as good as mine...

Above the station are more sculptures, this time of various 'spectators', which I assume were also part of the same rejuvenation scheme, though I've been unable to discover any information on this - they are rather eerie though, as they gaze down at the people emerging from the station.

Ever feel like you're being watched...?

Of course, the first thing pretty much everyone thinks of when they hear the name "Wimbledon" is tennis.

The annual championships take place at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club grounds, some distance to the north of here, and I'll be visiting those in a little while, but the tennis influence is pretty clear even here.

Anyone for tennis?

The shopping centre is called 'Centre Court', and inside the station there are posters emblazoned with the Wimbledon Championships logo. Even the local dry cleaner has replaced the letter 'o' in their name - Wimbledon Dry Cleaners - with a tennis ball.

On the other hand, if the influx of thousands of tennis fans every year means that the area spruces itself up regularly, then I'll allow them to be a little unimaginative in their marketing.

'The Broadway' - Wimbledon

Before immersing myself in the world of tennis however, I head south of the station rather than north, and have a look at two reasonably proximate, though very different, local theatres.

New Wimbledon Theatre

The first, and most traditional, is the 'New Wimbledon Theatre'.

This, despite its claims, is not particularly new - being a traditional Edwardian theatre - which has seen premieres of shows like Oliver and Half A Sixpence before these transferred into the West End.

It's fairly typical of a suburban theatre, and sees many touring productions of hit West End shows.

It was also the venue for several pantomimes that were televised and broadcast in the early 2000s, featuring some perhaps unlikely cast members from the world of 'alternative' comedy like Paul Merton, Julian Clary and Adrian Edmondson.

Sticking with the theme of shows aimed at children, the next theatre I visit is the world-famous Polka Theatre.

Polka Theatre

This was the first ever UK theatre venue dedicated to productions specifically aimed at children (aged 0-13). Beginning in 1967 as a touring puppetry based company, they opened a permanent theatre here in 1979 and have gone on to become a producing theatre working with such well-known writers as Alan Ayckbourn and Philip Pullman.

Heading back northwards to the town centre I stop for a bite to eat before heading off once again to my final station of the day - Wimbledon Park - and (at last!) to the home of UK tennis, the All England Lawn Tennis Club.

***
Wimbledon Park is quaint looking little station - penultimate on this branch of the District Line - which lies to the east of both the park that gave it its name, and the tennis courts to which I am, eventually I promise, going to come.

Wimbledon Park

The road it sits on is - despite a few neat looking shops - clearly in a very residential area, and one where there is obviously a fair amount of money about.

Arthur Road outside the station

Not only are the houses large and (as far as I can tell) not divided into flats, but the cars parked on their driveways (often two or three to a household) are all very expensive and over-sized.

The park itself, when looked at on Google maps, seems to be a pleasantly open space with a lake at its centre, and I expect to be able to stroll across it by means of some no doubt picturesque footpaths.

Wimbledon Park lake

However, I'm soon dispelled of this notion.

The park has actually been divided into two, with the area south of the lake being entirely taken over by the Wimbledon Park Golf Club.

Unlike the golf club I encountered last week at West Ruislip, which had a pleasantly accessible public footpath running through it, here the club is very much of the "on no account let the proles in" variety. There are tall fences all the way around the course, completely blocking off the southern perimeter of the lake, and obliging the general public to walk around the northern side to get across the park.

The 'public' section of the park is fairly plain - a few tennis courts and a children's playground, but otherwise just an open field.

Wimbledon Park - the bit you're allowed to visit

It does have - unusually - its own police station.

Wimbledon Park Police Office

This is based in what used to be the park's pavilion, and is actually called a police 'office' (which I think basically means it doesn't have any cells in it). It houses half a dozen or so members of the 'Safer Neighbourhood Team', which is intended to be a more 'visible' police presence in the area.

But eventually I cross the park and come - finally - to the main landmark of the area.

All England Lawn Tennis Club

I suspect most people (even non tennis fans) have seen at least some of the Wimbledon Championships on TV. Many will also perhaps have come here to spend a day at the grounds themselves - either getting a ticket through their local tennis club, or by joining the infamous 'Queue' which (during the Wimbledon fortnight) takes over Wimbledon Park and offers the chance of a day ticket to the Championships.

One of the many entrances - and the Wimbledon shop

I myself have been lucky enough to visit a few times, and even to get a seat in the fabled Centre Court, and I'm sure that anyone who's been here will agree with me that the experience and atmosphere of being within the grounds during that summer fortnight, and of sitting courtside during a match, is a world away from watching the Championships on TV. So if you ever get the chance of a ticket, I recommend you leap at it.

However, if - like me - you find yourself in the neighbourhood at some other time of the year, I can also recommend you pay a visit to the museum, located in the grounds, and avail yourself of a tour of Centre Court - as I do today.

Fred Perry

There are a couple of options with regard to the length of tour you go on, but - since I have more to fit in today - I opt for the more limited 15 minute tour of Centre Court, followed by an hour or so's visit to the museum.

I join the tour group waiting outside Centre Court, by the statue of one of tennis's famous former players - Fred Perry - and, while we wait, I take a photo of the 'Order of Play', which is still showing the matches played on the day of the Gentlemen's Final.

Order Of Play

Our guide arrives and we follow her into Centre Court - taking a seat in the 'International Box', which is reserved for members of the International Tennis Federation.

I won't bore you with too many facts and figures - just a couple of the more salient points.

The All England Club was originally located to the south of the current site, off Worple Road, and had 12 courts laid out in a 3x4 arrangement.

The middle two courts of the second row were then combined into one single, large capacity court, and thus given the name 'Centre Court'.

Championship logo in Centre Court

When the Club moved to its present location in 1922, the main court kept the name 'Centre Court', though it wasn't strictly speaking in the centre of the grounds.

The retractable roof

The retractable roof was added in 2009, and takes about 10 minutes to fully close, though the ground needs up to a further hour to 'settle' before play can resume.

But of course...

The grass used on the court is Perennial Ryegrass, and is cut to an exact height of 8mm for the Championships.

The first thing you might notice from my photo of the empty court, and the thing that strikes me as I sit here, is the lack of the usual white painted boundary lines.

Look, no lines!

I don't know why I should be surprised - after all, if you've seen the state of the court by the end of Wimbledon fortnight, you'll know that a massive programme of re-seeding needs to take place. But for some reason it had never occurred to me that they would re-paint the lines every year.

Given the fact that - with modern technology in the form of the 'Hawkeye' device measuring the bounce of a tennis ball to within millimetres - those white lines need to be positioned in exactly the same place year after year, I really don't envy the groundsman's job in the least.

After Centre Court, I go to the museum.

Tennis themed cutlery was all the rage in the 1920s apparently...

King George VI
played here too

This is housed in the basement level one of the buildings by the main gates, and traces the history of Wimbledon, and tennis in general, from its beginnings as 'Real Tennis' up to the modern day.

There's plenty of 'interactivity' to amuse the kids (and many adults) including a Virtual Reality film, which - thanks to the use of 360° camera technology - allows you to take a courtside seat at the 2016 finals, in which Andy Murray beat Milos Raonic and Serena Williams beat Angelique Kerber.

Here are just a few more of the exhibits, to whet your appetite...

A load of balls

The BBC's Wimbledon theme tune

Traditional ladies' tennis playing outfits

And the actual Ladies' Singles Trophy

The actual Gentlemen's Singles Trophy

But, since the place really only comes alive for those two weeks in the summer, here are a selection of photos from my previous visits - firstly in 2011 and secondly this past summer, when I was fortunate enough to nab tickets for the Ladies' final...

Murray Mound, Henman Hill, Rusedski Rise, call it what you will...

It can get pretty busy here...

The traditional beverage...

The Royal Box - with some royals in it

Andy Murray's serve

And a gift for the crowd

Rafa Nadal in full swing

Ball 'Persons' ready for this year's Ladies' Final

Garbine Muguruza serves...

...Venus Williams returns

Just a few of the thousands who come to watch

The Champion...

...and the Runner-Up

After leaving the All England Club, I walk a little way along the outer perimeter of the Wimbledon Park Golf Club opposite, which I mentioned earlier.

There are, at irregular points along the pavement, benches set facing into the park, to allow passers by the 'privilege' of watching golfers doing their stuff.

The pleasure (such as it is) of such spectatorship must surely be diminished though, by the fact that the fences are all topped with vicious looking barbed wire.

This green and pleasant land...?

Once again, my opinion of golf clubs and their perpetually insular members takes a nose-dive...

On the other hand, being so close to the lake does mean that some trespassers do, at least, manage to make it onto the fairway and (I sincerely hope) get in the way of Mr and Mrs Stand-Offish and their precious round of golf...

Well done chaps!

No visit to the area of Wimbledon would be complete without a trip to one final location reasonably nearby - especially if the name of your blog happens to have been taken from one of its most famous (albeit fictional) residents.

Wimbledon Common

Wimbledon Common lies some way to the west of the All England Club, and is - like most of its kind - a large expanse of fairly open space, surrounded - and criss-crossed by - various groups of trees and bushes.

It also has a Grade II Listed Windmill at its northern end, with a museum attached to it.

Wimbledon Windmill

This is (and how often has this been the case on my travels?) only open at limited times during the week - in this case on Saturdays and Sundays - so I can't go inside, sadly.

The mill was in use up until the mid-Nineteenth century, when the local Lord of the Manor, Earl Spencer, wanted to fence off Wimbledon Common for his own private use (did he play golf I wonder?). The Earl's designs were rejected by popular demand, but by then the miller had been evicted and the mill's machinery removed.

The mill has been restored several times over the last century or so, and these days - as well as the museum - there's a pleasant looking tea-room attached to it where the many local dog-walkers take their refreshment mid-walk.

However, it's as the home of the fictional "Wombles of Wimbledon Common" that the place is possibly best known to non-locals.

The creation of children's author Elizabeth Beresford, the environmentally-conscious Wombles began life in the late 1960s and became popular in the 1970s thanks to the popular BBC TV adaptation of their stories.

The theme tune to this adaptation, written by Mike Batt, is - of course - the source of my blog's title:

"Underground, overground, Wombling free,
The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we..."

"Making Good Use Of Bad Rubbish" (or in other words, recycling all the litter that the careless Human visitors to the common left behind) they lived in burrows, ate mushrooms, and were randomly named after various entries in the old atlas (thus: Orinoco, Wellington, Tobermory, and the atlas's owner, Great Uncle Bulgaria).

I spend some time wandering along the various paths and bridleways that cross the Common. At various times a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye causes me to fumble with my camera for a hurried snapshot. A tuft of fur, a blurred movement through the bushes... could it be?

Is that Great Uncle Bulgaria stretching his legs perhaps?

But, if there are any Wombles resident in the common these days, they're keeping well away from Human eyes, and I head homewards at last, having ticked off another four names from my ever-decreasing list of remaining stations.

Until next time!

'Sugar And Spice'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 16:52:00 +0000

Day 97

West Ruislip - West Silvertown - Whitechapel - White City

A warm, if muggy, day - not ideal for travelling on the tube - but at least my first journey is a fairly short one, and more importantly above ground, so I can get the occasional blast of fresh air.

My first station is West Ruislip, which - as far as I can tell - has no particular points of merit, other than the fact that it is the terminus of this branch of the Central Line.

West Ruislip

This puts it at one end of the longest single journey (34.1 miles) you can make on the tube network without changing trains (the other end being Epping - as you may recall from my visit there some time ago).

Apart from this, however, the station and its environs are fairly unremarkable.

High Road

There are a few shops, as usual, along the High Road from the station, but the main feature of the area is the Ruislip Golf Course, to the north.

A public footpath cuts through the course and I walk up this for a short distance.

Ruislip Golf Course

There are one or two keen golfers already out on the fairway (it's only just gone 9.30 in the morning) and contrary to the popular image of the terminally grumpy "Do-you-mind-you-can't-walk-through-here-this-is-for-golfers-only-we-don't-want-your-kind-here" Golf Club members, the couple I meet on the footpath offer me a cheery good morning as I pass by.

A rare sighting of a pair of Lesser-Spotted Friendly Golfers

But after failing to find very much more of interest along the footpath I turn back after only 30 minutes in the area, and set off again back eastwards through town.

***
I may not be going the maximum 34 miles, and certainly not in a single journey, but my next destination definitely takes me to the opposite side of town and is, if not quite the end of the line, not far off it.

I'm visiting West Silvertown, which is on the DLR and just four stops from the terminus at Woolwich Arsenal.

West Silvertown

The area around the station, like that around West Ruislip, is not really a place you would choose to visit for very long without a very good reason for doing so (or - in my case - a not-particularly-good reason for doing so). Being in the docklands area, and in particular the North Woolwich part of town, the architecture is more industrial than residential.

To the north is the Royal Victoria Dock, home of the Excel centre, to the north east is Galleons Point Marina and London City Airport. To the south is the river - with Silvertown forming an elongated peninsula between them.

The name of the area comes, I'm disappointed to report, not from any long-forgotten deposits of silver ore buried beneath the factories and warehouses, but from one Samuel Winkworth Silver, who had a rubber factory here in the 19th Century.

Today one of the major landmarks of the area is the Tate & Lyle Sugar Refinery, with a large model of its familiar Golden Syrup tin sticking out of the side of the building.

Tate & Lyle Sugar Refinery

The company was formed when two former rival companies merged in 1921, though this was after the deaths of both Mr Tate and Mr Lyle - who remained bitter competitors up until their deaths.

The Golden Syrup tin, and its distinctive design, have been recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as Britain's oldest brand, having remained pretty much unchanged since 1885. The somewhat surprising motif of the rotting carcass of a dead lion surrounded by a swarm of bees, is a reference (as is the quotation beneath, which reads 'Out of the strong came forth sweetness') to the biblical story of Samson.

Lyle's Golden Syrup

Apparently, so the story goes, young Samson was out visiting the land of the Philistines looking for a wife (as you do) and on his way there (also as you do) he killed a savage lion by ripping it apart with his bare hands. Leaving the dead lion by the roadside, off he trotted, found the girl of his dreams, and they agreed to marry later in the year (again, as you do).

When the day of the wedding arrived he was on his way back to her place, when he noticed that the body of the lion was still lying by the road and that a swarm of bees had, for some reason, set up home in the carcass and were busy making honey among the rotting entrails. Feeling a bit peckish all of a sudden, he stuck his hand into the offal, scooped out a handful of honey, and slurped it off his fingers as he continued on his merry way (very much not as you, I - or anyone with even an iota of sanity - would do).

Having managed to get through the wedding without dying from Listeria, our wily Samson hit upon a way of using the lion to con some extra wedding presents out of his Philistine guests by telling them a 'riddle' he had just made up. If they could answer it within seven days (he promised, like the shifty old sly-boots he was) he would buy them each a brand new set of clothes - if not, they would each have to buy him a new outfit.

"Ok, you're on," said the guests; "Tell us the riddle".

To which Samson replied: "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness".

The Philistines - not surprisingly stumped by this - went away none too happy at having to fork out for more presents, and a few days later went to the new Mrs Samson and basically threatened to burn her and her entire family to death if she didn't get her husband to tell her the answer.

Not wishing to die such a horrible death just because her new husband was a bit of a wide-boy with a peculiar penchant for meat-infused honey, she nagged and cajoled him until he finally gave in and told her the answer - which she promptly passed on to the guests.

They, of course, were then able to give Samson the solution to the riddle, which left him extremely miffed. Accusing them of cheating (which was a bit rich, given the stunt he'd originally been trying to pull) he promptly went off in a strop to another village, killed a load of innocent villagers, nicked their clothes and used these to settle the bet he'd made with the original guests. His wife, who was no doubt more than happy to get away from such an obviously raving lunatic, was 'given' to one of the guests, as a 'booby' prize.

So now you know...

Another of Silvertown's landmarks is on the dockside and is something I was, I'm afraid, fairly dismissive of when I saw it from across the water on my visit to Prince Regent station.

Millennium Mills

Mill Chimney

The derelict buildings are not - as I first suspected - erstwhile office blocks, but are actually the former Millennium Mills - a set of flour mills which operated in the early 20th Century. This is more obvious here than it was from the opposite side of the dock, as there is a huge mill chimney standing in the middle of a roundabout as you approach the mills from the station to the south.

The buildings have been empty since the docks closed in the 1980s, but are occasionally used for film and TV locations, including the time-travel drama Ashes To Ashes.

The Mill is next door to the now empty site of the former Brunner Mond munitions factory, which was the epicentre (in 1917) of what became known as the Silvertown Explosion - an accident which killed 73 people and injured 400 others, when approximately 50 tonnes of TNT were set off by a fire which had broken out in the factory.

On my way back from the mill I pass the local fire station, outside which is a collection of plaques dedicated (among others) to those who lost their lives in the explosion.

Plaques to locals who lost their lives

The explosion destroyed not only the munitions factory but many buildings surrounding it, including the original local Fire Station. Thousands were rendered homeless and damage was caused to buildings and vehicles as far away as The Strand and Pall Mall, with the blast apparently being heard many miles away in places like Maidstone and Guildford.

***
Next up is Whitechapel, where again the main points of interest are historical rather than contemporary.

Whitechapel

Whitechapel's bloody history of murder, serial killers, violence, prostitution, gangsters, and crime in all its myriad forms, means that it could pretty much be said to be London's equivalent of Mos Eisley Spaceport. I can just imagine a bearded Alec Guinness warning me that I'll "never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy" as I emerge from the station and take my first look at the place.

I must be cautious...

Not that there seems to be much of menace on the main Whitechapel Road, which shows more evidence of the area's booming immigrant community, than of any past criminal history.

Whitechapel Road Market

The market stalls which line the street are almost a permanent fixture here. They sell everything you'd normally expect - bric-a-brac, clothing, fruit & veg, etc. - but spiced with a distinctly Asian flavour, which mirrors the area's largely Bangladeshi community.

But the area's past history still lingers in places.

There are two main criminal 'cases', which have given Whitechapel its reputation as a place of violence - one from the Victorian age, and the second from the 20th Century.

The former is the series of prostitute killings between 1888 and 1891 that became known as the 'Whitechapel Murders' - and which gave the world the now legendary figure of 'Jack The Ripper'.

Most people are familiar with the facts and folklore surrounding the Ripper murders, so I won't regurgitate the gory details here. Suffice to say that enough remains of the Victorian architecture and narrow old cobbled streets to be able to picture the murder scenes without too much difficulty.

One of the murders took place in the road which runs immediately behind the station - Durward Street, or (as it was known at the time) Buck's Row - and several others are within easy walking distance, should you be interested.

Walking along Whitechapel Road I come to the scene of another murder - this time from 1966.

The Blind Beggar

The innocuous looking 'Blind Beggar' pub is famously linked to another criminal figure whose name (together with that of his twin brother) has become almost as legendary as Jack The Ripper's - Ronnie Kray. It was in this pub that Ronnie Kray calmly walked up to the bar, at which sat a member of a rival gang - George Cornell - pulled out a Luger pistol and shot him in the head. Despite doing so in front of several witnesses, none of them would testify against him and it took three years for him to finally be convicted of the murder.

Leaving such violent crimes behind us, though returning once again to the Victorian era, I should mention the Royal London Hospital which sits across the road from the tube station.

Royal London Hospital

A celebrated surgeon named Frederick Treves working at the hospital (coincidentally at about the same time as the Ripper murders) became aware of a 'penny gaff' freak-show being staged in a shop across the road, and in particular one 'exhibit' - a severely deformed man by the name of Joseph Merrick, whose 'stage name' was 'The Elephant Man'.

Treves asked Merrick whether he would be willing to be examined at the hospital, to which Merrick agreed, and the two met several times after that.

In time Merrick became rather fed up of being measured and photographed, and went back on the road with a travelling fair, though eventually he would return to London, and to the hospital, when he was abandoned by his 'manager'.

He remained at the hospital until his death, at the age of just 27, from asphyxia thanks to the weight of his head pressing down on his throat as he slept. Apparently he was so desperate to live 'like other people' that - contrary to his normal habit - he attempted to sleep lying down rather than sitting upright as he had done for most of his life.

On which sad note I return to the station.

There's one last curiosity to mention here though, before I go.

The station is a junction not only of the Underground (District and Hammersmith & City Lines) but also of the Overground Line.

However, by some perverse accident of construction, the Overground Line's tracks are not over, but under, those of the Underground Line.

Overgound Tracks - with Underground Tracks overhead

It's not perhaps very easy to make out from the picture above, but the tracks at the bottom of the frame (running left to right) are those of the Overground Line, while overhead - crossing front to back - you can see the girders which support the Underground Line.

This is usually a lot more clearly visible than it is at the moment, both from below and above, but thanks to the works involved in the Crossrail development, visibility around the ventilation shafts is somewhat restricted.

***
And so on to the last stop of the day - White City.

White City

The station, and its surrounding area, get their name from an exhibition held here in 1908 - the Franco-British Exhibition.

This was a public fair designed to celebrate the entente cordiale between France and Britain that had been signed in 1904, and featured well over 100 exhibition buildings and pavilions, all of which were either painted white or covered in white plaster, as this postcard from the exhibition shows:

Postcard from 1908

The Great White City was to the west of the current station, and included, as a last minute addition, a sports stadium to the north. This late addition was the result of London stepping in to also host the 1908 Olympics later that year. The original host city - Rome - was forced to pull out following a devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1906, which destroyed much of Naples and swallowed up all the available funds.

It was at this Olympics that the standard distance for the marathon race was first established.

Most people know that the marathon race gets its name from the legend of the Greek messenger Philippedes who ran all the way back to Athens from the Battle of Marathon, announced that the Greeks had won, and promptly dropped dead.

While the distance between the site of the battle and Athens is roughly the same as the modern marathon race (it's between 22 and 25 miles, depending on which way round Mount Penteli you choose to go) it wasn't until the 1908 London Olympics that the modern standard distance of 26 miles and 385 yards was set - as this was the distance between the starting line at Windsor Castle, and the finishing line at the White City Stadium.

The exhibition buildings and the stadium have long gone (though the latter lasted until 1985 and was a former home of Queen's Park Rangers FC). Most of the area was redeveloped with residential properties but the site across the road from the station found new fame as the home (until fairly recently) of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

BBC Television Centre

The BBC's Television Centre opened in 1960 and was the centre of operations for the BBC until it officially closed in 2013. It contained several studios, of varying size, and itself featured as the backdrop of many moments of TV history. The programmes made here are far too numerous to mention, but for many of my generation this building - or rather its address - will forever be associated with Saturday morning kids TV.

Even now, without looking it up, I can reel off the full postal address of the place to which all competition entries, letters, art-work and other hopeful correspondence was sent by thousands of kids every year - in response to the familiar phrase: "Answers, on a postcard, to..."

(All together now.......

"BBC Television Centre,
Wood Lane,
London,
W12 8QT"

......well done!)

Another familiar feature of the building is its distinctive shape.

The story goes that the architect (one Graham Dawbarn CBE), who was struggling to decide what shape of building would most conveniently encompass all the studios, offices and storage space required by the BBC, got so frustrated that he simply drew a great big question mark on the back of an envelope.

About to screw this up into a ball and chuck it into the nearest waste paper bin, he suddenly realised he'd inadvertently come up with the ideal shape for the building. So, after tidying it up a bit, copying it onto a fresh bit of paper, and adding a few measurements here and there, he submitted his plans and the building's shape was decided.

***
Now, that all sounds very whimsical and lovely, and may of course be perfectly true.

On the other hand, one or two things don't quite - to my mind - add up.

Firstly - though I accept I'm not an architect - I would assume that most people, given a map of an empty plot of land would orientate it with North positioned at the top of the page. This would mean that the question mark shape would have its curve at the top (north) and its tail at the bottom (south).

However, if you look at a satellite image of the area, which places (as is usual) North at the top, then the supposed question mark shape is pretty much upside down.

Of course, our architect friend might, without noticing, have somehow managed to get the paper the wrong way round, before he started drawing, but that's not all...

A question mark has a dot, or full stop, beneath its tail - ? - see?

But there's no 'dot' at TV centre. There's a sort of rounded roof terrace above the main reception area that might, at a push, be considered 'dot-like' but that would make it part of the 'tail' - whereas most people would draw a question mark with the dot as a clearly separate entity.

Finally, the story goes that this was the result of a man on his own, doodling on the back of an envelope, because he couldn't think of an idea.

Now, without wishing to be too crude, and putting this as delicately as possible, there's one particular 'motif' that most men have, at one time or another, selected as their doodle of choice - and it certainly isn't a question mark.

The depictions of the (if you'll pardon the expression) 'meat and two veg' can vary of course, but they all, not surprisingly, share certain similarities of form.

There's the spheroid conglomeration at the bottom, and adjoining this - and extending from it - is the 'shaft'. In effect, something similar to - or a variation on - a great big number '6'.

Which, if you have another look at that satellite image........

***
Anyway, leaving such fruitless speculation aside...

The BBC decided to sell up and move out of the building a few years ago and it's now being redeveloped as apartments and associated leisure amenities.

White City Station is - as the address of TV Centre shows - on the road called Wood Lane, as is (not surprisingly) Wood Lane Station, to which I'll be paying a visit in the not too distant future. Behind them both, and between here and Shepherd's Bush Station, is the massive Westfield Shopping Centre.

It's not quite the 'Great White City' of 1908 (more of a great grey city sadly) but I suppose it's the modern day equivalent: lots of different things to see, lots of places trying to take your money, and lots of people willing to have their money taken off them.

In any case, I visited the centre a while back when I came to Shepherd's Bush, so there's not much I can add here. In fact, I'm not quite sure what I'll do when I come back here yet again to visit Wood Lane in a few weeks' time.

The only other site of any note within spitting distance of the station is Loftus Road - the current home of QPR football club - and if you've been following this blog with any regularity, you'll know that football really isn't my cup of tea...

Hey-ho, we shall see. Perhaps they'll build someone else's doodle before I return. Answers on a postcard........

'Guest Of The Government'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 17:27:00 +0000

Day 96

West India Quay - West Kensington - Westminster

Back on my travels after a short break taking in the delights of the Edinburgh Festival (and thereby avoiding what seems to have been a period of torrential rainfall in London) I ease myself back into the final stages of this journey with a relatively straightforward day's Wombling...

My first stop is West India Quay - a station on the DLR line, and one stop north of Canary Wharf.

West India Quay

In fact the two stations are less than 200m apart (the shortest distance between any two stations on the London Underground and DLR network) and, were it not for the large body of water (North Dock) that lies between them at ground level, it might well be quicker to walk, than to waste time ascending to the overhead platforms, waiting for trains, and so on.

Old meets new...

The train journey itself takes all of 30 seconds, so I'm soon alighting at the north side of the dock.

This is North Dock - the northern most of the three docks which together form the West India Docks.

Like at many of London's docks, the gleaming modern skyscrapers stand beside remnants of the past, such as the cranes used to unload the goods from far off lands (in this case mainly Rum and Sugar) and the old warehouse buildings, now converted to flats, offices and restaurants.

This is a quieter part of the whole Canary Wharf / Isle of Dogs business district and is pretty much deserted when I arrive mid-morning. Only the restaurants and street-food stalls show any sign of life as they prepare for what they presumably hope is going to be a lunch-time rush.

Empty chairs at empty tables...

At the western end of the dock are two points of interest.

The first of these is 'St. Peter's Barge' - which is apparently London's only floating church.

St. Peter's Barge

At first I assume that this is a hangover from the dock's former hey-days, when the 'rough and ready' stevedores would be cajoled into spending at least some of their time hearing from the 'Good Book', rather than drinking their wages away in the nearest pub.

However, it seems this church has only been here since 2003 - long after the docks were redeveloped into the financial district that flourishes here today - so it must be the many Bankers and Brokers whose souls are in need of redemption....

They may have a point...

Museum of
London Docklands

The second point of interest is the Museum of London Docklands, just next to the floating church.

This occupies one of the former warehouses, and consists of three floors of exhibits offering a pretty comprehensive history of the development of the docks.

It's free to enter, so I feel duty-bound to have a look around it on your behalf, and it certainly has a lot to tell you - if you happen to be interested in Docklands life.

Dockers' Hooks

Having spent quite a bit of time travelling around the docks on this journey, and having diligently researched the different areas I've visited, I've already learned a lot of the history on offer here.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting place to visit and does, of course, condense it all into one building, rather than requiring you to spend week after week travelling from station to station (I mean, who'd be silly enough to do that?).

Museum exhibition room - with destination signs hanging from ceiling

Here then, are a few examples of what you can find in the museum.

Gibbet - as used at
'Execution Dock'
(See 'Wapping')

Fire 'Engine'

Port of London Authority Police Equipment

The Isle Of Dogs as a working port

WWII Bomb shelter
for Dock Workers...

...and what they were
sheltering from.

And into the modern age...

Been there, done that...

Back outside I take a last few photos.

A few more people - though not many.

There are one or two more people about now, though it's still very quiet compared with the area outside Canary Wharf station.

I decide to walk back to Canary Wharf via the footbridge across the Dock, partly to see how long it takes (about five minutes) and partly to get a photo of a DLR train making the short journey between the two stations.

The

I had idly wondered whether the distance was short enough that the back end of the train would still be in Canary Wharf as its front end entered West India Quay - but this isn't the case. In fact the trains are only about half as long as the 199m between the stations - though this still seems a faintly ridiculous distance to travel via train.

***
Next on my list is West Kensington, which despite the connotations of the latter part of its name, is a fairly non-descript station in an equally uninspiring part of London.

West Kensington

The station lies between Earl's Court and Barons Court on the District Line, and - with Hammersmith to the west of the latter - suffers from being between two much busier shopping areas.

It's also on the main A4 Talgarth Road, which means that heavy traffic is constantly passing by - but rarely stopping.

A4 looking towards Earl's Court

Immediately to the right of the station as you emerge from it is a pub styling itself 'The Famous 3 Kings'.

The Famous 3 Kings

But, on the off-chance that its "fame" may somehow not as yet have reached your ears, I can inform you (thanks to a commemorative mural across the road) that the pub used to be known as The Nashville Room and that it was a live music venue.

The history of the Nashville Room

Among those who (improbably perhaps, given the image conjured up by the word 'Nashville') played in the pub in their formative years are such well-known bands as the Sex Pistols and Joy Division, as well as the Police and U2.

The road heading south from the A4 is North End Road, and this contains a fairly standard assortment of shops and eateries - though nothing to set the heart racing.

North End Road

To the west of the station, and running parallel to the A4, are the tracks of both the District and Piccadilly Lines. At this point along their adjacent course into central London they separate, and the Piccadilly Line drops below ground for the first time, as can be seen from a vantage point on one of the back streets.

Piccadilly Line Train - 'Going Underground'

Home of
M.K. Gandhi

One other claim to fame the area does have is that it was home to a certain young law student during the latter part of the 19th Century.

The shy, tongue-tied, vegetarian, Hindu barrister who lived at number 20, Baron's Court Road, was called Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi - and would go on to become the one of the world's most inspirational leaders, and most famous advocates of non-violent protest.

