diamond geezer

Kew Gardens

2026-09-25T07:00:00.000+01:00

A Nice Walk: Kew Gardens (1 mile)

Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, oodles of horticultural variety, outstanding architecture, glamorous vistas, top quality sculpture, regular refreshment opportunities, all continents included, occasional carnivorous plants, contour-free, royally approved, directly on the Heathrow flightpath, a bit of a stroll, won't take long. So here's a mile across a World Heritage Site in Kew, potentially enough to make a day of it and a nice walk all the same. [map]

Kew Gardens has evolved since 1759 into possibly the world's finest botanical collection, now with over 50,000 species across 330 riverside acres. Getting in's not cheap so this might not be for you, but it's only £10 on Tuesdays for the rest of the year so technically an autumnal bargain. For this nice walk I'm essentially heading down the eastern side, parallel to Kew Road, starting near the Elizabeth Gate and ending near the pagoda. This means missing out on the Great Badger Sett, Redwood Grove, Lake Crossing, Rhododendron Dell and Kew Palace, but you can always meander that way on your walk back.

Let's start by the Alpine House, a thin glass wedge whose rockeries are packed with tiny resilient plants, one of which (the arum pictum) is currently flowering with a supposedly foul odour. Enjoy the many flowers because there aren't a lot left across the gardens, especially out of doors, as summer turns to autumn. Or let's start in the Carbon Garden, a new project opened last year and recognisable by a central weird wooden mushroom thing in the centre of some stripy beds. The idea is to educate and inform but my word it's dry, not just the favoured arid plants but also the information boards that even a school party seemed uninterested in. Or start at the Hive, a metal lattice sculpture that quietly buzzes, best experienced from inside and best photographed from underneath. Or start in the Kitchen Garden, the Evolution Garden or the Aquatic Garden, indeed just potter around awhile because they've tucked a lot of interest into this northeastern corner and we won't be coming back.

For a proper debut let's go inside the Princess of Wales Conservatory, a stepped glasshouse opened by Diana the day before her 6th wedding anniversary. It has ten temperature-controlled zones all accessed through swing doors, the humidity climbing noticeably as you enter the central tropics. Not only is it packed with ferns, cacti and all manner of leafy fronds, but it's also a top-class maze with multiple up-and-down passageways to explore. Head up and you should find real-life Madagascar, head down and you might find a really fat white fish swimming opposite the building's architectural awards. I will say it's less fun when a secondary school party is exploring all around you, then two teachers arrive with primary crocodiles wielding worksheets, so maybe best explore at the weekend (or after 3pm when their coaches have left).

Exit at the lower end by the Paolozzi sculpture, a half-cyborg mix titled A Maximis Ad Minima. They like their outdoor sculptures at Kew and it's especially blessed at present with two dozen chunky Henry Moores scattered around the place. The closest to here are three Upright Motives, but there'll be some far lumpier specimens as we continue, some even stand-underable. Cut across the lawn to find the Broad Walk, its 320m-long beds believed to be the longest herbaceous borders in the country. You could learn about taxonomy because they've all been planted in groups, or you could simply admire the plants (the monocots are still ablaze). But sorry about the Waterlily House, it's 175 years old so they're replacing all 1546 glass panes and improving step-free access so it's all behind hoardings 'til next spring, dammit.

Next on Kew's major maintenance list is the famous Palm House, a massive glasshouse the length of a football pitch which in 1848 was the world's first large-scale wrought iron structure. It's due to close next spring for five years of extensive renovation, indeed the gardeners have already shifted several specimens to large pots and removed a substantial number, leaving empty beds and deep holes. For now it's still possible to wander round the sweaty interior past a variety of towering stems, crossing continents in minutes and learning a lot of Latin names on the way. My favourite part remains the spiral staircase that climbs to a high walkway, one-way only, where you can explore the canopy in greater detail and also get a good idea of why ironwork maintenance might be a good idea. Visit soon or miss out on one of Kew's best bits until 2032.

The flower terrace between the Palm House and the lake is still looking spectacular, almost as if it's been designed to peak in mid-September after every other bed has faded. Aim for the tall brick tower that looks like an Italian campanile but is in fact a disguised chimney for the boilers that used to heat the Palm House. This is located by the Victoria Gate, the gardens' chief entrance from which the chuggy land train sets off every hour. Hordes of cultured white-haired types pour through the barriers here every morning, return for tea and cakes mid-afternoon and shop for cuttings before they go home. Rest assured the Henry Moore teatowels are hole-free.

The most interesting route to the next glasshouse is via the Mediterranean Garden. It's not entirely European, it covers anywhere with a Mediterranean climate, thus at present Chile is looking a lot dazzlier than California atop the mound. The temple in the centre with the Tuscan porticos was added by Queen Victoria in memory of her uncle William IV, and was erected within months of her accession. The Cherry Walk is six months off looking spectacular, but follow that and you'll reach the glass door at the near end of the Temperate House. In good news this has already been renovated, they finished in 2018, so is a sparkling receptacle for gum trees, tubers, cycads and hundreds of thankfully-labelled tall green things. Reading one board I leaned that some plants here are so rare that they could have been lost in a single landslide, and that only one specimen of New Zealand's Three Kings Vine survived the introduction of a few grazing goats. Inform, educate and entertain.

You could at this point deviate to the Treetop Walkway, a steel circuit erected high amongst the trees in 2008. There is a lift but I walked up all 108 steps before confirming that yes, you can see central London across the canopy and yes, even the horse chestnuts at Kew are suffering from premature leaf miner shrivelling. Or you could deviate in the opposite direction to the Galley of Botanical Art, although it's mostly full of Henry Moore collateral at present so not very flowery. Or there's the nearby Pavilion Bar and Grill, very much not one of the Garden's original buildings, where people tired of plant-spotting can settle with a ploughmans sharing platter or spend the equivalent of their entrance fee on a plate of fish and chips and a glass of white wine. But if you want to restrict your nice walk to one mile best not deviate, head straight on to the Far East.

The Japanese Landscape was completed in 1996 and the tea garden has to include a lot of signs saying Please Do Not Walk On The Gravel so visitors don't blunder through. Its centrepiece is the 16th century Gateway of the Imperial Messenger, although this is a four-fifths scale model created for the Japan-British Exhibition held at White City in 1910. Much more obvious is Kew's classic pagoda, a ten-storey landmark erected within a couple of years of the Gardens original opening and bedecked with 80 beautifully restored dragons. It's now under the management of Historic Royal Palaces and they charge £4.50 to climb to the top, this time with no lift so it could be a tiring end to your nice walk. And yes obviously I know none of you will ever follow this precise route, it's more an illustration of the riches to be had within a single mile at the absolute treasure which is Kew Gardens, now in its 267th year and still going strong.

» 8 Flickr photos (seven of which are not shown above)

Southbound Southbound Northbound Northbound

2026-09-24T07:00:00.000+01:00

Hey folks, welcome to the new channel!
TikTok's where it's at because video is boss, so let's do this.
Got an incredible one to start with, so lock in, like and subscribe.

I'm here at the new entrance to King's Cross St Pancras on Euston Road, south side.
It's so new nobody else has filmed this yet, yes it's well exclusive.
Already got a homeless bloke asleep by the lift but hey.

We're going on an amazing journey, I cannot lie A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.
We're going one stop south and then back south TO THE SAME STATION.
It's nuts but the tube is nuts, innit?

Look, we've come down to King's Cross platform 4 which is the Victoria line southbound.
Remember the 'southbound' thing because that's like the super-weird bit.
Let's hop on, the doors are closing, it's one stop south to Euston.

At Euston we go through this passage to the Northern line, straight across.
Look it says 'Northern line Southbound platform 6'.
But southbound is to King's Cross and hang on, haven't we just been there?

IT WAS SOUTHBOUND TO EUSTON BUT NOW IT'S SOUTHBOUND BACK TO KING'S CROSS.
Mind blown.
AND THERE'S MORE...

Let's go straight across the passageway to the other Northern line platform.
It says King's Cross back to Euston is northbound.
But it was southbound on the Victoria line, WTF IS HAPPENING HERE?

Now we're back to Euston for a simple cross-passage switch to the Victoria line.
It says Euston back to King's Cross is northbound.
But we just rode northbound to get here, so how can it be northbound to get back?!?!?!?!

To summarise...
From King's Cross to Euston is SOUTHBOUND on the Victoria line.
And Euston back to King's Cross is SOUTHBOUND on the Northern line.

From King's Cross to Euston is NORTHBOUND on the Northern line.
But Euston back to King's Cross is NORTHBOUND on the Victoria line.
They're toying with us!

If you check the tube map it looks like Euston isn't north or south of King's Cross.
It's basically west, obviously, and neither north or south.
But the tube map lies.

A proper geographic map confirms Euston is further south than King's Cross.
So the Victoria line is correct, it was correct all along.
And the Northern line is wrong, 100% wrong.

What's going on here is that all trains to Edgware and High Barnet are deemed 'northbound'.
It just happens that between King's Cross and Euston they're going south.
Definitely not north, anyway.

And all Northern line trains to Morden are deemed 'southbound'.
It just happens that between King's Cross and Euston they're going north.
And that's not the only place this happens.

• Angel → King's Cross: northbound Northern line trains are going south.
• Finchley Road → West Hampstead: northbound Jubilee line trains are going south.
• Kilburn Park → Queens Park → Kensal Green: northbound Bakerloo line trains are going south.
• Harrow-on-the-Hill → West Harrow → Rayners Lane: northbound Metropolitan line trains are going south.
• Tottenham Hale → Blackhorse Road → Walthamstow Central: northbound Victoria line trains are going south.

• Stratford → Leyton: eastbound Central line trains are going west.
• Newbury Park → Barkingside: eastbound Central line trains are going west.
• Hammersmith → Goldhawk Road: eastbound Hammersmith & City line trains are going west.
• High Street Kensington → Notting Hill Gate: eastbound District line trains are going west.
• Wimbledon Park → Southfields → Putney Bridge: eastbound District line trains are going west.
• Fulham Broadway → West Brompton: eastbound District line trains are going west.
• Canning Town → West Ham → Stratford: eastbound Jubilee line trains are going west.
• Park Royal → North Ealing: eastbound Piccadilly line trains are going west.
• Holborn → Russell Square: eastbound Piccadilly line trains are going west.

Really stupidly...
• Manor House → Arnos Grove and Southgate → Cockfosters: eastbound Piccadilly line trains are going west.
Riding through the last seven stations eastbound, six sections are in fact travelling west.

And stupidest of all...
• Aldgate → Notting Hill Gate: eastbound Circle line trains are going west.
That's FIFTEEN consecutive stations of wrongdirectionness, technically speaking.

But King's Cross and Euston are the only adjacent stations where two lines truly travel in opposite directions.
So if you ever get bored you can come down for the ultimate illogical ride.
Start on the Victoria line at King's Cross, keep going one stop, then cross the platform and ride back.

KX to Euston southbound, Euston to KX southbound, KX to Euston northbound, Euston to KX northbound.
Round and round and round forever.
In a ridiculous contrary loop.

Kew Palace

2026-09-23T07:00:00.000+01:00

Five of HRP's six royal palaces are in London. It costs £120 to visit them all.

Tower of London £37.00
Hampton Court Palace    £29.00
Kensington Palace £19.00
Banqueting House    £10.00
Kew Palace    £25.00
TOTAL £120.00

Take up HRP membership and you can get that down to £89.
But by playing the long game I've managed to visit the lot for less than £20.
I saved the most expensive until last.

Tower of London    £1.00
Hampton Court Palace £7.75
Kensington Palace    £0.00
Banqueting House £0.00
Kew Palace    £10.00
   TOTAL £18.75

Tower of London: £37 is pretty steep for a palace visit, even when it's an extra-special Norman fortress, and even more so if you stump up the cheeky £3.70 donation on top. But Tower Hamlets residents get to visit the Tower for £1 which is easily one of London's best deals, an offer I've taken up several times (2009/2015/2023).
Hampton Court Palace: Visiting Hampton Court is never cheap, but sometimes they do a half-price offer in the winter months and in 2015 I got the usual £15.50 down to £7.75. The price has almost doubled since.
Kensington Palace: In 2019 I had an Art Pass when that entitled you to free entry. These days it only entitles you to half-price entry when there's a temporary exhibition open.
Banqueting House: For Open House in 2003 they let us in for nothing (and gave us a damned good eight page booklet too).
Kew Palace: This is the odd one out because you can't just go in, you have to buy a ticket for Kew Gardens where it's one of the attractions within. And Kew Gardens isn't cheap, it's currently £25 a shot, and although that drops to £17 in winter Kew Palace only opens April to September. But for the rest of 2026 there's a special offer whereby admission is ONLY £10 EVERY TUESDAY and that is a bargain. Alas I got in on the last possible Kew Palace Tuesday so you can't follow me in.

Historic Royal Palaces: Kew Palace
Location: Kew Gardens, TW9 3AB [map]
Open: 11am-4pm (April - September)
Admission: as part of admission to Kew Gardens
Website: hrp.org.uk/kew-palace
Five word summary: the madhouse of King George
Time to allow: about an hour
photos: eight

When the Georges were on the throne, Kew was a much more important royal home. George II's eldest son Frederick enlarged an existing home into The White House, long demolished, then added a separate kitchen block behind to reduce the risk of fire. His children were educated in The Dutch House alongside, amongst them the future George III (and later his son George IV). This took on a greater significance when George III was confined here during his third and final mental health trauma, lured inside on a pretext then confined to the ground floor with his doctors. His wife Queen Charlotte moved in upstairs, also four of his 15 children, the princesses Augusta, Amelia, Elizabeth and Sophie. The Queen predeceased her husband, after which Kew was never again used by royalty, but Queen Victoria opened it to the public in 1898 and that is a ridiculously potted history of Kew Palace.

The palace is on the far side of the park where you might never notice it, although if you do drop into the Orangery for spinach curry the bright citrus of its distant facade might just attract your attention. It screams Dutch even from a distance, the rounded gables, the symmetry and even more the orange. Expect to be greeted at the door by staff in costume, perhaps a little tired of offering the same welcome and mini-safety briefing over and over again all summer. What you're getting for your 'no additional charge' is a walk round up-to-three of the floors, starting with a circuit of downstairs in the King's Library. A teensy scrap of 17th century decoration has been revealed on one wall, a human figure no larger than A4 size, which was revealed only after painstaking peeling. It's believed the pattern continues across the room so they'd love to uncover more, but it's underneath 37 subsequent layers of wallpaper and nobody has either the time or the money to remove the lot.

The King's Dining Room is where George III was served what his doctors told him to eat, like asparagus for his bowels and jellies to ease his stomach pains. The information boards are keen to point out that we shouldn't judge the man solely on health issues later in his 59-year reign, but unfortunately that's the era focused on here. Another room has mannequins representing the royal couple and their 15 children, sheesh, it seems poor Queen Charlotte did nothing much for two decades but be pregnant. Her suite of rooms is upstairs, starting with the boudoir where sewing, spinning and embroidery fended off the boredom of waiting for her husband to get better. The drawing room is nationally significant because it's here that two of the princes had emergency weddings to German princesses after George III's only grandchild died in childbirth. Edward's marriage lasted only two years before he too died, but that was long enough for Princess Victoria to be born and she'd go on to rule even longer than her grandfather.