Mahatma -
or 'Venerable' -
Gandhi lived here

As you no doubt already know - the title 'Mahatma' (meaning 'Great Soul' or 'Venerable') was bestowed upon him in later life, and though almost taking the place of his given first name, it was a title he himself felt embarrassed by, according to his autobiography.

But that's just about all there is to see here.

I head back to the station, and am waiting for my train back into central London, when I notice, on the opposite platform, something I must have missed on my arrival.

West Kensington 'Station Garden'

It's a small patch of garden, obviously tended by the station employees, and offering a little splash of greenery in an otherwise dull, grey environment.

I've seen a few of these 'Station Gardens' on my travels, and they always give me a brief but welcome frisson of pleasure when I encounter them. A lot of time and effort has clearly gone into creating and maintaining this little plot, and I can't think of many other workplaces where such a thing would happen, let alone be encouraged.

And so, in a slightly more upbeat mood than when I arrived, I set off from West Kensington to my final (and by far-and-away most landmark-laden) stop of the day.

***
Westminster packs in so many tourist attractions you'd be forgiven for thinking that Walt Disney had created it as some kind of "Westminster World of Adventures".

Westminster

What with Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Downing Street, Whitehall, Parliament Square - not to mention Westminster Bridge and the river - it's one of the busiest places in London all year round.

Elizabeth Tower

Of course, as any school-child knows, the first item on that list isn't actually a tourist attraction - in the sense of being something you can have your photo taken in front of - at all.

The name Big Ben refers to the great bell of the clock inside the tower rather than the tower itself, though this has been extended to refer to the whole clock tower for so long and by so many people that it seems churlish to continue to correct the misapprehension.

Winston and Ben

In fact, I'd go further, and say that the tower should, in fact, be officially and definitively renamed Big Ben at the earliest opportunity, in order to put an end to the confusion once and for all.

This is unlikely to happen however, as the tower (previously simply called the Clock Tower) was officially renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to celebrate the queen's Diamond Jubilee.

Not that anyone's going to take any notice of that, of course, and Big Ben it will continue to be...

I'll come back to the Palace of Westminster (aka the Houses of Parliament), which adjoins the tower, shortly. Firstly though, I cross the road to the large square patch of grass opposite - Parliament Square - on which (as well as a multitude of tourists) can be found various statues of the Great and Good of British Political History.

Churchill

The first, and most imposing, figure is that of Winston Churchill.

Statesman, orator, inspirational war-time leader and - let's face it - grumpy looking bugger, he stands scowling at Parliament as if he can't quite believe the mess people have made of the place since he shuffled off this mortal coil fifty-odd years ago. And many would say he'd be entirely justified in such thoughts.

Lloyd George

A little way up from Churchill is another former Prime Minister - David Lloyd George.

He was Prime Minister during the first war, and - like Churchill - was generally regarded as a strong leader during those horrific years. However, also like Churchill, once war was over his popularity went into decline and he was out of office by 1922.

Mahatma Gandhi

Nelson Mandela

Two further inspirational figures - one of whom we've come across already today on our travels - are Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

These two both led their people out from under the oppressive regimes that had blighted their respective countries, and are deservedly commemorated in this 'cradle of democracy'.

To the south of Parliament Square, and to the west of the Houses of Parliament, is Westminster Abbey - perhaps the most famous London church after St. Paul's Cathedral.

Westminster Abbey - Rose Window

West Façade

This is the place where Kings and Queens are crowned, where Royal Weddings have been celebrated, and where the bones of Monarchs and Musicians, Scientists and Soldiers, Politicians and Poets, Authors, Architects and even (so there's hope for me yet) Actors are interred.

As was the case with St. Paul's Cathedral, despite having lived in London for many years, I've never actually been inside the Abbey, and had hoped to do so today.

However, though this would be perfectly possible were I to fork out the £22 entrance fee, I would not - according to the many signs attached to the railings surrounding it - be allowed to take any photos within the Abbey.

Since all I could give you, therefore, would be a list of facts and figures obtainable from any reputable internet-based encyclopaedia, I'll say nothing more and simply suggest that both you and I get our acts together and make the effort to visit the place ourselves one day.

Cenotaph on Whitehall

To the north of Parliament Square is Whitehall - the home of many a government department and location of the Cenotaph, the national war memorial.

A short way along from this and leading off to the west is perhaps the most famous street in London: Downing Street - the home of the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

There are, as usual, a swarm of tourists brandishing their selfie-sticks in front of the heavily-guarded gates to Downing Street, but I'm mildly surprised to see - in a brief opening of the gates - the following scene...

Shouldn't you be, erm, well - sort of guarding the place?

It appears to be a couple of people having their photo taken, tourist-style, in front of - and let me very clear about this - the Prime Minister's front door. Not only that, but the person taking the photo is the policeman whose duty it is to guard said door, and prevent nefarious individuals getting inside and making mischief (I refrain from commenting on the idea that he is actually there to prevent nefarious individuals getting out of Number 10 and making mischief - as, if this is his role, he has been singularly unsuccessful at it).

Of course, right now our various political leaders are all on their summer holidays, so perhaps it's a case of 'while the cat's away...'

Which brings us back to the Houses of Parliament.

Houses of Parliament

Currently on their summer recess, the MPs have got the builders in while they're away, and the clock tower is having a bit of a make-over - causing some not inconsiderable controversy.

The major bone of contention (other than the inevitable complaints about how much the tax-payer will have to cough up for it all) is that the chimes of Big Ben have been silenced for the foreseeable future while the work is carried out, in order to prevent any damage to the hearing of the people doing the refurbishment.

There are those who condemn this as the epitome of 'health-and-safety-gone-mad-ness', while others tear their hair out in frustration at all this fuss and bother over what is, at the end of the day, only a big clock.

I have to say I fall more readily into the latter camp - not least because I'm sure the anti health and safety brigade will be the first to condemn the government if anyone suffers permanent deafness by being unexpectedly 'bonged' by Big Ben.

Like Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament are open to the public for guided tours, and this is one place I have actually visited before. However (also like Westminster Abbey), photography is pretty restricted within the building, and I would urge you to visit it yourself should you be interested in its inner workings.

The Houses of Parliament sit on the riverside, by Westminster Bridge, which was the scene earlier this year of one of the many recent terror attacks involving cars being driven into innocent pedestrians.

Westminster Bridge - and tourists aplenty

I walk some way across the bridge - where there are now crash barriers in place - to take a photo of the river-side view of Westminster, and am glad to see that here, like the rest of the area surrounding the station, tourism is alive and well and undaunted by past events.

The Palace of Westminster

And that completes today's journey.

Tune in next time for more W-based adventures!

'Neighbourhood'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 21:22:00 +0000

Day 95

West Finchley - West Ham - West Hampstead - West Harrow

There's a two-word phrase, which - in my pre-Womble research into the various areas I plan to visit today - has appeared with a disheartening regularity.

The phrase is 'mainly residential' and is disheartening not because I am doubtful of the ability of the residents in question to present their homes in as attractive a way as possible, but because 'residential' areas tend to be rather lacking in anything other than houses.

No historical landmarks, no exciting architecture, no bustling commercial areas - instead (as my first stop West Finchley exemplifies very well) you tend to get row upon row of near-identical dwellings, differentiated only by the designs of their topiary and the colours of their front doors.

Ah well, I'll do my best to find a few nuggets of gold among the tons of gravel lining the well-tended driveways...

West Finchley station is a comparatively small structure for a tube station, and - thanks to its positioning at the end of a small path, with fenced off gardens either side - looks a little like an over-blown garden shed.

West Finchley

There are a few shops on a parade next to the station, which seem to offer either groceries or computer repairs.

Shops on Nether Street

To the north of the station - I've ascertained - is a small park, so I head towards this in the hope of finding something of interest.

Mainly residential...

I pass through the neatly maintained streets of semi-detached, mainly white-washed, 1920s houses and eventually reach a small road bridge crossing over a trickling brook.

Dollis Brook

The brook is Dollis Brook, and either side of it is the Dollis Valley Greenwalk, which I last encountered at Totteridge & Whetstone. Both there and here (and indeed at various points along its 10 mile length) parks and open spaces have developed alongside the Greenwalk and provide a place to walk your dog or entertain your children.

Dollis Valley Greenwalk - Park in West Finchley

This park lies to the east of the road bridge over the brook. To the west the Greenwalk continues, but passes through a collection of allotments.

Allotments are traditionally fiercely coveted plots of land, and those in West Finchley seem to be no exception. Indeed, the high fences topped with barbed wire, either side of the pathway running through the beds of runner beans and tomato plants, give the allotment the air of a World War II prisoner of war camp. I imagine that if I continued my stroll along the path I'd be faced before too long with a wooden guard tower, from which a machine-gun toting guard would bark the word "HALT!" at me ferociously...

Stalag Allotment III

But that's it for West Finchley - so it's time to move on to my next residential 'neighbourhood' - West Ham.

***
If West Finchley was the epitome of artsy-craftsy suburban gentility (and it was), then West Ham tends rather more towards Dickensian squalor - at least in parts.

West Ham

Not that you'd immediately suspect that from the station itself, which despite having been opened in 1901, has since undergone several upgrades and refurbishments, particularly in preparation for the 2012 Olympics. It now serves the DLR and Jubilee Lines as well as its original District and Hammersmith & City Lines, and straddles the main road (Manor Road) via a glazed walkway.

The walkway connecting the DLR platforms to the main station.

Not far from the station, however, you're soon in the kind of terraced streets that are the more familiar sight in Urban London.

On the terraces at West Ham
(not a place I ever expected to find myself)

From the front they're not too shabby - a lick of paint and a bit of sprucing up appears to have been applied - but it's a slightly different story if you get a chance to look at the back 'gardens', as I do a short time later, as you'll see.

West Ham is perhaps most well-known to non-Londoners for the football team of the same name.

Now making its home at the Olympic Stadium to the north of here in Stratford, after many decades at Upton Park, the club originally played just around the corner from the station at the Memorial Grounds.

Not being interested in such things however, I'm heading north-east from the station - to visit the only real landmark in the area, the local parish church. But before I get there I'm making a brief stop at a point due north of the station.

It's the next DLR station along from West Ham - Abbey Road - which, as my longer-term readers will remember, is a rather significant station for me, as it's where this whole journey began some three and a half years ago.

Hello old friend...

On that occasion I exited the station on a lower level in order to visit the nearby Abbey Gardens, but today I'm on the Abbey Road flyover that crosses the tracks of the DLR. And this gives me the opportunity to see the rear of those properties I photographed earlier.

Behind the façade...

And from the back things are definitely more down at heel. The back gardens are cramped and over-grown, with abandoned toys and rusty barbecues, broken windows haphazardly boarded up, and fence panels falling apart at the seams.

The rest of the area, on the way to the parish church, is a combination of more of the same, one or two tower blocks, and a few shops and cafés - not much of interest at all really.

And then I reach the church.

Welcome...

At first glance it's a fairly standard example of its kind, and indeed for the most part it's nothing more than an average parish church, although it is a Grade I Listed building.

West Ham Parish Church (aka All Saints)

There's been a church here since the 12th Century and parts of the current building date back to that time. Other parts of the church were rebuilt in the 19th Century by George Gilbert Scott and his partner George Dyson.

The main point of interest, however, is the clock tower, the mechanism of which was designed by Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe, in 1851. Though not much to look at from the outside, it is actually the prototype for the mechanism of the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament, commonly known as Big Ben.

And with this minor point of interest, my visit to West Ham is finished - let's hope there's a little more at my next stop...

***
West Hampstead is next on the list.

Ah - but which West Hampstead?

Despite what you might infer from the tube map - which lists just one station at West Hampstead, providing an interchange between the Jubilee, Overground and National Rail networks - there are in fact three of them.

West Hampstead 1 - Jubilee Line

They sit in a neat row, separated by just a few hundred yards and a half-dozen or so shops - and each serves just one of the three networks listed above.

West Hampstead 2 - Overground Line

West Hampstead 3 - Thameslink National Rail Line

The three stations were all originally opened in the late 19th Century, although the Thameslink station has clearly been refurbished more recently than the other two. They are all on West End Lane - a busy shopping street running north-south.

There have been plans to create a kind of 'super' station to accommodate all three lines, but these are - it seems - currently on hold.

Other than the stations and shops, the area is (you've guessed it) 'mainly residential' - though rather more upmarket than my previous stop at West Ham.

West End Lane (and its wider area, known as West End Village) is therefore where I spend my time before heading off to my final stop of the day.

After a bite to eat, I wander northwards up the Lane.

West End Lane

The shops here are very much Hampstead chic, and - at lunchtime - are bustling with the locals.

At the north end of the road is West End Green - on which sits the West Hampstead Fire Station, opened in 1901 and still in service.

Fire Station

The building is Grade II Listed and is an example of the 'domestic' style of station built in this period, rather than the more municipal buildings of later years.

A little harsh...

Across the road from the station, in the middle of the green, is an innocuous looking public toilet.

Not the most obvious things to catch the eye of the roving travel blogger you might think, and normally you'd be quite right.

At first glance it's a normal, everyday, bog-standard (ahem) Ladies' toilet - there for the convenience of the local female populace.

Look more closely though, and you'll see a small notice affixed to the wall of the steps leading down into the toilets, which - I have to say - seems to place an unfair restriction on the lavatorial practices of Hampstead's women...

There's certainly no such prohibition on the Gentlemen's side of things, which - given the daily diet of your average gluttonous male, compared with the health-conscious women of Hampstead - seems a tad counter-intuitive.

On the other hand, perhaps they have a point. After all, being so health-conscious, the women are possibly including rather too much fibre in their diet for the public toilets to be able to cope with...

Around the corner from the Jubilee Line station is the former Decca Records building, now being used by the English National Opera.

Former Decca Records Building

The record company Decca is most famous, perhaps, for being the company who turned down The Beatles following their audition in 1962, with the comment "Guitar groups are on their way out". It wasn't as disastrous for the company as it might have been, however, as a year or so later they subsequently signed The Rolling Stones, following a recommendation by a (by then) rather more famous George Harrison.

***
And so on to my final stop of the day - West Harrow - which is, I'm sorry to say, more of the same.

West Harrow

The station itself looks to have been not so much designed, as prefabricated, and seems at odds with every other station I've seen so far on my travels. It opened in 1913, when you might have expected the architecture to have been a little more interesting...

The housing here is - I suppose - something about halfway between the upmarket gentility of West Finchley and West Hampstead and the Victorian Sardine-Tin Terraces of West Ham - a sort of Genteel Sardine, if you will.

West Harrow streets

The road on which the station sits is in the middle of several residential streets, with just a small row of shops to the east. These include a newsagent, a hairdresser and a Chinese take-away, as well as - surprisingly - an arts studio-cum-gallery.

Usurp Arts

The Usurp Arts Space & Studios is actually in the building formerly occupied by the local butcher, and was set up in 2010 (though the company had been in existence since 2000) to "develop opportunities for communities to engage with artists", according to their website.

Unfortunately the building seems to be closed to the public at this time of day (though there is no indication of when it might actually be open to visitors) so all I can do is take a photo of the building and move on.

To the south west of the station is a park called West Harrow Recreation Ground.

West Harrow Recreation Ground

This again is a fairly typical example of its kind, though one group of its patrons do seem a little more eccentric than the norm, judging by their behaviour as I observe them.

It looks to be a group of a dozen or so students, who have taken it upon themselves to form a sort of 'Guard of Honour' for a similar sized group of aging ramblers striding purposefully along through the park.

As the ramblers pass by, each student in turn cajoles them into giving an awkward and rather bemused 'high five' to the entire line, who then cheer rapturously.

Rambling High Fives
(sounds like the name of an old Blues band...)

I've no idea what the ramblers themselves think about all this, though many of them do seem very happy to join in the fun - however cack-handedly. But to me the students seem to be a little too obviously making fun of people whose only 'crime' is to be older than themselves. I'm all for having fun - I certainly did when I was a student (as my grades would no doubt tell you) - but I don't see the need to mock others in order to do so.

In any case, it marks a disappointing end to a generally unfulfilling day.

Here's hoping the remaining 'Ws' have rather more to offer. Certainly my next batch should, as it includes Westminster - the station nearest to the seat of government in this country, the Houses of Parliament, as well as the place where kings and queens are crowned, and poets, playwrights and politicians are buried - Westminster Abbey.

Until next time...

'Go West'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 25 Jul 2017 18:50:00 +0000

Day 94

West Acton - Westbourne Park - West Brompton - West Croydon - Westferry

My first journey today is about as short and sweet as you can get, without actually staying put in one place.

I'm travelling the grand distance of just one stop along the Central Line from my home station of Ealing Broadway to its next-door neighbour, West Acton.

West Acton

Yes, we've entered the 'West' zone - having previously moaned about all the 'Easts', 'Norths' and 'Souths', I'm now embarking on the final point of the compass - and the list of stations with 'West' in their name is not a short one...

...Unlike my visit to West Acton, which is very short indeed.

I've been in this area before, since North Ealing tube station is only just up the road from here, so there isn't really all that much to discover.

The local 'greasy spoon'....

I mentioned on my visit to North Ealing that the area here is very popular with the Japanese community, and that's very obvious from the collection of shops, cafés and estate agents outside the station.

Japanese Supermarket

Japanese Estate Agent

But other than these, there's very little to say about the place. It's a reasonably pretty, well-kept conservation area, and I'm sure it's a lovely place to live - if you happen to be a Japanophile - but not especially interesting to visit.

Entering the conservation area...

Very neat... if a little dull...

So, after little more than 15 or 20 minutes here, I head on to my next stop.

***

My next stop is Westbourne Park - a station on both the Circle Line, and the Hammersmith & City Line.

This too is a relatively quick journey - just a short hop to White City on the Central Line then a brief walk to Wood Lane to get the train to Westbourne Park. (All 'W' stations you'll notice - why, oh, why am I being so strict about this alphabetical business? I could have crossed off another couple of stations there!)

As I reach the elevated platform at Wood Lane to wait for my train north, I'm confronted with the sobering sight of one of London's most recently noted (though for the most tragic and horrific of reasons) landmarks.

Grenfell Tower

The tower block whose name - Grenfell Tower - is now known to the world, has been here for years of course, and I must have seen it many times as I've journeyed from this station.

Monument to the
Victims

But the fire that ripped through it on the night of the 14th June this year has left such a blackened shell of a building that it stands out against the sky like a giant tomb-stone. And of course, that's pretty much what it is.

There are still many victims of the fire yet to be found and - if at all possible - identified from the a 24-storey residential block, and the causes and ramifications of the tragedy are continuing to breed anger, frustration and resentment among the survivors and their families.

Though some facts have already, it seems, been established and point to the non fire-retardant nature of the exterior cladding of the building as a main contributing factor - the enquiry into the tragedy will no doubt be a long and distressing one, and I can't think of anything to say here, which hasn't already been said many times already by other commentators far better informed than I am.

I do think, however, that there is a case - however strange it may sound - for preserving the remains of the tower exactly as they are (always assuming they can be made safe), especially if - as has been suggested - cost-cutting and poor fire safety provisions are in any way to blame.

It would certainly be a vivid reminder of the human cost of bureaucratic decisions.

***
At Westbourne Park there is, yet again, not all that much to see and do.

Westbourne Park

The A40 Westway passes overhead just to the north of the station, and a little further north the Grand Union Canal provides a little escape from the concrete and exhaust fumes of the roads above.

Grand Union Canal

Similarly, a reasonably sized park next to the canal is an area where the locals - whose idea it was to build the park in the first place - to relax and enjoy themselves.

Meanwhile Gardens

The park was built in derelict ground in the late 1970s by a group of locals fed up with the site of rubble and corrugated iron fencing, who obtained a grant from the council and set to work to transform the waste ground into the park that stands here today.

Foundation Stone

Originally the council only agreed for the area to be used as gardens 'for the meanwhile' - until they had finalised their own plans for development - but as it proved so popular, the park stayed, and the name 'Meanwhile Gardens' was adopted.

Aren't you a little old for that...?

There are several youngsters making use of the skate-board area in the middle of the park, and one person who is clearly not quite so young, who I presume is teaching them the fine arts of skate-boarding. Either that or he's finding it hard to accept that he may not be as young as he used to be...

Homes along the canal

I leave the park at one of its northern exits and walk back eastwards along the canal to the main road, from which I head back to the station - after a brief but pleasant visit - and make my way onwards.

***
West Brompton is next and - once again - this is an area I've skirted the fringes of on a previous visit.

West Brompton

I suppose it's inevitable at this stage of the journey - which is effectively just a case of 'joining the dots' between all the stations I've previously crossed off my list.

In this case the nearby station I've already visited is Earls Court, just around the corner, and the eponymous exhibition centre I photographed on that occasion has long been demolished.

Which leaves me with the Brompton Cemetery as the main 'attraction' of this particular locale.

How very cheery...

On my way there I'm accosted by an aging Australian gentleman, who - like me - is carrying a camera, and who asks if I am part of their 'Photo Walking Group'. Apparently they're missing someone and they can't start the walk - which is going to take in the cemetery - without their lost sheep.

I'm not altogether sorry to have to disappoint him, and I take the opportunity - while he continues to look for the wayward photographer - of getting ahead of his group so as to avoid having half a dozen obtrusive photographers getting in the way of all my atmospheric graveyard shots.

Brompton Cemetery

The cemetery is one of the so-called 'Magnificent Seven' private (as opposed to parish church owned) cemeteries established in the 19th Century to alleviate overcrowding in the smaller graveyards. The other six are - Kensal Green, West Norwood, Highgate, Abney Park, Nunhead and Tower Hamlets.

Some of the 35,000 monuments

There are over 35,000 monuments in the cemetery, ranging from simple headstones to lavish mausoleums and - if you have the time to look for them - there are several noted personages buried here, including Emmeline Pankhurst and .

R.I.P.

I wander around for a brief time, but don't, unfortunately, have time to locate all the famous names on the gravestones.

I do marvel at the extent some people will go to show off their wealth - even after death. Some of the mausoleums and family vaults are practically buildings in their own right and must have cost a pretty packet when they were built - to the annoyance, no doubt, of the people hoping to inherit from the deceased.

Impressed?.... Me neither.

Personally, I prefer some of the simpler monuments, and though I'm not generally a fan of the weeping angel motif, I do find one or two of the stone figures here rather atmospheric, tucked as they are among the greenery.

Simple and Serene.

Along the road from the cemetery (and actually closer to Earls Court Station than to West Brompton) is the former home of the famous children's author, Beatrix Potter.

Or, so at least, I'm led to believe.

At first I have some trouble locating the site - despite having the exact address - thanks to the curiously confusing geography of the street in question.

Bolton Gardens (for such is the street I'm looking for) is - according to the map - a road running eastwards off the Earls Court Road.

As I turn up this from the Old Brompton Road and walk northwards, however, I cannot seem to see any street sign of that name. I pass Wetherby Mews and then Bramham Gardens and am more than a little puzzled - as Bolton Gardens should, if the map is anything to go by, be between the two.

It's only when I turn on my heels and head south again, that the mystery is (partially at least) solved.

It would appear that Bramham Gardens is only Bramham Gardens on one side of the street - on the other it is in fact the street I'm looking for; Bolton Gardens.

Ah, so that's where you've hidden it...

Of course it is. I mean, why wouldn't it be?

The fact that you only discover this if - like me - you happen to turn round and see the sign on the south side of street, as opposed to the one on the north side (which makes no mention of Bolton Gardens whatsoever) is, I suppose, just one of those quaint little idiosyncrasies that London is so fond of throwing at the unwary traveller.

Not that the fun stops there. Oh no.

Having, as I assume, found Bolton Gardens, I wander along it looking for number 2 - the erstwhile home of Ms Potter.

But the last (or first, if you prefer) house on this stretch of road is number 16.

Huh?!?!?

Aaahhhh - the numbering (and the street) goes round the corner! How could I not have suspected as much? Oh, and they go round the next corner too, so that I'm almost doubling back on myself! What fun!

Did she, did she really... well bully for her...

In fact, the house I'm looking for no longer actually stands, but was (according to the plaque on the wall) formerly located on the site of what is nowadays a Primary School...

...which stands on the Old Brompton Road.

I give up.

***
Next it's on to what I had planned to be my final stop of the day - West Croydon.

Given how little time I've spent in each location so far, however, it may well be possible to squeeze in an extra station before the end of the day. We shall see...

West Croydon - as a quick glance at the tube map will show you - is somewhat out on a limb, geographically speaking and looks to be a long trek to get to from West Brompton.

In reality, however, there are several options for me in terms of the routes I could take.

Firstly I could take a couple of tube trains to Canada Water and then the Overground from there to West Croydon. Alternatively I could take the Overground all the way from West Brompton (though this would involve changing at Clapham Junction, and again at Surrey Quays, in order to head south).

But in the end I plump for neither of these, and in fact settle for a method of transport I've not yet used at all on this journey - the Tram.

This is largely because, being a relatively new addition to the tube map (June 2016) though not to the London transport system (May 2000) it doesn't actually appear on the copy of the map on which I'm basing my alphabetical list of stations (December 2013). And so, in the ordinary course of events, I wouldn't get to see any of the stations along its length - which is a shame (though not - I should say - enough of one to make me start my journey over to include them all) because some of them sound rather charming.

Dundonald Road, Phipps Bridge, Sandilands, Gravel Hill, Elmers End... It's as though they'd all been lifted straight from an Enid Blyton story.

Be that as it may, it seems an opportunity not to be missed, and though they're not officially on my list, I can at least give them a nod, in passing as it were, on my way to West Croydon.

The tram leaves from Wimbledon (another 'W' of course!) so I head there first from West Brompton and manage to catch a tram within a few minutes of my arrival.

It's a sedate journey over to West Croydon, and not an unpleasant one. There's just something about trams...... I've always enjoyed travelling on them in Europe (where they seem to have enjoyed uninterrupted popularity, unlike the UK, where it's only in recent years that they seem to be making a comeback). The more the merrier, I say.

West Croydon

West Croydon station is very close to the town centre, although this isn't particularly glowing recommendation, as the town centre isn't all that much to write home about.

I've seen many town centres on my travels, and there are - of course - several features common to all of them. The pedestrianised areas, the shopping centres, the public benches, the occasional hanging baskets on lamp-posts, the coffee shops, banks and mobile phone shops...

Nevertheless, you can usually tell whether the local council has gone to that extra bit of effort to spruce it up a bit and make it stand out - proudly - from the urban hoi polloi.... or not.

Croydon is, I'm afraid, in the latter camp.

A Tale Of Two Shopping Centres

There's nothing wrong with it per se - it's just all a bit... 'meh'.

I had perhaps been led to expect greater things, since the word 'Croydon' apparently comes from the Saxon 'croeas deanas' which means 'valley of the crocuses', and if that doesn't conjure up a rural idyll I don't know what does...

I wander southwards down the road called North End, which is a pedestrianised street between Croydon's two shopping centres - the 'Whitgift Centre' and 'Centrale'.

It's the usual collection - and clearly popular with the locals judging by the crowds of shoppers bustling around me, even on a Tuesday afternoon - but nothing very inspiring.

At the bottom end of the street is an older looking building, on which a sign tells me that it was formerly 'The Hospital Of The Holy Trinity'.

The Hospital Of The Holy Trinity

What the building is used for today, I'm not quite sure.

I'm also mildly bemused by the specificity with which it offers to help 'certain' (but presumably not all) 'maymed, poore, needie or [most amusingly to today's ears] impotent people'. I mean, how did they choose which 'certain' people to help?

The history of the Hospital

Incidentally, the founder of the hospital was one John Whitgift - Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to his death in 1604. He taught Francis Bacon at Cambridge (before his tenure as Archbishop), and was present at Elizabeth I's deathbed and the coronation of James I. How proud he would be to know that his name is immortalised as that of a shopping centre...

Another name, on another shop, has a rather more recent and unfortunate history.

House Of Reeves at Reeves Corner

The old, family firm of the 'House Of Reeves' - a furniture store established in 1867 - would probably, like the Grenfell Tower, have remained unknown to the general British consciousness were it not for a devastating fire that destroyed one of its main buildings.

Unlike Grenfell, however, this fire was started deliberately - and took place during the rioting that hit various areas of London in August 2011, and spread to other cities in the following days.

The business had been an established part of the Croydon centre for so long that the junction it sat on was officially known as Reeves Corner.

Today the site of the building that was destroyed is a fenced-off gravelled area, planted with trees.

Reeves Corner

***
Well, it's still early enough in the day for me to squeeze in that extra station I wondered about earlier.

Westferry

Not that Westferry promises much more to see or do than any of the other places I've visited.

It's on the DLR between Limehouse and Poplar stations, and is in the Limehouse district, rather than (as might be supposed) a district called Westferry. In fact it gets its name from the road it sits on - Westferry Road which (along with East Ferry Road) was one of two roads leading to the ferry which ran from the southern tip of the Isle Of Dogs.

Westferry Road

The only 'sight' to see in the area, as far as I can tell, is a church called St Anne's, which apparently has the tallest church clock tower in London.

I put the word 'sight' in inverted commas because, unfortunately, seeing the tower is well-nigh impossible thanks to the high walls, chained gates and tall trees that surround it.

I manage to get a couple of photos through a gap in the trees by standing in the carpark of a Community Transport depot next door, but even the best of them is hardly the most awe-inspiring of pictures. (I discover later, from the church's website, that the churchyard is currently remaining under lock and key thanks to the anti-social behaviour of some local yobs - what a wonderful bunch we are sometimes...)

St Anne's Church Tower.

The clock, and indeed the church, are closely linked with the area's maritime history. The clock was designed to be seen by the ships on the river and the top of the tower carries a golden ball, which designates it as a 'Trinity House Sea Mark' as marked on Thames navigation charts.

In the carpark from which I take my photo of the church I notice a mini-bus with the unlikely looking name 'Ethel' printed across its bonnet.

'Ethel' the Mini-bus

Things become a little clearer when I see that, on the side of the mini-bus, is printed 'In memory of Gretchen Franklin' - though my younger readers may need a little explanation.

Gretchen Franklin was an actress who in later years played the character 'Ethel Skinner' in the soap opera 'Eastenders', appearing in its first ever episode in 1985 and off and on up to the year 2000. Having long been a generous supporter of many charities, she left - following her death in 2005 aged 94 - several legacies, including one to the St. Hilda's East Community Centre, who used it to purchase the eponymous mini-bus.

On which heart-warming note it's time to call an end to another day's travelling. More 'West' stations next time, but until then, toodle-pip!

'The Great Gig In The Sky'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 17:57:00 +0000

Day 93

Watford - Watford High Street - Watford Junction - Wembley Central - Wembley Park

A day spent in the top left hand corner of the tube map today, as I travel to five stations concentrated in just two locations - Watford and Wembley.

Before I start though, a word or two about station names and locations.

You might assume - presented (as I am today) with a station called simply 'Watford' - that this is the main station for the town of that name, and that therefore it will be fairly central and close to all the local points of interest.

Similarly, the name 'Wembley Central', must by definition be in the centre of Wembley and one would expect the most interesting things in the area to be fairly close by.

You would, of course, be wrong in both cases.

In the case of the town of Watford, which has three stations, only one of them can be considered in any way 'central', and this is the second on my list - Watford High Street. In Wembley, neither of the main points of interest (the famous Stadium and its next-door neighbour the Arena) are anywhere near the 'Central' station and are instead closer to the final stop on my list - Wembley Park.

Which - frankly - is fairly typical of the sort of nonsense I've come to expect from the Underground network.

***
Anyway, enough of my quibbles - on with the day's travels.

I start at the aforementioned Watford Station, which lies about a mile to the west of the town centre. It is the terminus of the Watford branch of the Metropolitan Line and was built in the arts and crafts style of the 1920s.

Watford

Being some way out of town the area surrounding the station is mainly residential, apart from to the north where there is a large park and nature reserve called Cassiobury Park.

Croquet Lawn

This was once part of the grounds of Cassiobury House, which was the ancestral home of the Earls of Essex from the time of Henry VIII. The house was demolished in 1927 but a large part of the grounds had already been sold to the council in 1909.

Cassiobury Park

It's a big place - over 190 acres - and, as well as the usual wide open spaces and children's play-areas, has some interesting bits of artwork:

Carved artwork...

...finally answering the age old question
of what bears do in the wood

I head to the western edge of the park, where it meets the River Gade.

River Gade

This is one of the three rivers meeting at Rickmansworth, which I encountered on my trip there not so long ago, though it has its source in Buckinghamshire and passes through Hemel Hempstead and Kings Langley on its way south through Hertfordshire.

Another river view

Its waters were used here in Cassiobury Park both to power water mills and also to enable watercress to be cultivated.

And that's pretty much it for this part of Watford - time to head to the two other stations here, starting with Watford High Street, which I hope will prove to have a bit more going on around it...

***
The station is actually on Lower High Street, with the original High Street running north from it. However, since the latter is largely dominated by the enormous INTU Watford Shopping Centre, the station's location does at least give it a bit of breathing space.

Watford High Street

The shopping centre here is run by the same company as that in Uxbridge, and the two towns feel very similar as I wander along the High Street. This isn't altogether surprising as both are in that amorphous stretch of commuter-belt suburbia known as 'Metro-Land'.

I head first to the south of the station, where there is a museum dedicated to all things Watfordian.

Watford Museum

Unfortunately, and rather par for the course on this journey (or so it seems to me) the museum is only open on limited days of the week, and I've arrived on one of the days it is firmly shut.

The High Street

Turning north again I head up to the High Street, which - despite the dominance of the shopping centre - does still have a reasonable supply of shops and cafés catering for the local crowds.

INTU Watford Shopping Centre Entrance

Hornet Sculpture

Again, there are some interesting pieces of public artwork dotted around the centre of town. The first of which is a giant insect, which seems an unnecessarily creepy thing to be looming over the innocent shoppers beneath.

However, the insect in question is a hornet, and is a reference to the nickname (The Hornets) of Watford FC, the local football team, famously supported (and at one point run) by singer Elton John.

A little further up the High Street is St Mary's Church, a mainly 15th Century building with a history that apparently goes back a lot further, making the church about 800 years old.

Face Sculpture near St Mary's Church

Here again are some interesting sculptures, though the significance of the four posts, each topped with a pair of back-to-back faces is sadly lost on me.

The final landmark I visit in the town centre is the Watford Palace Theatre.

Watford Palace Theatre

This is one of the few regional theatres which, as well as hosting touring productions from other companies, produces its own work, and has done for over 100 years. In the 1960s it was run by Jimmy Perry - actor and writer, and one half of the creative team (alongside David Croft) who wrote some of British televisions best known sit-coms, such as Dad's Army, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, and Hi Di Hi.

Then it's on to my final stop in Watford, and one station along the Overground Line to its terminus - Watford Junction.

Watford Junction

There's not an awful lot to say about either the station or its surroundings. The former is - as the name suggests - a reasonably busy interchange of various train lines - not just the Overground but also trains going to the midlands and the Caledonian Sleeper to Carlisle.

The latter - the surroundings - are mainly office blocks by the looks of things, and are as uniformly uninteresting as that suggests.

In fact the only real point of interest here is a rather colourful bus standing outside the station, waiting to take passengers onwards to one of the most popular tourist attractions of recent years - a place in stark contrast to the uninspiring surroundings here at the station.

Bus to the Harry Potter Studio Tour

The Harry Potter phenomenon - both books and films - has dominated the cultural landscape for the last twenty years. The original books captivated the imaginations of millions around the globe, and the subsequent film versions could easily have been a severe disappointment to the many fans.

However, thanks in large part to the watchful eye of author JK Rowling and the fantastic attention to detail of the film-makers, the movie versions did justice to the magical world that young Mr Potter inhabits, as a visit to the Harry Potter Studio Tour at Warner Bros Leavesden Studios will show.

Having been to the studios myself a couple of times already, I don't feel the need to see it again, but I can share with you a few of my photos from those visits, to whet your appetite should you be considering a trip their yourselves.

Costumes in the 'Great Hall'

Text Book in Potion Class

Gryffindor Common Room

The main thought that crosses your mind as you wander around the sets and props is one of sheer disbelief at the amount of detailed work that has gone into making something that might only be seen for a split second of screen-time, if indeed it is seen at all.

For example, how many of you who have seen the films, will have noticed this fully illustrated copy of a Wizarding Comic lying around the Gryffindor Common Room? And yet it hat has been painstakingly created in such great detail that you feel sure it must have played an integral part in some scene or other.

'The Adventures Of Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle'

Some of the hard work does, of course, make it onto the screen for more than a split-second, and features in some of the more memorable moments from the films...

Gringott's Bank
Vault Door

Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes

Tom Riddle's Grave

Hagrid Model

Hogwarts Model

Shop on Diagon Alley

It's well worth a visit, whether or not you're a particular fan of the Harry Potter films, as it gives such an insight into what goes on behind the scenes of a feature film. On the other hand, you do have to put up with a certain amount of enforced geekery from the staff manning the main entrance and the (traditionally overpriced) gift shop at the end.

***
My next stop is Wembley Central, which - as I mentioned at the start of this post - is nowhere near the two major landmarks in the area - Wembley Stadium and Wembley Arena.

Wembley Central

Worse still, the High Road, on which it stands, is not the most salubrious of places to spend any time, despite some recent efforts to spruce it up a bit. The shops are fairly typical, though with rather more pawn-brokers and discount stores than in some wealthier places.

Wembley High Road

A new 'plaza' next to the station contains a few of the more well-known high street names, though even these are restricted to the Argos and TK Maxx type of establishment, rather than anything more upmarket.

So I stay only long enough to grab a bite to eat from the local branch of Costa Coffee, and head off as soon as practicable for my final stop of the day - Wembley Park.

Wembley Park

You can tell, just from the station entrance, that this is more like it.

Man Catching A Star - sculpture outside the station.

There's a 'grandness' about those steps, leading down to the pedestrianised 'Olympic Way', at the other end of which is the imposing structure of the world-famous stadium - and the whole area feels somehow cleaner and shinier than the High Road was.

Olympic Way - with Stadium at the end.

Of course, a lot of this is relatively new - not least the stadium itself, or at least, its current incarnation.

Wembley Stadium (Mark II)

The original stadium, with its twin towers, was opened in 1923 as the 'Empire Stadium'. It was built to house the British Empire Exhibition in 1924-25 though the first event to take place there was the FA cup final of 1923 - a fixture which was to take place at the venue every year following this.

It also hosted the 1966 World Cup - in which the England team were the victors for the first and, so far, only time. A memorial to that victory, and to one of its key players, captain Bobby Moore, stands outside the stadium.

Bobby Moore statue

The stadium has also become famous as a music venue, hosting concerts by every major band and singer from the worlds of pop and rock. Perhaps most spectacularly, it was the British venue for the 1985 Live Aid Concert - the 'Global Jukebox' - which, with its sister concert at the Philadelphia JFK Stadium, raised millions of pounds to help those affected by the Ethiopian famine of the mid 80s.

My own experience of concerts there is varied, but I think the one that stands out most in my mind, for personal reasons which shall become clear, is the "Zooropa" tour by U2, which I attended here on the 21st August 1993.

I was a fresh-faced student at the time, and a big fan of the band, so the opportunity to see them live was one I eagerly grasped, despite the relatively high cost of tickets. The show - as you might expect if you know anything about U2's live performances - was a huge extravaganza of lighting, video screens, special effects, costumes and guest appearances, as well as the music they were world-famous for.

However, the thing that makes it most memorable for me, is something that lasted barely 10 seconds, but 10 seconds during which I may - just may - have set a world record.

Let me explain...

Before the show got under way, as people were drifting into the stadium with their plastic pint pots full of beer and trying to grab the best spots from which to see the band, a number of small booths dotted around the stadium were quietly videoing whoever wanted to pop in and say something.

Called 'Video Confessionals' - they were designed to film the concert-goer's confessions, the best/worst/most amusing of which were to be edited together and shown in the break after the main concert and before the band came back for the encore.

Being something of a wag, and not having anything I much to confess (or that I was willing to, at any rate) I joined the queue to the booth with something a little different in mind.

Of course, I had to frame it in such a way as to sound like a confession, so I chose my wording very carefully. This is what I said:

"My confession is that I've always wanted to break the world record for the largest number of people to say the word 'f**k' simultaneously. So here goes - one, two, three....!"

The cameraman gave a little chuckle as he filmed me, so I thought that at least I'd given him a laugh, if nothing else. However, you can imagine my shock as my own face was - later in the evening - projected onto 80 foot high video screens either side of the stage, and my message played to the gathered thousands.

Not only that, but they all did it! After my count of three, the entire audience (of 70-odd thousand) all shouted the specified expletive with gusto.

Of course, I have no idea if such a World Record exists, nor whether I managed to break it. And since no-one from the Guinness Book of Records was on hand to corroborate the event, and the exact number of people who were there and who said the word is debatable, the point is somewhat academic.

Nevertheless, I like to hope that the rest of the crowd, as well as myself, feel that they were part of something special and collaborative that night - and not just indulging me in a bit of puerile student-y showing off...

The old stadium was demolished in the early 2000s and its replacement opened in 2007. Rubble from the original was used to build the artificial hills at Northala Fields in Northolt, which have become a landmark of the A40 out of London.

***
Across the 'Olympic Way' is the second of Wembley's two venues - the Arena.

Construction in front of Wembley Arena

I say 'across the way', but as you can just about see from the bottom of the picture above, the way in question is currently in the process of being dug up - and the resulting construction of several blocks of flats running the length of Olympic Way will effectively divide the Stadium from the Arena like a modern day Berlin Wall, and surround the two iconic venues with concrete as far as the eye can see.

The Arena

It's a shame, as the two buildings really need a bit of space around them to get the full impact of their architecture - but such is the way of the world these days...

My visit to the Arena is being made somewhat more personalised thanks to the fact that I happen to be jolly good chums with someone who works there, and who has offered to take me around some of the less publicly accessible parts of the venue.

King Jon at work...

'King Jon' (as he prefers, for reasons of his own, to be known), works in the Box Office, and is always ready to greet the paying public with a cheery smile and a friendly 'hello'.

... and the fruits of his labours.

He has asked the building manager to show me two points of interest, the first being the view from the roof of the building.

Up on the roof - looking towards Harrow On The Hill

'King Jon' - despite his lack of any head for heights - accompanies us up the tall and rather precarious feeling ladder that is tucked away through a door behind the topmost rank of seating.

King Jon being very brave

While I enjoy the view my friend stays well back from the edge and grips the nearest hand-hold so firmly that his knuckles turn as white as the shirt he is wearing.

Fountain in the plaza in front of the Arena

I have no such vertiginous feelings and get some great shots of the plaza below me and of the Stadium next door (before the view is permanently obscured by tower blocks).

The Stadium in all its glory

Then we head back down the ladder, and further, into the depths of the basement beneath the building, which was - in a former life - something very different...

The Arena, like the Stadium, is both a sporting and a concert venue, though these days hosts more of the latter than the former.

When originally built however, this was most definitely not the case, and few concert-goers these days probably realise they are tapping (or perhaps more likely stomping) their feet on a floor which sits above a former Olympic sized swimming pool.

The Empire Pool (as the Arena was originally called) was built for the 1934 British Empire Games - the forerunner of the modern day Commonwealth Games - and was also used for the 1948 London Olympic Games.

The pool itself is now - as I have mentioned - in the basement of the Arena building, and is not particularly well lit... or accessible.

However, having clambered under air-duct pipes and through miniscule hatchways, I stand beneath the floor of the Arena and look across the extremely dimly-lit former pool.

The Empire Pool - no really, it's a swimming pool, honest...

Impressive huh?

Ok - the lighting does mean you can't actually tell what it is from the photograph above, but I assure you that 'in the flesh' the shape and size of the pool is more obvious.

Other signs of the Arena's former use are more easily seen - including the depth markers printed on what were formerly the sides of the pool, and the glass 'portholes' in its walls, which - owing to the lack of electric lighting when it was first built - allowed natural light to illuminate the pool from the sides.

Depth Markers (the numbers, top right) and portholes.

Back upstairs, perhaps sensing that the basement didn't quite convey the former glory of the pool as well as it could have done, King Jon shows me some photos in one of the Arena's dining areas, which do at least prove that there was a pool here once.

Construction of the pool - with the portholes visible in the sides.

The pool was closed at the outbreak of WWII and only re-opened for the Olympic Games in 1948. But its days as a swimming pool were over, and after the Olympics it was permanently converted to a floored sports venue and, later, music venue.

The pool in use

NME poll winners'
concert memorabilia

It's as the latter that it is now best known, and some of the top names in Rock history have played here, not least the Beatles, who played in the 1960s at the New Musical Express poll-winners' concert.

Guitar signed by the
members of Duran Duran

Memorabilia from past performers is on display in the main entrance of the Arena, and includes not just programmes, photos and back-stage passes, but also instruments used by some of the groups who played here.

And that brings my personal tour of the Arena to a close.

A concrete slab

I leave the building - passing under what was presumably the equivalent of a foundation stone for the original building, but which now appears to have been hung on the wall as a piece of decoration - and make my way home at the end of another successful day's Wombling.

Next up we begin our foray into the many 'West' stations - what larks!

Until then!

'Waterloo Sunset'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 17:13:00 +0000

Day 92

Wapping - Warren Street - Warwick Avenue - Waterloo

Ah, the British summertime weather - how quaintly unpredictable it is...

After several days of wind and rain which have felt more like autumn than the height of summer, we're now back in the throes of another heatwave - making the tube trains as hot and stuffy as a Turkish bath.

Luckily my first stop - Wapping - is by the riverside, so there's a hint of a breeze to take the edge off the heat.

Wapping

Wapping, being by the river, is very proud of its maritime history and has been an integral part of London's docklands for centuries.

The station itself is built over the northern end of the Thames Tunnel - the other end of which I encountered at Rotherhithe, and the trains passing through Wapping on their way south now make use of the former pedestrian tunnels.

There's a Thames Path running along the river, but this is interrupted at regular intervals by the old dock warehouses, which have of course all now become luxury apartments.

Wapping High Street - former warehouses turned luxury flats

View from Thames Path

However, links to the past remain, in particular the sets of stairs leading down to the water's edge at various points along the waterside.

Wapping Old Stairs

The Town Of Ramsgate
leading to
Wapping Old Stairs

These 'Watermen's Steps' - of which Wapping Old Stairs is just one example - gave access to the waterline and were used by the various 'watermen' who taxied passengers to and fro across the river from 14th Century onwards. In much the same way as London's present-day Black Cab drivers have to pass 'The Knowledge', the watermen of old used to have to memorise the locations of the steps as part of their apprenticeship.

Wapping Old Stairs is next to the 'Town Of Ramsgate' pub, one of three along this stretch of the river. This one is also said to be near the site of the old 'Execution Dock' - a noose situated near the shoreline, from which pirates and other seafaring criminals were executed, and their bodies left hanging until at least three tides had washed over their heads.

The notorious pirate Captain Kidd - who has given his name to one of the other two pubs here - was executed in this manner in 1701, following which his body was left in a gibbet by the Thames for three years.

A short distance along from the steps is the Metropolitan Police Marine Policing Unit (aka the Thames River Police). This was formed in 1798 and is said to be England's oldest police force. It merged with the newly formed Metropolitan Police Force in 1839.

Thames River Police HQ

Police Boats

Having walked a little way westwards from the station, I retrace my steps and head eastwards to the third of the pubs along Wapping High Street - the 'Prospect Of Whitby'.

Prospect Of Whitby

Royal Roster

This claims to be the oldest riverside pub in London (don't they all!) and has a large sign on the front listing all the monarchs who have reigned since the pub's construction in about 1520. The first Fuchsia plant to appear in Britain was sold here in the 18th Century.

That's about it for this part of town though, and I head back to the station and on to my next stop.

***
Warren Street station is on the Victoria Line and is, in fact, the final station on that line I have to visit. The imminent end of this long and peculiar journey certainly becomes a lot more real when I begin crossing entire tube lines, instead of just individual stations, off my list!

Warren Street

The station sits at the top end of Tottenham Court Road, where it meets Euston Road, and indeed the station was originally named after the latter.

Its name was changed, after only one year, to that of the much smaller and seemingly insignificant side street off Tottenham Court Road, and once again I'm left to wonder at the rationale behind the naming procedure on the tube network.

This was also the first station to receive wi-fi coverage in 2012.

To the north of the station - across Euston Road - is a very modern office development centred around an attractive and (during the summer months at least) popular open space called Triton Square.

Triton Square

At lunchtime (which is when I arrive) the square is filled with office workers enjoying the sun and their sandwiches and - for the next two weeks - the sights and sounds of Wimbledon courtesy of the giant screen at one end of the square. In front of this are deck-chairs, bean-bags and concrete blocks to sit on, and the surrounding coffee shops and sandwich bars do a roaring trade.

As you can see, beyond the square and looking back across the Euston Road, the former Post Office Tower is fairly close by, in the area known as Fitzrovia.

I've visited this area before of course, when I came to Goodge Street but this time I restrict myself to the far end of Warren Street form the station, on the corner of which stands the empty shell of a shop dear to my heart, and now sadly closed.

French's Bookshop

Goodbye old friend

Samuel French is a name every theatre-maker knows, as the company has been publishing 'standard' editions of plays both here and in the United States since the middle of the 19th Century.

It began as two companies, one run by Samuel French in New York, the other in London by a former actor-manager called Thomas Hailes Lacy. They joined forces in the 1850s but there has been a theatre bookshop as part of the company in London since its inception in 1830.

It was the place to find any play you happen to be looking for. but more than that, it was a place to discover plays you didn't know you were looking for. As an actor you are constantly in search of new audition material, and an hour or so spent browsing the shelves here would nearly always yield an unexpected treat.

Sadly, as the bleak sign in the empty window tells me, after 187 years they have been forced to move to an online only shop - the rising rental fees on the property proving impossible to keep up with.

I return to the station ready to move on to my next stop.

I arrived here on the Northern Line, but am departing on the Victoria Line, and there's a final little treat for me on the Victoria Line platform.

Warren Street Maze

The visual pun on the word 'warren' is a maze designed by influential British designer Alan Fletcher, who also designed logos for the V&A museum, Reuters news agency, the Institute of Directors, and book covers for Penguin Books.

The maze is designed to be tricky enough to be difficult to solve in less than four minutes - providing a challenge to the passenger on the platform waiting for their next train, which - on average - will take only three minutes to arrive.

***
Warwick Avenue is my next stop, and is one of the many stations on the network with no surface building to blot the landscape - preferable to the locals perhaps, but frustrating for the would-be blog-writer...

Warwick Avenue

On the other hand, there is a whopping great ventilation shaft in the middle of the picturesque avenue on which the station lies, looking rather like a WWII guard tower, and you do wonder what the locals make of this...

Ventilation Shaft

It's in the affluent area of Maida Vale, so there are plenty of grand residential buildings, but not much else to see or do in the immediate vicinity of the station.

Warwick Avenue

Not too far away though, is a little gem of a place (especially on a sunny day like today) called - for reasons that will become clear - 'Little Venice'.

Regent's Canal

The Grand Union Canal, Regent's Canal and Paddington Basin all meet here in a large pool known officially as Browning's Pool (after the poet Robert Browning who lived in the area) and unofficially by the locals as the 'Lagoon'.

Entering the 'lagoon'

There's always something pleasant about wandering along a towpath by a picturesque collection of narrow-boats, but somehow being in the middle of London makes it seem like an extra treat.

Browning's Pool

There are, as well as the residential boats, a couple of floating restaurants and even a floating puppet theatre to entertain the local residents (who, as well as the aforementioned Robert Browning) include such luminaries as Robbie Williams, Richard Branson and Noel Gallagher.

Grand Union Canal

Pretty as it undoubtedly is, it doesn't take long to run out of different things to photograph, and I do still have one (rather major) station to visit today, so I leave the canals behind me and head back the station to catch the Bakerloo Line southwards.

***

Waterloo

Waterloo Station is, of course, a railway station as well as a tube station - and the combined passenger footfall makes it the busiest station in Britain. Trains from here serve the south of England's main commuter belt and take Londoners to popular coastal destinations such as Brighton.

The busiest station in Britain... though not everyone has noticed

The tube station opens into the main railway station concourse, above which hangs a four-sided clock which has been the traditional rendezvous point here for decades.

'Meet you under the clock...'

Main concourse

The station was opened in 1848 and named after the nearby Waterloo Bridge (which had been built in 1817, just two years after the famous battle after which it, in turn, was named).

It was also (though this is rather less well known) the terminus of an unusual train service called the London Necropolis Railway. During the 19th Century London was in the midst of a population boom, having more than doubled the number of its inhabitants from the beginning of the century. Not only did this create a housing crisis among the living, it also led to a similar problem finding sufficient accommodation for the deceased, as London's graveyards rapidly filled to capacity.

As a solution, a huge area of land in Brookwood, Surrey was set aside to become a dedicated cemetery for London - to be known as the London Necropolis - and the bodies of the deceased were transported there from a dedicated station within the Waterloo complex.

Outside and to the north of the station is London's famous 'South Bank' - home of the National Theatre, Festival Hall, British Film Institute, London Aquarium and London Eye.

National Theatre

It's also a vibrant promenade filled with street performers and food stalls, as well as the famous second-hand and antique book market tucked underneath Waterloo Bridge itself.

Waterloo Bridge Book Market

This is probably one of my favourite spots in London, and somewhere I can I happily spend hours wandering up and down whenever I'm here - either for the theatre, or having seen a classic film at the BFI, or just enjoying the atmosphere.

Festival Hall

In the years since the turn of the Millennium the most eye-catching landmark along the South Bank has, of course, been the London Eye.

London Eye

The huge Ferris wheel, with its observation pods, stands 443 feet tall and is 394 feet in diameter. It has over 3.75 million visitors per year, making it the country's most popular tourist attraction.

Just to the south of the river, between the South Bank and the Station, is another cinema - and one you can't really miss as it takes up the entire roundabout.

IMAX Cinema

This is the IMAX cinema, owned by the BFI, and location of the largest cinema screen in Britain at 26x20m. IMAX is a film format that offers larger image size and resolution, and though only entering the public consciousness in recent years as more and more films are shot on IMAX film, the technology has been around since the late 1960s and used in huge dome-shaped cinemas and planetariums.

I continue southwards, heading for a road called The Cut.

This road leads eastwards from the station, and contains - among various shops and restaurants - two more of London's best known theatres.

Old Vic

The Old Vic was first opened in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre and subsequently renamed the Royal Victoria Theatre in 1833. By the end of the 19th Century it was already being nicknamed the 'Old Vic' and in 1929 the Old Vic Company was formed, led by Sir John Gielgud and under the artistic directorship of Lilian Baylis, who also managed Sadler's Wells and the company which would later become the English National Opera.

In the 1960s, the fledgling company that would become the National Theatre was based here under the management of Sir Laurence Olivier, while the new premises for the company were being constructed on the South Bank.

In recent years the theatre has been run by Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey, though he has now handed over the reins to Matthew Warchus.

Further along The Cut is the Young Vic - which, as the name suggests, was originally an offshoot of the Old Vic up the road, which started in 1946.

Young Vic

However, the name 'Young Vic', doesn't refer to the fact that this building is newer than that of its 'parent' company, but is instead a reference to the original aims of the theatre, which were to create productions of classic plays specifically for younger audiences aged between 9 and 15.

Over the years the theatre's target age-group has broadened and though still performing classic plays, the audience is now made up of as many adults as younger people.

Having reached the end of another day's travelling, I head back to Waterloo Station to begin my journey home. However, there's one final curiosity for me to take in on the way.

Rather than taking the more obvious Jubilee Line up to Bond Street and getting the Central Line home from there, I'm going instead to be taking the one remaining tube line I've yet to make use of on this entire journey.

This might come as some surprise, after all, I've criss-crossed London several hundred times over the course of the challenge, and travelled on practically every single method of transport in town - from tube trains to overground trains, buses to cable cars, and of course (when absolutely necessary) my own two feet - in order to get from one station to another.

But actually, the fact that I've not yet used the Waterloo & City Line is precisely because it takes you from one station to another... quite literally.

It must be the most pointless route map of any line on the network, but sure enough, above the doors of the train I catch from one station (Waterloo) to another (Bank) is the following informative gem...

Don't think I'll be getting lost on this particular journey...

The Waterloo & City Line was opened in 1898 (when Bank station was called 'City') and transports the many commuters who work in the City of London and who arrive at Waterloo from their homes in Hampshire and Surrey.

It is fully underground, and does not connect to any other line directly, so all the trains on this service have to be brought in and out by being lowered onto the tracks by hoist via an access shaft to the west of Waterloo Station.

It's the shortest line on the network at just under 1.5 miles from station to station and the journey time is approximately four minutes from end to end, which means that my enjoyment of this hitherto un-visited tube line is over practically as soon as it's begun. Nevertheless, I feel it's an appropriate end to the day - allowing me to cross off yet another entire line off the map.

There'll soon be nothing left...

'The Final Countdown'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 17:17:00 +0000

Day 91

Walthamstow Central - Walthamstow Queen's Road - Wandsworth Road - Wanstead - Wanstead Park

Well, here we are then - the final letter of the alphabet (at least, as far as tube station names are concenred).

It's taken me a long time to get here - far longer than I anticipated - and there's still a pretty long way to go. Forty more stations in fact - the largest number of any letter on the tube map. How generous of TFL to give me the longest list of names right at the end of my journey...

***

I start this morning way up in the north-east corner of the tube map, at the top of the Victoria Line.

Walthamstow Central

Walthamstow Central is the first of two stations in Walthamstow, the other being just around the corner - an Overground station called Walthamstow Queen's Road. Since they're so close it seems to make sense to visit and photograph both stations first and then explore the area surrounding them and common to both.

At first I'm a little confused, as there seems to be an Overground station across the road also called Walthamstow Central, and I wonder whether this is the one I'm looking for. Have they changed the name without telling me? But this station is actually connected to the Victoria Line station via a subway and is one of the new additions to the map in recent years (which, as I have previously explained, I'm not counting as part of my journey, which is based on the December 2013 map).

Walthamstow Queen's Road is actually a short way beyond this new station and is tucked away in some back streets (though not, it seems, on the road after which it is named). To get to it you used to have to head south from the tube station down the main road - Hoe Street - and then west along one of the back streets, a walk of some 500 metres.

Ray Dudley Way

It seems that some people felt this was too inconvenient a distance to walk, and a pioneering local campaigner by the name of Ray Dudley was so persistent in asking the council to build a connecting footpath between the two stations that they eventually gave in and did so.

The resulting narrow walkway - which reduces the distance between the two stations to a much more manageable 300 metres - now bears Ray's name, although the council were clearly a little miffed at being forced into doing the work, because they took revenge on poor Mr Dudley by sticking a couple of rubbish bins directly in front of the sign bearing his name.

The rewards of persistence... and the edge of the bins obscuring the accolade.

The station itself is not a particularly impressive affair.

Walthamstow Queen's Road

It was originally just called 'Walthamstow' (whereas Walthamstow Central, when it opened, was called 'Hoe Street' station) and since, as I have mentioned, it isn't actually on the 'Queen's Road' contained in its name, but some 250m north of this, you wonder why they changed the name at all.

I walk to Hoe Street - which is just an average high street, if perhaps a little down at heel.

Hoe Street

The name Walthamstow is, apparently, from the Old English 'Wilcumestowe', meaning 'place of welcome'. I'm not, I have to say, overwhelmed by an abundance of welcome when I arrive - merely the usual mixture of indifference and (as soon as people see my camera) suspicion.

However, since this reaction is fairly typical of London as a whole, I don't hold it against Walthamstow in particular for fitting in with the norm - I'm just disappointed it doesn't live up to its name.

This is perhaps exacerbated by the fact that the weather forecasters have predicted rain for today - following our recent heatwave - and lo and behold, the heavens open as I'm caught in the open on Hoe Street.

There is, however, a shopping centre ('The Mall') to the west of Walthamstow Central station, and I make a dash for its cover - hoping too that it might provide a few more interesting shops than Hoe Street does.

Sadly not.

There's a pound shop and a second hand electronics exchange shop, a discount fashion shop and a few shoe shops - useful for the locals perhaps but not much to tempt me. I opt for a quick coffee while the rain pours down outside.

It eases off after only a shot while, so I head out again and north of the centre to the imposing and impressive edifice that is the Town Hall.

Walthamstow Town Hall

The building was built in the 1930s and its art deco design was the work of one Philip Dalton Hepworth, who won a competition to design the new council headquarters.

There's something vaguely European about it, which seems somewhat out of place in the urban shabbiness that is the rest of Walthamstow - you could easily imagine yourself in Vienna or Berlin, were it not for the red double-deckers kicking up the spray behind me.

The rain keeps coming and going, and I think I've seen most, if not all, that Walthamstow has to offer, so I head back to the station, and to my next destination.

***

Wandsworth Road is another Overground station, this time to the south of London in North Clapham.

Wandsworth Road

The road from which it takes its name is a long one - starting in Vauxhall and ending at Lavender Hill, to the west of here. And even this is just one section of the much longer A3036, which starts at Westminster Bridge opposite the Houses of Parliament and continues until Wandsworth where it merges with the A3 to Portsmouth.

It's a shame therefore, that this particular stretch of it is rather dull.

I've already visited Clapham, to the south, and Stockwell, to the east, so I'm restricted in the area I can explore.

There is, curiously, one place of interest here, though you'd never know it from the outside, and would be quite justified in walking right past it without realising that it is, in fact, a National Trust property.

575 Wandsworth Road

Unlike many of their properties, which include stately homes, ruined abbeys and other such picturesque historical buildings, the property they look after here is a dilapidated looking terrace hidden away behind an overgrown garden.