Look they've stripped back one of the walls so you can see the original oak blocks used for construction in the 1630s. Look it's the chair Queen Charlotte died in, indeed never left for the last few months of her life, a comfy lowslung black number that apparently nobody's sat in since. Look the stairs to the second floor have been blocked off, this because it's nearly the end of the season and they just don't have the staff. And look there's a couple in full Indian dress dancing at the bottom of the garden, being filmed by two blokes from Eminence Cinema. It's a pleasantly compact garden, one half formal and Georgian, the other half sunken and Stuart, although a tower block across the Thames in Brentford spoils the skyline somewhat. And that's not all.

You could easily miss the small sign by some woodland inviting you to visit the palace kitchens but that would be a shame. At the far end is a well-tended kitchen garden and the offer of a half-hourly tour of the basement, which you should definitely take up. Here food was prepared for the White House and the Palace, so you get to go into the wet store (with actual meathooks), bakery (with actual ovens) and main kitchen (with actual table gouged by 18th century knife marks). The best part may be the huge fireplace where roasting meat was rotated automatically via a devious heat-powered spit, but is more likely the tin bath George III sat in while he endured hours of heat- or ice-treatment, this found stuffed up a chimney when the kitchens were restored in 2012.

You'd probably be happy to pay £10 for the combined attraction of a palace and a kitchen tour, so how brilliant that it's merely an add-on to all the other glories at Kew Gardens. Until Sunday.

500 things I love about London

2026-09-22T05:00:00.000+01:00

500 things I love about London
[because it's exactly twenty-five years since I properly moved here]

Life, nightlife, the sense of history, the Underground, the Overground, canalside strolls, the view from Greenwich Park, the fact there's always somewhere to discover, cutting-edge architecture, classical architecture, curvaceous Regent Street, the chimes of Big Ben, the 2012 Olympics, the Olympic Park, layers of history, nightbuses, world cinema, world cuisine, the world in a city, a Muslim mayor, London is Open, sunlight on the Thames, the museums in South Kensington, the museums that aren't in South Kensington, not needing a car, the unwobbly Millennium Bridge, the City's dragons, a bus stop within 400m, it's quicker to walk, being able to choose from more than two local radio stations, suburbia, Trellick, Balfron, step-free travel, spiralling to the top of Tate Modern, mudlarking, Hampstead, the view from Hampstead Heath, diversity, acceptance, mind the gap, strolling along the South Bank, Waterloo sunset, the view from the top of anywhere tall, low tide, festivals, the Royal Festival Hall, pavement swagger, ghost signs, ghost stations, sitting in the Radio 4 audience, Trafalgar Square, knowing that I could walk home from Trafalgar Square if I really had to, art-filled piazzas, 100% style, tracing a line on a map, taking the tram, realising that the person drinking next to me in the pub is a celebrity, the Woolwich ferry, Hammerton's Ferry, the plurality of alternative routes, St Pancras station, cultural gravity, the highest pod on the London Eye, lost rivers, not-yet lost rivers, walking up the escalator, decent mobile phone reception, clapping the Marathon, density of infrastructure, free newspapers, the last tube, cabbies' knowledge, memories embedded in every streetscape, anachronistic Routemasters, the tiles along the Victoria line, global landmarks, having a local library, taking a shortcut down a back street I've never walked down before, realising that Dr Johnson was right, scouting the rural outskirts, Hawksmoor, Soane, Holden, watching the dawn over Tower Bridge, watching twin bascules rise, Blue Badge guides, the forgotten corner of a Victorian cemetery, Big Brother houses, the Big Breakfast house, the West End, the East End, the Congestion Charge, 24 hour bagel shops, 24 hour supermarkets, culture on my doorstep, Banksy's animals, the original of that famous work of art, an unexpected rainbow, rainbow crossings, rainbow plaques, blue plaques, deckchairs in Green Park, Roding Valley, Ruislip Lido, the Embankment illuminated, eyeballing a famous person in the street, recognising where a film was shot, Riddlesdown, revisiting Nairn's London, the DLR, sitting at the front on the DLR, meeting up with mates, Totters Lane, 0° longitude, standing in two hemispheres, the City, parklife, knowing when your bus is coming, Citymapper, the Ceremony of the Keys, being alone under the Thames in a foot tunnel, greasy fry-ups, fast trains to the coast, the view from Primrose Hill, far less fog than everyone imagines, snow on terraced rooftops, a good service is operating on all lines, Covent Garden, yes they deliver, creative possibilities, the view from the front seat on the top deck of a bus, alleys, tunnels, the middle of Richmond Park, free-roaming deer, the Isabella Plantation in spring, being out at 4am, six home Premiership sides, a window seat on the Bakerloo, getting caught up in West Ham turfing out, street art, street food, Kenwood, an unexpected smile in the rush hour, the Gherkin, critical mass, Soho, pie and mash, Longplayer, the opportunity to pop into Parliament, street markets, lidos, late-openings, rooftop terraces, gasholders against a bright blue sky, Open House, speeding down the river beneath world famous bridges, bleak estuary strolls, film premières, Farthing Downs, Happy Valley, regular flypasts, garden squares, General Roy's cannons, gypsy tart from a Bexley bakery, not needing to drive home from the pub, pedestrian countdown lights, postcode identity, hyperlocality, Epping Forest, swiping my Oyster, pay-as-you-go, the smell of bacon from a Cabmen's shelter, undeveloped farmland, the Low Emission Zone, finding myself somewhere you've never been, Northala Fields, high streets that stay open after 5:30, art galleries that stay open after 6, still buzzing on a Sunday evening, always having something to do even when it's raining, Mornington Crescent, pocket parks, atypical roundels, characterful terraces, Denis Severs' House, the Apollo 10 command module, urban wildlife, a night at the dog track, outstaring a fox, Foyles, youthfulness, a nearby launderette just in case, streetlights at night, pounding the Loop, fireworks on Blackheath, the National, the Saatchi, the Serpentine, the Sales, spotting the City from the outskirts, suburbs pretending to be villages, actual proper unswallowed Kentish villages, anything that Bazalgette built, one hundred different burgers, the heat island effect, Remain, the Hainault loop, crossing Oxford Circus diagonally, cycle superhighways, living in a medieval village, Sister Ray, walking faster than the traffic, overtaking a jogger, Kew Gardens, standing inside the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, living in a city that tourists pay £100 a night to visit, not needing a hotel before catching the red-eye, Spitalfields, King's Cross, never needing to Uber, windmills, forest, hills, fields, Hilly Fields, Strawberry Hill House, the 4th plinth, Norway's gifted tree, the ex-Geffrye at Christmas, the top floor at the V&A, the Sultan's Elephant, gelateria, lavender fields, Limehouse to Little Venice, this not being Ipswich, following in Roman footsteps, stepcounter heaven, plane trees, grime, world-class design, becoming blasé at seeing herons, the Freedom Pass, New Johnston font, so many cinemas, still so many bookshops, wi-fi, 1908, 1948, E20, EL2, SL7, 5G, Zone 6, crossing Westminster Bridge at night on the back of a bike, the skyline at dusk, Eel Pie Island, do not touch the walrus, do not feed the pelicans, Beckton Alp, the Hoover Building, a sewing machine museum, a cattle grid, gridlessness, reaching the middle of Hampton Court Maze, long-term planning, wondering what the Turbine Hall will hold next, Golden Lane, the Golden Mile, anything you need within half an hour, if the local branch doesn't stock it ten others might, floating towpaths, legacy, Little Waitrose, Little Britain, international churn, the sheer variety of Theatreland, the contrast between Erith and Twickenham, nipping down to national celebrations, it's only a short dash to the country, every cuisine, knowing the ambulance will get here in time, the h Museum, arthouse pop-ups, brutalist symmetry, Myrtle Avenue, some pubs still aren't flats, free stuff-to-do every weekend, more than its fair share of new stuff, relevance, friends within walking distance, total lockdown variety, Bopeep, ABBA Voyage, Crossrail, Mail Rail, not having to get everything delivered, seeing the Crown Jewels for £1, kingfisher-spotting, towpath-treading, Carnival, being upstream of the Thames Barrier, not needing to consult a timetable, buildings Betjeman loved, fibreglass squirrels, an abundance of public sculpture, the backways of the Barbican, investment, easy walking, QEOP's premature daffodils, locals strutting the streets in their Eid finest, the diversity of bollards, spring tide overspill, Bethlem, casually bumping into Hollywood film crews, casually bumping into national treasures, mild urbex, properly local TV news, graffiti as art, 0171/0181 shopfronts, 071/081 shopfronts, 01 shopfronts, lost byways, decent-sized balconies, the Neasden Nature Trail, LWT, embracing a fare anomaly, History Trees, Rainham Hall, lunch in the Peers Dining Room, Postman's Park, Leinster Gardens, concentrated quirk, Knolly's Rose, Doggett's Coat and Badge, old manhole covers, the National Standard Kilogram, Dorich House, the many wows of Eltham Palace, the emptiness of Hacton, exploring City pedways, the ridge at Totteridge, two millennia of history, the Capital Ring, going against the grain, a hearse behind plumed horses, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, the Greenway, the whiff of a city farm, subway art, Walthamstow Wetlands, river piers, Boroughs of Culture, any old street sign appended with a red postal district, Extinction Rebellion shaking the status quo, the NLA New London Model, Fullwell Cross Library, taking the spiral staircase down to the platform, the panoply of Royal Parks, William Morris, the Crystal Palace dinosaurs, ace-ing a Hopper, the Barbican conservatory, getting the Hampstead Pergola to myself, following the Effra plaques, Mr Benn in Festive Road, the Fæsten Dic, stand on the right, inexorable explorability, the Thames from Richmond Hill, tracing the Meridian, a feast of concrete, watching little planes take off, cherry blossom fortnight, red routes, 20mph limits, Waterloo freebies, being able to walk to a bookshop, immunity from Reform takeover, dropping into filming locations, never having to worry when bin day is, public toilet accessibility, livery halls, greyfield, Crossrail connections, Cockmannings, liminal pylons, Nine Elms Sunday Market, the Dulwich tollbooth, Dial A Ride (eventually), Bank's multiplicity of exits, Roger the Crocodile, Reggie Perrin's cul-de-sac, Horizon 22, Chelsea buns from the Kingshill Bakery, the Totteridge yew, taking tea in an Apprentice cafe, the Heathrow Biodiversity Site, pleasaunces, tube vents, the ever-expanding Superloop, jubilee clocktowers, the Brockley Three Peaks Walk, rotating at the top of the BT Tower, the Cheam Charter Fair, V&A East Storehouse, 575 Wandsworth Road, Rules, the Chelsea Physic Garden, finding a Roman wall in a car park, the Capitalcard poster at Leytonstone station, foreshore extensions, the revamped Crystal Palace Park, outrider-led motorcades, battery trains, living on the EastEnders map, the Boat Race, services at least half-hourly, a shop that just sells umbrellas, potential new towns, gelato, Borough Market, TfL Go, railway arches, weather records, London Centric, R8, the Bayeux Tapestry, Standard Gogen, hundreds of places that are 'officially' the world's best, debatable centres, Monopoly streets, the short queues at City Airport, Wilton's Music Hall, The Mousetrap, tubemice, central sheep, summer-long tattoo gallery, the British Library, the absence of cereal cafes, the pointlessness of Liberty, geotrails, my 60+ Oyster card, journey history, not being Slough, Myddleton House Gardens, Little Holland House, the ubiquity of escalators, taking the piss out of the Dangleway, Great West Road architecture, going deep into the earth, climbing high into the sky, living on airfields, an increasing number of drinking fountains, easy hills, ten Wimpys, eleven Tobys, Footpath 47, Greggs Outlet, glacial limits, Barbican's secret lift, all the buses, all the stations, all the postcodes, all the grid squares, Chucklehead (if it ever comes back), the Catford prefabs, urban backways, the view from Alexandra Palace, unique opportunities, eight hamlets, still having a local bank, the variety of borough streetsigns, whatever I want, anything I need, the anonymity of not knowing my neighbours, being one in nine million, collective consciousness, common ground, independence, invisibility, inspiration, togetherness, cosmopolitan coexistence, centrality, accessibility, the proximity of possibility, social autonomy, human availability, the fact it's not as scary as out-of-towners think it is, Metro-land, moquette, deserted Thames-side beaches, a 600 square mile playground, the buzz, infinite choice, the city's constant resilience, feeling alive, simply living here.

Open House 6

2026-09-21T07:00:00.000+01:00

Let's round off Open House with yesterday's final four visits.

Open House: Richmond Lock Building (Surrey Side) (Richmond) The Weired One
Open House: The Lock House, Richmond Lock & Weir (Twickenham) The Thin One

Sometimes spaces on heavily booked tours suddenly appear overnight, even on the day of the opening, thus I grabbed this one and changed my plans for the day. Richmond is the last lock on the Thames if heading downstream, and the only one owned and operated by the Port of London Authority. It was opened in 1894 to solve a problem created 60 years earlier when the old London Bridge was demolished, speeding up the flow of the river. This meant the upper tidal reaches between Teddington and Richmond became unnavigable for hours either side of low tide, hence an elaborate iron span was constructed with five arches and three rising sluice gates. An Act of Parliament requires river levels to be maintained at or above half-tide level, which is 1.72m, hence government permission has to be sought annually when they open the weir for autumn maintenance.

The footbridge across the top opens daily but you can't walk underneath, not unless you're a PLA employee. For Open House it was possible to do this on both banks because each end of the structure is supported atop a sturdy lockkeepers cottage and both of these were open. One is still in operational use, complete with big screens, tide tables and a kettle, while the other has been leased to an architectural practice called Astronaut Kawada. The long thin space has been beautifully kitted-out in white with drawings and models on display, plus a well placed mirror to make it look longer. Dean's desk is perfectly placed to have the lock span over his right shoulder, far better than any screensaver, while the view from the entrance is of the weir side-on in perfect symmetry. If you have a small boat you can lug it over the rollers here for free.

The actual lock itself is adjacent to the Surrey bank and is 76m long and 8m wide so can take much larger craft. It's needed when the weir gates are raised, a mechanism you can watch up close from the footbridge roughly two hours before and two hours after high tide. We were instead fortunate enough to be able to watch a boat pass through, admittedly a small one but it wasted the same amount of upstream water all the same. To admit them Mason the lockkeeper pressed a button to open the lock gates, then closed them, then wandered round to the mooring chains carrying a big fishing net. What on earth does he need that for, we thought, and were both amused and surprised when he lowered down a white plastic card reader so the boatowner could pay his contactless toll charge. It costs £5 for non-commercial craft to pass through the lock, down from £12 last year, which also covers a return journey on the same day. I presume the same net method is used to collect notes.