Number 575 Wandsworth Road was the property of a Kenyan poet called Khadambi Asalache, who bought it in 1981 and lived there until his death in 2006.

Deciding that the house (which had previously been occupied by squatters) was in need of some redecoration, he spent his time there carving intricate fretwork panels from old doors and boxes, which he attached to pretty much every spare surface around the building.

When he died he left the house to the National Trust, who have undertaken some conservation work in order to maintain the building and its decorative woodwork.

Unfortunately you can only get inside the house by arranging a pre-booked tour, and these only run from Thursday to Sunday each week. Today being a Tuesday I'm out of luck, so I take a couple of photos of what I can see of the gloomy interior and the occasional glimpse of the intricate fretwork.

Taking DIY to a new level...

The National Trust website page for the property gives you a better idea of what you can see if you ever decide to pay the place a visit yourselves. For me though, there's nothing else to keep me in this part of town, so I head on once again.

***
And it's back to the north east of London - this time on the Central Line to Wanstead.

Wanstead

Wanstead is the first station on the Hainault (or Fairlop) Loop, and also (as far as I'm concerned) the last - since I've visited all of the others on that little stretch of the Central Line.

It's a Charles Holden design, but not - I would say - one of his more interesting ones, being just a simple square block.

High Street

There's an attractive High Street to the north of the station, the other end of which I explored when I visited Snaresbrook not so long ago. To the south of this is George Green - a fairly plain bit of open space with a few trees and an old water pump at one corner.

George Green Water Pump

Open space is a bit of a theme in the Wanstead area. Between here and my next stop - Wanstead Park station - to the south, there's pretty much little else other than huge swathes of open space - an area which goes by the name of the Wanstead Flats (which tells you something about what you can expect from the landscape).

This is the southernmost part of Epping Forest and covers over 300 acres, comprising mainly grassland.

Since my next stop is about 2km from Wanstead station - on the southern edge of the Flats - I decide to take a bus down to Wanstead Park station, which will allow me to get a good view of the scenery from the top deck as I travel past.

Wanstead Park

Despite its name, Wanstead Park station doesn't appear to be anywhere near the patch of ground called Wanstead Park at all. It's a little confusing, given the way all the greenery around here seems to merge together, but from what I can gather Wanstead Park is actually to the north-east of the Flats and - in the usual perverse way of such things - is actually much closer to Wanstead station than to Wanstead Park station.

From Wanstead Park Station it's a short walk to the south-westernmost tip of Wanstead Flats, and I take a brief stroll into the grasslands.

Wanstead Flats

They certainly live up to their name.

Being part of Epping Forest there are a fair few trees around, but the view is dominated by the vast empty space that stretches out ahead of you.

I'm sure the local canine population have a whale of a time bounding across the grassland, but my own interest fades after only a brief wander around the small corner of the Flats in which I find myself.

And so another day draws to a close, and the first five stations of the final forty have been ticked off my list. There really can't be that many days travelling left for me on this journey. What will I do with myself when it's all over.......?

'Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 17:27:00 +0000

Day 90

Uxbridge - Vauxhall - Victoria

So, having only just failed to complete the letter U last time, and with only two "Vs" to visit, today promises to be the day I cross off two letters of the alphabet in one fell swoop.

I start the day with a jaunt out west, to the final "U" - Uxbridge. It's the terminus of both the Piccadilly Line and Metropolitan Line (although both have other branches terminating elsewhere) and is another station designed by that old friend of ours - Charles Holden.

Uxbridge

Not that you'd immediately spot this fact, or indeed (without the give-away blue signage) that the station is actually a station at all.

The entrance is tucked into the middle of a crescent-shaped façade of shop fronts, and if it weren't for the ornate scrolls on the top of the building and the blue Underground sign over the doorway, you be forgiven for assuming it was the entrance to the public lavatories or something.

Inside the station is another minor oddity - time in the form of some stained glass windows designed by the late Hungarian artist, Ervin Bossányi (1891-1975), who - among other places - also made stained glass for York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral, the Tate Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Stained Glass in the station

Immediately outside the station is a sculpture by Anita Lafford called 'Anticipation'. It was unveiled by the Queen when she visited in 2002 for her Golden Jubilee, and presumably the anticipation in question is that of waiting to see Her Majesty - rather than being dragged around M&S with your mum yet again...

"Anticipation"

Plaque on the sculpture

Beyond the sculpture the station opens out onto a pedestrianised High Street that runs north to south and has two large shopping centres on it, as well as a variety of other outlets.

It's a strange mix of the old and new, with ancient-looking buildings nestling between the gleaming glass and steel of modern office blocks and shopping centres.

The place has certainly seen some history - most notably the (failed) attempt to reach an agreement between the Royalists and Parliamentarians in the English Civil War in 1645. Uxbridge lay between the King's stronghold in Oxford and the Roundheads' base in London, and the venue for the meeting was The Crown (now The Crown and Treaty) pub just north of the town centre.

Crown & Treaty Pub

The pub is just by the Grand Union Canal and I spend a pleasant few minutes walking along the towpath. Again the quaintly painted narrow-boats are reminiscent of the past, while behind them the modern world intrudes in the shape of business parks and air-conditioned offices.

Grand Union Canal

Strolling back southwards through the town the mixture of old and new is quite striking.

High Street - and St. Margaret's Church

The church just off the High Street is St. Margaret's (the original parish church) which has been here since at least 1245..... It's now tucked away behind one of the High Street's many coffee shops.

Other old buildings are now given over to restaurant chains or accountancy firms and have become little more than picturesque façades.

Ye Olde Zizzi

Having therefore exhausted the charms of Uxbridge's High Street, I cross the final "U" off my list and head once more into central London to the first of the "Vs".

***

Both Vauxhall and the second (and last) "V" station, Victoria, are on the Victoria Line and are only two stops apart - separated by Pimlico.

Vauxhall

Vauxhall is not - as you may have supposed - named after a Luton-based car manufacturer, but instead gets its name from a certain Falkes (or Fawkes) de Breauté - a high ranking soldier who served King John in the 13th Century.

His home in this part of London was called Fawkes Hall, which later became corrupted to Vauxhall.

In fact, the car company was originally founded in this part of town, so gets its name from the area - rather than the other way round - and its Griffin logo comes from the heraldic device of the aforementioned de Breauté.

The word 'Vauxhall' has also, for some strange reason, been adopted by the Russian language as the standard word for a train station - "Вокза́л" (pronounced "Vokzal"). There are various suggestions as to why this might be, the simplest being that some visiting Russians saw the word above the station entrance and assumed it was the generic term, rather than the specific name of this station.

On the other hand, the word is also used in Russian to mean a 'pleasure garden' and Vauxhall Pleasure Garden is just around the corner from here (as we shall shortly see) so it may have come from that first.

Either way, the connection with Russia is in many ways ironic, since the major landmark in the area is the huge building known as Vauxhall Cross - or the headquarters of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service.

SIS HQ

I first showed you this building from across the river, when I visited Pimlico, but it's equally distinctive from what is (presumably) its front entrance on Albert Embankment. Which is odd, when you come to think about it, because surely such a secret organisation would be trying very hard not to be distinctive. However, given the number of movies the building has now appeared in, that doesn't seem to bother them all that much.

Around the corner are the aforementioned Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens - one of two main parks in this area.

Entrance to the gardens

The sign at the entrance informs me that the gardens were first laid out in 1661 and were a popular place to dine, listen to music and see the visual arts, as well as to be seen yourself.

Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens today

To be honest, these days it doesn't look all that much to write home about - it's a large open space, with a few trees lining the paths, and some hanging baskets on the lamp-posts. None of the ornately decorated buildings you can see in the historic pictures on the sign above. It seems modern life has eroded the historical landscape as much here as it has in Uxbridge.

There's also, to one side of the park, a city farm.

City Farm

This too is rather uninspiring, certainly compared with the one I saw not too long ago at Stepney Green. There seem to be only a few donkeys mooching about in a couple of the fields outside the main building (which looks like a former church) and the rest of the fields are empty.

Columns at the
park entrance

I leave the park, mildly disappointed, and head to the other park which is to the south of this one - pausing only to take a photo of the two 18m high columns which mark the entrance to the pleasure gardens and which, frankly, are the most impressive thing about it.

The second park in Vauxhall is called (wait for it...) Vauxhall Park.

Vauxhall Park

This too is just your basic bit of greenery - though with rather more trees than the Pleasure Gardens - and with an unusual little collection of model houses in one corner.

Model Houses

These were the work of one Edgar Wilson of Norwood in 1949, who seemed to make a habit of modelling little houses. Another set of his works can be found in (of all places) Melbourne, Australia.

Information on the models

It's all a bit twee and a bit odd. Apparently Mr Wilson made many sets of such houses, but only the ones here and in Melbourne survive. Were the others vandalised? Lost in transit? Or did developers move in and build a model office block on top of them? Who knows...

I head back to Vauxhall station to head north to Victoria, but before I leave I take a wider-view photo of the station to include the bus depot that sits above the underground station, and the two enormous solar panels that jut upwards from this.

Vauxhall Bus Depot

They provide a large part of the electricity for the bus depot, which is admirable - but I have to say that to me the whole thing resembles a pair of chopsticks resting in a bowl of Chinese food...

***

And finally, just a couple of stops along the Victoria Line, I reach the station of the same name.

Victoria

In fact the station, the street it's on and the whole surrounding area are all of course named after Queen Victoria.

Unlike many of the places I've visited, there are actually quite a few points of interest within the station itself, rather than in the wider area (though there are those too).

Firstly the station is not just an underground station but also a Main Line Railway Station, opened in 1860 to provide a terminus north of the river Thames for services from the south of the country. Previously these had stopped south of the river.

Then there's the fact that Victoria Station is the London Terminus of the world famous Orient Express train. It leaves here (apparently) from Platform 2 - though there's no sign of it while I'm here.

Plaque to
The Unknown Warrior

Finally, just around the corner from another platform - number 8 - is a plaque commemorating a very special (and final) journey taken by one traveller following the end of the First World War.

The 'Unknown Warrior' is buried in Westminster Abbey "amongst the kings" to represent the thousands of British soldiers killed in the first war.

It was the idea of an army chaplain - the Rev. David Railton - who had served at the front and seen a grave marked in pencil with the phrase 'an unknown British soldier'. The plan met with the support of the Prime Minister David Lloyd George and the soldier - selected at random - was brought to England via Dover.

The train carrying the coffin arrived at Victoria on the 10th November 1920 and remained there overnight before the coffin was taken to Westminster Abbey for burial the following day.

Victoria lines...

In the station concourse the floor is covered with a network of coloured lines - reminiscent of the tube map - which are actually easily followed directions to the various areas of the station. This is a great idea - far easier than trying to locate the elusive overhead signs you normally get, which invariably lead you in one direction, before another sign points you down a completely contradictory path. I don't know why Victoria is the only station to have this system, but I'd love to see it adopted elsewhere.

The underground part of Victoria Station is - in fact - two connected stations built over 100 years apart. The District and Circle Line station first opened in 1868, while the Victoria Line section opened in 1969.

Outside the station the area is largely taken up with gleaming office blocks - though even among these temples of modernity there are one or two historical curiosities.

For instance, in front of the Victoria Palace Theatre (currently being refurbished behind huge screens) is this diminutive version of one of London's most famous landmarks.

Little Ben

"Little Ben" was erected in 1892, taken down for an extended period of restoration in the 60s, and finally replaced here in 1981.

The restoration was undertaken with sponsorship from a French Oil Company - ELF Aquitaine - "as a gesture of Franco-British friendship", and the hands of the clock are set permanently for Daylight Saving (British Summer) Time, which means that during the winter months the time is correct for France, while in summer it is correct for the UK.

History of Little Ben

A little rhyme on the front of the clock offers an "apology for summer time":

"My hands you may retard or may advance
My heart beats true for England as for France"

The clock was once again removed and restored between 2012 and 2016, while work was also being undertaken at Victoria Station.

Around the corner from both the station and Little Ben is another example of a more historic building struggling to avoid being crowded out by all the gleaming modern offices.

Westminster Cathedral

This is Westminster Cathedral - not to be confused with Westminster Abbey (where our friend the Unknown Warrior found his final resting place - and where Kings, Queens and other luminaries have been married, crowned and interred for centuries) - that's to the east of here and I'll be visiting it when I visit Westminster station in the near future.

Westminster Cathedral is the main Catholic Cathedral in England and Wales (whereas the Abbey is a Church of England edifice). It was built at the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries, opening in 1903, and was designed by the architect John Francis Bentley in the Byzantine style of the east, centred around Constantinople.

The building is striking with its striped brickwork and ornate mosaics - both inside and out.

Front Entrance

Looking inside

In front of the cathedral is a large paved square with tables and chairs dotted around, at which - it seems - the local office-workers take their lunchtime breaks.

I don't join them - my day is done and I'm happy to leave this concrete and glass jungle and head back home.

There's a more modern entrance to the tube station nearby which seems, for some unfathomable reason, to have been covered in Braille.

The new entrance, with its hidden message...

I have no idea what the outside of the building is telling me, nor indeed how anyone is supposed to read it, since many of the panels are higher than most people can reach.

Of course, this means I can give my imagination free reign and assume that it says something very rude about all the tourists passing obliviously by. Of course, it could equally be an injunction to 'pick up litter' or 'mind the gap' - who knows...

In any case, leaving yet another clashing mixture of ancient history and modern commerce behind me, I head home at the end of a very successful day. I've crossed off two letters of the alphabet, and am - or will be next time - very firmly in the home straight! Woo-hoo!

'U Can't Touch This'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 18:40:00 +0000

Day 89

Upminster - Upminster Bridge - Upney - Upper Holloway - Upton Park

We've been having something of a heatwave across the country for the last few days, and despite the sky being a little hazier when I first set off this morning, today promises to be as stiflingly hot and sticky on the tube as ever.

And I'm going to be pushing myself today as I'd really like to get all the U stations done on one go if at all possible.

On paper at least it doesn't look too bad - with four out of the six stations being gathered in reasonably close proximity at the eastern end of the District Line.

The fourth and sixth stations, however, are less conveniently placed - particularly the latter, as it's about as far across town from the eastern end of the District Line as it's possible to go. Still - it's worth a shot, and would be a neatly packaged day of (admittedly uncomfortable) travelling if I pull it off.

I start then, with an hour and a half's journey from the western end of the District Line (Ealing Broadway) to the eastern end - Upminster.

Upminster

Both this station, and its next door neighbour Upminster Bridge are in the once rural area known as Upminster, which is centred around the River Ingrebourne - a tributary of the Thames.

Station Road

There are a few shops on the street south of the station - Station Road - which leads to a crossroads , on the corner of which is the Church of St. Laurence.

Church of St Laurence

Although it has mostly been rebuilt, parts of the tower date back to the original 13th Century building, and it is the tower that is the most significant part of this particular church - for reasons more connected to science than religion.

It was from the top of this tower in 1709 that the Reverend William Derham, rector of Upminster, first accurately measured the speed of sound.

The good reverend climbed to the top of the tower, and used a telescope to observe a shotgun being fired off in the distance. Using a half-second pendulum he then recorded the time it took for him to hear the sound of the shot, and from that was able to calculate the speed of sound.

These days the top of the tower barely manages to overlook the nearby trees, so one assumes that the land surrounding the church was considerably flatter in the early 18th Century...

Heading west from the church I walk towards the next local landmark, the nature of which - if I tell you it is located in Windmill Field - you may be able to guess.

A sign welcomes me to Windmill Field with a smattering of history concerning the windmill itself, and a couple of photographs of the mill in all its glory.

Upminster Windmill Background Info

Which is just as well, since I'm not actually going to be able to see the real thing.

The Windmill - under wraps

It's currently completely covered in plastic sheeting (making it look like it's about to be sent somewhere via courier) which indicates that a massive refurbishment project is underway. So all I can do is look at the pictures on the sign, and carry on along the street towards Upminster Bridge.

Not surprisingly, the station is named after a crossing over the local river - the Ingrebourne. However, at this point along its length this is little more than an overgrown and rather unexciting stream tucked away behind long runs of fencing, and the bridge over it is so inconspicuous as to be easily missed, even when standing on it.

River Ingrebourne

The station itself is a little quirky, for a couple of reasons.

Upminster Bridge

Firstly, the ticket hall is octagonal in shape, and art deco in design, reflecting its age - having been built in the early 1930s.

More striking, however, is the large swastika emblem in the entrance hall.

"Wellbeing and good fortune" - or fascist hate?

Now, I'm sure most people are aware that the swastika began life as a Hindu symbol meaning "well-being and good fortune", and that it was appropriated by the Nazis who have given it a bad name it hardly deserves.

Nevertheless, it was (and sadly still is) such a potent symbol of the fascist movement that it is a little disconcerting to see it so prominently displayed on a public building.

I've been unable to discover the exact reason for its inclusion in the station design. Some sources claim that the swastika was 'a popular design' at the time - but this was in December 1934, by which time Hitler was Chancellor of Germany and the swastika had already been flying on Nazi flags for several years at the Nuremberg Rallies.

Looking back from our modern point of view it seems hardly possible for the swastika's Nazi symbolism to have escaped the notice of those who designed the station - but perhaps it was, at that point, just another design element. After all, just because a bit of stonemasonry features a Cross or a Star, it doesn't mean the building is showing inherent support for, say, Switzerland or China...

With nothing else in the area to divert me, and with the clock ticking, I catch the tube from Upminster Bridge and head back along the District Line a few stops, to Upney.

***
Upney Station is on Upney Lane, and is now in the district of Barking, though it was once an area in its own right. Barking Hospital, next to the station, was once Upney Hospital and there is still an Upney Baptist Church to the north of the station.

Upney

The streets consist mainly of unremarkable council houses, built in the 1930s, and at first glance you would be forgiven for thinking there's nothing here of any real interest.

But tucked away behind the rows of semi-detached houses, to the south of the station, is a somewhat surprising find.

Eastbury Manor

It's called Eastbury Manor House, and is an Elizabethan property now owned by the National Trust. Built in about 1573, the house retains many of the original features, including exposed timbers, lead drainage and interior wall paintings.

Architectural Info

There doesn't seem to be any sign of life from within the building as I wander around the neat gardens outside, and looking through the downstairs windows all I can see is bare empty rooms - nothing especially ornate. It's all a bit of a disappointment - much like the shrink-wrapped windmill in Upminster - and after only a few minutes taking photos of the exterior, I leave Eastbury Manor and head back to the station.

***
After a single stop's journey to Barking, I change from the District Line to the Overground Line to travel to my next destination - Upper Holloway.

This is a (relatively) short stretch of the Overground network between Barking and Gospel Oak, and trains run only every 15 minutes, so I have a bit of a wait before continuing my journey. Similarly the train seems to be running at a slower than usual speed on this stretch of the line, so by the time I arrive at Upper Holloway nearly an hour has passed. Not very good as far as my intended schedule is concerned as I still have two more stations I'd like to visit after this one.

Upper Holloway

The station is on Holloway road, in the area known as Holloway (unlike Upney - the station and the area still share the same name). This is within the Borough of Islington, and I had therefore expected it to be rather gentrified, but in fact this isn't (yet) the case.

There are various shops and cafés along Holloway Road, but these are nothing much to write home about, being mainly beauty parlours, newsagents and coffee shops, with the occasional estate agent thrown in.

To the south of the station are a couple of points of interest, however, the first of which is pretty hard to miss.

Dick Whittington's Cat

Info about the cat sculpture

The large floral sculpture of a superior looking cat (is there any other kind?) sits at the entrance to Whittington Park - and astute readers will have no trouble putting two and two together and realising that this is all in some way connected to the legend of Dick Whittington - London's most famous Lord Mayor.

If any more clues were needed, a couple of hundred metres to the north of Upper Holloway station is Highgate Hill, where there's a Whittington Hospital and a stone called the Whittington Stone, which is said to mark the point where Dick Whittington heard the sound of Bow Bells, which - unlikely as it seems - 'spoke' to him saying "Turn again Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London..."

Inside the park

I wander into the park - but again, it's nothing special. A few bits of exercise equipment and a kids' playground are slightly dwarfed by the large fenced-off football pitch which takes up the northern half of the park. What little green space there is left over is - today - full of mums and toddlers.

Not sure how many of those landmarks were actually there at the time...

A little further south again, opposite a colourful (if historically and architecturally inaccurate) mural featuring the aforementioned Mr. Whittington, is a small, unregarded side street called Kingsdown Road.

Along this, at a distance of roughly 92 metres, is an utterly insignificant little blue terraced house, whose erstwhile ape-descended inhabitant was a man called Douglas Adams - who, while living here, wrote a novel called the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

It had already been a successful radio series, and would later go on to be a TV series, a stage show, a film, a video game and a series of comics, but it was at number 19, Kingsdown Road that the radio script-writer became the novelist.

That does seem to be it for the area though, so having stopped for a bite to eat, I head back to the station once more.

***
And once again I have a long wait for the train to take me back to Barking, and the District Line to my next stop - Upton Park.

Upton Park

So much so that even before I begin exploring this area, I realise that I'm not going to achieve my hoped-for objective of visiting all the U stations in one day. It's already 3pm, and right now I'm very much in East London, while my next - and last - "U" is in Uxbridge, which is not only the western terminus of both the Piccadilly and Metropolitan Lines but also quite possibly the most westerly town in Greater London.

It will take me a good hour and a half to get there, even if I don't spend that long here, and then there's the time I need to have a look around...

So, reluctantly, I decide to end my day's travelling here at Upton Park.

And, sadly, it's not the most salubrious of areas at which to round off the day.

The street outside the station is Green Street, though only by name, as the buildings are very much brick and concrete. It's a shopping street, with many of the businesses reflecting the largely Muslim community that lives here.

The station itself was - unusually - built by property developers in 1877 to serve the housing development they had built nearby. 'Upton' was a nearby village, and the developers added the word 'Park' to give it more of an appealing gentility. The name was gradually adopted by the surrounding area.

Just to the south of the station is a large covered market - Queen's Market - originally a street market run by Jewish stall-holders, and now the usual collection of clothing and household goods.

Queen's Market

At the bottom of Green Street I turn eastwards and head a short way along Barking Road.

I've noticed a shop marked on the map that seems oddly out of place here for some reason, though it certainly seems popular when I arrive outside its door.

The WHO Shop

The 'WHO' Shop is nothing to do with the World Health Organisation, but is actually an emporium selling all things related to the TV show 'Doctor Who'.

Everything from Sonic Screwdriver Earrings to Cybermen Christmas Baubles

Quite why such an establishment should have settled way out here in East London, as opposed to - say - the seemingly more lucrative Covent Garden area is something only the owners can explain. Nevertheless, there are a handful of German students taking photos of the exterior when I arrive, and several more inside browsing the impressive collection of props, memorabilia and - let's face it - nerdy tat, that form the shop's merchandise.

World Cup Sculpture
'The Champions'

Retracing my steps from the WHO shop to Green Street, I pass a sculpture of several football players at the junction of the two roads - Barking Road and Green Street - the reason for which will soon become clear...

Green Street also marks the boundary between the areas known as West Ham and East Ham - and West Ham football club played for many years at a ground just off this street called - officially - the Boleyn Ground (after the house which formerly stood there - at which Anne Boleyn is said to have stayed). Unofficially the ground was known simply as Upton Park.

Three of the players in the 1966 World Cup winning England squad - Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters - all played for West Ham (the fourth figure in the sculpture is Ray Wilson, who was in the photograph on which the sculpture is based).

Following the Olympics in 2012, West Ham have moved into the former Olympic Stadium, as I noted when I visited Stratford a little while ago.

A quick look at the map will show you that their original ground was actually in East rather than West Ham, so the move to Stratford (which is in the West Ham area) does at least mean their name makes sense again.

Their former home is, however, not long for this world.

The last remaining turret...

As I pass by I can see the demolition crew hard at work and there is very little of the original structure left. It is now - appropriately enough perhaps for this area - in the hands of property developers, who are going to be building new homes and leisure facilities on the site.

And that's all I manage to fit in today.

It's a little disappointing not have finished off the letter, and a tad galling to have to head out again for just one more "U". On the other hand - since there are only two "Vs" in total - I'm going to take the unusual (for me) step of covering two letters in one journey.

Which means that, all being well, next time out I'll be crossing two letters off my list in one go - which can't be bad going!

Ta-ta till then!

'The Village Green Preservation Society'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 13 Jun 2017 18:34:00 +0000

Day 88

Tufnell Park - Turnham Green - Turnpike Lane

So here it is - the final day of the letter 'T'. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the trains (most usefully) are running, and all is right with the world.

Well, obviously there's a lot that isn't particularly right with the world, but since the lunatics do seem rather to have taken over the asylum in recent years, I don't think there's much I can do about that. I'll just get on with a bit more of my innocuous tube travelling and keep out of everyone's way...

***

I start with a journey north on the Northern Line to Tufnell Park.

Tufnell Park

This is a name that, for me, has long been associated with the following pithy description - taken from the opening lines of the play Greek by Steven Berkoff:

"So, I was spawned in Tufnell Park that's no more than a stone's throw from the Angel / a monkey's fart from Tottenham or a bolt of phlegm from Stamford Hill / it's a cesspit, right... a scum-hole dense with the drabs who prop up corner pubs..."

Nice!

And - from the first impressions I get as I emerge from the tube station - the rather 'thuggish' description above is one I don't think it really deserves.

Admittedly, the play was first performed in 1980, when things may have been very different around here - and Berkoff has, of course, always focussed on the 'grittier' side of life...

But it actually seems quite pleasant here...

Camden to the left of me, Islington to the right...

The station is right on the border between the two boroughs of Camden and Islington - neither of which are exactly 'down-market' - and the elaborate architecture of the 'Boston' Music Room marks the dividing point. To the left of it is Dartmouth Hill Road, in Camden, and to the right, Junction Road in Islington.

Neighbouring boroughs...

I wander first up Fortress Road - on the Camden side - which contains a comprehensive selection of artisan bakers, independent butchers and fishmongers, coffee shops, restaurants and other divers emporia - the 'village' feel in evidence again.

The other streets are mainly residential and are lined with moderately grand Edwardian terraces, and plenty of trees along the pavements.

Into Islington...

It's all very picturesque and I'm not surprised that the area has attracted a number of well-known faces. Among those who live (or have lived) in the area are labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, actors Christopher Lee, Bill Nighy, Cathy Tyson, Damien Lewis and Helen McCrory, comedian Charlie Higson and - perhaps more disturbingly - infamous wife-murderer Dr. Crippen.

As I wander eastwards into Islington, along Tufnell Park Road, I spot an unusual sign on one of the otherwise unexceptional side-streets.

Lest we forget...

I'm used to seeing Blue Plaques, War Memorials and other inscriptions to the late lamented of the city - but the A4 sized sign commemorating Henry L. Barber - 'a man who lived in this street and lost his life in the First World War' - seems an unusually personal memorial.

It seems to have been issued by the Borough of Islington itself, rather than put up by a relative of the deceased, but surely they can't be commemorating each person individually? There must be thousands of people from this area who died in that war - or was Mr Barber the only one who could be identified?

Pleasant though the area is, it's also relatively self-contained, and after only a few more minutes wandering I feel like I've exhausted the area immediately surrounding the station - so I move on to my next destination, which in many ways is equally, if not more, welcoming.

***
Turnham Green is one of the series of stations running parallel to the Chiswick High Road between Hammersmith and Acton . It's named - you won't be surprised to hear - after a patch of open land, on - or near - which a Civil War battle took place in 1642.

What might surprise you a little more is that the patch of open land in question is neither of the two green spaces immediately visible as you leave the station entrance.

Turnham Green station

Welcome to Bedford Park

These are called Acton Green Common (to the north of the railway) and Chiswick Common (to the south). The area immediately to the north of the station is called Bedford Park (and was the first ever Garden Suburb, according to a sign opposite the station) and to the south of course is Chiswick High Road.

Any of which would have made a far more sensible name for this particular station than the one it was given, since Turnham Green itself is actually several hundred metres to the west of here, and is much closer to Chiswick Park Station than this one.

Perhaps, you might hypothesise to yourself, Chiswick Park station was originally called 'Turnham Green' and - when it was given (for whatever reason) its new name - the locals were so loath to let the site of the battle go un-commemorated, that they insisted the name be preserved, even if it meant attaching it to a station some distance away?

But no - Chiswick Park station, which actually sits closer to the site of the battle, was originally called Acton Green.

Go figure.

Anyway, I'll wander along to the actual Turnham Green in a little while, but first I'll explore the area around the station a little more.

Just around the corner is a pub called the Tabard, which - for me at least - is of interest because it is also the home of a well-respected pub theatre.

The Tabard

The pub was built in 1880 and the theatre opened just over 100 years later in 1985. It holds 96 people - so is an intimate space - and often hosts stand-up comedy as well as theatre, including gigs by Al Murray, Harry Hill and Russell Brand.

Heading south from the station I pass the two greens I mentioned earlier.

On one of them - as if things weren't confusing enough - is a notice giving the history of the battle that took place on the other green around the corner.

Battle of Turnham Green...
...which didn't happen here.

Again - I'll come to that in a moment...

The station is at the top of a short street called Turnham Green Terrace, which - like Fortress Road in Tufnell Park - is a bustling collection of independent shops and eateries, and which leads in turn to the much busier and even more full of shops, Chiswick High Road.

Turnham Green Terrace

If it's small artisan shops you're after, then Turnham Green Terrace is the place, whereas Chiswick High Road is the home of the larger chains such as M&S, Waitrose, Waterstones, Pizza Express and several pubs.

Chiswick High Road

Across the road from the junction with Turnham Green Terrace, on the High Road, is a statue of Chiswick's most famous former resident - the artist William Hogarth.

He lived pretty much due south of here in a cottage just to the west of what is now known as the Hogarth Roundabout on the A4 - between 1749 and his death in 1764. His house is preserved as a museum.

And so, eventually, after a ten minute walk, I come at last to Turnham Green itself.

Turnham Green

This is really the heart of Chiswick, with the High Road running along its northern edge, and the Town Hall to the south of it. In the centre is a large church, designed by George Gilbert Scott, called Christ Church.

The sunbathers are out in force today, and the sense of village life that I so often take pleasure in finding in London is all around me.

The Battle of Turnham Green was actually more of a Mexican stand-off than a serious blood-letting, with 24,000 Parliamentarian troops simply blocking the advance of the 13,000 Royalist troops who had been trying to march on London.

After a brief flurry of fighting - which resulted in a death toll of less than 50 - the Royalists withdrew back up towards Oxford, missing their one chance to take London, and allowing the Civil War to continue for several more years.

Christ Church, Turnham Green

Since the sun is out and I have plenty of choice of greenery on which to sit and enjoy it, I pick up a sandwich and indulge in a quick picnic lunch before heading off once more northwards to my final destination of the day.

***
Unfortunately - although this is again a station near a green, and with a busy High Street alongside it full of shops and shoppers - the area around Turnpike Lane station has dropped a rung or two down the social scale compared with the previous two locales I've visited today.

Turnpike Lane

Here the bakery is a Greggs, rather than an independent one, and the other shops on the High Road seem to be variations on the 'everything for a pound' theme.

High Road

The station is named after the road it sits on - heading west from here - which in turn was named after a toll-gate that used to be in the area (a 'turnpike' is a turnstile). The area is in the Borough of Haringey, and to the north are Wood Green and Bounds Green - where the infamous 'gun' incident occurred all that time ago - so I'm not entirely surprised at the rather dilapidated feel to the place.

To the south is the curiously pluralised street called Green Lanes, the bottom of which I visited some time ago when I visited the Overground station of the same name, and next to this is Turnpike Lane's version of the village green into which I head next.

I'm intrigued by the huge sculpted acorns on the pavement outside the entrance to the Green, which look as if they've been placed here as decorative seats for the benefit of passers-by. However attractive the seats might be, I just can't imagine anyone wanting to stop and sit on one of them in the middle of the pavement by a busy crossroads, complete with heavy traffic and constant flow of pedestrians, when they could just as easily walk a few yards into the much pleasanter park area next to it.

You should see the size of the squirrels...

The park is an area of former grazing land called Duckett's Common, - though it isn't especially large as 'commons' go - it does offer plenty of greenery, as well as exercise equipment and several basketball courts in which the local school-kids while away their lunch hour.

Duckett's Common

There's a little plaque in the park, giving its history, which tells me that the name comes from one Laurence Duket, a 13th Century landowner who was descended from one of the knights who came over with William the Conqueror.

A little background reading

There are plenty of people enjoying the open space and relaxing around the park - both on and off the benches provided.

Sit on the tree-trunk benches - or just on the grass.

But somehow it's not got quite the same relaxing feel as Turnham Green had. Whereas there I could picture lazy afternoons of cricket, dog walking and picnics - here my imagination strays more towards drug-dealing and late night muggings.

I realise I'm perhaps biased against the whole Haringey area, given my past experience, but there's definitely something not especially welcoming about the place.

All in all it's not the most inspiring way to end my day, or indeed to round off the letter 'T', but at least it's another letter crossed off the list, and one step closer to the end of my long journey.

'Broken Stones'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 20:11:00 +0000

Day 87

Tottenham Hale - Totteridge & Whetstone - Tower Gateway - Tower Hill

A sunnier, if still slightly chilly, start to the day this morning. The forecast is for rain either side of today, so this looks like being my best opportunity to go out Wombling this week.

Which is all to the good, as today I'll be visiting one of the oldest and best known landmarks of the Capital, and I'd like to get some decent photos if I can.

Before that though, I'm heading to two rather less well-known corners of London.

First up (and 'up' is very much the appropriate word, as I'm heading very much north for my first two stops) is Tottenham Hale, which is almost at the very northern end of the Victoria Line.

Tottenham Hale

It is, of course, in the borough of Tottenham, and lies to the south of that area. The 'Hale' part of the name refers to the 'haling' (hoisting or pulling) of goods from the nearby River Lea. To the north are the Tottenham Marshes, and to the east are several large reservoirs, which are collectively known as the Walthamstow Reservoirs.

The area immediately surrounding the station is - unfortunately - not much to write home about. For a start the station itself is undergoing a major refurbishment, so is covered in scaffolding and construction hoardings. In addition though, the area is largely taken up with a huge retail park - with its Pizza Huts, B&Qs, Carphone Warehouses and the like. Other than that, it's mainly tower blocks.

So rather than hang around outside the station I head to the River Lea, where I can at least enjoy the sight of the narrow-boats moored along the riverside.

Tottenham Lock and the River Lea

On the whole it's a pleasant scene - despite the pylons in the distance - and I take a few more snaps of both the boats and the local wildlife before heading back towards the station.

River Lea, looking south

It's a tough life...

On my way there I pass one of the many collections of tower blocks.

'Hale Village'

This one is - I believe - mainly student accommodation, which might be why they've gone to a bit of an effort to make it look a little more decorative. I think, however, that calling it a 'village' is pushing it a bit - it's certainly not a patch on Theydon Bois, the last (proper) village I saw when I was out last week.

In a final effort to find something a little more picturesque, I head north of the station to the local park - 'Down Lane Park'.

Down Lane Park

This too though is a fairly run-of-the-mill affair. In fact, everything - including the riverside narrow-boats - is just a little on the tired-looking side. It's a shame because I think it could all be so much better, though I suspect that would take a financial commitment greater than most local councils are willing to contemplate.

On to my next stop I think...

***
From the top of the Victoria Line to the top of the Northern Line next - Totteridge & Whetstone.

Totteridge & Whetstone

And here there's definitely more that could be described as 'picturesque'. This feels very much like some of the other more rural places I've visited - the 'village' feel definitely in evidence.

In fact, as the name suggests, Totteridge & Whetstone station actually serves a combination of two places, which are next door to each other. The Totteridge area is to the west of the station itself, which technically lies within the Whetstone area, to the east.

And it's Whetstone which seems to offer the most interest for my purposes.

My first port of call is a pub called 'The Griffin' - built in the 1920s, although there has been an inn of sorts on the same site for several centuries.

The Griffin

The reason for my interest isn't the obvious attractions of the pub itself, but for what sits - unobtrusively - in front of it, between a couple of short metal posts.

The Whetstone

This is - according to local lore - the 'whetstone' after which the place is named. A whetstone is the stone used to sharpen knives and other tools, and the chunk of stone outside the pub is, presumably, one that was used by the locals in centuries gone by to keep their cutlery in pristine order.

High Road

The pub is on the High Road, and as I stroll along this street I enjoy a rather more attractive line of shops than I was ever likely to find in Tottenham Hale (I mean, anywhere with a Waitrose has - by definition - got to have a certain class, doesn't it?)

After picking up a sandwich (from Waitrose naturally) for lunch, I head westwards towards (but not actually into) Totteridge. I'm going to have a quick look at the long stretch of green parkland I've seen on the map - just to the west of the station and marking the dividing line between the two neighbouring villages.

Dollis Valley Greenwalk route map

It follows the path of Dollis Brook - a tributary of the River Brent - and is made up of several different smaller parks. A footpath called the Dollis Valley Greenwalk takes you through them all, and I take a short stroll along part of it heading northwards.

The 'Greenwalk' footpath, living up to its name

It's a pleasant spot, though perhaps a little unvaried in its scenery, and it's a nice way to end my visit to this part of town. But now it's on to my final two stations of the day.

***
The next two stations are pretty much next door to each other and both serve on of London's major attractions - the Tower Of London.

Tower Gateway - a DLR station - comes first alphabetically, though I've actually arrived in the area at Tower Hill, on the Circle Line. I therefore adopt my usual practice in these situations and pretend I haven't seen Tower Hill as I emerge from its entrance, and nip quickly round the corner to take my photo of its neighbour, the rather unusually shaped Tower Gateway.

Tower Gateway

I've been unable to find any explanation for the large dome covering the entrance to the escalator up to the usual elevated DLR platforms. Obviously it offers some protection from the weather - though not much of an extension of that over the escalators - but it seems inordinately large and ostentatious.

In any case, the stations themselves are the least interesting sights I'm going to see in this part of town, so I leave the puzzle of Tower Gateway behind me and make my way back to Tower Hill station.

Between the two stations, and rather dwarfed by the backdrop of the Tower of London, is a short section of what remains of the London Wall.

London Wall, with the Tower in the background

It's sometimes easy to forget that London was once a walled city - like York, Canterbury, Winchester and so on. But, while those places have substantially kept their protective battlements, London's wall has all but disappeared in the relentless expansion form its historical centre over the centuries, and only a few small sections of broken stonework remain.

Tower Hill

Before I visit the Tower itself, and having stopped briefly to take a photo of Tower Hill station, I head to a small enclosed garden area, complete with park benches and neatly trimmed hedges, which is called Trinity Square Gardens.

This is the original "Tower Hill", from which the station takes its name. It is also - despite its current cultivated and well-ordered appearance - the site of the scaffold on which the majority of the Tower's erstwhile 'guests' met their gory end. Among those who lost their heads here are such well-known names as Thomas Cromwell, Thomas More, George (brother of Anne) Boleyn and various members of the nobility and clergy who had been deemed traitors.

Site of Public Executions

A small memorial marks the spot where the scaffold stood, though this goes largely ignored by the business-suited office-workers having their lunch in the gardens around it.

As well as the site of the public executions, the Gardens also contain a large war memorial - the Tower Hill Memorial - which is dedicated to those who lost their lives at sea, and therefore have 'no grave but the sea'.

Tower Hill Memorial

It's a memorial of two halves - the above 'vault' is actually the memorial to those who died in the First World War, while behind it is a sunken garden - the memorial to the dead of WWII.

And so, at last, it's time to enter the Tower of London itself.

I've probably made this comment before, but it's all too easy, despite (or possibly as a result of) living in London, to see many of the city's landmarks as being "for the tourists" and somehow never to get round to visiting them yourself.

Such is the case with me and the Tower of London. I've passed by it, seen it, read about it - all many times - but I've never actually paid the entrance fee and gone inside its formidable thick stone walls.

Until today of course.

Outer walls of the Tower

I'm not going to regurgitate the official Guide Book for you, as this is one of those places that - having finally seen it for myself - I now urge you (with apologies for the hypocrisy) to make the effort and visit for yourselves.

However, as I spend the next two hours or so both being guided by one of the Yeoman Warders ('Beefeaters') and then wandering around on my own, I take lots of photos which I hope will give you a feel for the place, and what you can see there. I'll also drop in a few nuggets of historical trivia here and there to whet your appetite.

A Yeoman Warder...

As I mentioned, the first hour or so of my visit is spent in the company of one of the many Yeoman Warders - more commonly known as 'Beefeaters' - who takes a large group on a guided tour of the main sights of the tower.

We start at the outer walls of the Tower, and are given a potted history of the growth of the fortress.

The Tower was originally built by William the Conqueror and has grown over several centuries from its original construction - which consisted of the central 'White Tower', surrounded by a wall of battlements.

...enjoying her work

Two further outer walls were added between 1200 and 1300, surrounded by a moat that was initially enlarged over time, and then eventually filled in (to eradicate the stench from the sewage that had settled in it over the years).

Various sculptures of archers are dotted around the battlements

The main entrance into the Tower is in the same place now as it has been for centuries, though these days the arrow-slits are more likely to contain CCTV cameras than the watchful eye of trained archers. There are a few sculptured figures positioned around the walls, which give an impression of how the place would have been defended in the past.

Between the outermost wall and the next one in is a 'street' called the Outer Ward. this encircles the inner walls and is provides a secondary defence. It is here that the famous 'Traitor's Gate' is to be found - the gate through which the accused would be brought, having travelled to the Tower by boat along the Thames.

Traitor's Gate

Of potential amusement to American visitors is the fact that this gate - synonymous with treachery and betrayal - used to be called the 'Watergate'...

Another piece of trivia is that the phrase 'one for the road', meaning a final drink of the evening, originated here. As the condemned left the main entrance of the Tower, on their way up to Tower Hill, they passed an inn, built into the walls. The innkeeper would always offer the prisoner a tankard of ale - 'one for the road' - which would be their last drink on earth. On one occasion, a prisoner was so convinced he would get a reprieve from the King, and so incensed that this had not arrived in time to save him, that he petulantly refused the proffered tankard and was taken to the scaffold immediately.

Had he paused to drink with the innkeeper, the reprieve - which had indeed been sent - would have arrived in time to save him. The moral, of course, is that it's always worth having just one more drink...

There are several towers built into the various walls surrounding the central tower, and most of these have their own names.

Bloody Tower, with original portcullis

I now pass through the gateway of the 'Bloody Tower' into the Inner Ward, where the White Tower is situated.

White Tower

The White Tower is on a raised mound, and was William the Conqueror's original fortress.

Would you leave
if you could....?

These days the mound is home to the famous Tower of London ravens - of whom legend has it that if they ever leave the tower 'the kingdom will fall'.

How the presence or absence of a half dozen black birds can affect the fate of a nation is anyone's guess, but since the current birds are all housed in their own aviary (when not out on the lawns) and have had their flight feathers clipped, they don't really have much say in the matter.

At the top of the mound, behind the White Tower, are the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula and the Waterloo Barracks, in which the Crown Jewels are kept in the Jewel Room.

The former is a working chapel, as well as being the last resting place of the bodies (if not the heads) of the victims of the axe. These include Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey - all three executed on Henry VIII's orders.

Being of higher status than other 'traitors' these three were all executed within the Inner Ward, in private, rather than in public on Tower Hill - and a memorial now stands in front of the chapel on 'Tower Green'.

Execution Site Memorial

The inscription reads:
"Gentle visitor pause awhile · where you stand death cut away the light of many days · here jewelled names were broken from the vivid thread of life · may they rest in peace while we walk the generations around their strife and courage · under these restless skies"

I now pass into the Waterloo Barracks and to the Jewel Room. I'm not allowed to take photos of the Crown Jewels, for reasons that are not really made clear, but they are - of course - spectacular.

Also dotted around the various nooks and crannies of the Tower are several wire sculptures of wild animals. these are representations of the menagerie that used to reside here, made up of the exotic gifts from foreign Kings and Queens to the monarch of the day.

Are you looking at me?

The menagerie lasted well into the 19th century and included lions, bears, an elephant, wolves, monkeys and various birds of prey.

As I said earlier - I urge you to visit the Tower yourself, as there's far more here than I can possibly cover in this short blog.

Here are a few more of my photos for you to peruse, after which I'll re-join you as I take my leave of the Tower and have a look at the other major landmark of this part of town...

Guards outside the Waterloo Barracks

Armoury inside the White Tower

A selection of weaponry

A fake soldier...

...and another one

Stained Glass

Ravens 'not leaving' the Tower

White Tower seen from the Riverside

The Tower of London is, of course, one of London's foremost attractions, but perhaps a more iconic (in the sense of being an instantly recognisable image) landmark is just to the south of it - spanning the Thames between Tower Hamlets and Southwark.

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge is named, not for its proximity to the Tower of London, but because of the two towers that contain the hydraulic winding mechanism that allows the central sections of the bridge to be raised out of the path of tall ships passing along the river.

It's possible to visit these two towers and the walkway that joins them high above the road bridge below. But like the Tower of London, this has so far not been something I've ever got around to doing - despite living in London for nearly thirty years.

And I'm afraid I'm not going to be doing it today either - as it's been a long old day and I need to get home and start writing up this post for your delight and edification.

But who knows, one day I might just get around to it...

'Empty Spaces'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 19:07:00 +0000

Day 86

Temple - Theydon Bois - Tooting Bec - Tooting Broadway - Tottenham Court Road

So here we go - another letter of the alphabet gets under way!

Before I get into the day's travelling, however, I'm going to share something with you which - though a bit geeky - gave me a bit of a frisson of excitement when I put it together.

In order to keep track of my progress, I've naturally had all of the stations written on a list (alphabetically as they appear on the back of the pocket tube maps) and have been ticking them off one by one as I visit them.

So far so obvious - but in addition, to give me a more visual representation of how I'm doing, I recently decided to create an electronic version of the map, and to blank out all the stations I've visited (including today's).

And here it is...

That's a lot of London I've already crossed off!

Wow.

That's a lot emptier than when I started, and looking far more do-able!

I'm particularly pleased to see that there are whole sections or branches of the network that have no more stations left to visit on them. So, for example, I don't need to go back to the Heathrow branch of the Piccadilly Line, the Richmond branch of the District line, the Edgware branch of the Northern, or the Beckton branch of the DLR. There's definitely a sense of achievement at seeing long stretches of lines entirely bereft of stations.

There are now more empty sections of the map than there are full ones, and in fact some lines are very close to being completely finished. There are only four stations left on the whole Bakerloo line, for example, and only one on the Waterloo and City line!

You know I think I might just be able to do this...

***
Today we start off with a bit of historic London.

I know pretty much every bit of London has some historic significance attached to it, and many have at least one or two ancient buildings tucked away behind the office blocks and supermarkets, but here at Temple the history fairly screams at you from every corner.

Temple

There are offices and shops here, of course, but on the whole they've been incorporated into the several-hundred-year-old buildings, rather than brashly elbowing them out of the way as they do in other parts of town.

Temple station - and the indeed the whole area - is named after the 'Temple Church', to which I'll come in a little while. First though, since it's right next to me, I take a couple of minutes to visit the river just south of the station on Victoria Embankment.

It's a typical busy day on the river, with tourist cruisers and working boats chugging long side by side.

Waterloo Bridge

To my right is Waterloo Bridge, with Westminster in the background, and across the river from me is the National Theatre and what looks like a forest of construction cranes towering above both it and its neighbours.

Cranes at work

But that's the modern face of London - I'm about to head to somewhere much older.

The area known as Temple stretches east from the station almost as far as Blackfriars Bridge, and is bordered to the north by the Strand and Fleet Street. It is divided roughly in half to form Middle Temple to the west and Inner Temple to the east.

In the middle sits the Temple Church, and - though there are a few other things to show you before we get there - it's probably best to explain its history before we delve into the narrow passageways and venerable buildings of the wider area.

It was built in the 12th Century by the order of the Knights Templar as their English Headquarters, though their name actually comes from Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. After the abolition of the order in the 14th Century, the Temple passed into the possession of King Edward II and was eventually passed on to two colleges of lawyers, who moved in to separate sets of buildings but shared the use of the church. The two colleges of lawyers, and the separate buildings they inhabited, became known as two of London's four Inns of Court - Inner Temple and Middle Temple. The Inns of Court - where traditionally all barristers have lodged, trained and practiced - have remained here ever since.

My first view - entering the western edge of Middle Temple from Temple Place - is of the rear of Middle Temple Hall.

Middle Temple Hall, and surrounding chambers

Way back on Day 58, while visiting the replica of the Golden Hinde near London Bridge, I mentioned in passing that I had appeared in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream here at Middle Temple Hall, so I'm familiar enough with the building.

Middle Temple Hall - main entrance

It's closed to the public today, unfortunately, so I can't take any photos of the elaborate interior, but I can assure you that - as the venue that saw the first recorded performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night - it is a uniquely atmospheric place. It is where all the formal dinners for the Inn of Court are held, and its wood panelling, beamed roof and huge portraits lining the walls are positively dripping with history.

On the way to the church

Heading gradually east through the cobbled streets, and covered passages, I come eventually to the Temple Church itself.

Temple Church

A Knight Templar

The original church was just the round section at the western end, but the rest was added only 50 years or so later. It was in the gardens of this church that (according to Shakespeare at least) the opposing houses of York and Lancaster first plucked their respective white and red roses, thus signalling the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. It has survived both the Fire of London and the Blitz, though it has had some renovation and rebuilding over the centuries.

Outside the church is a column topped with a representation of a Knight Templar, though how old this is I can't say.

Western Entrance

The normal entrance to the church is through a door on the southern side, but the main entrance - and the one through which the original initiates hoping to join the Knights Templar would have passed at dawn - is on the original western end of the round church.

This is very ornate and - like everything else around here - seems to speak of its long and complex history.

From the Temple Church I now head north, out of the Temple grounds, and onto two of London's best known streets (at least, to anyone who's ever played Monopoly) - first Fleet Street and then west onto the Strand.

Fleet Street

Fleet Street is probably best known for two things - it was the former home of most of the British press, before it all moved out to Wapping in the 1980s, and it was also the home (in legend at least) of the fictitious 'demon barber' Sweeney Todd.

The legal profession seems to have taken over from the newspapers in most of the buildings, with the majority of them now containing solicitors' offices - those that haven't been turned into pubs or coffee shops that is.

Walking eastwards to the Strand, the legal connection continues, as I stand opposite the entrance to the Royal Courts of Justice. This is where both the 'High Court' and the 'Court of Appeal' are located, which deal with anything from business law and administrative matters to adoption or divorce proceedings.

Royal Courts of Justice

Samuel Johnson

Further west still is the church of St. Clement Danes, which - to me at least - is less interesting in itself than for the statues that stand outside it. Originally founded by the Danish in the 9th Century, the current church dates from the 17th Century and was built by Sir Christopher Wren.

It is now the central church of the Royal Air Force.

There are, as I have mentioned, various statues outside the church. At one end is Samuel Johnson, who lived just north of Fleet Street, and wrote his famous dictionary there.

"Bomber" Harris

At the other end - to the front of the church - are various figures. Two of them are related to the Air Force, though I only recognise the name of one of them - Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris.

He was the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command during WWII and was convinced of the efficacy of 'area bombing' - the bombing of whole cities rather than purely military or industrial facilities. The most famous - and perhaps controversial - of these bombing raids, was the bombing of Dresden in 1945, in which between 23,000 and 25,000 people were killed.

Strand Station

Continuing along the Strand in the direction of Waterloo Bridge, I come to one of London's disused tube stations - though unlike many, the entrance to this one is at least still fairly obvious, even if its name is not.

Despite the signs clearly visible on the front, Strand Station isn't actually Strand Station at all, but Aldwych Station.

It started life as 'Strand' in 1908, but was renamed in 1915 as a result of the very confusing name changes going on at the other end of the road, which - as you may recall - I went into a very detailed explanation of when visiting Charing Cross.

The station closed in 1993 but the platforms and tracks are still accessible, and are now used as a film set, standing in for pretty much any other station as and when required.

Just before Waterloo Bridge is Somerset House, originally a Tudor palace and home to Queen Elizabeth I (before she actually became Queen) but later remodelled and improved in the 17th and 18th Centuries.

Somerset House - courtyard

Designed as a 'national building' the new Somerset House was designed by Sir William Chambers in 1776 (though not completed until 1819). It housed many public offices, such as the 'Salt Office', 'Navy Office', 'Stamp Office', 'Tax Office' and so on, and in later years was the repository of all Birth, Marriage and Death certificates in England and Wales (until these were moved elsewhere, and online versions made available).

Waterloo Bridge is just around the corner, and of course I'll be seeing this from the other side of the river when I visit Waterloo Station itself, so rather than crossing it, I descend the steps leading down to the Embankment beneath, and head back towards Temple Station.

I've one final curiosity to see before I get there though, if at all possible, and that's up a small side alley called Strand Lane.

At the top end of this, behind an anonymous arched window, is the so-called "Roman Bath" - 'so-called' because in all probability they are nothing of the kind, but are instead a 17th Century cistern that provided water to a fountain in the grounds of the old Somerset House.

The "Roman Bath"

Although it's a National Trust property, and there's a sign outside giving a bit of the history of the 'Bath', it isn't what you'd call a typical 'tourist attraction'.

Information outside the 'bath'

View through the window

You can only visit the inside of the building by prior arrangement (and seemingly only as part of a group).

Instead, your average interested passer-by has to press the light-switch on the exterior wall to turn on the timer-controlled lights inside, then crouch down to try and peer through the pretty grimy panes of glass forming the lower half of the arched window.

Even then, all you can really see is a bit of brickwork around a rectangular pit in the gloomy interior.

I attempt to take a photo for your benefit, the result of which is the pretty poor effort shown here. What with the dim light, the grubby window, and the reflection of my own two legs getting in the way no matter what angle I tilt my camera to, it's the best I can do I'm afraid.

And that's it for Temple - at least as far as today's visit goes. There's so much history here that it would be impossible to cover it all in one go, and I have other stations I need to see. So, having barely scratched the surface, I move on to my next destination.

***
And it has to be one of the most eccentrically named stations on the whole tube map.

Theydon Bois

Theydon Bois (pronounced "Boys") gets its name from the 'de Bosco' or 'Bois' family who owned the manor house here in the 12th and 13th Centuries. The 'Bois' part has had various spellings over the years but apparently its current spelling (which, as you may know, also means 'forest' in French) was officially settled on thanks to its proximity to Epping Forest.

Village Green

It's a mainly residential, and very picturesque, village next to the Forest and the last station before Epping on the Central Line.

Duck Pond

It's also a little quirky (even for rural England) in that it is almost entirely devoid of any form of street lighting. Apparently the local residents feel that to introduce this would detract from the 'village-y' feel of the place, which may be true - but it must be an eerie place to wander around late at night...

Avenue on the Green

It has a large village green, and this has an impressive avenue of trees cutting across it, which were apparently planted to celebrate Queen Victoria coming to the throne. Some of these are now, sadly, at the end of their lives and a new line of trees has been planted parallel to the current ones, which will eventually take over.

Forest Drive - the 'main' street

It's not an especially big or exciting place - it's a village after all - but that's actually it's charm. As well as the green, there's a short shopping street and a couple of pubs, and that's about it. On the other hand, it is connected - however remotely - directly to the centre of London via the tube, and it therefore feels less like somewhere remote and cut-off, and more like a friendly and enthusiastic puppy being let out on a very long lead...

All of which fanciful stuff brings me to the end of my time here, as I head back to the station and on to my next two destinations.

***
Ok, so it's really one destination, with two stations in it. The place is Tooting, and the stations are Tooting Bec - to the north - and Tooting Broadway - to the south. Both stations were designed by Charles Holden, and both opened in 1926 as part of the Morden extension.

In complete contrast with the rural idyll I've just left, Tooting is very much part of the hustle and bustle of London and - though the two stations aren't especially close to each other - their environs are pretty much of a muchness.

Tooting Bec

I start (of course) with Tooting Bec, which is about a kilometre north of Tooting Broadway on the Upper Tooting Road.

Upper Tooting Road

The name 'Bec' comes from the 'Abbey Of Our Lady Of Bec' in Normandy, which owned this land following the Norman Conquest - not that there's much evidence of French influence these days. Instead there's a mixture of ethnicities, including a large Muslim community. London's current Mayor - Sadiq Khan - was MP for Tooting before his assumption of office.

Having looked up the area in advance, I know that - other than the shops on this road - the main things I want to try and have a look at are Tooting Bec Common and Tooting Bec Lido, both of which are to the east of this station.

So, I could either head there first, and then south to Tooting Broadway, or - and this seems to make more sense - get both stations under my belt, and then visit the 'sights' afterwards.

This is what I decide to do, and I walk the fifteen minutes or so down to the second of Tooting's stations.

Tooting Broadway

Edward VII

Tooting Broadway feels much more like the 'centre' of things in Tooting. It's busier, for a start, with more shops and cafés, and a statue of Edward VII outside the station gives it a slightly grander air than its neighbour to the north.

I stop for lunch - briefly - but other than taking a photo of His Majesty, there's not a lot else in the immediate vicinity to keep me here for long.

And so I head north again, or rather north-east, to bring me to Tooting Bec Common, and the Lido that it holds.

Tooting Common(s)

I've been calling it Tooting Bec Common but actually there are two Commons here that have been joined together. Tooting Bec Common forms the north-eastern half, and Tooting Graveney Common the south-western half. Together they are properly known as Tooting Commons.

The Lido opened in 1906, and is one of Britains oldest open air pools.

Tooting Bec Lido

It is of course a sad fact of modern life that, were I to spend too long standing outside the railings pointing my camera at all the children happily splashing away inside, I would instantly be branded a child-molesting monster, rather than an innocent passer-by trying to capture the essence of a British institution for the purposes of a (hopefully) enlightening and informative travel blog.

I'm therefore forced to settle for the hurriedly snapped photo of the entrance above, and the following colourful, if fairly uninstructive, image of the backs of some of the changing cubicles.

The outside wall

And that's it for Tooting.

Well, almost.

Back at the station I notice - while waiting for my train back northwards - the clock above the platform.

Self Winding Clock

It bears the name of the 'Self Winding Clock Company' of New York, and is an example of their electromechanical clocks, whose winding mechanism is powered by battery rather than by hand.

In this digital age, that might sound an obvious, and now old-fashioned, mechanism, but when it was first introduced in the late nineteenth Century it was a real innovation.

Prior to this, all clocks had to be wound by hand, which meant that someone had to remember to do so. And if they forgot, the clock would no longer be accurate. 'Exact Time' had become a commodity to be bought and sold as much as anything else, thanks to the increased accuracy of Observatories' equipment and the ability to transmit the current time via Telegraph around the world.

Railways in particular recognised the need for accurate, synchronised time, both for efficiency and safety, and the Self Winding Clock Company made clocks for stations across the world - including Grand Central Station in New York, and - of course - the London Underground.

***
As I'm borne slowly upwards by the escalator to the entrance of my next station - Tottenham Court Road - I'm surprised at the large crowd gathered in the doorways. This is unnaturally busy, even for a Friday afternoon in Central London.

Busy 'ere innit?

At first I wonder whether there's a parade or something going on outside, but the reason soon becomes apparent, and unfortunately it's nothing so exciting.

Despite leaving Tooting in warm weather and sunshine, I emerge from Tottenham Court Road into a torrential downpour.

Tottenham Court Road

I'm not the only one huddling in the station entrance who is ill-prepared - clothing-wise - for this weather, and there are many using newspapers and carrier bags as improvised umbrellas.

I don't mind the rain itself - it's actually quite refreshing - but it isn't very camera-friendly and photography tends to get a bit awkward in weather like this.

I dash across the street to another crowded doorway, in order to get a photo of the station, wondering how long the rain is likely to last, and whether I can still salvage anything from this visit.

Luckily, there's a large multi-storey bookshop just south of the station on Charing Cross Road, and if there's one place I can happily while away a pleasant half-hour or more, it's in a bookshop.

This one is Foyle's Bookshop - which has long been a feature of Charing Cross Road, though it has recently moved slightly north of its original location.

Thankfully, the rain doesn't last all that long, and I can head outside again to have a look around the Tottenham Court Road area.

I mentioned when I visited South Tottenham that the 'Tottenham' of this road is not the same as the 'Tottenham' of the north London Borough. To re-iterate, there was a manor house (the 'Court') at the top of what is now Tottenham Court Road in the 13th Century, owned by a certain William de Tottenhall - and it's from this that the road gets its name.

The road runs north from the station (which is at the crossroads with Oxford Street), with Charing Cross Road running south from it. Tottenham Court Road itself has long been a centre for electronics shops, whereas Charing Cross Road is more famous for its many and various bookshops, including the famous - though sadly long-gone - Marks & Co, more commonly known by their address: 84, Charing Cross Road.

Centre Point

The major landmark that dominates the area is the 33-story tower known as Centre Point.

This is a 1960s construction that is the tallest building in this part of town. It was built as office space by property developer Harry Hyams, despite the fact that at the time of construction (and for several years afterwards) no-one was actually interested in moving into it. It stood empty until 1975.

The problem was that for some reason, Hyams was only interested in leasing it in its entirety to a single company, rather than on a floor-by-floor basis. He stubbornly refused all requests to lease individual floors, causing anger among some who felt that it could be used to alleviate London's housing problems at the time.

Today it's a Grade II Listed building, and has - in recent years - been converted into luxury flats, no doubt sending Mr Hyams spinning in his grave....

And that's your lot for today boys and girls.

I've well and truly broken the back of the 'Ts' and with any luck I'll only need two more trips out before I'm on to the next letter. So, until next time - toodle-pip!