They've had a tough year at Richmond Lock, first with too much water passing through thanks to high winter rainfall, then insufficient water thanks to summer drought. They're still suffering from low flow so the weir's currently raised for longer than normal, also they try to double up boats through the lock which helps maintain the statutory minimum level at all times. Climate change is expected to bring additional challenges, thus managing the lock/weir combo is a lot to keep on top of and not just an open and shut case. I had been hoping the tour would go further than just the dockside (we didn't even get to cross the lock gates), also a lot of what was said was drowned out by regular planes on the Heathrow flightpath directly overhead. But always keep an eye on the Open House listings because sometimes some proper last minute treats pop up.

Open House: Central Hill Estate (Crystal Palace) The Stepped One

It's always good to walk round a postwar council estate on a tour led by a resident, so this year I headed to the Central Hill Estate which hugs 17 acres of sloping land near Crystal Palace. It's lovely and woody at the top, rather less so at the bottom, and considered an acclaimed high-density low-rise estate. It is however in the London borough of Lambeth and they've historically had a feral bloodlust for redeveloping their older council estates, which must be why the introductory talk didn't start with a potted history but instead a lengthy gripe about the sneaky tactics that had been used to vacate tenants and let the fabric of the estate decline. And yet despite a demolition order passed in 2017 no flats have yet been pulled down, mostly thanks to the dogged stubbornness of the residents, which echoed everything I'd heard on an Open House tour of Cressingham Gardens a few years ago.

The tour of the site lasted almost two hours, much of it pointing out lovely things, pointing out bad things and responding to questions. Look at these gorgeous mature trees, there's no reason for these boarded-up homes to be empty, we had a decent basketball court here but then they built a playground in the middle of it, I had to push to get these bricks replaced, we used to have a community centre but they closed it, this neighbourhood was low-traffic even in the 1960s, imagine what you could use this nuclear bunker for, these modern flats in the corner are pretty shoddy, we first guessed something was up when they chopped down all the trailing ivy, etc etc. Near the end we also got to look inside one of the maisonettes which was fairly spacious for a 3-bedder, even if it didn't have the stunning views across London the upstairs neighbour enjoyed.

Only a miracle it seemed could turn around Lambeth's blinkered purge, and unbelievably that may have happened earlier this year and be consolidated at a council meeting next month. The Green Party took control of Lambeth council in May, ousting a 20-year Labour administration. One of their new councillors was Pete Elliott, a former Central Hill resident who's been running the Open House tour for years and been highly outspoken on the subject. He's now the Cabinet member responsible for Housing and suddenly in charge of the process that previously evicted him from his home. Making changes is difficult when you've a restricted budget and inherited debt, but the council is now working with residents rather than against them and it's anticipated demolition status will be reversed. Miracles do happen, but you have to vote for them.

Open House: Kingswood House (Sydenham) The Bovril One

I've been meaning to look inside this utter anomaly for years and it didn't disappoint. First there was Kingswood Lodge, owned by the solicitor who foiled George IV's plan to divorce his wife Caroline of Brunswick. In 1891 John Lawson Johnston moved in, the inventor of Bovril, having spotted that cubes of beef extract were easier to send to market than the cattle themselves. He extended the house and added chunky battlements, also Scottishifying the interior. In 1921 another meat baron took up residence, namely Sir William Vestey (who was responsible for the Dewhurst chain and a massive shipping empire). After WW2 the building's importance slumped when 'Bovril Castle' was turned into a council library, and since 2020 it's become a bookless arts venue with cashflow issues. They told this amazing backstory in far more detail on the tour.

About 50 of us were led jovially round the building, starting in the entrance hall where the house's surviving tapestries haven't quite faded. The Great Hall has true Scottish baronial style, including full wood panelling and an anachronistic minstrels gallery, thus must have been an amazing space to seek out the latest library books. Children instead renewed their Julia Donaldsons in the billiard room. The Jacobean Room is named for its decorative plaster ceiling inlaid with noble symbolism, while the Palm Court is no longer frond-filled but retains a classic airiness. We didn't get upstairs because they were hosting a children's party up there, but that's a working venue for you.

When Camberwell council took control of Kingswood House in the 1950s they surrounded it with a fairly basic council estate, much to the horror of nearby Dulwich residents. It thus remains a shock to see this battlemented castle sitting incongruously amid municipal blocks opposite a very lowly shopping parade, especially if climbing up out of Sydenham Hill station. Thankfully the arts centre has established itself at the heart of its community with a cafe, classes and wedding availability, also a free meal served every Tuesday evening from 6.30pm should you be feeling lonely and/or hungry. I don't think they serve beef very often, nor is yeast extract on tap, but a fine bunch of volunteers continue to keep Johnston's Bovril-funded creation alive.

» 40 Open House 2026 photos (across 24 properties, another year finally complete)

Open House 5

2026-09-20T07:00:00.000+01:00

Open House weekend two started with this motley quartet.

Open House: Trent Park: House of Secrets (Cockfosters) The Secret One

Here's London's newest museum, opened just three months ago in a former stately home amid parkland beyond Cockfosters. Trent Park has been a socialite's retreat, a wartime intelligence centre and a university campus, the new museum showcasing only the first two of these. I last went on a tour of the house in 2012 just before Middlesex University sold up and moved out, since when an alternative educational proposition has fallen through and Berkeley Homes have built some stonkingly expensive houses in and around the mansion. But they didn't apartmentalise the lower two floors which have become a £14 visitor attraction, an admission charge kindly waived for Open House. Also our tour guide was the museum's Director whereas normally you just wander round, so even more of a good deal than usual. [50 photos]

You start out on the ground floor in the world of Sir Philip Sassoon, aristocrat, cabinet minister and bon viveur. He bought Trent Park and fashioned it into an elegant country house surrounded by landscaped grounds, inviting a Who's Who of Thirties society to join him there. Charlie Chaplin signed into the visitors book with a comic squiggle (see display case in room two). The museum trust have gone to great lengths to deck out the first four rooms with the correct decor, either the actual items or top quality replicas, and having seen how the university left it (orange plastic chairs stacked in the corner, overhead projector affixed to the wall) have done an excellent job. The Chinese wallpaper in the saloon looks so much better now, almost like no students had ever brushed up against it.

One of the perks of a tour with the Director is that he can break off from the approved route, in this case out onto the back terrace where guests were once entertained. The view'll be better when the huge pile of earth on the former lawn has been turned into something prettier and you can finally see the lake again, which I suspect will especially please the tenants in the upstairs Berkeley apartments. Back inside the house the fourth and final period room is the library, this now laid out to tell the story of the dawn of WW2. Sir Philip missed out by dying three months beforehand, thus Trent Park was immediately available for the government to requisition and turn into a home for prisoners of war. Head through the secret door in the bookcase to find out how.

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Kendrick had the brilliant idea of housing captured German generals here in relative luxury, then bugging the entire house so their conversations could be recorded. A team of transcribers worked shifts in the basement, many of them German-speaking Jewish refugees, listening out for careless talk and capturing it (seven minutes at a time) on acetate discs. Additional tricks included sending in fake Nazi sympathisers, sending the officers on fieldtrips and interrogating them really badly in the hope they'd boast about unspilled secrets afterwards. And it worked! Amongst the gamechanging information obtained was an early key to how Enigma machines worked (1940), how the Luftwaffe were targeting munition factories so accurately (1941) and the existence of a new fearsome weapon called the V2 (1943). Without Trent Park these fearsome rockets would have arrived months earlier, whereas instead the RAF were able to bomb the test site and save not just thousands of lives but also oodles of morale.

The second half of the museum is thus a walk back through the basement via a warren of compact spaces, learning the minutiae of the wartime story as you go. The Director abandoned us here to explore at our own pace, partly for reasons of space but also because I suspect he's a tad tired of the sausage factory of showing another 20 polite souls round exactly the same exhibits telling exactly the same story, fabulous story though it is. And after one last chance to take a selfie of yourself cutting a disc it's back up to the gift shop, circuit complete. It is essentially two museums in one which is always good value, plus there's the obligatory well-heeled cafe round the corner if you can't yet face the slog back to the tube station. Just be careful what you gossip about because you never know who's listening.

Open House: WilkinsonEyre (Shoreditch) The Dangleway's One

Another weekend another architects' practice, this time WilkinsonEyre who've recently moved to new premises near the Old Street roundabout. None of that hotdesking nonsense here because everyone gets their own dedicated space, also they've retrofitted with care, also they had members of staff taking visitors on brisk informative walkabouts which is quite the best way to do it. Oh, I thought on several occasions, you're the ones who did that... the Copper Box, Battersea Power Station, 8 Bishopsgate, those stands at Lord's, Stratford Market Depot, King's Cross's gasholders, the Crystal and even Boris's cablecar, and that's just within London. Apparently they have 80 staff right now working on the design for Old Oak Common, a station whose connective purpose hasn't even been agreed yet, but they have at least settled the sinuous form of the platform roof so expect to see a start on that next year.

Open House: 44 Monsell Road (Highbury) The Condensed One

It wouldn't be Open House without the opportunity to take off your shoes to walk round someone's home, usually an architect, invariably unorthodox. This year my barefoot venue of choice was a teensy shoddily-built Victorian box just round the corner from Arsenal station, known locally as the Blue House. Architect Edward Farleigh-Dastmalchi saw its potential and transformed it into a unique family home, essentially keeping only three wonky brick walls and cramming in an extra bedroom up top. You visit these places to pick up tips - how to create a garden terrace out of nothing, how to hide a washing machine behind your TV, how to source blinds for your skylights, that kind of thing - or else simply to be amazed at the creativity that makes 54m² seem positively spacious. Top tip, minimise your circulation space (or move way out of London, obv).

Open House: Plaistow Hub (Plaistow) The Nuclear One

Here's one of no importance unless you live in E13, in which case it's been transformational. A few small patches of underused land by the tube station have been repurposed by Newham council to create 182 new homes, one-third affordable, plus a range of other previously non-existent amenities. The key building is a 21-storey block of flats somehow squeezed in alongside the railway, now a towering landmark in the neighbourhood. We only got to visit a flat on the 10th floor but that offered fantastic views towards the Dartford Bridge, Canary Wharf and (from a completely different window) West Ham station and the City. I never thought I'd ever consider Plaistow to be scenic but from up here it somehow is. The building also contains an events room (hireable rather than communal) and a large first floor terrace overlooking the street (communal but empty).

At street level a new Station Square has been created, activated by a coffee shop and a Co-op, plus a brand new connecting staircase down to London Road which I give thanks for every time I pop round to see BestMate. Apparently the gym behind the supermarket has four storeys and is already the busiest in East London, which is perhaps a reflection on how little else there is to do in Plaistow. A separate residential building on the other side of the railway bridge is heavily constrained by the footprint of a passing sewer, and underneath contains a brand new Plaistow Library which should be opening within weeks. A nice touch is the palindromic ironwork on the staircase down to the playground, which is perhaps the maximum amount of whimsy a council-led project can condone. And I came on the tour because I've watched all this go up over the last few years, turning nothing much into a lively new civic focus, and sometimes it's nice to thank the architects first hand.

Open House 4

2026-09-19T07:00:00.000+01:00

Open House continues unabated this weekend.
Here's where else I've been over the last week.

Open House: Punchdrunk (Woolwich) The Immersive One

Sometimes something utterly unexpected turns up on the Open House list, and so it was on Thursday evening when an invite to tour secret backstage facilities at Punchdrunk appeared entirely unannounced. I'll have that, I thought. And so it was I joined one of three very small groups invited for a backstage tour inside the immersive theatre company's permanent home at Woolwich Arsenal. We were under strict instructions to take no photos and reveal nothing confidential so I forgive me if I lapse into lorem ipsum every time there's something I shouldn't tell you.

Punchdrunk have been running immersive dramatic experiences since 2000, initially one bloke jumping out from behind a bush with a Walkman and more recently massive costume dramas with interlocking narratives for hundreds to wander round. In 2013 they premiered The Drowned Man in a former Post Office depot in Paddington and in 2023 delivered The Burnt City, a creative representation of the backstreets of Troy, both of which ran in situ for over a year. The set of the latter eget in Woolwich and we got the opportunity to walk its narrow alleyways, exploring tristique senectus and semper placerat. The attention to detail is extraordinary, even down to handwritten notes hidden in books nobody might ever read, also umpteen pairs of stressed underwear representing auctor convallis. It's a bit like the Crystal Maze but with narrative instead of challenges, thus loses something when the actors and fellow participants aren't there.

Punchdrunk have two Arsenal buildings on long term lease, now linked by a black passage where dictum vitae Henry the Hoover. One contains the workshop where all the props and designs are churned out, not just for events in London but around the world, also a second vast room awaiting imaginative transformation. I was last here when this was Firepower, the cannon-heavy museum that closed in 2016, and it certainly looks very different now with condimentum rutrum leo and tape on the floor. There's no word on what Punchdrunk's next show might be, nor when, nor where, but by the looks of the fringilla pretium hanging under the mezzanine and the scelerisque being built I'd say the theme is likely id feugiat felis and the signature colour will be mattis urna. It takes hundreds of craftspeople and imagineers to create a Punchdrunk experience so a ticket doesn't come cheap, but how privileged to have been given the opportunity to look deep behind the scenes at the complex spaces that might one day amet enim at ipsum dictum rhoncus.

Open House: Gaumont State Theatre (Kilburn) The Supersized One

So popular were theatre and cinema in the late 1930s that a 4000-seater appeared in Kilburn, the third largest ever to have been built in the UK. Some hint of size comes from the monumental exterior modelled on New York's Empire State Building, then the unnecessarily magnificent entrance hall with its gold-topped marble columns and dripping chandelier. But it's only when you discover the enormous auditorium hidden laterally behind that your jaw drops, first that somewhere so huge was ever needed and secondly that it's still here in undivided form. George Formby and Gracie Fields performed on opening night, Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lee Lewis dropped by later, and bingo didn't take over fully until 1980. That the building survives intact today is down to the Ruach City Church who can still fill the stalls and the lower balcony every Sunday, and also be extremely welcoming to Open House Visitors.

The interior has an Italian Renaissance vibe, dramatic enough to draw the eye if the performance on stage is dragging. The ceiling has a saucer dome surrounded by scrolling arabesque panels, the walls have tall niches, the proscenium arch is coved and I only know all this because the building's Grade II* listed - to the eye it just looks seriously pretty. One rarity is that a Wurlitzer remains in situ, as does the original switch room round the back where the follow spots were lit and counterweights were lowered to raise the scenery. One of the men who operated the switches in the 1960s came back yesterday for a seriously nostalgic visit, assuring us that yes he'd lit the Beatles and indeed met them when he moved on to a job at Elstree.