'S Wonderful'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 30 May 2017 20:07:00 +0000

Day 85

Surrey Quays - Swiss Cottage - Sydenham

Before I regale you with the ups and downs of today's travels, a brief word of warning for anyone tempted - following my previous post - to visit the Orbit Tower at Stratford's Olympic Park.

Given that it's Britain's tallest piece of public art, at over 370 feet tall, you won't be surprised that I sensibly took the lift to the top of it. On the way down however, I felt that the 'scenic route' offered by the spiral staircase surrounding the tower would be more appropriate. And, at the time, the 455 steps seemed a very gentle descent.

However, for several days afterwards my calf muscles have been strenuously complaining.

In fact, I could go so far as to say that for a time they moved beyond complaints, and actually went on strike, returning to work only after prolonged negotiations and a hot bath.

So - feel free to visit the tower (indeed I urge you to do so) - but perhaps take a physiotherapist with you, just to be on the safe side...

***
Anyway, back to today.

After the glorious sunshine of last week, today feels oppressive and muggy. The heat is still there, but there are heavy clouds threatening rain and after only the brief walk to the station from home I could already do with a shower and a change of clothes.

Still - I only have a short-ish day ahead of me today, as there are just three stations left on my list of 'Ss', and it shouldn't be too much of a chore to tick them all off.

Two of them (Surrey Quays and Sydenham) are - conveniently - only a few stops apart on the Overground Line heading towards West Croydon.

Unfortunately, and rather less conveniently, they're interrupted alphabetically by Swiss Cottage, which is way up north-west on the diametrically opposite side of London. So - another day of heading back and forth along the same tracks.

It's a fairly straightforward journey to my first stop, Surrey Quays - Central Line to Bond Street, Jubilee Line to Canada Water, and Overground to Surrey Quays - and 45 minutes after boarding at Ealing Broadway, I'm there.

Surrey Quays

Surrey Quays is just to the south of Rotherhithe and Canada Water, and is - as the name suggests - connected with the former London docks.

In fact, the station's earlier name was 'Surrey Docks' and it was only renamed in 1989 after the construction of the local shopping centre.

Surrey Quays Shopping Centre

For reasons best known to marketing executives, the builders of the shopping centre preferred the word 'quays' to the word 'docks' (more 'Cannes' than 'Canning Town'?) and the name was gradually adopted by the surrounding area.

A typical day on the docks... apparently

The shopping centre tries very hard to present a 'maritime' façade - with colourful murals of dock-life over the entrances and even an old ship's wheel turned into a clock.

Yo ho ho...

The trouble is, it all feels like the sort of stuff you'd find in an antiquated Torquay guest house - the kind that hasn't updated its décor since 1973 and calls itself 'The Crow's Nest' or some such nonsense.

However, just beyond the shopping centre, heading slightly east, is the main feature of the area - the docks themselves (or what remain of them).

Greenland Dock

The main body of water is called 'Greenland Dock', with 'South Dock' (obviously) to the south.

The original 'Surrey Commercial Docks' were a system of nine docks, often (as usual) named after the countries they most traded with - hence Greenland Dock, Norway Dock, Canada Dock and so on. Like most of the area, it suffered a decline in the 20th Century but was extensively redeveloped in the 80s and 90s.

I take a walk around the perimeter of Greenland Dock, and as always I enjoy being by the water's edge.

At one point I spot an incongruous little building in front of one of the modern apartment blocks and stroll over to take a look.

Yard Office

'Search me, guv!'

Seeing the little plaque attached to the building I expect to be informed as to its vital place in the history of the docks - but other than telling me that it is a 'Yard Office', the plaque is amusingly uninformative.

'Curlicue'

At the Thames end of the dock is a sculpture called 'Curlicue' by William Pye, which I think is supposed to represent the anchors of the ships that docked here in days gone by, but which reminds me more of those little puzzles you get in Christmas Crackers...

I complete my pleasant circuit of the dock, and head back towards the station.

Kids learning to sail

Hmmm

On my way I spot an intriguing piece of graffiti (or should it be 'street art') that catches my eye. It has a vaguely 'Banksy' look to it, though I'm pretty sure it isn't his work. Still, it's caught my eye and that's all I ask for in a piece of art - so whoever the artist is, they've done their job as far as I'm concerned.

But with nothing else really on offer in this part of town, I retrace (in part) my steps of this morning and head back to Canada Water and on to the Jubilee Line - this time heading north.

***

Swiss Cottage

Swiss Cottage is, so the story goes, named after an inn called the Swiss Tavern, built in 1803-4 in the Swiss style, and later renamed the Swiss Cottage. As you emerge from the tube station you will see, next to the main Finchley Road on which the station stands, a pub very much bedecked with the ornate woodwork and shuttered windows required of any self-respecting Swiss Cottage. However, this is not the original, but a replacement built in the mid 1960s.

Ye Olde Swiss Cottage

It should be obvious really - the sign above the pub proudly proclaims it to be 'Ye Olde Swiss Cottage' - and as everyone knows, anywhere describing itself as 'ye olde' is actually anything but...

Still, it adds a touch of eccentricity to an otherwise fairly run of the mill area.

Finchley Road

The Finchley Road is the main - and very busy - road running northwards out of London through the area, and has a reasonable selection of shops and so on to cater for the locals - and for those visiting the area.

These visitors are likely (unless they're doing something silly like visiting tube stations alphabetically) to be attending one of the two establishments in the area that are both connected - in different ways - to the theatrical world.

These two buildings are located opposite one another just off the main road, and the first of them is the Hampstead Theatre.

Hampstead Theatre

The Hampstead Theatre is one of the foremost theatres dedicated to producing new writing and has two spaces - a main house and a studio theatre. Over its 55 year history it has seen new work by such writers as Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh, Terry Johnson, Abi Morgan, Dennis Kelly, Mike Bartlett and many more, and seen many of the acting world's leading lights tread its boards.

'Central School'

Some of whom may very well have begun their acting careers across the road at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama - or 'Central' as it's more commonly known.

Laurence Olivier was a student there, as were Judi Dench, Harold Pinter and Vanessa Redgrave.

The school, which opened in 1906, was originally housed at the Royal Albert Hall - a marginally more 'central' location than Swiss Cottage (though only just) - but moved to its own building in Swiss Cottage in 1957.

South of both of these buildings is another one with some history, though unconnected with the theatre.

Swiss Cottage Library

This is the Swiss Cottage Central Library and is a Grade II Listed Building. It was designed by Sir Basil Spence and opened in 1964. It's definitely a building of its time, and I can't make up my mind whether I like it or not. It certainly isn't 'pretty', but it does catch the eye, which I suppose counts for something.

But that's about it for Swiss Cottage as far as I can tell. I grab a bite to eat at one of the many coffee shops on Finchley Road, before retracing my steps (again...) and heading back to the south east of London, and the Overground Line to Sydenham.

***
The station sits just off the main road - Sydenham Road - down the short and unimaginatively named 'Sydenham Station Approach'.

Sydenham

However, there's something rather unusual about the tracks on which my train arrives, in that they have actually been laid in what was once a canal. Way back on Day 3, while visiting Anerley, I noted a short section of waterway that was all that remained of the short-lived Croydon Canal. This was abandoned as being commercially unviable after only 27 years of use and was sold to the London and Croydon Railway, who drained the canal before turning it into a railway line.

(And before you all start a commenting frenzy, I realise that turning it into a railway without draining it first would have been rather tricky... you know exactly what I mean!)

Sydenham is the part of London to which the original 'Crystal Palace' structure from the Great Exhibition was moved in 1854 - giving its name to that bit of the area ever since.

Sydenham Road

I walk up the main road from the station - discovering (to my still-suffering calves' displeasure) that it's a very hilly area. Many of the road names reflect this - Sydenham Hill, Westwood Hill, Peak Hill, for example - and just to the north is the area known as Forest Hill.

Kirkdale

On the other hand, some of the other road names do seem a little unusual. I walk up a road called Kirkdale, which - though vaguely North-Country sounding - isn't too unconventional, but then I come across Jews Walk.

Jews Walk... but they're not the only ones.

The name itself is explained by the tale of a wealthy Jewish resident who planted the avenue of trees to mark the boundary of his daily walk. But the grammatical pedant in me sees the lack of apostrophe in the name, and immediately thinks it sounds like a statement of fact - as if the world was unaware of the Jews' ability to put one foot in front of the other...

At the top of Jews Walk is a drinking fountain erected as a memorial to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and restored for our own Queen's Silver Jubilee.

Queen Victoria Memorial Fountain

I've been following a triangular rout, and I turn back eastwards towards the station at the bottom of Jews Walk.

On this road - Westwood Hill - I spot two houses next door to each other, both with Blue Plaques.

George Grove's house

The first commemorates George Grove - who was a Victorian writer and lover of music, who wrote the encyclopaedic 'Dictionary of Music and Musicians'.

Home of Ernest Shackleton

And next door, is the former home of Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton - who undertook many expeditions to the Antarctic.

Next door to both of these is St. Bartholomew's Church, which has a couple of claims to fame.

St. Bartholomew's Church

It was painted by Pissarro in 1871 from the road opposite - Lawrie Park Avenue - and is also the final resting place of several workmen who died during the reconstruction of the Crystal Palace.

Workers' Grave

A plaque explains how twelve men, working on scaffolding, fell to their deaths when the framework collapsed under them.

The story of the accident

Which isn't the happiest note on which to end, I admit - but it does mean the end, not just of another day's travelling, but also of the list of stations beginning with the letter 'S'.

Next time I'll be kicking off the 'Ts' - of which there are just twelve - followed, before too long I hope, by the six 'U' and two 'V' stations. At my present rate of progress I should have ticked that little lot off by the end of June - which is good because the 'Ws' are a rather longer list.

In fact - and of course it would be the final letter of my journey - it's the longest list of any letter of this entire venture, with a grand total of forty stations to visit.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, let's just celebrate the completion of the 'Ss'. Hurrah!

'Games Without Frontiers'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Fri, 26 May 2017 17:57:00 +0000

Day 84

Stratford - Stratford High Street - Stratford International - Sudbury Hill - Sudbury Town

Well, golly! This is the second week running I've managed to fit two days out into one week. I don't know what's got into me...

Well, I do - at least in part.

It's the fact that I'm so close to the end of the 'Ss' that going out today means I'll be able to complete them all by the end of next week's regular Wombling day. And that only leaves four more letters to do (nobody has yet been foolish enough to build any stations starting with the letters 'X', 'Y' or 'Z').

Today will also see me starting the day by ticking off my 300th station (Stratford), leaving just 67 to visit before my task is complete.

That's motivation for anybody to get a bit of an extra spurt on!

***

And what a gorgeous day to be passing such a momentous milestone! The sun is beating down as I set off this morning, and since my first location is very much an 'open-air' one, I'm looking forward to catching some rays.

I'll be visiting five stations in total today - but only two parts of London. For once both the three stations in Stratford and the two in Sudbury are all sensibly named, and thus listed together alphabetically.

Not only that, but in each location the stations are all only one stop apart from each other and on the same line, making my job easier still.

In the case of the Stratford stations this line is the DLR - but luckily for me, my first stop - Stratford - is also on the Central Line (among many others), so I take my seat at Ealing Broadway and settle back for the long journey from West to East.

Stratford

It's impossible to talk about Stratford without talking about the 2012 Olympic Games - for the very good reason that almost everything you see from the moment you arrive at Stratford Station was built (or redeveloped) specifically for that event.

The area round Stratford Station is now called 'Stratford City' and includes the Olympic Park (which I'll be visiting shortly), the huge Westfield Shopping Centre next door, and indeed the station itself. This is served by the Central Line, the Jubilee Line, The DLR, the Overground and the National Rail network, and is one of the busiest stations in London,

When, in 2005, London was announced as the host for the 2012 Olympics, work began almost immediately to transform what had previously been an area pretty much in decline into the sort of place that could form the centre of such a prestigious international event. And five years after the Games, the area still has that 'fresh out of the box' feel.

I walk through the Westfield Shopping Centre - almost an entire town in itself - to get to the Olympic Park.

Westfield Stratford City

While I'm the first to extol the virtues and pleasures of a good old-fashioned High Street, with its independent cafés, its butchers, its bakers, its manufacturers of wax-based illumination and so on - there is definitely something to be said for these self-contained cathedrals of commercialism, especially if (like me) you can visit them during the quieter weekdays when everyone else is busy at work.

Inside the

'We're over here!'

It takes me some time to follow the various signs pointing me in the direction of the Olympic Park, not least because I keep being given tantalizing glimpses of it between the buildings of the shopping centre.

One structure in particular stands out, for obvious reasons - and that's the 'Orbit Tower', though the signs seem to be continually leading me away from it, rather than towards it.

However, my patience is at last rewarded, and I enter the vast Olympic Park.

The Aquatics Centre and Orbit Tower

The first building I see is the flowing, wave-like edifice that is the Aquatics Centre.

Aquatics Centre

The centre contains both the swimming and diving pools and originally had a spectator capacity of 17,500 - though these were housed in temporary seating 'wings' attached to either side of the central structure. Following their removal after the games, the centre can now only hold between 2,800 and 3,800 spectators.

Beyond the Aquatics Centre is the main Olympic Stadium - now home to West Ham Football Club.

Olympic Stadium

'Orbit Tower'

Since there are no events being held here at the moment, and since it's such a gloriously sunny day, I'm content to wander around the park without entering any of the buildings - with just one exception.

I have pre-booked a ticket to visit the top of the 'Orbit Tower', which is not a sporting venue, but a sculpture-cum-viewing platform designed by renowned architect Anish Kapoor.

The tower was built to be a permanent 'legacy' of the Olympic Games, and - much like the Millennium-celebrating O2 Dome and London Eye - was initially the subject of some ridicule and much criticism.

However, again like both of those buildings, the Orbit Tower seems eventually to have been accepted as being 'not quite so bad after all', and now has a regular flow of visitors - especially since the addition of a 178m long spiral slide around the outside of the structure.

Tower - with slide visible to the right of the picture

I've not opted to pay the additional amount to use the slide - I'm more interested in the view from the top of the tower, than in how quickly I can get back down to the bottom of it - but from the screams and laughter I hear emanating from its various curves, I'm sure it's great fun.

Sadly, no doubt in the perennial interests of 'Health and Safety', almost every decent view from the two observation platforms is either through grubby Perspex windows or obscured by the thick metal mesh which surrounds the tower - providing an effective barrier to both accident and photography.

Here though are a few shots to tempt you to visit yourself.

Aquatics Centre

Fountains at the base of the tower -
very popular on a day as hot as this!

Going down...

Having returned to the base of the tower, I wander back through the Park and through Westfield to catch the DLR south to the next station - Stratford High Street.

***
With the Olympic Games having focused the regeneration of Stratford around the main Stratford Station, and with Westfield holding everything you could possibly want in terms of Shops and Restaurants, the High Street, and the station named after it, seem rather lack-lustre in comparison.

Stratford High Street

In fact, the area now known as 'Stratford City' is so large, and its buildings so tall and shiny, that standing on the High Street I have the sense of what it must have felt like to be a medieval peasant - forever outside the impregnable city walls.

High Street

With nothing to see on the High Street, I head back into the station and take the DLR two stops north to Stratford International.

***
Despite its grandiloquent name, this is another station which rather pales beside its bustling neighbour, one stop to the south.

Stratford International

In fact it's really two stations - the DLR station at which I arrive is actually across the road from the mainline station, and it's the latter which is really why people come here.

And this station could legitimately be convicted under the Trades Description Act, since no 'International' trains actually stop there. The name comes from the fact that it is connected, via the 'High Speed 1' route, to both St. Pancras International and Ebbsfleet International - the first two stations on the Eurostar route - though you have to change trains if you actually want to visit the continent.

It's also only a stone's throw from the northern entrance to the Westfield Shopping Centre - with nothing very much in any other direction - so again there's a distinct sense that all the interesting stuff is just beyond those walls...

So that's it for Stratford - time to head way back west (and a little way north) to my next destination.

***
Sudbury Hill is the first of the two stations in Sudbury, but both it and its neighbour Sudbury Town share much in common.

Sudbury Hill

Both were originally opened in 1903, as part of the District Line extension from Ealing Common to South Harrow, but rebuilt in the early 1930s in preparation for the transfer to the Piccadilly Line.

The new stations were also both built to designs by Charles Holden, and are very similar in appearance - the familiar brick cube with tall windows.

Finally, both are either on, or within a short distance of, a main road with a parade of convenient, if unexciting, shops.

Greenford Road

In the case of Sudbury Hill, the parade of shops is on Greenford Road, and the station itself is right on the border between Harrow (to the north) and North Greenford (to the South). Sudbury Hill is an area, rather than a road, and is part of the Harrow HA1 postcode.

Unfortunately, there's very little to see or do here - a Health and Fitness Centre lies just behind the station, and there is student accommodation in a former office block to the south. But for the most part the area is residential, and I soon head back into the station.

I notice, while waiting for the train south, a small plaque on the platform wall giving a brief history of the station. I've seen a few of these on my travels, and always stop for a read - though I'm sure most people pass by obliviously.

Potted History

And so on to the final station of the day.

***
And - as previously mentioned - Sudbury Town is pretty much the same as Sudbury Hill.

Sudbury Town

The parade of shops is at the end of a short street, rather than next to the station, but in all other respects it is very similar.

Harrow Road

Which makes this banner fluttering overhead somewhat over-confident.

I'm all for a bit of pride in one's community, and of course the banner may refer to the whole of Sudbury rather than to this particular bit of it - which is, as you've already seen, almost the twin of Sudbury Hill.

But having seen a very large chunk of London by now, and visited nearly every area and district there is to see, I can confidently assert that Sudbury is very far from being 'unique' - at least in terms of general appearance.

Not that this is a criticism as such - people want and need the same things wherever they live, so of course different places will look and feel very similar.

And Sudbury Town has the additional attraction of a park just across the road from the shops, which - this being the prelude to a Bank Holiday Weekend - is currently largely taken over by a Fun Fair.

I head past the fair, into the open space beyond, and enjoy a few minutes sat by a tree in the sunshine.

Barham Park

It's been a day of two halves really - Stratford is vibrant and bustling (at least around the Olympic Park) and feels like it's on the up. Sudbury, with its fairly humdrum shops and houses, feels a little tired in comparison.

On the other hand - both have been very 'easy' in terms of my journey, so I'm happy with my day's work, and looking forward to finishing off the 'Ss' next time out.

'Join Together'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 23 May 2017 20:19:00 +0000

Day 83

Star Lane - Stepney Green - Stockwell - Stonebridge Park

I set off to the tube station this morning in a sombre mood, having yet again woken to the news of innocent lives being lost in a horrific terrorist attack. A suicide bomber has blown himself up at a pop concert in Manchester and 22 people have been killed - mostly children and young adults - with many more facing severe injuries.

Whoever was responsible, and whatever their 'justification', I can't help feeling that acts of terrorism like this are symptomatic of a wider problem - that it is the divisive fracturing of our society which is the cause (not, as some would have it, the result) of such acts.

I'm no politician (nor would I want to be) and any statements I make are purely my layman's opinion, but it seems to me that after a good half-century or so of gradually breaking down barriers, seeking to understand and accept the differences between nations, creeds, sexualities and genders, and attempting to come together rather than split apart, we seem now to be regressing and giving up any progress we've made as a species.

We're in the middle of a very nasty General Election campaign in the UK at the moment, and there have been several equally divisive elections and referenda around the world in recent years. Name calling and personal attacks have become the norm, taking the place of reasoned argument. Perhaps, I'm looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses and it was always like that, but I can't be the only one who longs for the impassioned and erudite speeches of an Abraham Lincoln, a Martin Luther King, an Emmeline Pankhurst or a Mahatma Ghandi rather than the childish bile we have to listen to these days.

I don't have any solutions - only a hope, that before too long we come to our senses and start to move together again, rather than continuing to pull apart.

***

Anyway, it's in this rather sombre frame of mind - and conscious of the fact that I'm heading into the centre of a city that could very easily be the target of the next terrorist attack - that I set off on my travels once again.

I'm starting with a DLR station called Star Lane, which is one of the newest stations I'll have visited on my journey, having opened as recently as 2011.

Start Lane

On the other hand, the lines that go through it have been here in one form or another since 1846, having originally been part of the 'Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway', which connected the Royal Docks in the south with the railway to Ipswich which ran from Stratford.

Footbridge over Manor Road (Star Lane to the right of the photo)

The station straddles the very busy Manor Road via a footbridge, though it is named after a smaller road to the east called - of course - Star Lane.

It's one of those stations with seemingly little reason for existence - being so close to more major stations to the north and south - but I have a brief look around to see if there's anything at all of note here.

And, sadly, the answer is 'not a lot'.

Following Star Lane for a few minutes I soon come to Star Lane Park - a relatively small open space with a children's playground, football pitch, and a few benches - it's ok as parks go, though nothing special.

Star Lane Park

Part of the reason I'm not bowled over by the area is that it's largely industrial. The buildings around the station include a DHL distribution centre, a Screw-Fix depot, and the local Bus Garage - all large, grey, metal boxes - with only the distant spires of the O2 to liven up the skyline.

View south from the station

So - moving swiftly on, I head west to my next stop, Stepney Green.

***

Stepney Green station is rather older than Star Lane - having opened in 1902.

Stepney Green

Stepney itself - one of the areas of London whose bells are so loquacious in the song 'Oranges and Lemons' - is what most people consider (together with its neighbours Whitechapel and Limehouse) to be the true 'East End' of London.

It's also - as you will see - somewhere that begins to restore my faith in humanity and dispel some of this morning's dark thoughts, but more of that anon.

I take a triangular walking route from the station - heading west firstly along the Mile End Road, before turning south onto the road that gives the station its name - Stepney Green.

Stepney Green

The 'Green' is a simple collection of railed rectangular gardens running the length of the road, and as always it's nice to see some greenery among the brick and concrete of the capital.

Memorial Clock-tower

At the bottom of the Green is a clock tower. This was erected in 1913 as a memorial to a certain Stanley B. Atkinson - a local government member and philanthropist - in 'recognition of his unselfish devotion to the public good'.

'Guardian of The Poor'

It's not clear what exactly he did (the plaque describes him as 'Guardian of The Poor') - but good on him.

It's nice to remember - especially today - that people can be nice to each other sometimes.

It does also occur to me that if the various members of present day governments thought a little more 'unselfishly' about the public good, we might all be a bit better off.

They might even get their own names on a clock-tower...

A little further on is something else which brightens my day - the Stepney City Farm.

Stepney City Farm

This was originally opened in 1979, when local residents decided to make use of a derelict former bomb-site by building a community farm.

Farm Entrance

By the early 2000s it had fallen into disrepair and a new group of locals decided to set up the Stepney City Farm charity, which - with funding from the Crossrail project - managed to relaunch the farm in 2012, complete with a ten year lease.

Info about the Farm

The farm is free to enter, and I spend a pleasant ten or fifteen minutes wandering among the various pens and saying hello to their furry occupants. I'm no James Herriot, so forgive the simplistic captions to the following photos...

Goats

Donkey

Pigs

Lamb

I enjoy the respite from the trials and tribulations of modern life - even more so when I discover this little sign tucked away in one corner.

Wall of Kindness

Again - my faith in my fellow man takes a welcome boost from such a simple idea, and I'm thankful to whoever thought of it for putting a smile back on my face.

Geese

Rabbit

After a few more animal encounters I leave the farm and make a brief stop across the road to look at St. Dunstan's Church.

St Dunstan's

This stone church stands on the site of an original wooden one dating back to 923AD and is thus Stepney's oldest church. The current building mainly dates from the 15th Century, with some later 19th Century additions. It's the 10 bells of this church that feature in the aforementioned 'Oranges and Lemons' song, asking 'When will that be?'

Heading north again from St. Dunstan's, up White Horse Lane, I complete my triangle and find myself back at the station. Time to move on to my next stop.

***

And here at Stockwell, sadly, I'm reminded once again of the evils of terrorism, and the sometimes unforeseen consequences of trying to combat it.

Stockwell

On the 7th July 2005, 52 people were killed in a series of bombings on public transport in London. Two weeks later, five more attacks were attempted but failed - with only the detonators exploding in four cases, and the fifth device being dumped before it was set off.

The attackers all fled, and a major manhunt was set in motion. One clue led the police to a block of flats in Scotia Road, Tulse Hill - to the south of Stockwell - and they put the flats under surveillance.

An electrician, originally from Brazil, lived in the flat with his two cousins, and on the day after the attacks he set off for work at 9.30 in the morning.

His name was Jean Charles de Menezes and he would be dead within an hour.

Memorial to Jean Charles
de Menezes

An officer (actually a soldier on secondment) spotted him leaving the flats and mis-identified him as one of the suspects.

Thanks to a combination of this initial mis-identification, the pressure to make snap judgements under difficult circumstances, and the erroneous belief that he was 'behaving suspiciously', by the time Menezes reached Stockwell Station he was being pursued by both undercover and armed officers.

He boarded a train, followed by the undercover officers, who identified him to the armed officers behind them. They too boarded the train and was shot seven times in the head, and once in the shoulder - killing him outright.

When they realised their mistake, the Metropolitan Police issued an apology and affirmed that he had nothing to do with the bomb attempts. A shrine was erected outside the station, and this was eventually replaced with a permanent memorial.

***

To the north of the station stands another memorial - this time to those killed in the two World Wars.

War Memorial

Its unusual construction - that of a tower next to a lower concrete drum structure - owes itself to its original use as the entrance to a deep-level air-raid shelter during WWII.

These shelters were built under the existing tunnels of nearby tube stations and were designed to hold 8000 people.

The murals on the shelter walls are based on designs by local school-children and at first I'm a little surprised by the inclusion (to the bottom left in the picture above) of the James Bond gun-barrel motif from the opening of the movies.

It's only later that I discover that the actor Roger Moore, who famously played Bond in seven of the films, grew up here in Stockwell.

And only later still that I hear the news that, on the very day I visit his childhood home, he too has just passed away. Coincidence can be a disconcerting thing sometimes...

Bronze Woman

The brightly painted memorial now stands in a little garden, together with a statue of a Caribbean woman holding a baby aloft - entitled 'Bronze Woman'.

The poem of the same name, which inspired the statue, is by the late poet and Stockwell resident Cécile Nobrega, and is a tribute to womanhood, as is the statue that she raised money to fund.

Plaque on the statue

A plaque on one side of the statue features the opening lines of the poem:

"Find me a place
in the sun
in the sea
on a rock

near an Isle

in the Caribbee:
There I will set her,
Honoured, Free!"

I leave the brightly painted war memorial behind me and head back to the station, ready to move on once more.

Rear of the War Memorial

***

And here, at my final stop of the day - Stonebridge Park - I encounter more murals, and more attempts to bring us together, rather than split us apart.

Stonebridge Park

Sign outside the
Ari D. Norman offices

The murals on the building opposite the station - Ari D. Norman jewellery - were commissioned to mark the 2012 Olympics, and each commemorate a previous games where racial tensions were at the forefront.

They serve as a reminder of how easy it is to let religion, race, or colour get in the way of human endeavours.

Munich 1972

Mexico 1968

Stonebridge Park is once again in an area almost entirely devoid of interest, being an 'intermediate' station between other, more lively, locations.

It's slap-bang next to the very busy A406 (aka the North Circular) taking traffic to and from the M1 motorway at Brent Cross - and as such sees many thousands of cars and lorries pass by every day, few of which will ever stop anywhere near here.

A brief walk to the south of the station, however, reveals another form of transport which evidently feels very much at home in this area.

Bikers this way...

The variously coloured metal cut-outs of motor-bike riders lead me along the road parallel to the North Circular, to the black and white painted exterior of the Ace Café London, possibly the most famous transport café in the UK.

Ace Café

It was opened in 1938 to cater for the hauliers using the newly built North Circular, but soon became synonymous with bikers and other 'petrol-heads' who congregated here in the fifties and sixties to listen to the juke-box, rev up their engines, and engage in 'record-racing'.

As the name suggests, this involved putting a record on the juke-box and racing to a given point and back before the record had finished playing. Not, I suspect, something that went down well with the local constabulary.

The original café closed in 1969 but reopened in 1997 thanks to the persistence of enthusiasts, who bought the site and raised the money to refurbish the buildings.

North Circular - looking westwards towards Ealing.

I take a brief stroll over the North Circular via a footbridge, but see only the usual company cars and long-distance haulage lorries, instead of the souped-up Triumphs and Nortons and leather-clad rockers of yesteryear.

Still, I've ended the day in a better frame of mind than when I set off. And I've seen far more evidence of people joining together in solidarity than of the divisions I spoke of when I left home this morning, so perhaps there's hope for us all yet...

Let's hope so.

'The Modern World'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Fri, 12 May 2017 17:20:00 +0000

Day 82

Southwark - South Wimbledon - South Woodford - Stamford Brook - Stanmore

Unusually for this journey, I'm managing to squeeze two travelling days into one week - a result of my having such a hectic schedule next week that I'd be in danger of not going out Wombling at all, which - I'm sure you'll agree - would never do!

I set off bright and early to my first stop, which promises some interesting and unusual sights, being in the heart of one of the oldest (or at least most historic) parts of London - Southwark.

Southwark

The station itself is actually very modern - having been built as recently as 1999 as part of the Jubilee Line Extension. This added all the stations between Green Park and Stratford to the existing Jubilee Line (which is itself the newest line on the Underground Network - opening in 1979). It sits at the junction of Blackfriars Road, The Cut, and Union Street.

There are modern high-rise office blocks all around this area, just south of Blackfriars Bridge, and some of London's newest landmarks such as the Shard and the Millennium Bridge are in the Borough of Southwark. But there are also many hints of the area's rich history, including this one diagonally opposite the tube station.

Add caption

It's a replica of an original 'sign', which hung over a hardware shop at this site in the early 19th Century - and which was recalled by Charles Dickens in conversation with his biographer, John Forster.

From "The Life Of Charles Dickens" by John Forster

This new replica was unveiled in 2013 having been commissioned as part of the celebrations of the Bicentenary of Dickens' birth in 1812. Dickens' father was imprisoned for debt at the Marshalsea Prison in Southwark in 1824, and Dickens took lodgings nearby while working at a 'Blacking' (Shoe Polish) factory near Charing Cross.

Southwark station is just south of Blackfriars Bridge (as previously mentioned), and lies between Waterloo (to the west) and London Bridge (to the east). Having previously visited the latter, as well as a couple of Southwark's other stations - Borough and Elephant and Castle to the south - my area of exploration today is inevitably somewhat restricted.

In fact, I'm going to be looking at just two landmarks, in an area of less than 200 square metres. Both of these landmarks could reasonably be classed as 'modern' in many ways, though they each have very definite links to the past, as we'll see.

And of course, as I make my way there, I'll be noting various curiosities along the way.

The first of these is an old sign under the railway bridge just north of the station.

Blackfriars Station... or one of them at least.

Clearly indicating that another station, named Blackfriars, once stood here - this an example of how confusing the history of London's station names can sometimes be. (If you're in any doubt about this, just read my potted - and frankly potty - history of Charing Cross).

'Blackfriars' is just as bad...

The station currently known as Blackfriars - over the bridge to the north of the river - was originally known as St. Paul's (despite not actually being the closest station to the cathedral) and was opened in 1886 by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway.

Signage on Blackfriars Bridge

The station currently known as St. Paul's (which is the closest to the cathedral) was originally known as 'Post Office' (after the nearby headquarters of the GPO) to avoid confusion (!) with the other St. Paul's (now called Blackfriars).

Eventually someone saw sense and changed the name 'Post Office' to 'St. Paul's' and the name 'St. Paul's' to 'Blackfriars' - and everyone was happy.

Or at least, they would have been, had it not been for the other Blackfriars station - the one whose sign still remains under the bridge here at Southwark.

This station was opened in 1864 on the South Eastern Railway line between Charing Cross and London Bridge but closed again just five years later, having been superseded by the station now called Waterloo East (but originally called 'Waterloo' - don't get me started...).

Again, in order to avoid confusion (perish the thought), this station is now referred to as 'Blackfriars Road' Station instead of 'Blackfriars Station' to distinguish it from the other Blackfriars Station (which was previously St. Paul's Station).

As if all that wasn't enough, there was a third station - Blackfriars Bridge Station - right next door to Blackfriars Road Station, which was connected to the north of the river by the now defunct former Blackfriars Railway Bridge (of which only the red supporting columns remain - in the shadow of the replacement Blackfriars Railway Bridge, which was originally called St. Paul's Railway Bridge). This station too opened in 1864 but closed in 1885.

And if you've got your head round all of that, well done. Now, let's move swiftly on before we get confused again...

'The Vase'

Heading north to Blackfriars Bridge I'm presented with the latest edifice in the process of being added to the Southwark skyline - a hotel, retail and residential development known formally by its address of '1 Blackfriars', and informally by the nickname 'The Vase'.

It strikes me that pretty soon (if we haven't already) we're going to run out of appropriate nicknames for all these new skyscrapers. Surely there are only so many shapes a building can be - and only so far we can stretch our imaginations with regard to what everyday objects they might be said to resemble.

We've had the Gherkin, Walkie-Talkie, Shard, Razor, Egg, Cheese-Grater... and now The Vase. What next - The Sink Plunger? The Egg Whisk? The Anglepoise Lamp?

Interestingly, this latest development actually consists not only of the big, solid, sticky-up thing you can see in the photo, but also two smaller stubby little buildings either side of the base. And you don't need a mind as filthy as mine to be able to come up with rather a different everyday object after which you could name it...

Rather you than me...

All that aside, what occupies my thoughts as I walk past this building is not the name, but the tiny figure of a man I can see dangling precariously from a rope at the top of the building - on the bit that slopes inwards just above the 'bulge'. You might not be able to see it in the photo above, so here's a closer view...

I know these jobs have to be done, and I know there will have been all sorts of Health and Safety measures put in place - but I still can't think of many jobs I'd like less than strapping myself to the side of a 50 story building in order to hose down the windows...

I turn right at the southern end of the Bridge, pausing to take a photo of the both it and the columns remaining from the original railway bridge.

Blackfriars Road Bridge (left) and Rail Bridge (right)
with the remaining columns in between

I then make my way along the area known as 'Bankside' to the first of the two landmarks I've planned to visit.

Tate Modern

The Tate Modern is a modern art gallery housed in the former Bankside Power Station and offers free entry to everything except specially presented exhibitions.

Before I go inside, however, I stop to take a few photos of another modern addition to Southwark - the Millennium Bridge - which straddles the river immediately in front of the Tate Modern, and leads pedestrians towards St. Paul's Cathedral.

Millennium Bridge

This bridge - as the name suggests - was built to celebrate the coming of the new millennium in 2000, but was almost immediately closed again for two years, thanks to an unforeseen, yet potentially dangerous, problem.

Underneath the bridge

Although designed to be capable of a (slight) sideways sway, the designers hadn't taken into account a particular phenomenon, nor the way people would react to it.

Humans walk with a natural sway themselves (thanks to the left-right alternation of our feet) and this can cause suspension bridges of this type to begin to oscillate. It is of course exacerbated when the number of people crossing the bridge increases - which is why troops of soldiers are sometimes told to break step when marching across this type of bridge.

However, in addition to this initial problem, human nature adds a secondary difficulty. People crossing such a bridge, when they feel it swaying, subconsciously begin to match their steps with the movement of the bridge, to avoid falling over. This actually leads to an increase in the movement. So, the more people try to compensate for the movement, the more pronounced it becomes.

Across the bridge to St. Paul's

Having had dampers fitted to it, the bridge is now safe for people to cross, and is very popular in its own right as a tourist attraction.

But back to the Tate Modern.

I'm the first to admit that a lot of art, both classical and modern, leaves me relatively cold. I've never been one who eulogises about 'brushwork' or 'form' or 'what the artist is trying to say' - and, cliché though it may be, I'm quite happy to confine myself to either liking or disliking what I see in front of me.

I don't, therefore, propose to give you a 'guided tour' of the gallery, but instead I'll give you a photographic selection and you can make up your own minds.

Various works by Louise Bourgeois

'Legs' - Louise Bourgeois

'Beirut Caoutchouc' - Marwan Rechmaoui

L. 'Los Moscos' - Mark Bradford
R. Untitled (Ghardaïa) - Kader Attia

'Fountain' - Marcel Duchamp

'Behold' - Sheela Gowda

'An American Tribute to the British People' - Louise Nevelson

'Liquid Crystal Environment' - Gustav Metzger

'Babel' - Cildo Meireles

'Yellow versus Purple' - Olafur Eliasson

'Strip (921-6)' - Gerhard Richter

What I would say, given that this is just a small selection of what's on offer, is that you should probably pay the place a visit yourself (especially since it's free) as I'm sure you'll find something in it which takes your fancy.

If nothing else, the building itself is as impressive as the art it contains.

Turbine Hall

It was converted from the power station in 2000, and includes the massive, full-height, 'Turbine Hall', which is used to house unusually large installations.

I've spent a lot of time in Southwark already this morning, and I hope to visit another four stations today, so I'd better get a move on.

On the other hand, I can't come to this part of town without paying a visit to another of its very famous landmarks.

Shakespeare's Globe

Of course, I paid a brief call here when I visited London Bridge Station a while back and, while I don't want to go over old ground so to speak, Shakespeare's Globe is such an iconic building that it has to be worth a look if you happen to be in the area.

It is, of course, a modern replica of an Elizabethan playhouse - though 'modern' in this case is something that is already (I'm astonished to realise) 20 years old this year.

Since I don't have time to stop and see a play here today, I'll just point out a couple of 'architectural' details that might be of interest.

Bankside gate

Firstly the Bankside entrance has two intricately designed wrought-iron gates opening onto the pavement. These gates (as the plaque to the left of them tells us) were made by blacksmiths Brian Russell and Richard Quinnell, together with contributions from 130 blacksmiths worldwide.

They feature animals, plants and mythical creatures - all of which feature in Shakespeare's plays - and aim to reflect Sam Wanamaker's vision of bringing people of all nationalities together.

Plaque recognising the blacksmiths' work

I have in fact met Richard Quinnell and his daughter Lucy - also a blacksmith - on a number of occasions, as they run an iron-work gallery and blacksmith school near Leatherhead, to which my wife introduced me many years ago, and to which I have returned many times since.

It's a fascinating place - and if you think iron-work is all about toasting forks and garden gates, one visit to the Fire and Iron Gallery will soon dispel such notions. Nor do they confine themselves to iron - if it's artistic, and can be made of metal, they'll have it. Definitely worth a visit if you're ever down that way.

Through the gates, the courtyard outside the main auditorium is paved with slabs bearing the names of those who made donations to the initial building fund.

Dear old Tim and Pru...

It's interesting to wander around, spotting the famous names dotted among the corporate sponsors. Though one couple of slabs might cause you to do a bit of a double-take.

They're the best of chums, really...

The story goes that John Cleese and Michael Palin had both agreed to make a donation and have their names on a couple of paving slabs, but that Mr Cleese - never one to pass up an opportunity for a gag - promised a substantial bonus amount, on the condition that they spelled Palin's name wrong...

I don't hang around much longer in the grounds of the Globe - I have much more to try and fit in today and most of the morning has already gone. Nor, sadly, do I have time to visit any of the several other theatres in this part of town.

Not only are there the Old and New Vic theatres (though they're not, strictly speaking in the Borough of Southwark - and in any case I'll be looking at them when I visit Waterloo) - but within a short distance from my current location are also The Union, The Menier Chocolate Factory, and The Southwark Playhouse. They each offer something slightly different in terms of their programming, but they are all well worth visiting - as I have, many times before.

So instead, I head to London Bridge station and zip down the Northern Line to my next stop - South Wimbledon.

***
South Wimbledon marks a distinct change in the feel of today's travels. In stark contrast to Southwark, where there was much to see and discover, the remaining stations offer precious little to the curious traveller.

South Wimbledon

I suppose the station at South Wimbledon could itself be said to be a minor curiosity - it is after all the most southerly tube station in London to be truly 'underground' - having its platforms in a tunnel rather than above ground or in an 'open' cutting like the next station - Morden. It is also, unlike the other Wimbledon stations, on the Northern, rather than the District Line.

The area known as South Wimbledon is actually in the Borough of Merton and was originally called New Wimbledon to distinguish it from Wimbledon proper, which is to the north. The station here was built as part of the 'new' (in 1926) Morden Extension to the Northern Line and was one of the first to be designed by our old pal Charles Holden.

Something suddenly occurs to me, given that my theme for today's travels seems to have centred around the word 'modern' (with 'modern' stations, bridges, network extensions, theatre replicas and art galleries all making an appearance) coupled with my current location on the Morden Extension.

Being something of a crossword buff, I'm surprised it hasn't struck me before that 'Morden' is an anagram of 'modern'.

Not that this adds anything much to my experience of being here.

A few of the South Wimbledon shops. Fascinating huh?

Other than a moderately well-provided High Street, there's really nothing to see here, so I head back onto the trains, and northwards, to South Woodford.

***
South Woodford, on the north-eastern end of the Central Line, is another station that has gone through a change of names - though thankfully nothing like as confusingly as Blackfriars.

South Woodford

The original name for this station was 'George Lane', which isn't - disappointingly - a past local celebrity, but the name of the main shopping street in the area.

George Lane is now in two separate halves, separated by the tube tracks, but originally it was continuous and crossed the tracks at a level crossing. Today a bridge takes you across the tracks from one platform to another.

George Lane (north of the station)

Again, there's a reasonable collection of shops and restaurants on George Lane - indeed, there seems to have been a bit of an effort made to spruce the place up a bit and give it that 'village-y' feel I always warm to.

There are even some decorative metal flowers on one of the central reservations, which - while not quite up to the craftsmanship of the Globe Theatre's gates - do at least add a splash of colour to the place.

Go easy on the Baby Bio

On the other hand, since I've already had my lunch and don't - at present - need my nails manicuring, my clothes dry-cleaned or my bodily parts injected with ink, the shops on the high street don't hold my interest for very much longer than they did in South Wimbledon and I'm soon making my way back to the station.

George Lane, looking south, with the
footbridge over the tube tracks visible

Before hopping on a train, I take a quick photo of the sign on the platform - which, for some reason, still bears (if only in parentheses) the original name of the station.

You have been watching...

The sign reminds me of something and it takes me a little while to realise what it is. It's exactly the same format found in a theatrical review - when the name of the character is given, followed, in brackets, by the actor playing him:

"...but the highlight for me was the desperately moving final scene in which South Woodford (George Lane) discovers the truth about his mother - it had me in tears..."

What a pity George Lane isn't actually a person.

Anyway, I'm soon on my way southwards again, this time to a station rather closer to home.

***
Stamford Brook is a couple of stops away from Hammersmith on the District Line and is named after a long-buried tributary of the Thames.

Stamford Brook

It's really a bit of a non-entity as far as stations go, not least because it's on that stretch of the underground between Hammersmith and Acton Town, which anyone with any sense traverses on the non-stop Piccadilly Line, rather than the more sedate District Line.

This means that the only people who use this station (other than the very occasional Wombler like myself) are those who live near it - the area to the north of the station being almost entirely residential.

Southwards is marginally different, as it's only a two minute walk to the eastern end of Chiswick High Road, which does at least have a decent collection of shops and eateries to entertain you (though these are mainly much further west from here).

Chiswick High Road

It does seem that Stamford Brook station exists solely to break up the journey between the two stations either side of it. The reality is that if you want to get to the heart of the Chiswick shops, you go to Turnham Green, and if you want to go to Hammersmith, you go to... well, Hammersmith.

King Street

That's not to say there aren't shops at this end of the street - it's just that it all feels a bit like the tail-end of something. This is the point where Chiswick High Road and Hammersmith's King Street come together - both of them (in their different ways) very busy and vibrant shopping streets....... Only, much further along...

And so another station gets ticked off my list. I've time to visit one more, though it's a bit of a trek, and I hope it offers slightly more than my last couple of stops.

***
Well, 'slightly' perhaps...

Stanmore has been at the very northern end of the Jubilee Line since this opened in 1979, although like many of the stations in north-west London, it was originally a Metropolitan Line station, and later a Bakerloo Line station.

Stanmore

It's an affluent area, as you can tell immediately from the houses to the north of the station.

Just a bijou place...

I'm heading this way as I've looked at the map and seen a Country Park marked here, which has to be better than another run-of-the-mill high street.

I find my way into the park, which - by the looks of the map - is a big one, and am immediately rewarded with a patch of bluebells nestling under the trees.

Bluebells

According to the Harrow Nature Conservation Forum, the park is home to buzzards, red kites, kestrels, sparrowhawks, tawny owls, weasels, rabbits, foxes, squirrels, badgers and deer. I don't spot any of these during my brief visit, but if you ever make your own way here there are handy 'nature trail' maps at the entrances.

Nature Trail

The entrances from the south are on Kerry Avenue and Dennis Lane, which sound very much like names that could both be featuring in the same cast list as our earlier hypothetical actor George. If so, then Kerry Avenue for one is doing very well for herself, given the size of some of these houses.

Another little Eight Up / Five Down.

To the west of the station is 'The Broadway' - the inevitable high street.

The Broadway

There are several restaurants and the usual chains of shops and supermarkets, and - like South Woodford - it feels like a village unto itself rather than part of a bigger metropolis. But it's been a long day, and I don't really feel like walking the whole length of it and back. So I take a cursory photo, cross another station off my list, and begin the long journey home in the hope that next time I might find a few more places like Southwark, and a few less like Stamford Brook...

'Grey Day'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 09 May 2017 19:01:00 +0000

Day 81

South Kenton - South Quay - South Ruislip - South Tottenham

A rather dull day today - in more ways than one.

Firstly, the skies are not looking very promising - being covered in a blanket of heavy grey clouds - and despite being May, there's a distinct chill in the air.

It's also another irritating day travelling back-and-forth across the length and breadth of London to visit four inconveniently widespread stations. No two of them are even vaguely in the same part of town, or indeed on the same Underground line. This is the reason I get so wound up by my oft-mounted hobby-horse about all the 'Souths' (and 'Norths', 'Easts' and 'Wests') being lumped together. How much easier my life would be if - to take just one example - all of the stations in Acton (of which there are seven!) actually began with the word 'Acton' and I could have had them all crossed off by now...

Anyway, enough of that old chestnut.

I start by heading north west (or rather, east into town first then north-west - but that's another hobby-horse we'd better not take out for a canter for the time being...) to South Kenton.

South Kenton

This is a Bakerloo line and Overground station and is unusual in that the Ticket Office (such as it is) is on the platform rather than in a separate Ticket Hall.

This is apparently down to the fact that when built, the station was designed to use minimal space. There's one 'island platform' between the two opposing tracks, the ticket office is at one end of this, and there are no ticket gates through which to gain entry or exit - only stand-alone Oyster readers.

The platforms are higher than street level, so I descend a flight of stairs into a short subway connecting the roads to the east and west of the station. Having been to Kenton before (when I visited the site of the infamous Basil Fawlty 'car-thrashing' episode) I'm not at all surprised by the suburban genteelness of the streets around here - it's very definitely a 'nice' area.

The road to the east of the station is called Windermere Avenue and is dominated by a pub called The Windermere.

The Windermere.

This pub was built in the late 1930s and features in a list compiled by CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) of 'Historic Pub Interiors'. It features much of the original art deco design, including large inner porches, bar counters, back fittings, wall panelling, cornices, fireplaces with original tiles and, in the saloon, an advertising mirror over the fireplace with Courage cockerel and a clock.

Or at least, this is what CAMRA tells me, and I'll have to take their word for it as the pub is not yet open for business, and the windows are all frosted glass, meaning I can see none of the original features for myself.

Back through the subway and out the other side to the west of the station, I find myself at the south-eastern corner of Northwick Park (the park itself, rather than the Hospital or Station that share this name).

Northwick Park - with the hospital of the same name in the background

Trees in a row

The park is a fairly open space - with only a smattering of trees around the perimeter. One group of half a dozen or so trees seems to have broken free of the boundary and arranged themselves in a curiously straight line, projecting into the park rather than running around it - as if rebelling against the neat uniformity of it all.

You can see the station from this corner of the park, and it does seem to be a particularly narrow one.

Room for a little one?

Quite why this should be I'm not sure. It surely can't be simply a philanthropic wish not to intrude too far into the surrounding Suburbia as that certainly doesn't seem to have been an inhibiting factor in the building of other stations in the Capital.

Other than a few shops near the pub, this is a mainly residential area, and having seen all there is to see - as far as I can tell - I move on to the next stop.

***
South Quay is up next (or rather, across and down next, if you're looking at the tube map) - one of those DLR stations clustered around the Canary Wharf district on the Isle of Dogs. It's located on a road which crosses the narrow connecting waterway between South Dock to the north and Millwall Inner Dock to the south.

South Quay

It's actually the second DLR station of the same name to be built here, and is 125m to the east of the old one. The new station opened in 2009 with longer platforms, to accommodate the newer three-car trains - something that had been impossible at the previous station, thanks to the curvature of the tracks on either side.

In 1996, when the previous station was still in operation, an IRA bomb was exploded in this area, killing 2 and injuring over 100 others, as well as causing millions of pounds worth of damage. A plaque to commemorate the victims was unveiled on the outside wall of the new station in 2009.

The skyscrapers dominate the area so completely that the view here is pretty indistinguishable from one station to another.

The 'Financial' District

I do spot one unusual addition to the docklands grey suits and grey buildings, and that's a grey (and therefore clearly naval) ship sitting as unobtrusively as it can - which isn't very - at the dockside.

INS Tarkash

This is the INS (Indian Naval Ship) Tarkash - an Indian stealth frigate here to take part in exercises with the Royal Navy, having previously been involved in anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia. They seem to be having some sort of open day on board, but it appears to be invited guests only, so I have to make do with a photo of the exterior.

Turning south to Millwall Inner Dock, the buildings seem to be more colourful than those to the north, and I wonder if they're residential rather than commercial.

Millwall Inner Dock

Something old,
something new...

There's certainly a goodly collection of restaurants down the side of the dock, though of course they could easily be catering more for business lunches than romantic dinners à deux.

They sit next to the (presumably) decommissioned cranes from the days when these were working docks, and the whole area forms a pleasant enough backdrop against which to stop for a bite of lunch, which is exactly what I do now as I've another long journey ahead of me to my next stop.

***
South Ruislip is, not surprisingly, to the south of the other Ruislip Stations I've previously visited, and is tucked away on a relatively quiet street, with just a handful of shops and cafés catering to a mainly residential area.

South Ruislip

The station is of an unusual design, though vaguely familiar in its use of large panels of glass set into a geometric shape. In fact several of the stations on this branch of the Central Line were designed by the same architect - Brian Lewis - and you can see similar features at Perivale, Greenford, Hanger Lane, and West Acton.

The interior of the circular ticket hall features a decorative frieze made of concrete and glass.

Henry Haig's frieze

This was the work of artist Henry Haig and was one of his earliest pieces - he later went on to work predominantly with stained glass for churches, including a memorial window in the home church of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, who was killed during the Libyan Embassy siege in London in 1984.

The 'parade' of shops

After a brief wander along the uninspiring shopping parade, I head south-west from the station, through the various residential streets, to the one landmark I know I should take a look at while I'm here.

As well as being noticeably quiet, a large proportion of the streets I pass along are made up of bungalows rather than houses, leading me to the conclusion (perhaps erroneously) that the average age of the local population is well into the retirement bracket.

10 minutes later, I reach my goal.

Polish War Memorial

This is something I've known was here for almost my entire time living in West London, but have never actually seen in person before bow - The Polish War Memorial.

A little information

The reason I (and anyone else who has driven out of town on the M40) knows about it is that there's a big sign by the side of the next-door motorway telling you that it's here.

The trouble is, when you're on the motorway, you're normally heading off somewhere (hopefully) far more exciting and making a detour - however close to the motorway it might be - seems just that bit too inconvenient.

Which is a shame, as it's definitely worth a look.

Inscription on the rear of the memorial

It's located to the south of RAF Northolt (which I visited last time I was in Ruislip) and is dedicated to the thousands of Polish airmen who fought alongside the allies in the Battle of Britain and other decisive campaigns.

Behind the memorial is a curved walkway, lined with the names of those Poles who died during the war.

The names of those who lost their lives

As well as the memorial itself, there's a relatively new Remembrance Garden next to it, though the persistent motorway traffic does mean there's a constant background hum rather than the peace and quiet you might hope for.

Remembrance Garden

I'm glad I've come here to see it at last - it deserves more than to be simply a kind of 'you are here' fingerpost on the way into or out of London, recognised more by its signpost than by the thing itself. You should have a look yourself sometime.

More history in the Remembrance Garden

But that's all there is to this part of town, so I head back across London once more - this time to the north east - to my fourth and final stop of the day.

***
South Tottenham is a station which highlights the occasional geographical vagaries of the otherwise excellently designed tube map.

South Tottenham

On the map this station appears to be to the north of both Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale stations, whereas, in reality, South Tottenham is, well... to the south.

In fact all three of these stations are in the area designated as 'South' Tottenham, being within the N15 postcode. The remainder of Tottenham is in N17, to the north and has various stations serving it on the Overground Line. However, since these stations were only added to the tube map in more recent years than the version I'm using (which, for reasons previously related elsewhere, is the December 2013 map), I don't plan on visiting them as part of this particular project.

The name Tottenham, which dates back the Domesday Book, seems to be derived from the name of a local farmer - Tota - and the hamlet in which he lived; thus 'Tota's Hamlet' (or 'Ham') became Tottenham.

Interestingly, another 'Tottenham' which I'll hopefully be visiting before too long, and with which many Londoners will be familiar - Tottenham Court Road - seems to have come by its name completely independently of my current location, and from an unrelated source.

A certain 13th Century nobleman, William de Tottenhall, had a manor house (the 'Court') at the top end of that road, where it meets Euston Road, and it is from this that Tottenham Court Road gets its name. Of course, de Tottenhall's name may itself be a corruption of the original Tota's Ham from a couple of hundred years before - who knows...

The station here is actually only a two minute walk from Seven Sisters station, and unfortunately the area surrounding it seems to have suffered some neglect as a result. While the area around Seven Sisters was a bustling one with various cafés and shops doing a roaring trade, a couple of minutes further down the road is a very different story.

High Road... or is it 'High Noon'....?

The few shops there are, are either very shabby or completely boarded up, and after only a desultory wander down the street from the station, I turn back and return to Seven Sisters, which - being on the Victoria Line - is rather more useful to me as a means of making my way home.

Which is where, after a distinctly less edifying day than I might have hoped, I head now.

Till next time....

'Déjà Vu'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 02 May 2017 17:34:00 +0000

Day 80

Southfields - Southgate - South Hampstead - South Harrow - South Kensington

There was a time, when I first set out - fresh-faced and hopeful - on this strange journey of mine, when I hoped (foolishly optimistically as I now realise) that it wouldn't take all that long to complete.

In those early, naïve days, I even toyed playfully with the idea of re-packaging the collected chronicles of my travels under the all-encompassing and (to my mind rather pithy) title: "Around The Tube In 80 Days"...........

Well... Day 80 is finally upon us and, while I'm certainly a large part of the way through my list of stations, there are plenty still to go and I don't think I'll be finishing any day soon - and somehow "Around The Tube In 137 Days" (or whatever it turns out to be) doesn't have quite the same literary ring to it. Ah well, it was a nice idea, which must sadly go by the wayside.

On the other hand, if any of you have alternative titular suggestions - feel free to drop me a line...

***

But back to the job in hand...

Today I'm continuing my foray into the various stations demarcated as being in the 'South' of their respective locations (though not necessarily in 'South' London).

I start with Southfields (which does happen to be in South London) which will be familiar to anyone who's ever visited the Wimbledon Tennis Championships.

Southfields

Despite there being two stations actually in the area of Wimbledon, which is further south (Wimbledon Park and Wimbledon Station itself), Southfields is the station at which people are advised to alight - and then to walk the fifteen minutes or so to the All England Lawn Tennis Club where the championships are held.

The distance from the other two stations doesn't look to be much different than from Southfields, so it must purely be a crowd control exercise - one for which the local shopkeepers must be very thankful.

Given that I still have to visit the two Wimbledon stations, I decide not to visit the Tennis courts today, and to leave it until the 'W's later on - which seems the more appropriate juncture.

Instead I'm left with the areas immediately surrounding, and to the north of, the station - neither of which (though perfectly pleasant) offer much to divert the casual visitor.

The station sits at the junction of several roads, including the major north-south thoroughfare called Wimbledon Park Road, which leads south to the All England Club. Around the junction are a number of shops, banks, cafés and other small businesses which all seem to be doing a steady trade.

Southfields 'town centre'

Not too far in every direction, the shops give way to the sort of late Victorian / early Edwardian terraces typical of much of suburban London, including my own home patch of Ealing.

Southfields terraces

I'm heading north, as there's one site of particular interest some 10 minutes walk away.

This is the 'London Mosque', also known as the Fazl Mosque - the first purpose built mosque in London, opened in 1926.

Fazl Mosque

The mosque, and the buildings next to it, together form the headquarters of the 'Ahmadi' Muslim community. Founded in 1889 by a Punjabi named Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, this (relatively) recent offshoot of Islam has the stated aim of promoting Islam through peaceful means - and the URL of their website (www.loveforallhatredfornone.org) does seem to reflect this.

They are currently running a national campaign under the banner 'United Against Extremism', which will hopefully prove a welcome contrast to the often perceived view of Muslims in the modern age.

It is, however, really all there is to see in this part of town, so I leave Southfields and head decidedly Northwards, to pretty much the far end of the Piccadilly Line, and the seemingly (given how far north it is) misnamed Southgate.

***
Southgate actually gets its name from being the southern 'gateway' to the former Royal hunting ground known as Enfield Chase.

Southgate

The station itself is an excellent example of Charles Holden's geometric design - much like nearby Arnos Grove - in the shape of a giant cylindrical drum.

There are a few decorative details - such as the 'mini-spire' on the roof - but otherwise it's typical of his simple, yet effective, designs.

The station sits on a junction at the heart of the 'town centre', which is an odd mix of typical inner-city shabbiness and mild gentrification.

Shopping in Southgate

Among the 'pound marts' and the nail salons, are a Harris & Hoole coffee shop, a Pizza Express and an independent patisserie. Hipsters mingle with mooching youths, almond croissants and fried chicken sit side by side - the area feels like somewhere poised halfway between two camps, not quite ready to fully shake off its prior shabbiness and go all out hip and trendy.

I admit my expectations on the way here weren't all that high (we're not, after all, so very far from Bounds Green, where I had such a jolly time having a gun pointed at me), so, despite its stuttering beginnings, I hope Southgate manages to make it from tentatively up-and-coming into the bohemian chic it clearly hopes to be.

On the other hand, like Southfields, there's not much to see and do beyond the initial collection of shops. So, after a brief pause for lunch, I head off once again.

***
At South Hampstead, my next stop, I begin to get a distinct feeling of déjà vu as, once again, I emerge from a relatively quiet station onto a small parade of shops, surrounded by residential terraced housing.

South Hampstead...

Admittedly, given that this is Hampstead, the houses are somewhat grander than at Southfields or Southgate (although more likely to have been divided up into flats as a result), but nevertheless, that's really all there is to the area immediately outside the station.

...and a parade of shops.

The station's main problem is that it is surrounded by other stations - all within a fifteen minute walk, and all with plenty of amenities of their own. Working clockwise from the north, you have Finchley Road station at '12 O'Clock', Swiss Cottage at '3 O'clock', then St. John's Wood at about 5, Kilburn High Road at 8, and West Hampstead at about 10.

All this leaves South Hampstead standing forlornly in the middle of them all like some kind of weedy school kid being picked on by the big boys.

None of which is any use to an aspiring travel blogger such as myself.

Even less usefully, it's on the Overground Line with no easy way of getting from here to my next stop. So I end up walking to nearby Finchley Road station, getting the Metropolitan Line from there to Rayner's Lane, and then the Piccadilly Line south (where else?) to South Harrow.

***
Hmmmmm.....

Station?..... Tick
Parade of shops?..... Tick
Terraced housing?..... Tick!

Ok, so there's been some minor variation in the number (and quality) of both the shopping and the housing on offer - but in all other respects South Harrow is hardly distinguishable from its three predecessors on my travels today.

South Harrow

The main road - Northolt Road - is where all the usual shops and so on are gathered. The collection here is a tad on the downmarket side on the face of it - more shabby than shabby chic.

Northolt Road

I try to find a little variety by heading off the main road to the south of the station, and into Roxeth Recreation Ground.

Roxeth Recreation Ground

Roxeth is the original name of the small hamlet, adjacent to Harrow on the Hill, which was gradually overtaken by the urbanisation spreading out from its bigger next-door neighbour.

The Recreation Ground is a pleasant, if fairly run of the mill, park which does at least provide a welcome relief from the same old shops and cafés.

Obviously on this journey I've come across stations and areas that have had much in common before now, but they always seem to have been interspersed with other, more interesting, inspiring, or at least aesthetically pleasing locales.

Quite why all the stations today should be so similarly... mediocre... is beyond me. Is it perhaps something to do with their names? Is there something inherently humdrum about the south of any given location? Is 'southness', by definition, a bit, well, 'meh...'?

I sincerely hope not, because there are a hell of a lot more 'South...' stations still to get through and I don't know how I'll cope if they're all like this.

In an attempt to dispel any such notions, I decide to squeeze in one more station before I call it a day - and it's one I can be fairly confident will provide rather more than just a few shops and houses...

***
South Kensington - even the name sounds somehow more promising...

South Kensington

Yes - there's a parade of shops outside the station, but this one includes not just an artisan bakery, various patisseries, upmarket restaurants and every major chain of coffee shops known to man, but also a Lamborghini showroom - which you must admit does rather set it apart from the crowd.