If you're of a certain age it's seriously evocative to get the run of a Super Cinema, to wander freely round the stalls and up to the very back of the circle. To be reminded of the days when toilets were concealed to the side of the auditorium down sets of stairs, when children might have gathered in the lobby every Saturday before being engrossed by a morning of films, the curtain ready to lift, the partial view from your wood-backed seat, the aisles where ice creams would be sold in the interval and the Fire Exit ready to return you to the street, and you just don't get that at a modern multiplex. Here at Kilburn you can get it all, just once a year, and still Super-sized. [6 photos]

Open House: Omved Gardens (Highgate) The Seedy One

Just off Highgate's high street, past the last house with the R2-D2 gnome, is the entrance to Omved Gardens. Once waste ground it's since been transformed into a sloping garden with weaving paths, eco-structures and wellness opportunities. September's not the best month to see the plants, the sunflowers already wilted, but the sky garden above the kitchen continues to bloom and the tomatoes at the foot of the hill are ready to be harvested in most unusual colours. What sets Omved apart is the arc of wooden buildings added more recently to give the place some biocommercial heft, including an events barn, a greenhouse chicane and a seed library. The latter is crammed with glass jars, the contents of which they like to share with visitors to help spread diverse and unusual species across the community.

It feels like somewhere that should be open to the public full time, right down to the large-ish cafe counter dispensing carrot cake and salad to an audience that generally isn't there. Instead they have open days just once a month (the next on Sunday 11th October) and the rest of the time support themselves with ticketed events like kimchi workshops, honey tastings, live music, supper clubs and meditative sound baths. Highgate is plainly the perfect spot for such an enterprise - it'd never work in Hornchurch - but if plants and seeds are your thing you'd likely appreciate a visit just to wander and explore (inside and out) like we did.

Open House: Wolves Lane Agricultural Centre (Wood Green) The Salady One

Still in Haringey but a world away, this urban farm acts collectively to bring horticultural awareness to the masses. The main focus is a row of 1970s greenhouses mostly used for vegetable production, and sufficiently prestigious that Ottolenghi's Soho restaurant Nopi has its very own kitchen garden here. Other plots grow ancestral plants serving the cuisine of the diaspora and generate salad bags anyone can drop in and collect weekly, while a small kitchen on site turns roots into hearty meals for disadvantaged members of the local community. The enthusiasm I experienced while speaking to those who work here was uplifting.

The greenhouse nearest the main road has been turned into a long thin Palm House with spiky growths and a central koi-filled stream, also a pool where several turtles poke their shells out of the water. Half of another greenhouse is packed with cacti, and I believe you can generally wander in and see these every Friday. Poking round the new eco-building at the rear was instead an Open House one-off, and very much the cheaper option if you're looking for an events venue in N22. Wolves Lane reopens for OH on Sunday, or come back for the Autumn Market on 4th October to see how the site really cultivates community value.

GBR Chiltern

2026-09-18T08:00:00.000+01:00

I was heading home through Marylebone yesterday when I saw a train in new GBR branding. That's odd, I thought, I didn't think Chiltern had been nationalised yet. And they haven't quite, they transfer on Sunday and this was the DfT PR launch hullaballoo.

You could tell it was an event because platform 1 had been fenced off, ironically with Chiltern-branded barriers. You could tell it was an official event because attendees were wearing suits, sensible shirts and lanyards. You could tell it was a PR event because dozens of bottles of water were sitting on a wall in case anyone wanted one. You could tell it was carefully choreographed because an old Chiltern class 165 had been parked alongside a new red, white and blue class 68. You could tell it was something to be proud of because everyone was lining up for group photos, right down to the last group of underlings. The smell of aftershave was very strong.

A quick check where we are in the nationalisation timetable...

Pre-nationalised: LNER, TPE, Northern, Southeastern
Already GBR: SWR, c2c, Greater Anglia, West Midlands Trains, Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern
GBR from Sunday: Chiltern
Not yet GBR: GWR, EMR, Avanti, CrossCountry
Won't be GBR: ScotRail, TfW, NI Railways, Caledonian Sleeper, Eurostar, Merseyrail, Heathrow Express, Grand Central, Hull Trains, Lumo

I see the word 'Chiltern' is being retained to describe the route out of Marylebone, when they could have chosen Central, South Central, South Midland or all sorts of other alternatives.

As far as I know the full list of GBR sub-brands is as follows...

Compass points: North, Southern, Southeastern, South Western, North West
Modified compass: Great Northern, Great Western; West Midlands, East Midlands; West Coast, East Coast
Other: Anglia, Chiltern, CrossCountry, Island Line, Thameslink, TransPennine; High Speed, Sleeper

The inconsistency of that first list niggles me.

An hour later the DfT confirmed this was a GBR launch by firing out a press release claiming "people will benefit from 25 more daily services from December alongside cleaner stations, upgraded trains and better on-board wifi". It also says "public ownership provides a fresh opportunity to deliver East West Rail and its benefits for passengers", which suggests the government has no idea how to finally open the line through Winslow either. Expect a half-hourly service between London and Birmingham from December 13th, which is excellent even if I can't work out where all the cheap services have gone. And come Sunday I wonder if the statue of Adrian Shooter at the end of platform 1 will be weeping stone tears as his pet private railway slips silently back into public ownership after 30 years.

Bow Roundabout update #24

2026-09-18T07:00:00.000+01:00

Bow Roundabout update #24

It's now two years since TfL began major roadworks at the Bow Roundabout to prepare it for the opening of the Silvertown Tunnel, and 18 months since they supposedly finished. And yet there's still one part of the new layout THAT HAS NEVER OPENED, and now would you believe THEY'VE STARTED UNDOING IT AGAIN.

The original works did three things...
i) they trimmed the edges of the Bow Roundabout, widening it to three lanes on the west side. This works just great.
ii) they widened the approach from Stratford High Street from two lanes to three. This is also working fine.
iii) they diverted the contraflow from Marshgate Lane underneath the flyover. And this HAS NEVER OPENED.

Initially this was because, a bit late in the day, someone noticed that lorries might hit the Bow Flyover if they passed underneath. Three signs warning of 3.9m headroom were in place but weren't foolproof, and it would only take one unobservant driver to cause significant infrastructural damage. Newham council thus insisted that a steel height restriction gantry be constructed across the westbound contraflow lane, but this turned out to have estimated costs of £250,000 and nobody was up for that.

OK said Newham, we've always wanted an eastbound bus lane between the Bow Roundabout and Marshgate Lane so let's do that instead. It'd mean repurposing the contraflow lane and scrapping the new road under the flyover, but it'd be cheap and we could introduce it on a temporary basis. And they appear to have started because the wedge of raised tarmac that protected entry to the contraflow lane has just been removed. All it needs now is a repaint and two lanes of traffic could head east, not just one.

Simultaneously work has begun on restructuring Bus Stop W at Marshgate Lane. This has been woefully substandard ever since Cycle Superhighway 2 was introduced and still provides zero protection for cyclists, so it's about time it was improved. I believe the plan is for a bus stop bypass to be created, with a floating island to ensure buses no longer have to cut across the cycle lane to pick up passengers. A lot of tarmac has been dug up, half a new kerb has already been added and the estimated end of works is 23rd October. Until then eastbound buses will be whizzing past over the flyover, there being nowhere to stop along the High Street for at least half a mile.

Meanwhile the unused lane under the flyover remains obstructed with concrete blocks, its traffic lights intermittently ticking over to no effect whatsoever. Some fool has even added a Road Closed sign to a road THAT HAS NEVER BEEN OPEN and that you couldn't drive down anyway. Everything points towards it never opening at all, despite having been built at great expense, as Stratford High Street gets a permanent eastbound bus lane instead. If only TfL had listened to Newham and prioritised buses over lorries in the first place, a 5-month-long roadworks project could have been simpler, quicker and not included an entirely redundant underpass THAT HAS NEVER OPENED... and seemingly never will.

Previous updates: #0 #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18 #19 #20 #21 #22 #23

Open House midweek

2026-09-17T07:00:00.000+01:00

Open House used to be one weekend, then it was two and now it's increasingly filling in the gap in the middle.
Some properties open midweek as an extra to the weekend and some don't do the weekend at all.
Some do midweek because it's easier, some because they're open anyway and some because they're shameless attention-seekers.

Here are five midweekers I've been to since Monday.
And just for a change I'm writing about places you could visit because they're all open again.

Open House: County Hall (Kingston) The No Longer Anomalous One

One thing I love to visit for Open House is a town hall, be it current or former. This is one step up, the administrative centre for an entire county, if not the right county for much of that time. It made sense in 1893 that Surrey's County Hall should be in Kingston, winning out over competitors like Guildford or Epsom, but in 1965 Kingston was wrenched into Greater London and Surrey's administrative HQ simply stayed put. The anomalous situation somehow lingered until 1st January 2021 when the council shifted to a new home in Reigate, a much more sensible location, and sold the former County Hall to a developer for a paltry £25m. It's now being converted into 292 luxury apartments, a heritage bolthole for the simperingly affluent, at least judging by communal facilities including The Tasting Room, The Games Parlour, The Picture House and The Balance Studio. This was thus the ideal year to let the general public see some of the heritage assets before they end up behind a concierged gateline, starting with the stained-glass window at the foot of an elegant staircase ("No we can't go up there").

First stop the entrance hall beneath the clocktower, its floor beautifully mosaiced and its walls covered by long lists of High Sheriffs and Members of Parliament. Virginia Bottomley gets five namechecks and Michael Gove only three, this because they stopped updating the list after 2015. Upstairs a much grander reception room leads to two key chambers, both listed so unable to be apartmentalised. One is the council chamber where Surrey's councillors met until March 2020, its benches somewhat dusty and with pretty much no individual facilities bar a flip-up wooden tray. The Latin phrase on the clock behind the chair translates as 'Be brief; the hour is passing', which is excellent advice to councillors everywhere. The other chamber is the former county court (operational 1893-1997) where we had free rein to join the jury, stand in the dock and peer down the dusty staircase to the cells, as seen in several TV dramas when this was still an unlikely outpost of Surrey.
Also open Friday 18th (11-4) and Saturday 19th (10-4).

Open House: Resonance FM (Southwark) The 24/7 Eclectic One

Resonance FM operates the ultimate in community radio stations, running round the clock since 2002 with a sequence of niche and arty programmes. You might be listening to the sounds of the Congo one hour, then pensioner news, then live music from a narrowboat and birdsong overnight. It's an astonishing idea, especially as it grew up on FM before an age of streaming and replayability when the content played to a tiny but devoted audience. These days the global reach is over a million and it all comes from a mini studio complex near the South Bank, the latest stop on a journey that started out in a tiny room above Denmark Street. And for Open House they're inviting Londoners inside, but only for an hour in the morning when what's playing out is recorded rather than live. I was still a bit nervous though when I stepped behind the mixing desk in Studio 1 and the red light came on.

It's a tight ship with much to juggle, hence the new second studio really helps. A store cupboard's recently been converted to a 'Green Room', i.e. a small bench surrounded by whiteboards and archive ephemera. Part of this is an exclusive artwork by the artist Bob and Roberta Smith, whose weekly show goes out at 10pm every Sunday, archive here. It was great to get the opportunity to talk with the station's chief audio-juggler and learn how the slots get filled, why most of the equipment is still analogue and how volunteers are always welcome. The station's amazing output is currently put together by just four permanent staff and planned up to six months ahead to make sure you never quite know what you'll get. Do peruse the Resonance schedules (I suspect several readers already have their favourite shows) and if you can't find something interesting to listen to you may be culturally inert.
Also open Thursday 17th (10-11) and Friday 18th (10-11).

Open House: Streatham Hill Theatre (Streatham) The Staged One

Before Netflix, before even television there were 3000-seater places of entertainment on our high streets where high drama and variety captivated nightly. One such was the Streatham Hill Theatre, opened in 1929 with a production of Wake Up and Dream to serve fast-growing audiences in south London. The architect WGR Sprague also designed Wyndham's and the Aldwych in the West End, the Stratford Empire and the Whitstable Hippodrome. The theatre survived until 1962 before being Bingo-ified and is now divided into spaces for slot machines and evangelical worship, the Ruach City Church taking over the larger multi-stacked space. They mostly need the seats and the stage but Open House visitors seemed more interested in the ornate decor, the ornate decor and the ornate decor. It may not hold you for long.
Also open Thursday 17th (11-4)
If mega-theatres float your boat you may be more interested in the 4000-seater Kilburn Gaumont which is opening for one day only (tomorrow, noon til 7).

Open House: Crown Court Church of Scotland (Covent Garden) The Caledonian One

It's almost obligatory for Open House to visit a church, this one tucked away in the alleyways of Covent Garden immediately behind Operation Mincemeat. It's a Presbyterian Kirk founded in 1719, although the current building's a 1909 rebuild to support a larger congregation, complete with an upper storey of benches overlooking the communion table. Amongst the points of interest are a wall of 34 postwar stained glass windows, the second panel depicting Scottish heroes including John Knox, Robert Bruce and David Livingstone, also a chunky square font believed to be made from the last marble ever quarried on Iona. File under 'I never knew this was here and I like it'.
Also open Saturday 19th (12-3) and Sunday 20th (1-5).

Open House: Worlds End Centre (Chelsea) The Fully Serviced One

In 1974 down Lots Road, near Chelsea Harbour, two young architects bought a bakery oven factory and converted it into a modular creative workspace. They were way ahead of their time so not only are they still going but they've extended nextdoor and filled up with smart upmarket Chelsea types. Think interior designers, bespoke furniture merchants and wellness therapists. I expected a quick look round the ground floor and a brief exhibition but instead the baffled receptionist pressganged me onto a guided tour run by one of the original founders, and that made the whole thing properly worthwhile. Nothing at Open House beats being shown how a building works by someone who created it, and in this case helped it to evolve into a buzzy frictionless warren where profit margins thrive. Don't come just for the quick look unless you really like polkadot frontage and "& Avo" cafe options.
Also open Thursday 17th (11-5) and Friday 18th (11-5).

S is for Shacklewell

2026-09-16T07:00:00.000+01:00

LONDON A-Z
S is for Shacklewell

My alphabetical quest has finally reached zone 2, because unsung suburbs exist even in inner London. Shacklewell was one of the four hamlets of the ancient parish of Hackney, the others being the better-known Dalston, Kingsland and Newington. For centuries it comprised a quiet linear village along a country lane bearing off the Great Cambridge Road. But housing growth in Victorian times caused everything to merge, and while the names of settlements along the main roads survived poor old Shacklewell mostly lost its identity. It does have a station, near enough, but when they named that Rectory Road in 1872 the battle was mostly lost. I intend to walk the half -mile of Shacklewell Lane to see what's still here and what's new, starting by the Dalston branch of Nando's.

It's not the most uplifting of starts, passing a plant hire yard and a corner shop which claims to be 'the best supermarket in town', in which case London's retail economy must be in freefall. But then comes the most overbearing building on the street, a large redbrick pile which opened as Stoke Newington Synagogue in 1903 but which for the last 50 years has been Shacklewell Lane Mosque, hence the mighty dome plonked on top. On opening it was Britain's first mosque for the Turkish-Cypriot community, this part of Hackney proving a key migrant magnet. Judging by the banners on the gate their current commercial preoccupation is providing appropriate forms of burial "at Shacklewell Lane Mosque or another mosque of your choice", also flogging the products of importers Coffins Direct.

Several of the older industrial buildings along this first stretch have become service industry portals or creative studios, i.e. very New Hackney. 'The Factory' for example is home to Mystique Piercing, a purveyor of vegan scented candles and a bespoke milliner called Woody & Blue Hats. At number 32 are Kemp London, the city's oldest signmaking company who now specialise in all things neon, their clients including Disney, Tiffany, M&M's and Blur. Then it's right back down to earth at number 38 with Jack's Cafe, because there are still classic caffs with plastic tablecloths, squeezy sauce bottles and old gents in football tops putting the world to rights over a Full English. Shacklewell Lane's streetcred never quite recovers.

Follow the bend to the left past the street's finest housing stock which is Foskett Terrace, a long curve of three-storey villas with the Victorian authenticity estate agents dream of. Residents have a very-Hackney choice of educational establishments nearby, starting nextdoor with a nursery school inside the former Public Washing Baths, naturally called Bath House. For primary education they can cross the road to Halley House, opened ten years ago when there was a penchant for founding academies in any old office block. The local secondary option used to be Kingsland, a school deemed failing in 2003 and replaced by a boxier blue campus named after founder Jack Petchey, which now covers most of the south side of the old village.

Here comes the best bit, starting with the village's old pub first recorded as The Green Man in 1760. It's now the Shacklewell Arms, the name written only in faint white paint on the fascia and daubed in small text across the windows. I wondered if it had closed but no, that's just its style, with bands appearing this week including Bag of Cans, Frog and Blousey. The row of shops beyond is much depleted, including a 'newsagent' that no longer sells newspapers and a very lowly hairdressers, but also an organic greengrocer and a super-gentrified yoga retreat. Most of the old parade has been turned into small houses, two of the owners choosing to retain the old signage - specifically butchers JR Brewer at 77 and Eliiot's Dairies at 109. Strangely nowhere here does hot drinks, given Shacklewell had a coffee house as early as 1785.

The most obvious survivor is the village green, now a long thin fenced area bounded by plane trees. These days Shacklewell Green doubles up as a traffic island, the 488 bus passing either side depending, and the only greenspace locally for canine exercise if you don't want to schlep over to Hackney Downs. At its heart is a crucifix-topped war memorial dedicated to 'the men of Shacklewell who made the supreme sacrifice in the Great War', so the area must still have had its own community identity back then. Any vestiges of a rural idyll can however be swept away by looking at the Cotton Lofts across the road, modern flats crammed into a 1930s printworks owned by Henry Hildesley, the company that produced London Transport's postwar posters. The modern flats behind replaced a paper bag factory and a tennis string factory respectively.

The jewel of the Shacklewell Green conservation area is the enclave of workers cottages behind, eliciting a slight gasp when you enter for the first time. These elegant redbrick terraces have recessed porches, Welsh slate roofs and mostly the original sash windows. The finest features are the terracotta plates above each pair of doors featuring a fruity bush and the year of construction, these progressing round the estate from 1881 to 1886. It all looks wonderfully coherent, especially the pedestrianised stretch down Seal Street, while for many the highlight will be the rare sign on April Street featuring the now defunct NE postcode. Meanwhile Shacklewell's sole listed building is almost completely hidden behind, that's St Barnabas Church, a barrel-roofed Byzantine wonder that Ian Nairn considered "the best church of its date in London". I got inside for Open House five years ago but sadly they don't participate any more, just hide out of sight up a locked alleyway.

Shacklewell Road was originally called Wellington Road but was heavily bombed in the war and redeveloped very early afterwards. The architect was Frederick Gibberd who'd later go on to plan the whole of Harlow, but here he cut his teeth of a pioneering development, the Somerford Grove Estate. This was England's first mixed public housing development, combining 3-storey blocks of flats, 2-storey houses and a short run of bungalows, mostly based in L-shapes around grassy 'precincts'. The balconies and multiple playspaces perhaps feel the most forward-looking, also the pedestrianised walkways, and the 1947 build-quality is holding up fairly well. But it's also a tad beyond where the original village was, indeed the entire estate's in N16 (Stoke Newington) whereas everything else was E8 (Hackney), so it's as good a place to say farewell to Shacklewell as any. Now we all know where it is.

Small Dark Places in Richmond

2026-09-15T07:00:00.000+01:00

For my next trio of Open House visits, it's small dark places in the London borough of Richmond.

Open House: Burton Mausoleum (Mortlake) The Just Reopened One

Mention Richard Burton and most people think of the great Welsh actor, but to Victorians the name would have conjured up a great moustachioed explorer instead. This Richard lived an astonishing life with some notable firsts, aided by the fact he was a brave soul capable of speaking dozens of different languages. In 1853 he adopted several disguises in order to attend the Hajj in Mecca, an act strictly forbidden to non-Muslims, for the purposes of research. In 1858 while searching for the source of the Nile on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society he became the first European to see Lake Tanganyika. In 1886 he translated The Arabian Nights into English for the first time, and three years later followed this up with the Kama Sutra. And after he died in 1890 his wife Isabel built him a unique mausoleum in Mortlake in the hope his deeds would be long-remembered. This appears to have been successful.

It's made of stone but looks like a tent, even down to the ripples in the canvas. The roof has a gold star above a cross above a row of gold stars and crescents, reflecting Richard's ambivalence to following a single religion. Isabel compounded this by erecting the mausoleum in the graveyard of a Roman Catholic church, one creed he never adopted, hence you can see the exterior round the back of St Mary Magdalen's in Mortlake any day between 9am and 3pm. However the structure was vandalised in the 1950s and has been closed ever since, even to conservators, the only opportunity to peer inside being up a short ladder round the back (through the blank pane where the stained glass window used to be). Now thankfully a lottery grant has facilitated repairs to the structure and the unblocking of the door so it's finally possible to go back inside for the first time in 70 years, as the Open House posters proudly proclaimed.

It's such a small space that the organisers were only able to allow in five at a time, the queue corralled in the church hall with an exhibition and a video. Once fully briefed we stepped inside a space both reverent and joyful, complete with camel bells in the roofspace that used to jangle every time Isabel came to pay her respects. The central shrine is bedecked with candleholders, pictureframes, glass and ceramics of no special import. Some of the lanterns came from the British consulate in Trieste, the Burton's last posting. Encircling the walls is a gold-painted quote from St Luke's gospel ("Stay with us because it is towards evening and the day is far spent"). The ceiling is painted with cherub sunbursts unnervingly resembling the sky above Teletubbyland. And there to either side are the actual coffins of Richard and Isabel, his the more ornate, the repositories of two souls incredibly well-travelled even by modern standards and very much not forgotten.

Open House: St Leonard's Court Air Raid Shelter (East Sheen) The Bunkery One

When St Leonards Court in East Sheen was being built in 1938, the threat of imminent war encouraged the owners to build a private air raid shelter out front. This was accessed through a small hut down a short staircase with one dimly-lit room to either side, all tucked beneath a layer of lawn and concrete. When war broke out privileged residents could come down and sit crammed onto benches waiting for the all clear to sound, while those in the houses opposite had to take their chances at the municipal shelters several streets away. The Blitz led to much longer spells underground so two additional rooms were built with space for 48 very basic bunk beds. No bombs ever landed hereabouts so the shelter was thankfully never tested, and perhaps more surprisingly it's also survived the subsequent 80 years and is occasionally opened up for public visits.

The handrail on the stairs is about the only thing that's new, beyond which is the same musty limewashed space and what's left of the original fittings. Two lightbulbs were all that lit each of the benched rooms, with Gents and Ladies chemical toilets tucked behind a slim partition. Each room had a tiny escape hatch accessed via a dubious ladder, these doubling up as ventilation hatches embedded in the lawn. No bunks survive but a few fragile shelves remain (DO NOT TOUCH), one with a dangling scrap of material that was used as a makeshift lampshade. The passageway still has numbered coat hooks, one room still has a heater, and its these authentic leftovers which helped residents get the shelter listed when developers threatened to replace it with fresh flats.

These days the shelter is only opened to the public once a year but all local schoolchildren get the opportunity to come down, one class at a time, and experience how challenging wartime civilian life might have been. I suspect they're all too young to realise how grim it would have become down here after a night of heavy cigarette smoking, instead aghast at how boring it would have been without wifi. My mind turned to how the wartime generation somehow endured such basic conditions night after night, how inhabitants of Ukraine are coping with something similar right now and how thus far I'd avoided anything so terrible. Some Open House venues are both a treat and a dire warning, even when hidden at the far end of an East Sheen cul-de-sac.

Open House: Kilmorey Mausoleum (Twickenham) The Nomadic One

Another Richmond street, another mausoleum containing a rich man and his lover. However this time the man is the 2nd Earl of Kilmorey, an Irish nobleman, and the woman is his much younger mistress Priscilla Hoste. Despite the 30 year age gap she died first and Francis was so disconsolate he had a pink and grey Egyptian-style mausoleum built, then refused to tell anyone who was in it. It started out in Brompton Cemetery, then when the Earl moved to Chertsey he had it moved and installed in his own grounds there. Later he returned to his original house by the river in Twickenham and moved it again, and here his nomadic mausoleum finally rested. Today it remains locked away in a private patch of garden beside St Margarets Road, the bones of a 92 year-old nobleman at rest beside his 31-year-old bit on the side.

The annual Open House opening is a rare opportunity to even see the mausoleum, let alone step inside. This heavily decorated portal resembles the top of a liftshaft to the underworld and is penned off on an octagonal dais. Each of the four sides has a bronze panel which looks like a door but only one opens, unlocked by a unique circular key with umpteen prongs. The interior is rather plainer than at Mortlake, the only decoration being a marble bas-relief of the dying Priscilla on the far wall because this nobleman was obsessed. The orange light is amazing, all of it pouring in through four star-shaped glass panels in the ceiling. But it was again unnerving to be standing between two dead bodies, particularly given neither lead-lined coffin has fared well over the years. Francis probably thought he and Priscilla would be alone together for eternity, yet every year the nosey come looking for four hours on a Sunday afternoon.

All three of these Open House visits were coordinated by a local conservation group called Habitats & Heritage, formed in 2020 by a merger of the Environmental Trust for Richmond upon Thames and the South West London Environmental Network. We should perhaps be glad their name isn't longer. They also maintain the Bazalgette Mausoleum in Wimbledon and Grove Gardens Chapel in Richmond, and if you'd organised your weekend carefully you could have visited all five sites. A shout out too to the Mortlake with East Sheen Society who staffed the air raid shelter opening, and it really is amazing how much outer suburban heritage is looked after (and made presentable) by citizens keeping history alive.

Open House 1

2026-09-14T07:00:00.000+01:00

This year it's my 25th Open House, which is quite something.
This year the overall programme felt sparser than usual, or maybe I've simply been to all the good places before.
Alas this year I was in Spain on the crucial day the booking went live, so have only visited places you could simply drop into.
And yes, for the 25th time I am about to blog about lots of special places you can no longer visit.

Open House: Heatherwick Studios (King's Cross) The Self-Satisfied One

An Open House staple each year is an architectural practice throwing open its doors so you can see what a lovely building they work in. Latest to the table is Thomas Heatherwick and his team in their new HQ at Making House, a former fashion HQ just south of King's Cross. Hundreds of visitors were welcomed with a smile and a colour map, also an employee obsessively filming the flow of people to confirm officially how well the entire event had gone down. We got to explore the ground floor which is all one long room (plus adjacent workshops) and which had been packed out with even more examples of the practice's work than usual. Just inside the door is the backside of a New Bus For London, artfully chopped off, also a plant-filled hanging garden module from a project in China. Nothing Heatherwick's make is 'normal', indeed avoiding boring architecture is their entire philosophy.

Up front we wandered through models of objects that have ended up in cities, or in several cases become focal urban neighbourhoods in the Far East. A weird airport, artificial island or business district has every chance of being a Heatherwick. Further back were quirkier structures on a smaller scale, like the model for the Olympic Cauldron, Birmingham City's new Powerhouse Stadium and a non-winning design for the Queen Elizabeth Memorial in St James's Park. I looked in vain for a Garden Bridge but it was in the leaflet so they must still be proud of it. A number of times I went "oh that was one of yours was it", for example when presented with Coal Drops Yard, Google's HQ groundscraper and the new rooftop kerfuffle at Olympia. Straight lines are not generally a main feature if the architects can possibly avoid it.

In the workshop I met an employee adding bushes to the model of a proposed Chinese development, then spraypainting them. To one side another employee tried to get me to embrace the company's campaign to humanise the built environment, maybe even buy the book, then made do with handing me a map highlighting properly characterful buildings around Kings Cross. On more than one occasion I thought 'blimey, would anyone really want to live or work in that?' before reminding myself that a capital city rammed with tedious brick-effect cuboids isn't exactly where you'd want to be either. Later in the day I visited a lowlier architectural practice who design social housing estates and 3D print them in drab white plastic, definitely important work but it reminded me that our built environment really does need more pizazz, just here and there, and Heatherwick is seemingly extremely keen to make it.

Open House: The Art Workers' Guild (King's Cross) The Table Top One

Sometimes you think you're getting one thing and you end up getting something far better. I grinned throughout. The Art Workers Guild emerged from the Arts and Crafts Movement in 1884, initially bringing together young architects and designers to celebrate the all things handmade. Today more than 400 craftspeople across 60 creative disciplines still connect and meet to share their skills, their HQ being in Queen Square at the heart of Bloomsbury. I was thus expecting a nice look round a finely-decorated Georgian building, and indeed the swirling glass lampshade hanging above the hallway appeared to confirmed this. Instead I was handed a guide to the Table Top Museum, an annual open day where 30 members bring along a small collection to display, the more eclectic the better. You would have loved it.

The scene was set by a collection of snowglobes depicting scenes from around the world, then a 'Snippy Museum' of diverse pairs of scissors, then a tableful of 150 ceramics (must be small, must be white). The joy isn't just looking, it's interacting with the collector and asking how it all started, what their favourite piece is and how they decide what's in and what's out. Jon's 'Museum of Threaded Things' thus included screws, clamps and hand drills, not needles. Hugh's glass Christmas decorations all had to be Soviet era, hence a lot of cosmonauts and red stars. All Kavel's Coca-Cola cans were flattened by vehicles in Thanet in 2018/19. And Mark's 42 slides all featured animal sperm in close-up, thankfully found in a job lot at a market rather than collected separately. He handed me a postcard so I can now tell the difference between the ejaculate of a rabbit, a hamster and a vole.

It's hard to say which was my favourite but possibly Sally's collection of Salmon map postcards. Over 60 illustrated county maps were drawn by M.F. Peck between 1953 and 1974, starting with her home county of Norfolk. You'd recognise a Peck if you saw one, a line drawing with a green background and handwritten placenames with illustrations of several points of interest. I'd much rather have picked one of these from a holiday rack than a beach scene or bawdy cartoon. Sally says Maisie's designs probably inspired her own artistic style, at least when it comes to drawing map graphics. Participants are barred from bringing a similar collection next year so who knows what you might see laid out at the Art Workers Guild next September. I'm sure I could cover a tabletop with my collection of early 1980s chocolate biscuit wrappers, should anybody ask.