A small Americano and a luxury supercar please...

The station is a popular one, being the closest to the 'big three' London museums - the Natural History, Science, and Victoria and Albert museums.

I'll be having a wander up to the museums in a little while, but first I head north past a building that most tourists - unless they happen to be French - probably don't give a second glance.

Institut Français

The Institut Français (or French Institute) was opened in 1910, by a French woman called Marie d'Orliac, with the aim of promoting French culture and language to the London public.

It was originally called the Université des Lettres Françaises - a name which it amuses me to imagine causing untold embarrassment and confusion to the poor, hapless and sexually inexperienced young Brits who - mis-translating the last two words - thought their luck was in and that they were entering some kind of practical Safe-Sex Education college.

The main part of the Institut is around the corner from here in Queensberry Place, and contains a cinema, library, multimedia centre and restaurant. The building I'm passing on Cromwell Place is the Language Centre, and language teaching is actually one of the main focuses of the Institut.

Beyond the Language Centre, heading north, is Cromwell Road, on which I encounter the first of the museums - the Natural History Museum.

Natural History Museum (hidden behind natural trees)

I have often, in previous locations, felt duty-bound to explore whatever attractions were on offer and to give you my opinion of them, for what it's worth. I see this as a service I'm happy to provide to you - my readers - in order to allow you to judge the merit (or otherwise) of visiting these attractions yourselves, should you ever find yourselves in the same locations.

There are some attractions however that are pretty much compulsory viewing for anyone either living in, or spending more than a few days in, the Capital, and these museums are definitely on that list. Since, therefore, I fully expect you all to visit them yourselves at some point (if indeed you haven't already done so) with or without my say-so - I'll confine myself to giving you a potted history of the museums, and will not actually take you inside, so to speak.

(In any case, visiting just one of the museums, let alone all three, could easily take a whole day - so I hope you'll understand my just giving them a brief nod, as it were, in passing.)

The Natural History Museum opened in 1881, but its first exhibits were actually part of the collection bequeathed to the nation by Sir Hans Sloane (of Sloane Square fame) in 1753, and which formed the basis of the British Museum. When more space was needed for the Natural History exhibits, a new museum was agreed upon by the museum's board of trustees.

The 'cathedral to nature' has of course famously housed a skeleton cast of a Diplodocus for much of its history, though the hall it stands in is being renovated and 'Dippy' will be going 'on tour' around the UK from next year to 2020.

The Science Museum is of a similar age to the Natural History Museum, and indeed sits just to the north of it on Exhibition Road. It was originally part of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and was so successful as an attraction that a permanent Science Museum opened in 1857 on land which is now part of the V&A museum.

The museum's stated aim - 'to be the best place in the world for people to enjoy science' (note the word 'enjoy') - is reflected in its large collection of interactive exhibits, aimed particularly at children. This is no musty collection of 'Please Do Not Touch' exhibits.

Finally I reach the V&A museum.

This museum is dedicated to 'Art and Design' and was another successful offshoot of the 1851 Great Exhibition. Opened in 1857 in conjunction with the Science Museum, under the joint heading of the 'South Kensington Museum', the V&A now occupies the site alone, as the Science Museum has moved around the corner.

It houses ceramics, glass, textiles, jewellery, furniture, sculpture - in fact pretty much anything and everything that can be classed as 'art' from the last two thousand years or so, and from around the Globe.

V&A Museum

Across the road from the V&A I come across this memorial sculpture:

Twelve Responses...

It is called Twelve Responses To Tragedy and is dedicated to "...The countless innocent men, women and children from the Soviet Union and other East European States, who were imprisoned and died at the hands of Communist governments..."

There must be something about creating memorials to the victims of Communism, which inspires work of unusual power and fascination. Anyone who 's seen the haunting collection of gradually disintegrating human figures forming the similar memorial in Prague will, I think, be equally moved by this bust of twelve conjoined faces, and I urge you to stop and have a look next time you're in this area.

... To Tragedy

Having headed north, then east along Cromwell Road, I turn back south-west, and complete this fairly small circuit back to the station, passing more cafés and shops as I do so.

Café Culture

The area is certainly cosmopolitan, and I'm sure the various eateries do a roaring trade from the tourists visiting the museums, as well as the (of necessity, given the local property prices) affluent residents.

Funnily enough, I don't see anyone buying a Lamborghini while I'm here though......

'A Sort Of Homecoming'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 17:29:00 +0000

Day 79

Snaresbrook - South Acton - South Ealing

A sunny but chilly day today sees me heading eastwards to the far end of the Central Line once again.

My first station today is Snaresbrook - and my first impression, even as I step off the train onto the platform, is a positive one.

They look after their wildlife here...

I mean, any place whose station has a 'Stag Beetle Nest' and a London Underground branded 'Bee House' must be somewhere worth visiting!

Snaresbrook

Drinking Fountain

Outside the station is a short slip road, unimaginatively called 'Station Approach' leading down to the top end of the High Street, where there's a rather ornate drinking fountain at the corner - though it doesn't seem to be in working order any longer.

I'll be exploring the High Street in a little while, but first I'm going to head a little further west - to what is actually part of the southern end of Epping Forest.

It's been a curiosity of my travels along this stretch of the Central Line, that the forest - which I naturally expected to encounter at Epping itself - has also made an appearance at every other location along the line. Debden, Buckhurst Hill, Loughton... in fact every station from Leyton to Epping... is within spitting distance of this vast forest.

It stretches 12 miles in total (though it's only 2.5 miles wide at its widest point) all the way from Forest Gate in the south, to Epping in the north - so it shouldn't really surprise me that I keep coming across it.

Anyway, it's not actually the forest I'm looking for as I head west from the station, but something a little more man made - and a lot more grandiose.

Eagle 'Pond'

I catch a glimpse of it through the trees as I walk around the lake which sits to the north of the building. This is called Eagle Pond - though the word 'pond' is laughably inadequate to describe the expanse of water, replete with ducks and other wildfowl, that lies between me and my goal.

And my goal is this little place...

Snaresbrook Crown Court

Ostentatious? Moi?

This is the Snaresbrook Crown Court - and if you're going to be sent down for 'the rest of your natural', I can think of no nicer location from which to wave your farewells...

It didn't start life as a Crown Court of course, in fact it was designed (by the eminent architect Sir George Gilbert Scott - of St Pancras fame) as the 'Infant Orphanage Asylum', built by philanthropist the Reverend Andrew Reed and opened (for some obscure reason) by King Leopold I of Belgium.

It housed about 400 children and, rather contrary to the ostensible philanthropy of the venture, there were certain restrictions on which children were accepted under its roof. Orphaned, (or at the very least, fatherless) children would only be accepted if their late fathers had earned enough money to be given one of the following epithets:

'Creditable' - earning not less than £50 per year.

'Respectable' - £100 per year.

'Very Respectable' - £400 per year.

What the orphans of poorer families did is not made clear - though I suspect we can all make a shrewd guess as to the miserableness of their fate.

I've been very careful only to take long-distance shots of the building, as there are notices all over the place telling me I'm not allowed to take photos of any court proceedings, or people involved in them. To avoid any chance of my presence being misinterpreted, however, and not wishing to see the inside of the Crown Court for all the wrong reasons, I don't linger in the grounds and head back to the High Street for quick wander among the shops.

Although I'm in Snaresbrook, the High Street is actually 'Wanstead High Street', and Wanstead station lies at the south-east end of the street.

Wanstead High Street - in Snaresbrook

It's a very pleasant shopping street - once again having that 'village' feel that I've noticed in several places around London. It's funny how some High Streets can feel like pleasant little communities, almost cut off from the hustle and bustle of the capital - and yet others seem unable to shake off the 'inner city' grime and are simply collections of kebab shops and greasy spoon cafés...

I don't walk too far - since I'll no doubt be walking back the other way in a few letters' time from Wanstead - but my brief visit here has certainly left me with a good impression.

***

On to my next station, though - and here things are rather different...

Not unpleasant, I have to say - just... very different from the rural idyll I felt I was entering at Snaresbrook.

Getting here has been a bit of a trek.

South Acton (the first of the many 'South...' stations I have to wade my way through before I get to the end of the 'Ss') is on the Overground Line and - unless you're already on that line - is a bit awkward to get to.

There are no nearby interchange stations (where I could change from a tube line to the Overground line) so I've had to choose either Acton Town or Chiswick Park stations, as being the nearest within walking distance.

I opt for the former, since I can change from the Central Line to the Piccadilly Line at Holborn, and make my way southwards to South Acton from there.

There are two exits from the station, and a handy footbridge takes me across the tracks so that I can take a photo of both of them.

I do this, not because of any transport-related geekery (heaven forfend!), but because there's a very different backdrop to the station, depending on which way you're looking.

To the south it's all terraced housing, heading towards Chiswick High Road with its upmarket shops and restaurants.

South Acton - looking south

To the north the skyline consists of nothing but tower blocks - the South Acton housing estate - and beyond that the not quite so upmarket shopping area of the Acton High Street.

South Acton - looking north

However, in many ways, it's the housing estate that provides the more attractive vista, though this is largely thanks to a gradual replacement of the old 1960s Tower Blocks, with modern, more colourful, buildings.

South Acton Housing Estate

I head into the estate - which seems very quiet and deserted, even for a weekday afternoon - and wonder whether the attractive façade is just that - and that behind the mask the problems of crime and drug usage, which historically have plagued the area, are lurking unseen, waiting to catch me unawares.

Charles Hocking House - due for demolition

But thankfully nothing untoward happens as I head north, into the older parts of the estate.

And even here, although many of these blocks are actually due for demolition, there is a splash of colour - thanks to a London street artist called 'Stik'

'Big Mother'

The enormous mural on the side of 'Charles Hocking House', featuring Stik's trademark stick figures, is called 'Big Mother'. It depicts a mother and child 'looking forlornly from their condemned council building across the expanse of private luxury apartments being built around them'.

The artist, once homeless himself, and who has painted murals both across London and in New York and other world cities, says that 'affordable housing in Britain is under threat; this piece is to remind the world that all people need homes.'

(For their part, the council have stated that “We would like to make it clear that nobody living on the old estate is being pushed out... It would be far more accurate to report that ‘luxury’ flats are being built for residents, not around them. Half the 'luxury' apartments being built in the new block opposite the artwork are affordable, and many of the residents from Charles Hocking House will be moving there.”)

Nice though it is to see a splash of colour on what would otherwise be a collection of drab and imposing concrete, there isn't much else to see here other than more and more housing.

So I head off once more, to my third and final stop of the day.

***

And this (for those few of you with nothing better to think about, who might have been wondering) is the station that led me to plump for the particular U2 song I chose as the title for this post.

South Ealing

Arriving here at South Ealing Station, the circle (as Darth Vader might have put it) is - in one way - complete.

It was just around the corner from here that I - as a fresh faced language student attending what was then the Ealing College Of Higher Education - had my first independent home, and my first taste of London life.

I dipped my toe into the cold waters of living away from home very gingerly at first, unlike some of my contemporaries. Rather than plunging head-first into a Young Ones style shared student house, I rented a room (or more accurately - half a room) in a family home, with a landlady who cooked enormous Sunday Roasts seemingly every day, a landlord who drove Bentleys for visiting Arab Sheiks and introduced me to his favourite drink; Brandy and Ginger Ale, (a tipple I've been fond of ever since) and two huge, but ultimately friendly, Rottweilers.

Not quite the
Young Ones...

I say I rented half a room - this was a twin room, shared with another student from a different course, who I'm afraid I didn't really get on with all that well. He was friendly enough in his own way, but that 'way' was the product of an English public boarding school education, and could be a tad 'superior', to put it mildly.

On the other hand, he did know where to go shopping to buy a basque, stockings and suspenders for my first ever trip to see The Rocky Horror Show - so they must have taught him something at that school of his...

I won't give the actual address of the house in question, not knowing how the current residents might feel about that, but the photo here shows the front of it, largely unchanged, if you're interested.

In any case, twenty-seven years ago, South Ealing became my local tube station.

Not that I used the tube much back then of course - I trod a basically triangular path between my 'digs', the lecture hall, and the student bar (with the lecture hall occasionally going by the way-side in favour of the local kebab shop).

***

South Ealing Station is on South Ealing Road, a continuation of St Mary's Road, which leads south from Ealing Broadway. It's on the Piccadilly Line, and is the stop just before Northfields station.

What you don't realise, unless you look at a map of the area, is that the two are barely 500m apart, separated only by a couple of streets of terraces. In fact, since their respective platforms stretch toward each other between the stations, the distance from tip-to-tip (as it were) is more like 250m - the closest two stations (above ground) on the network.

The proximity is thanks - in part at least - to a sort of 'domino effect' of bureaucratic decisions (or, as some would have it, cock-ups).

To begin with, there was no station at Northfields when South Ealing was built. And South Ealing was originally on the District Line.

As the Northfields area developed from being a collection of market gardens to a busier residential area, a small station was built to serve the inhabitants. However, it was slightly further away from the current location, and had platforms facing westwards - away from South Ealing station - so the distance between them was marginally greater.

Then came the Piccadilly Line. Not only did this mean additional tracks were laid, roads and bridges were rebuilt, and Northfields station was moved to its current location, but also a train depot was built to the west of Northfields, which meant that its platforms had to be built out to the east - or in other words, towards South Ealing station.

When the senior management of London Underground realised how close the stations were, their solution was a proposal to shut down South Ealing station - which seems a trifle unfair, as this station had sat quietly minding its own business as chaos seemed to reign all around it!

Residents and Shopkeepers protested against this proposal, and the two stations both remained where they were.

***

Across the road from the station is a small park - South Ealing Road Park - which sits alongside the underground tracks and provides a pleasant little spot to rest on a bench or walk your dog, as the fancy takes you.

South Ealing Road Park

At the far end of the park is a footpath heading north, behind the houses on South Ealing Road, which takes me up as far as St Mary's Church, behind which is a pub - the Rose And Crown - where I occasionally joined my landlord in a pre-Sunday Roast pint or two. (Looking back now, I'm amazed my stomach didn't actually burst after some of those Sundays - and it certainly explains the number of sizes my jeans had gone up by the time I left University).

Just the one then...

St Mary's Church

The church (or rather its vicarage) is, sadly, most famous for being the site of an attack, which - though horrific - led to a change in attitudes towards the victims of rape, and their right to anonymity.

The victim - Jill Saward - was the first woman in Britain to waive her right to anonymity in order to tell her story and thus educate people as to the trauma suffered by rape victims.

She had, effectively, already been identified by The Sun newspaper, whose then editor, Kelvin MacKenzie claimed that the existing right to anonymity only applied after a suspect had been charged - a loophole which was subsequently closed thanks to Jill Saward's campaigning.

***

Heading back south from the church, and back on the main road, I pass some of the numerous shops and cafés that line this street.

Having eulogised about Snaresbrook this morning, you might think I'd be quick to criticise the slightly shabby appearance of South Ealing Road.

South Ealing Road

But actually, if you ignore the occasional peeling paintwork, there's still a bit of a village-y type feel to this place. Yes, there's a Costa Coffee and a Co-op food store - typical of any high street - and the usual tattoo parlours and take-aways, but there's also an independent (and rather upmarket) butcher, several fruit and veg shops, a smattering of delicatessens, and even a second-hand record shop.

I might not have made much use of such places as a student (even the records had given way to CDs when I was at University), but I can certainly see myself picking up a few tasty morsels from the butcher and the various delis for my own - rather less monumental - Sunday lunch one day...

'Two Become One'

noreply@blogger.com (Nowhere Man) — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 17:43:00 +0000

Day 78

Seven Sisters - Shadwell - Shepherd's Bush - Shepherd's Bush Market - Shoreditch High Street - Sloane Square

Today we start with a place that was a minor internet sensation only a few weeks ago, thanks to the happy conjunction of a station sign, some members of a religious order, and a photographer blessed with serendipity.

The photographer (Ben Patey) who managed to snap the picture of seven nuns waiting on the platform at Seven Sisters station must have imagined some sort of Divine Intervention was at work placing such a gift of juxtaposition in his viewfinder. And those who snidely pointed out that there's actually an eighth nun sitting in the photo - obscured by one of her companions - were missing the point, and clearly just felt the need to leech any joy out of life.

The photo was taken on the Overground platform, whereas I arrive on the Underground, and if you look at a map of the area you might be forgiven for thinking the two are in completely different stations, since they appear to be separated by at least two roads of houses and several shops.

Seven Sisters

However, while it's true that the Underground station (built in 1968) was a later addition to the Overground station (opened in 1872), the two are considered a single entity - being linked by subways and sharing a common entrance hall - and are officially listed as such on the tube map.

And this is only the first of several locations on my itinerary today where this is the case, as we shall see.

Sadly, the photography gods are obviously not smiling so benignly down on me today as they did for Ben Patey, and there's nothing much more exciting than the station entrance to photograph when I arrive.

Or indeed, for the whole time I'm in the area.

The original 'Seven Sisters' from which the place gets its name were a ring of seven elm trees, which once stood at what is now the junction of the High Road and Broad Lane (though they were replaced and relocated several times over the following centuries).

At the time, this formed the edge of a place called 'Page Green' and this was for many years the area's official name, though the nickname 'Seven Sisters' soon took over.

The High Road is pleasant enough by the looks of it, and there are a few obviously young trees lining the broad pedestrian walkways lined with shops and cafés.

High Road

But it's around the corner to a small patch of common on Broad Lane that I'm headed this morning - to see the modern day 'Seven Sisters'.

The ring of hornbeam trees (Dutch Elm Disease having ruled out the possibility of replacing the original elms) was planted in 1997, at a ceremony in which five sets of seven real-life sisters each took turns in digging the earth.

The 'new' Seven Sisters

There's nothing else of note to see here as far as I can tell, so I'm soon on my way again to my next destination.

***

And here again we have two stations which - on the tube map - are listed as only one by TFL.

Shadwell Overground Station and Shadwell DLR station do appear to be separate stations - they certainly have separate ticket halls - but they're only a matter of yards from one another.

Confusingly, the Overground line actually runs underground in this part of town - though this is explained by the fact that it was once part of the Underground network.

Shadwell - Overground

It was known as the 'East London Branch' of the Metropolitan Line, and was the only line not to go through Zone 1 at any point. The current Overground line runs north to south between Highbury & Islington and the various branches south of the river.

Around the corner is the DLR station, and the platforms here are not only above ground, but even higher - on top of a viaduct.

Shadwell - DLR

The area immediately outside the two stations isn't particularly inspiring - just a few down at heel shops - but I've spotted a couple of places on the map that might be worth investigating.

The first is to the south east of the station and is called Shadwell Basin - part of the original London Docks and thus linked to the Thames.

Marathon preparations
underway

On my way there I spy various notices warning that several of the roads through the area will be closed off at the weekend, as they form part of London Marathon route. I'd forgotten the marathon takes place at this time of year, and am grateful that I'm not traveling at the weekend. Thankfully my trips tend to take place during the relatively quieter hours of the week - after the morning rush hour finishes and before the evening one starts.

The Basin has been redeveloped from its origins as a working dock, and is now the location of the Shadwell Basin Outdoor Activity Centre, which runs courses in canoeing and sailing for both children and adults.

Shadwell Basin

There are modern apartments surrounding the water, and - at the end nearest the river - a rolling-type 'Bascule' bridge.

Bascule Bridge

'Bascule' is the French word for see-saw, and a Bascule bridge is any of the various types of 'draw-bridge' that can be raised out of the way of passing ships (Tower Bridge is of course the most famous of these in London).

While some draw-bridges are move around a hinge or axle (as Tower Bridge does), the bridge here is of the 'rolling-type' The whole bridge rolls back onto the curved end (shown above) as if on the tracks of a rocking-chair.

As always when I'm this close to the river I can't resist getting as close as possible to the water and enjoying the view as the mighty river flows past.

The Thames, looking as majestic as ever

The next local 'sight' I've decided to have a look at lies at the other end of a long road running east to west from Limehouse, past the stations at Shadwell, almost as far as Tower Hill.

This road is called Cable Street, and has its own place in the history of the area. It was the site of the 'Battle Of Cable Street' in 1936, in which anti-fascist groups prevented the Blackshirts led by Oswald Mosley from marching from Tower Hill, through the predominantly Jewish area of Shadwell, towards Aldgate. Barricades were set up about halfway along the street, and protesters clashed with both the police and the fascists, who were eventually forced to abandon the march.

Jack The Ripper Museum
Cable Street

'Long Liz' Plaque

The place I'm looking for played no part in the 'Battle', being tucked away down a side street to the south of Cable Street, but before I reach it I spot a small, but distinctive, building on the main road - styling itself the 'Jack The Ripper Museum'.

This museum opened in 2015 and was the cause of some controversy at the time, the founder having initially completed a planning application for a museum that would 'recognise and celebrate the women of the East End who have shaped history'.

This museum, while certainly recognising and celebrating certain women in history, has been seen as exploiting their unfortunate fate for salacious reasons.

There's a plaque above the entrance which mentions Elizabeth Stride (aka 'Long Liz') - one of the Ripper's victims - being taken to a nearby mortuary, which is a connection of sorts, though rather a tenuous one.

The thing that catches my attention, however, is the sign for the shop next door, advertising it as a 'Local Shop'.

Now, anyone who has seen and loved the TV programme 'The League Of Gentlemen', will surely raise a smile at these ominous words. And it also seems eminently appropriate that (in my imagination at least) the erstwhile proprietors of the Royston Vasey 'Local Shop' - Tubbs and Edward Tattsyrup - should set up a new establishment next door to a museum dedicated to a serial killer...

However, all this is diverting me from my main goal, which is to head down the tiny little back street called Graces Alley, to one of the last Music Halls still surviving in London.

Wilton's Music Hall

Wilton's Music Hall was built in the mid 19th Century and - following a few uncertain years and a recent campaign to save it from collapse, it now lives on as "the most important surviving early music hall to be seen anywhere... It is of outstanding architectural and archaeological significance" (The Theatres Trust).

Graces Alley, with the Music Hall on the right

These days it runs as an arts venue producing theatre, cabaret, opera, classical music and dance shows, as well as offering workshops for schools and other groups.

Having walked this far along Cable Street, I don't think it's worth retracing my steps back to Shadwell, so I head north instead, to Aldgate East and from there head westwards to my next stop - Shepherd's Bush.

***

Or, should I say, my next stops.

Shepherd's Bush - Underground

Yes - once again, the single listing 'Shepherd's Bush' on the tube map, actually refers to two stations next door to one another - an Underground and an Overground. (There's also a third station I'll be visiting here, but I'll come to that in a little while).

Shepherd's Bush - Overground

The original Underground station was - when it was opened in 1900 - the western terminus of the Central London Railway (later to become the Central Line), before this was extended to Ealing in 1920, while the Overground station used to be called Uxbridge Road station.

Both were completely refurbished in 2008 as part of the development which also gave this part of town the enormous (and about to get enormous-er) Westfield Shopping Centre. And like the shopping centre, both stations are now very modern in design - all gleaming glass and metal.

Westfield Shopping Centre

Both Westfield and the two stations are at the eastern end of the Uxbridge Road, which runs along the top edge of Shepherd's Bush Green.

Shepherd's Bush Green

The Green forms the focal point of Shepherd's Bush, and - historically - was the piece of common pasture which gave the area its name. This was where, in more rural times, shepherds taking their sheep to Smithfield Market would allow their flock to graze.

Roll up, roll up...

Currently it's being prepared to play host to the Moscow State Circus, though there are still enough patches of green to provide sunbathing spots for the locals in their lunch hour.

A pleasant spot for lunch...

At the western end of the Green is the third station in the area - Shepherd's Bush Market.

Shepherd's Bush Market

The Market

This Hammersmith & City Line station is, of course, named after the street-market located across the road from it (and which has been in permanent residence here since 1914), though prior to the 2008 redevelopment of the other two stations, it too was simply called 'Shepherd's Bush'.

The market has the usual collection of stalls, selling clothes, CDs, Groceries and so on, and seems to be doing a roaring trade.

For me, however, the most interesting thing at this end of the Green is to be found next door to the market, in what used to be the Shepherd's Bush Library.

Bush Theatre

The Bush Theatre opened in 1972, and was originally located in an upstairs room of The Bush pub, just around the corner at the junction of Goldhawk Road. It has always been a theatre that championed new writing, (actively welcoming unsolicited scripts) and receives nearly 2000 new play-scripts a year.

Next door to the theatre's previous home above the pub is another arts venue - the Shepherd's Bush Empire.

Shepherd's Bush Empire

Best known these days as a pop concert venue, it started life as a Music Hall (Charlie Chaplin appeared here in his early days), and was later turned into the BBC Television Theatre, where shows featuring live audiences (such as Crackerjack, The Generation Game, This Is Your Life and The Old Grey Whistle Test ) were recorded.

I complete a circuit of the Green by heading back to the Central Line station. From here it's now time to head on to my next destination - back over to the east of town, and Shoreditch.

***

Well, not quite...

Shoreditch High Street

The station itself, despite being named after Shoreditch High Street, is actually to the east of that street, and in Bethnal Green not Shoreditch. The two areas are side by side, though in different boroughs.

But what care I for arbitrary boundaries? I'm here to explore the area around the station in all its glory - and if I call it Shoreditch when I mean Bethnal Green, or Hackney when I mean Tower Hamlets, well, does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?

Let's find out...

The station - as I have pointed out - is to the east of Shoreditch High Street, which runs north to south through the area. Beginning my wanderings by heading even further east might seem odd, but there's a street I want to see, as it's become famous for its cosmopolitan buzz.

Brick Lane

'Brick Lane' -
in English, Bengali,
and (presumably)
Small Child-ese

Brick Lane has been predominantly a Bangladeshi since the middle of the 20th Century, and the various restaurants and food stalls at the market reflect this in the cuisine they offer, as do the street signs, which all feature a Bengali translation.

Both the East End in general and Shoreditch in particular have been enjoying something of a renaissance in recent years, with the 'hip and trendy' crowd (who would no doubt be horrified at the use of such out-dated words) moving in and setting up 'retro' shops, 'Speakeasy' style cocktail bars, and even (I kid you not) a Breakfast Cereal themed café. (This latter was the unfortunate victim of an 'anti-gentrification' attack in 2015, with paint being thrown at the windows.)

But then, this part of town has always had a touch of the avant-garde about it. It was just to the west of Shoreditch High Street, on Curtain Road, that the first (permanent) playhouse in England (called, imaginatively, 'The Theatre') was opened by James Burbage in 1576.

This was the theatre that - following a later dispute with their landlords - was dismantled by the actors and taken across the river to be rebuilt as 'The Globe'.

Shakespeare - a member of the company as well as a playwright - performed here, and it was the original 'Wooden O' mentioned in the opening speech of Henry V.

And that's it for Shoreditch I think. An odd mixture of crumbling and decrepit buildings, peeling paintwork and dingy back-streets - all housing ultra-trendy bars and restaurants, fashion outlets and art galleries.

Hey ho...

***

I hadn't originally planned on visiting any more stations after Shoreditch High Street, but it's still early enough in the afternoon to be able to squeeze one more in. And since the next one - Sloane Square - is (roughly) on my way home, it would seem silly not to do so.

Unusually for me, the first photo I take of the station is not of the entrance sign, but of the platforms as soon as I get off the train.

Down by the riverside...

More specifically, I'm taking a photo of the great big iron structure that crosses overhead from one side of the station to the other.

This is actually a large pipe, carrying the old River Westbourne - one of the many minor tributaries of the Thames - which was inconveniently in the way when they decided to build a station here.

Like several of the 'lost' rivers of London, the Westbourne hasn't really been lost at all, but simply built over.

It flows through pipes beneath the streets of West London from Hampstead in the north, via the Serpentine in Hyde Park, down to the Thames at Chelsea - though its route can be traced in names like Bayswater (originally 'Bayards Watering') and Knightsbridge (which originally crossed the Westbourne).

Above ground, (having now dutifully taken my photo of the station entrance) I am of course on the Square from which the station takes its name.

Sloane Square

Sloane Square is named after a certain Sir Hans Sloane - local resident, physician and collector of antiquities who - on his death in 1753 - bequeathed his vast collection 'to the nation', thus providing the initial exhibits of what would become the British Museum.

We're in one of the wealthiest areas of London here - on the borders of Chelsea, Knightsbridge and Belgravia. The term 'Sloane Ranger' was, during the eighties, a term of disparagement for the rich, young, upper-class socialites of the day. The buildings surrounding the Square are all very grand, and no doubt contain flats costing millions for a space the size of a small doormat.

One building is guaranteed to catch my eye, however - and it's another theatre.

The Royal Court

Like the Bush Theatre in Shepherd's Bush (and, if you think about it, 'The Theatre' in Shoreditch) the Royal Court has built its well-deserved reputation on the staging of new writing.

The theatre was originally opened in 1870, though in a slightly different location. It was rebuilt on its present site in 1888, was used as a cinema for a while between 1935-1940 and eventually became the home of The English Stage Company in 1956.

It has seen the premieres of several notable and influential works, including those by John Osbourne, Arnold Wesker, Christopher Hampton, Howard Brenton, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Caryl Churchill, and - in 1973, in the tiny 63-seater upstairs studio - a 'schlock-horror' musical parody of old black and white B-Movies called 'The Rocky Horror Show', written by an out of work actor called Richard O'Brien.

The Square

At the other end of Sloane Square is the huge department store 'Peter Jones'. Now part of the John Lewis group, it was originally the business of Welsh draper - Peter Rees Jones - who came to London at the age of 24 and successfully expanded his original business from one small shop, to taking over 26 of the neighbouring properties. It is one of very few shops now owned by John Lewis to have been allowed to keep its original name.

Peter Jones

Sir Hans Sloane

I take a brief wander westwards along the Kings Road - another fashionable shopping area, though not for those whose credit cards are of a sensitive disposition - and turn left into Duke Of York Square. This is predominantly a collection of boutiques and restaurants but it does contain a statue of the man who gave his name to the area.

The Saatchi Gallery

Next door to the statue of Sir Hans is the Saatchi Gallery.

Started by businessman and collector Charles Saatchi in 1985, it has had various locations (in both North London and on the South Bank) before settling here in Chelsea in 2008.

This is another establishment that has given a name to up-and-coming artists - people like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin have been showcased by the gallery over the years.

As such it has seen a fair amount of controversy - works displayed have include a giant portrait of Moors murderess Myra Hindley, made from children's hand-prints, and also a portrait entitled The Holy Virgin Mary, which rested on two mounds of elephant dung. Both works were attacked both verbally and physically, and both were vehemently defended as 'free expressions of art' in campaigns led by other artists, actors, authors and politicians.

I don't feel the need to see what's on offer in the gallery today - it is now getting towards the end of the afternoon, and I think I've done enough for one day. A good day's Wombling to be sure, but a tiring one for these old bones of mine...

Until next time then - look after yourselves!