Open House: West Ham Pumping Station (West Ham) The Brown One

Everyone knows about Joseph Bazalgette's genius project to protect Victorian London from cholera and the Great Stink. But the gently-sloping sewers left the low-lying borough of West Ham with a levelling-up problem, specifically that all their pipes were too low to feed into it. Their solution was a mechanical pumping station built alongside the Northern Outfall Sewer, just off Abbey Road, a chimneyed building I have walked past hundreds of times without ever realising what it was. Twin beam engines pumped away 24 hours a day from 1900 onwards, apparently with the ability to raise 360 bathtubsworth of sludge per minute. Initially the nine boilers also helped generate electricity for the local area, but high population growth (and rapid expansion of the tram network) soon required a better facility elsewhere. Only when a separate pipe was built to Abbey Mills in 1972 did the engines finally fall silent, then the doors were locked shut and the interior was left to rot away.

The rest of the pumping station building has been repurposed as a vocational training centre for apprentices and an evangelical church. Now a separate organisation called the Heritage Engineering Learning Trust has stepped in to protect and restore the engine house, and hopefully to establish a visitor attraction focusing not just on these metal behemoths but also the industrial heritage of the wider Lea Valley. They have an exceptionally long way to go because getting a lottery grant really isn't easy, but thankfully the main fabric of the engine house is in pretty good nick and for Open House they were able to throw open the doors to hundreds of the general public for the first time.
I'm impressed so many people turned up given HELT failed to put a sign outside the entrance so a lot of people got lost, also the event was described in the Open House listings as a 'Guilded Tour', and if they want that lottery money sure passion is important but so is attention to detail.

The pumphouse is surprisingly capacious, mainly in an upward direction, with two great big wheels to either side and two mighty pumping arms about halfway up. A crane dangling metal chains sits astride the lot, ready to move whatever maintenance should require. "Please don't all stand in the same place," said our tour guide, the floor panels covering a basement of much rustier pipes and chambers below. After 15 minutes of well-delivered exposition the highlight was the opportunity to climb the metal stairs, just as generations of workers would have done, and explore some of the mechanics from higher up. First to the top of the pistons, the metalwork clearly labelled Lilleshall Shropshire 1897, and then a single steep stair to beamthrust level. Many visitors of a mechanical bent were clearly thrilled by the opportunity. I can see this making a decent visitor attraction but I wonder if London doesn't already have too many preserved beam engines, far more dazzling than this, so it'll all come down to how the local angle plays out.

Morden 100

2026-09-13T01:00:00.000+01:00

It's exactly 100 years ago today since the Northern line was connected at Kennington and extended to Morden.

Nobody was blogging at the time but imagine if I was.

Monday, 13 September, 1926

What a day it's been on the Underground Electric Railways! Two years ago the City & South London and the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead linked their railways at Camden Town. Today they have linked them again but on the other side of the river at Kennington. Not only are the two railways now fully connected but they've also been extended five miles south from Clapham Common to Morden, with the hope of further to come. The new Morden–Edgware line, as it's called, is the Underground's deepest penetration into south London and I have no doubt that before long it will surely be rebranded as the Southern line.

I have of course been out on a first day journey to experience this massive subterranean expansion, riding all the way from Charing Cross to Morden. I did this mostly by tube but partly by tram, because you have to come up to the surface sometimes if you want to see all the new stuff. I also took one photograph at each point of interest with my Vest Pocket Kodak, which inexplicably appear to have been developed in colour. [7 photos]

Charing Cross on the District Railway has long been the southern terminus of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway. Well no more because it's been extended under the Thames and you can now continue to Waterloo and beyond! The loop of track has been sealed off and partly filled with rubble, then a new southbound tunnel driven beneath the river and it's amazing, you truly can't see the join. As yet it feels wholly unfamiliar seeing trains going 'the wrong way', not towards Edgware or Highgate but to strange destinations like Clapham and Morden. But what a complicated station this has now become! We already have District and Circle and Bakerloo lines and now also through trains on the C&SLR, plus of course SR trains steaming out upstairs. Personally I would rename this station Embankment and then rebrand Strand as Charing Cross and maybe merge it with Trafalgar Square, but I doubt anyone will act fast on my excellent idea.

In exciting news Waterloo now has a Morden-Edgware platform as well as a Bakerloo platform, so double the opportunity for Surrey commuters to change to the tube. It still amazes me when I see the lights on the front of a train emerging from a tunnel underneath Britain's greatest river. But this is nothing compared to the ridiculous kerfuffle that's been installed down the line at Kennington while the station's been closed for three years. The new tunnels from Waterloo sweep in so they arrive parallel to the existing platforms, then connect in a huge loop that allows trains to turn round. You must not ride the loop, they chuck you off, perhaps there are ghosts round there or something.

The next section of the line has obviously been here since 1900 thus is old hat, so I climbed the 79 steps up to street level and took the tram instead. Off we went down the Clapham Road past many taverns and a pickle factory, also stations at Oval, Stockwell and Clapham North, also the Temperance Billiard Hall (Moderate Charges). At one point the tram driver stopped for three minutes to even out the gaps in the service, something which would never happen on the trains below. Eventually we arrived at Clapham Common with its trademark dome which had been the end of the line for over 25 years but no more! It seems amazing that this narrow crowded platform is now just another stopping point rather than full-on buffered.

The first station on the extension is Clapham South, although they nearly called it Nightingale Lane because that's where it is. Wow it looks so different to what we've all been used to. The tiles are gorgeous, all shimmering emerald around the roundels, also that's a lot of electrical cupboards at the bottom of the escalator, also the uplighters dazzle, also the octagonal skylights are proper unusual, also the electrical chandelier at the entrance to the ticket hall is quite something. This new Charles Holden guy they've got designing the stations sure knows how to make an architectural statement!

Sadly the next station at Balham isn't yet ready. This is absolutely typical of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, yet another project mis-delivered with shoddy construction and poor planning. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't open until December, and in the meantime trains will whizz straight through to Trinity Road (Tooting Bec). It's not a catchy name and I bet they shorten it. The platform here has a gentle curve, also that's some gusty wind blowing newspapers down the escalators, also I like the way there are two stark buildings at street level facing different sides of the main crossroads. Is it too early to describe Holden's designs as Modernist?

Tooting Broadway station is a curved stone battlement with strip windows and three very strategically placed roundels. It dominates the crossroads at the top of Mitcham Road, a presence which might be diminished if anyone ever shifted the new statue of Edward VII off the traffic island and plonked it in front. A florist has already set up their stall outside the station and I was shocked to see them charging 5d for a bunch of irises, which is daylight robbery! But the station is busy even on Day One, and it seems almost natural to see a stream of gentlemen in bowler hats flocking towards the ticket collector, their cigarette smoke swirling up towards the octagonal skylights, before pouring downwards into the depths.

By Colliers Wood the similarity of these new stations is plainly evident, always Portland stone frontage, always bold silver uplighters on the escalators and always emerald tiles on the platforms. And yet each has an inner individuality, here embodied in exterior folds, a tripartite clerestory and saturnine capitals. The gold-rimmed clocks on the platforms are a similar treat, almost a Victorian touch in a station that feels anything but. So deftly has Charles Holden weaved his magic that he could even replace Admiral Lord Nelson as the local hero hereabouts, at least sufficiently to see The Victory pub renamed after him.

There have been many debates about the name of the next station, with the somewhat-vague South Wimbledon eventually ousting the much more sensible Merton Grove. There already are plans to add the word 'Merton' to the roundels, although I think they already look appealingly chunky with South Wimbledon spread across two lines. The News Counter in the ticket hall hedges its bets by advertising both the Wimbledon News at one end of its fascia and the Merton & Morden News at the other. If you like twiddly arrows check out the finial flourish on the Way Out signs, also the quadruple fletchings in the cross passage.

Just before Morden the incredibly long tunnel - potentially record breaking - finally breaks out into a lengthy cutting. It's possible local NIMBYs will demand the last quarter mile be covered by a linear park to limit suburban disruption, but come on guys, these electric trains are neither noisy nor do they belch steam. The end of the line is marked by a sprawl of open-air platforms and stairs to street level through one last glorious Holdenesque gateway. Push through the wooden doors and you emerge into as yet nothing much, but imagine the potential. Even the station entrance has space behind it to build some pig-ugly office block should the need arise.

This new terminus has announced its intention to become a suburban bridgehead with a significant bus service departing from outside, also a car park for those commuters who prefer to leave their Morris Oxfords here. Imagine the streets and avenues that might spread across the fields of Surrey now that London's underground railway has pierced its rustic rim. Imagine the ease with which you could now live in Morden Park and work in the City, then on Saturday head up west to the Shaftesbury Theatre to see Charles Crawford in Just a Kiss. And imagine how different life in south London could be in 100 years time, simply because entrepreneurs had the foresight to build an electric railway that everyone in 2026 will take totally for granted.

Anorak corner (bus edition)

2026-09-12T07:00:00.000+01:00

Anorak Corner [bus edition] (th e an nu al up da te)

Once again TfL have silently published their annual spreadsheet listing the number of passengers using every London bus route and how many kilometres those buses travelled. Data is for April 2025 - March 2026. Comparisons are with the previous year.

London's ten busiest bus routes (2025/26)
  1) -- 18 Euston - Sudbury (12.5m)
  2) -- 149 London Bridge - Edmonton Green (11.6m)
  3) -- 29 Trafalgar Square - Wood Green (11.2m)
  4) ↑2 5 Canning Town - Romford (10.6m)
  5) ↓1 207 White City - Southall (10.22m)
  6) ↓1 86 Stratford - Romford (10.21m)
  7) -- 243 Waterloo - Wood Green (9.8m)
  8) ↑3 35 Shoreditch - Clapham Junction (9.7m)
  9) ↑3 25 Holborn - Ilford (9.5m)
10) ↓1 36 Queens Park - New Cross Gate (9.2m)

The next ten: 279, 109, 53, 38, 43, 141, 65, 21, 158, 140

For the seventh year running London's busiest bus is the 18, long-term plier of the Harrow Road. The runners-up remain two northern workhorses, the 149 and 29. The 149 may tumble next year given TfL now have plans to divert it. Three east London radial routes find a place in the top 10 (5, 86, 25). The 207 is the all-stops version of Superloop service SL8 (which is in 21st place). Within the top 10 only three routes go south of the Thames (243, 35, 36), none exclusively so.

n.b. Only six bus routes conveyed more than ten million passengers, down from thirteen before the pandemic.

London's ten least busy bus routes (2025/26)
  1) -- 399 Barnet - Hadley Wood (6700)
  2) -- 389 Barnet - Underhill (8900)
  3) ↑1 R10 Orpington - Orpington ↺ (23279)
  4) ↓1 H3 Golders Green - Hilltop (23294)
  5) -- R5 Orpington - Orpington ↻ (23800)
  6) -- 385 Chingford - Crooked Billet (30900)
  7) ↑2 327 Waltham Cross - Elsinge Estate (47700)
  8) ↑2 R8 Orpington - Biggin Hill (53000)
  9) ↑2 U10 Uxbridge - Ruislip (71600)
10) ↑3 375 Romford - Passingford Bridge (75600)

The next ten: 146, 209, 464, 467, W14, 359, 404, R2, 379, 485

These are all the usual suspects, topped off by a pair of brief turns in Barnet connecting daytime residents to the shops. The 399 to Hadley Wood has 21% fewer passengers this year, so is even less used than usual. The R5 and R10 operate the same route in rural Bromley but in opposite directions, and would be in 7th place if their totals were combined. Only fifteen passengers separated the R10 and H3. Six of the top 10 are circular routes. Route 18 is busier than the forty-four least used buses put together.

n.b. Routes 549 and 347 and were both withdrawn during the prevous year, leaving space for the routes below them to shuffle up a couple of places. The 549 was merged into the W14 which still only manages 15th place. The 347 was merged into the 346 which doesn't even appear in the bottom 50, so could be described as a great success.

London's ten most travelled bus routes (2025/26)
  1) -- SL7 Croydon - Heathrow (2,140,000 km)
  2) ↑1 111 Kingston - Heathrow (1,890,000 km)
  3) ↓1 18 Euston - Sudbury (1,889,000 km)
  4) -- 5 Canning Town - Romford (1,878,000 km)
  5) ↑2 102 Brent Cross - Edmonton (1,780,000 km)
  6) ↓1 86 Stratford - Romford (1,740,000 km)
  7) ↑4 96 Woolwich - Bluewater (1,730,000 km)
  8) ↑2 53 Lambeth North - Plumstead (1,700,000 km)
  9) -- SL8 White City - Uxbridge (1,690,000 km)
10) ↑470 129 Lewisham - Gallions Reach (1,680,000 km)

The next ten: 466, 182, 38, 113, 207, 25, 174, 229, 221, SL3

This is a list of the routes whose vehicles travelled the greatest distance in one year. Long distance buses (like the SL7 and 111) and high frequency buses (like the 18 and 86) tend to travel the furthest. Superloop route SL7, which traverses 24 miles across southwest London, remains top by a considerable distance. Expect the SL8 to climb to second place next year as its frequency was recently increased from every ten minutes to every eight.

n.b. The 129 really has climbed 470 places to reach the Top 10. It was previously a runty Lewisham-Greenwich route but was extended through the Royal Docks when the Silvertown Tunnel opened and boosted to run every eight minutes (a frequency which ridership would suggest is unjustified).
n.b. The 389 remains London's least travelled bus route, covering just over 8000km per year.

London's ten most crowded bus routes (2025/26)
  1) -- W7 Finsbury Park - Muswell Hill (9.0 passengers per km)
  2) ↑2 35 Shoreditch - Clapham Junction (8.2)
  3) ↓1 149 London Bridge - Edmonton (8.0)
  4) ↑4 238 Stratford - Barking (8.0)
  5) ↑1 109 Brixton - Croydon (7.9)
  6) ↓1 29 Trafalgar Square - Wood Green (7.8)
  7) ↓4 98 Holborn - Willesden (7.7)
  8) ↓1 9 Aldwych - Hammersmith (7.6)
  9) ↑1 41 Archway - Tottenham Hale (7.2)
10) ↓1 104 Stratford - Beckton (7.1)

This Top 10 is determined by dividing the number of passengers by the number of km travelled to get a 'number of passengers per km'. The higher the number, the less likely it is you'll be able to find a seat. By this measure the most crowded bus is the W7 which, along with the 41, delivers residents of Muswell Hill and Crouch End to nearby tube stations. Haringey is scoring highly here. The 195 is the most crowded single decker (5.1 passengers per km) so is arguably more crowded than some of these double deckers. Most London bus routes carry 2-5 passengers per km.

The next ten: 205, 243, 120, 58, 14, 207, 69, 18, 94, 220

London's ten emptiest buses: R5, 399, R10, R8, 464, H3, 146, W14, R2, 404

Six of these buses serve the rural fringes of Bromley, London's emptiest outlier. Other buses which failed to carry 1 passenger per kilometre include the 246, 434, R3 and R7.

The ten routes with the biggest increase in passengers: 129, 310, 45, W12, W9, 298, 108, 14, W13, B14

Five of these aren't the same route they were last year (129, 45, W12, W13, B14). The 310 is new and now has its first full year of data. The W9 and 298 have recovered their reliability under a new operator. The 108 and 129 were free all year, so obviously popular. The two routes with the biggest increases that aren't explained by operational changes are the SL2 and SL3, up 21% and 17% respectively.

The ten routes with the biggest decrease in passengers: W14, 283, 30, 472, 399, 452, 56, 138, 352, 242

These ten routes all lost more than 15% of their passengers last year. The W14 is what the minor 549 morphed into. The 283 and 472 were withdrawn so don't have a full year of data. The 30 and 452 have both been shortened. The 56 and 138 had their frequencies reduced. The 399, 352 and 242 are just less popular than they used to be.

London's ten busiest nightbuses: N15, N25, N18, N207, N29, N9, N279, N8, N98, N140
London's ten least busy nightbuses: 486, 213, 365, N33, 85, N72, 321, 474, 24, 381

Passengerwise the N15 is 40% ahead of its nearest competitor, the N25.

London's ten busiest single deckers: 235, 195, C10, 316, 108, 170, 112, 214, W15, 366
London's ten least busy double deckers: 467, SL6, 481, 412, 317, 298, 498, 215, 492, 428

All those single deckers are busier than all those double deckers.

London's busiest Superloop routes: SL8 (8m), SL9 (5m), SL7 (4m), SL10 (3.3m), SL2 (3.2m), SL4 (2.7m)
London's least busy Superloop routes: SL6 (0.4m), SL11 (0.9m), BL1 (1.1m), SL5 (1.6m), SL3 (2.4m), SL1 (2.6m)

The SL8 is by far the busiest Superloop route, and the SL9 the busiest orbital route.

London's ten busiest lettered buses: W3, EL1, E3, H98, W7, C10, E8, E2, EL2, W8
London's nine busiest one-digit buses: 5, 2, 1, 8, 6, 9, 3, 4, 7

The 5 is the only single-digit route not to enter central London.

South London's ten busiest buses: 35, 36, 109, 53, 65, 21, 185, 93, 453, 133
London's ten busiest buses that run outside London: 279, 96, 235, 142, 81, 80, 150, 466, 407, 217

Technically the 149 is south London's busiest bus, but 99% of the route is north of London Bridge.

London's most average bus: C11 Archway - Brent Cross (3.3 million passengers, 825,000km travelled)

Total passenger numbers are down from 1.83 billion to 1.82 billion, a 1% fall.

Visit Reading

2026-09-11T07:00:00.000+01:00

Gadabout: READING

Reading has been on the tube map since 2019 despite being 20 miles outside London, thus is an easy place to get to for a rather good day out. However you should never take the Elizabeth line because that takes almost an hour from Paddington whereas a fast GWR train gets you here in just over 20 minutes (and for the same fare). Reading is a significant historic town that's since evolved into a major commercial centre, also one of the largest English towns never to have been made a city despite several attempts. Also they really want you visit, so grab all the leaflets you can from the tourist cart by the station gateline and head off to explore. [Visit Reading] [14 photos]

1) Reading Museum

The museum is housed across three floors of Reading's Gothic town hall, a very short walk from the station. Its finest exhibit is a full-sized fully-stitched replica of the Bayeux Tapestry, as blogged yesterday, which stretches around the entire mezzanine. But it has several other interesting galleries, indeed sufficient to keep me within the building for over an hour what with 1066 and all that. The ground floor focuses not unexpectedly on the history of the town, a significant portion given over to Reading's royally significant Norman abbey. After that was pulled down it was Reading's strategic location on the rivers Thames and Kennet that lured people in, also companies like Gillette (who developed the first twin-blade razor here). Apparently Victorians couldn't get enough of Cook's Reading Sauce, a spicy condiment containing mushroom, capers, chutney and anchovy essence, and sooner them than me.

Huntley and Palmers were such a significant employer that they merit an entire gallery on the top floor, crammed with every kind of decorated tin that once flew out of the world's largest biscuit factory. If that feels very much like an art gallery there is also a proper one, also a windowed room bedecked with sculptures and another with splendid Roman-inspired ceramics. Not far from Reading was the major Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum, now known as Silchester, whose story is told in a large artefact-packed gallery on the second floor. Archaeologists hit the jackpot here because the site was never built on after the Empire fell, so even though only the walls remain standing the complete street pattern is known and a full history can be told. Throw in a stag donated to the collection by George V from his Windsor herd and Reading Museum feels like it has several important stories to tell, not just a collection of randomly old things.

2) Reading Abbey

In a further connection to the Bayeux Tapestry, Reading's magnificent Abbey was founded by King Henry I, longest-reigning of the sons of William the Conqueror. He built it to gain salvation for himself and his family, and selected a gravel spur between the rivers Kennet and Thames as the best site for accessibility to other towns and cities. Henry died before it was finished, leaving instructions that he be buried in front of the high altar (which almost all of him was, although his heart and intestines ended up in Rouen). Alas his tomb didn't survive the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the approximate site now marked with a plaque given nobody's quite sure where it is or if he's even still there.

The most substantial of the abbey's remains are now the high walls of the chapter house and refectory, which remain pretty impressive. You wander in from the park with the big lion, past the remnants of Civil War earthworks and a plaque pointing out where the west end of the abbey used to be. Close by is the Abbey Gateway where Jane Austen went to school, which would be more of an astonishing coup for Reading had the standalone building not collapsed in a storm and been rebuilt by the Victorians in artificially Gothic style. Another building erected withing the abbey grounds is Reading Jail, a New Model Prison whose car park overlaps the footprint of the lady chapel. Its most famous prisoner was Oscar Wilde who spent two miserable years in cell C.3.3, and who might just be the prisoner Banksy depicted clambering over the wall opposite the roundabout (now safely secured behind a sheet of perspex).

3) Camino Inglés

Reading Abbey was dedicated to St James and for this reason has been selected as the start of England's only official section of the Camino de Santiago. Officially it begins outside St James's church, a much later Roman Catholic addition, but then weaves off through the Abbey ruins and off down the Kennet. It's so official that a "mouteira" (or stone milestone marker,) was gifted to the town last year and installed down by the river. Galicia may be 690 miles as the crow flies but the Camino Inglés is only 68 miles long, wending its way south through Winchester to Southampton past occasional scallop shell markers. The idea is that you walk this and can then get away with a shorter walk in Spain (from A Coruña) and still be eligible for a certificate. Reading's taking this honour very seriously, thus in the Museum you can pick up an official pilgrim's passport (£6) and get it stamped, and also buy the official A-Z guide to the St James's Way with all the maps you need. Explanatory leaflet here.

4) Riverside Museum

From April to September Reading Museum has an additional outpost half a mile down the river Kennet in former industrial buildings adjacent to Blake's Lock. You get there through the Abbey Gardens, along Oscar Wilde Walk and past the site of the former Huntley & Palmers factory (now inevitably flats). But it's not big, nor indeed generally staffed. One half of the 'museum' is inside the Screen House, most of which is occupied by a brightly painted gypsy caravan, the shelves opposite displaying objects including a medieval millwheel and a copy of Fly Fishing by JR Hartley. The Turbine House overlooks the weir and all you'll normally see there is old machinery, plus during certain summer months a display of local paintings. The artist was on the phone during my entire visit, which was convenient because she never got the chance to ask "do you like them?" and I never had to lie.

5) The Museum of English Rural Life

Otherwise known as MERL, this outpost of the University of Reading is a fifteen minute walk from the town centre and also brilliant. It was founded in 1951 as part of the university's association with agriculture and most recently expanded into ten new galleries that truly display the collection to best effect. The entrance merely looks like a nice cafe but then you set off on a lengthy weaving route to the far end and back, the opening displays all thematically linked to the seasons. Yes that is a sheep wearing a white Arran jumper. It's all very much object-led and wisely displayed against gleaming white walls with just enough information, plus a few well-chosen video interactives (I proved woefully incapable of birthing lambs).

You might thus see horse brasses, ploughs, milk bottle advertising, a case of toy tractors, butter churns, a bowl-turning wood lathe, a waxed jacket, a display of Suttons seed packets, two dozen mouse traps, a recipe book published by the Cheese Information Service, a rural fire engine and an ITV poster announcing the return of Emmerdale Farm. I lingered long. One of the highlights is a massive textile panel originally displayed in in the Country Pavilion at the Festival of Britain, this one depicting the fields of Cheshire (but sometimes they swap it for Kent). Wagon Walk is a 50m-long array of wagons and carts grouped geographically so that you can see how different geologies and farming types affected vehicle design.

But I was perhaps most excited by the promise of heading upstairs to visit The Ladybird Gallery, "the only permanent exhibition space in the world dedicated to the art of the iconic Ladybird Books". However what I actually found at the end of the corridor was a small landing with just two display cases, one a temporary exhibition (now hamster-related) and the other a selection of favourite titles. "I had that!" I said at least ten times, then wandered over to see if I could find it in the reading corner. The archive collection comprises 20,000 original artworks, for example "Here is the draper's shop" and "Carried to the Moon by Swans" and it's a real shame they didn't make room to show more of them. Nevertheless MERL is a real treasure, and I'd never have spotted it was here were it not for the Bayeux Tapestry down the road.

Also...
6) Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, Whiteknights Campus (Tuesday-Thursday 0930–1630, termtime only, free)
7) Cole Museum of Zoology, Whiteknights Campus (Monday–Friday, 0900–1630, termtime only, free)
8) Royal Berkshire Hospital Medical Museum (first and third Sundays of each month, 1400-1630, free)

Also the Kennet and Avon Canal (heavily transformed hereabouts into to a restaurant heavy leisure park), also The Hexagon (a concrete bunker formerly full of snooker), also Reading Library (which has just moved to the council offices), also the HQ of Thames Water (somewhere to boo and hiss), also the River Thames (with scenic bridges and waterside meadows), also a heck of a lot of top shops (which is all most people come for), and basically what I'm saying is that Reading is a day trip screaming to be made.

Reading's Bayeux Tapestry

2026-09-10T07:00:00.000+01:00

The hottest ticket in town is for the Bayeux Tapestry, which goes on display to the public today at the British Museum. It's so hot that the rest of 2026 is fully sold out and January-March 2027 is expected to go the same way when bookings reopen next month.

But if you can't wait, or if you baulk at paying £33 for a once-in-a-lifetime blockbuster, an alternative opportunity to view the tapestry exists. It's a full-size full-colour fully-embroidered copy of the original and entirely free to view. To view it all you need to do is go to Reading, make your way to Reading Museum and head upstairs.

Most local museums feature local stuff like clay pots, agricultural tools and something that used to hang outside a pub. Reading Museum has all of this just inside the entrance, also a painting normally held in storage and a table where a nice lady will invite you to handle a fossil. But take the back stairs (or alternatively the lift, assuming they've got it working again) and the most famous Anglo-French strip cartoon awaits your perusal.

It's 70 metres long and stretches all around the first floor mezzanine as part of a specially-designed Bayeux Gallery opened in 1992. It's been divided into three sections, the first of which curls around a square landing above the museum entrance. This follows the story as far as Edward the Confessor's funeral, then restarts across the landing above the Story of Reading Gallery. Take your time, there's no queue of paid visitors shuffling behind you here, you're free to enjoy this at your own pace.

The reason why Reading has a replica Bayeux Tapestry is all thanks to Elizabeth Wardle, a Staffordshire sewer who in 1885 travelled to see the original in Normandy. On returning she cajoled 35 members of the Leek Embroidery Society into stitching a full-size copy, having got her husband to dye threads to match the original eight colours. The replica was complete by Whitsun 1886, after which it was toured round England and also shown in Germany and the USA. It happened to be in Reading in 1895 when the Society decided to sell it, thus an alderman bought it for £300 and gave it to the town. It's still here.

Just as you'd currently see in Bloomsbury, the first panel depicts Edward the Confessor despatching Earl Harold to France. The colours are rather brighter in Reading and the background fabric isn't stained, but this particular copy hasn't been stashed in a cathedral storeroom, transported on a cattle truck or hidden from the Nazis. What you also get at both places is a simple explanation of the story unfolding scene by scene - here it's text on a green panel below, at the British Museum it's silent video narration on a screen behind.

In an early example of apposite marketing the green panel is sponsored by Norman Insurance, a local company who in 1992 were headquartered by the river. Alas their sponsorship has lasted far longer than the company as they were soon absorbed into a larger company who have themselves been rebranded. Meanwhile the display cases are courtesy of pharmaceutical giant Bayer who are still a significant player in the town, and excellently all the glass is slightly slanted which means every photo comes out with no annoying reflections.

The tapestry takes its time to tell the early part of the story. Harold sets off on a lengthy trek to Bosham and thence across the Channel to land near Beauvais. In lengthy shenanigans he gets captured, gains William's favour by assisting with a battle in Brittany and everyone carries a lot of hawks. Only after Harold has sworn an oath to William is he allowed back across the Channel, and I'm sorry if any of this is spoilers for those of you with British Museum tickets but you should have paid more attention in history lessons.

The narrative plays out impressively clearly, such was the skill of those who originally composed it. The central strip has key tableaux which often merge at the edges, say with soldiers marching from one event to the next. Only a few words are used, and you don't always have to have learned Latin to get the gist. Separate borders top and bottom feature supporting characters, often animals in the early stages but piled high with bloodied corpses by the finale.

One of the strangest scenes depicts a sexual scandal seemingly with no connection to the main plot, well known in the 11th century but which historians can no longer identify. One man in the lower border appears full frontal, contributing to a total of almost 100 willies (human and equine) depicted in the original tapestry. The ladies who stitched this Victorian facsimile chose to give him a pair of shorts to avoid scandalising their audience, but rest assured the explanatory panel underneath shows the original design with everything hanging out.

A nice touch in the Reading tapestry is that each of the embroiderers has sewn their name underneath the panels they were responsible for. Thus the opening scene is "Elizabeth Wardle's work", right up to the point where it says "ends here", whereas Harold being seized in Normandy is by "Mabel Challoner, her work" and William riding into battle is "the work of Anne Smith". By contrast we know nothing of the original embroiderers from Canterbury, nor how many of them there were nor how long they took.

Part two kicks off with Harold taking the English throne, the none too subtle subtext being that he should instead have kowtowed to William. History is told by the victors so everything here is attempting to validate William's claims, indeed the entire 70 metres is essentially a massive piece of Norman propaganda. This is also famously where Halley's Comet appears in the sky, a blazing portent of doom and also quite possibly the best known example of 11th century graphic representation.

On we walk round the balcony as William slowly gathers an army and builds the boats to sail them in. The final scene before the battle includes the only child depicted in the tapestry, also one of just three women, both of whom are fleeing a burning building. And then it's all swords and arrows and shields and lances and knights on horseback, both sides charging towards each other and falling in great numbers, right up to the famous scene where someone gets an arrow in the eye. Hic Harold Rex Interfectus Est.

The final scene in the existing Bayeux Tapestry is of the remaining English troops fleeing the battlefield. We know there used to be a follow-up panel but it was lost centuries back and nobody knows for sure what it contained. The Reading version thus has one-up on the British Museum because it displays a potential finale in a separate frame at the top of the stairs. This was sewn by embroiderer Joy Messent in 2019 and depicts the surrender of the English nobles at Berkhamsted followed by William's coronation in Westminster Abbey. It's not a happy ending, not viewed from this side of the Channel, but it helped create the country that patriots now defend with pride.

If what you want is top needlework and a rollicking story, Reading's Bayeux Tapestry certainly delivers. Admittedly it's not got the 950-year-old frisson of the original which was sewn by ladies for whom this was recent blockbuster news rather than a mere reproductive exercise. But it was here in Reading on free display long before the genuine article arrived on these shores and will still be here long after it's gone. Authenticity aside, it really is almost as good as viewing the real thing.

» Reading Museum is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm, admission free
(but do check for gallery closures before you visit because they get a lot of school groups)

» Ian reviews the Reading version: "It may lack the miasma of history that comes from an authentic relic, but it’s so well made that you can almost forget it’s a replica and still bask in the monumental day that changed England forever."
» Ian reviews the genuine version: "If you have tickets, this once-in-a-lifetime moment will be a pure experience that hits in a way that I don’t think any exhibition I have ever been to could come close to."

Beefeater RIP

2026-09-09T08:00:00.000+01:00

If you fancy a meal at a Beefeater you've got two days left because they all close after tomorrow, every last one of them, because not enough people fancy a meal at a Beefeater any more.

Beefeater was founded by Whitbread in 1974, their first restaurant being The Halfway House in Enfield, followed in 1981 by the more-family-friendly Brewers Fayre. Prawn cocktail, steak and Black Forest gateau proliferated. Courage Breweries fought back in 1983 with their Harvester brand, their first restaurant being The George in Morden, as the salad bar became an integral part of a classy night out. In 1995 Beefeater absorbed the remnants of pioneering steakhouse Berni Inn, founded 40 years earlier, as the chain reached a peak of 256 outlets nationwide. In the same year Bass Charrington bought all 78 Harvesters and added them to a growing portfolio including Toby Carvery (debuting in Brentwood) and All Bar One (debuting in Sutton). In 2006 Bass-offshoot Mitchells & Butlers acquired 130 Harvester restaurants, also the 239 Beefeaters and Brewers Fayres that weren't part of a Premier Inn. What's closing this week are the remaining restaurants that are part of a Premier Inn, the Brewers Fayres on Monday and the Beefeaters after lunch tomorrow, as Whitbread sacrifices a 52 year-old brand to save its financial skin.

When I was younger we thought a Beefeater was an excellent venue for a special family meal. We were thus very excited when one opened in Croxley Green at Scotsbridge Mill, hence I celebrated my 25th birthday with soup, steak and profiteroles while the vicar watched on from a neighbouring table. We went back for my 26th where I enjoyed exactly the same meal and cunningly doubled up the whole thing as a Mothers Day treat. Two years later we celebrated my brother's 26th at a Beefeater in Norwich and my 28th a month later at the Priory Marina in Bedford, on both occasions upping my main course to a gluttonous mixed grill. We were back at Priory Marina for my 29th (pate, mixed grill, chocolate fudge dream), but after that we migrated to proper pubs and independent restaurants instead. Our Beefeater heyday was thus 1990-1994, which feels about right, and I think I've only been back once since.

Brewers Fayre in Greater London
(closed 7th September)
• Winsor House, Beckton E6
• Chequers Corner, Dagenham RM9

Beefeater in Greater London
(closing 10th September)
• Liberty Bell, Romford RM1
• London Woolwich, SE18
• Travellers Rest, Kenton HA3

But diners' tastes change, and a suburban roadhouse serving traditional favourites no longer cuts the mustard in these spicier times. This week's shutdown comes as the UK's hospitality sector faces tough financial headwinds, what with rising energy prices, higher employment costs and less frequent eating out because of the rising cost of living. With operating costs outpacing revenue Whitbread can no longer afford to maintain so many physical sites so have pulled the plug on the lot, instantly dooming the Chargrilled 5oz Gammon Steak, Smothered Chicken Melt and Caramel Apple Betty to history.

The unfussy end of the market still has Wetherspoons, Sizzling Pubs, Ember Inns and Hungry Horse, even Harvesters, should you fancy an unchallenging meal not far from home with onion rings. And rest assured that the very first Beefeater in Enfield will remain open, even after this week's restaurant Armageddon, because following all the machinations in paragraph two it's somehow ended up as a Toby Carvery.

Knitting The Air

2026-09-09T07:00:00.000+01:00

Life viewed from London E3

Knitting The Air (4-20 September 2026)
Nunnery Gallery, 181 Bow Road, E3 2SJ

The latest exhibition at the Nunnery Gallery is a striking display of data, visualising something you can't see but might kill you. It's a calendar of knitted squares representing a year of air quality in east London, hardly the Bayeux Tapestry but an important historical record all the same.

It covers three walls of the gallery, almost like it was designed to be exhibited here, and was knitted by a team of 132 volunteers over a two year period. It's amazing what you can get a community group to do if you inspire them.

The top two rows represent data taken from a sensor by the A12 in Poplar and the bottom two data from a nearby street outside Culloden Primary School. The pinks are the PM2.5 count while the blues underneath represent nitrogen dioxide. In each case there are three shades, the lightest for 'below WHO guidelines', the darkest for 'over UK legal target' and the medium for the fuzzy zone inbetween. The panel below shows that NO₂ exceeded legal levels on 1st, 6th, 7th, 8th and 16th September 2023 (coinciding with a particular hot spell) and only properly fell below WHO guidelines on 18th September (a cooler day with high winds).
n.b. ULEZ expanded to cover all of London a couple of days before September 2023 started, but this won't have had much impact here because Poplar was well inside the previous zone.

What you want to see if you live round here is a lot of light pink and a lot of light blue, and whilst maybe half the pink stripes are indeed good, light blue stripes are worryingly thin on the ground. I do indeed live around here so it's chastening to be presented with a knitted record of how much air pollution my lungs are inhaling. The Aberfeldy estate has it particularly bad, being cut off by urban dual carriageways on two sides, and maybe that's why so many people were willing to give up their time to contribute to this project.

Fran: I've lived here along the A12 for forty years, and I've just noticed the air getting worse and worse. I was on inhalers for a long time for asthma.
Gul: I'd heard of air quality but I didn't pay it much attention until I started knitting and then understood what the lines and colours meant.
Sadia: The knitting was therapeutic in itself, but the community around knitting and what the project created, I think I enjoyed that the most.
Freddie: As an educational tool it's been amazing. I was at an event at a GP surgery on the Aberfeldy Estate and there was a small display of knitting panels there and some kids from the local school came in and the questions they were asking were just amazing.

As well as the knitted panels (and explanatory detail out back), associated events include a photographic walk this afternoon, a curator's tour on Saturday and the chance to knit your own panels next Thursday. But the exhibition's only open until 20th September so you don't have long to get here (head to Bus Stop M, you can't miss it). In good news the London Transport Museum has agreed to take the artwork afterwards, rather than it clogging up the organiser's house, but given its size I expect it'll end up in storage rather than on occasional display. I hope the Mayor finds time to pop in before it goes and perhaps takes the opportunity for a photoshoot, the three walls of the gallery making clear the invisible fight he's made a cornerstone of his administration, and which those of us who live round here face daily.

It's this blog's 24th birthday

2026-09-08T07:00:00.000+01:00

It's diamond geezer's 24th birthday.

September 2002 feels like a very long time ago, so long that Joan Littlewood was still alive, Atomic Kitten were top of the charts and London Weekend Television was still broadcasting. I don't know what you were doing 24 years ago but I was sat at my computer starting a blog, partly as procrastination to avoid ironing eleven shirts. I no longer iron shirts but I do still blog, so that worked out well.

Situations Vacant

2026-09-08T06:59:00.000+01:00

The end of another four-year period means it's time to renew the oversight bodies that help keep diamond geezer ticking over. If you think you've got what it takes to contribute to one of these important voluntary groups, please submit your credentials before 6:59am tomorrow.

SITUATIONS VACANT

Diamond Geezer Content Strategy Caucus
• Remote
• Unpaid role, expenses not paid
• 2 hours weekly

Purpose: to determine the editorial focus of upcoming posts and stir the creative pot
Commitment: weekly Zoom meeting (Sunday evening, 2 hrs approx)
Role: to trawl through upcoming anniversaries; to pinpoint unreported unusualness within and beyond Greater London; to identify permissable transport foci; to propose quirky topics for reportage; to formalise the collective investor pitch; to assign dates to future topics; also to discourage too many posts about buses because nobody wants to read them

Typical engagement
dg: So what's everyone got?
Rob: I see Oxhey Grange footbridge is due to be demolished next week.
Dan: You've never covered London's most equidistant pubs.
Uy: How about following the London Strategic Heat Main?
Sergei: Also the Florence Nightingale Museum is free to enter next Monday.
Alex: Nobody's yet written about Tottenham Hale's 'new' Platform 4a.
Ashley: I'd like to propose "How do I know which end of the platform is the front of the tube train?" - it always catches me out!
Tania: I mean, just off the top of my head, an analysis of leaf-fall timetables, could Zak Polanski win, how do litter bins vary borough by borough, a quiz where all the clues are chemical symbols, my favourite chocolate biscuit wrappers.
dg: And Tony, you've been looking into obscure London suburbs starting with S. So which is it to be?
Tony: Obviously Sundridge, Selsdon and Shacklewell are top considerations, also let's not overlook Shirley, sadly you've already covered Southborough, alas I fear Sipson might be quite limiting, personally I'd quite like to see Stroud Green, perhaps you might consider Stonecot?

Diamond Geezer Daily Planning Huddle
• Remote
• Unpaid role, expenses not paid
• 30 minutes daily

Purpose: to confirm the broad-brush outline of tomorrow's post
Commitment: conference call every morning at 8.30am (also touch base at 5pm)
Role: to agree tomorrow's topic, to research background information, to plan locations to visit; to optimise the itinerary; to complete necessary risk assessment; to react to fast-moving news stories; to provide bullet points for article composition; to veto patently tedious outcomes

Typical engagement
dg: So what's everyone got?
Kieran: No sign of a fresh TfL press release this morning, so it's all systems go.
Louise: We reckon you can be in West Finchley by 10.15am.
Kieran: I've emailed a map of the walking route you should follow.
Louise: Apparently the bollard on Sydney Street used to be part of a medieval outhouse, so make sure you get a photo.
Kieran: You should be wrapped up at New Southgate by noon.
Louise: After the opening summary write about the history, then the connection to Winston Churchill, then the six bridges in chronological order.
Kieran: Do not under any circumstances mention the local bus route.
dg: I'll ping you the early drafts before the teatime catch-up.

Diamond Geezer Overnight Quality Review
• Remote
• Unpaid role, expenses not paid
• 10 minutes nightly

Purpose: to pedantically check the content of tomorrow's post
Commitment: receive copy by 1am, submit email feedback by 6.45am
Role: to read through pre-final draft and identify a) spelling errors b) grammatical errors c) factual errors d) substandard text e) potential improvements in order to prevent embarrassment when the post goes live at 7am

Typical feedback
Ian: "sup-optimal" in the second paragraph.
Richard: I think that you meant to say “steps of 20 km/h” rather than “steps of 20mph”.
Michael: The parade referred to is NE rather than NW of the station.
Carl: You seem to have omitted the fact that Margaret Thatcher cut the ribbon near Watford.
Nick: You have different numbers of bulls gored on your Flickr photo compared to your post.
Frank: Is the description "just a bunch of backroom gibbons" necessary in relation to something quite so trivial?
John: Surely that should be fewer than ten services a day, not less than?

Diamond Geezer Retrospective Appraisal Surgery
• Peer-to-peer
• Unpaid role, expenses not paid
• 1 hour weekly

Purpose: to critique the week's content, identifying successes and points of weakness
Commitment: weekly win/loss review (Saturday, 7pm)
Role: to apply 360-degree feedback techniques; to set future targets; to optimise continuous improvement; to identify individual development needs; to formalise lessons-learned; to engage in dispute resolution; to compare with AI-generated content to ensure human input is still preferential; to offer praise if merited

Typical feedback
Amir: I'm not surprised the Sutton post only got three comments.
Vince: Did we really need a whole fortnight focusing on your holiday to Spain? Perhaps stay in this country for a while.
Sophie: I thought you were quite rude to Derek.
Amir: Personally I enjoyed the analysis of museum leaflets but I may have been alone in that.
Vince: Please tell me no more bus routes are changing any time soon.
Sophie: Take more Saturdays off.
Amir: Perhaps tone down the use of all those unnecessary commas.
Vince: I don't understand why you spent eight hours crafting a post of interest to hardly anybody.
Sophie: To be honest I enjoyed your posts more in 2012.

SL12 - To the World's End

2026-09-07T07:00:00.000+01:00

In 1985 the BBC made a documentary about the number 31 bus route called To the World's End. (It's still on iPlayer).
In 2026 TfL have just launched a bus route that really does go To the World's End, London-speaking.
It's a new Superloop route to the back of beyond, which in this case is two stops beyond Rainham.

Route SL12: Gants Hill - Rainham Ferry Lane South
Length of journey: 13 miles, 50 minutes

London's newest bus route is really three in one. First it's a limited stop version of route 66, speeding along the A12. Then it's a much needed north-south link across Havering, speedily linking Romford, Elm Park and Rainham. And then it's a break into virgin territory to serve no houses whatsoever, just an industrial estate by the Thames estuary, which is the headscratchy bit. Let's take each part separately.

Part 1 - The Limited Stop 66

If you get your kicks on route 66, which is already a speedy radial route, you can now get them faster on the SL12. The six mile dash starts outside Gants Hill station, stopping just five times on the way to Romford compared to 18 aboard the 66. At present both run every 12 minutes, which seems generous on a corridor that's already well bussed. Gants Hill isn't the most useful of terminuses but you can easily change between the SL2 and SL12 here, adding an extra limb to London's existing Superloop network. For Central line interchange Newbury Park is your best bet.

n.b. The bus shelter at Gants Hill has an almost brand-new spider map, but because it's dated 1st August 2026 it doesn't include the SL12 and I Wouldn't Have Done That.
n.b. The bus shelter at Gants Hill doesn't have a roundel on top, whereas most of the other shelters along the route do.
n.b. The first five miles of the SL12 follow the A12, so there is some accidental logic to the numbering system here.

As usual when a Superloop route launches, some passengers haven't taken on board the 'express' concept. It even says LIMITED STOP on the front blind but not everyone notices. Thus on my journey someone dinged the bell just after leaving Padnall Road expecting to get off almost immediately, but was instead swept ahead two miles to the Romford outskirts. As the doors closed another passenger then dinged, stood up and watched four stops go by before finally escaping in the town centre. She had a long chat with the driver before alighting and seemed to be appeased.

Part 2 - The Much-Needed North-South Link

Many outer London boroughs have good radial transport links but nothing decent orbitally, a deficit the Superloop is designed to mitigate. Havering has always been particularly tough to cross north to south, the only railway connection being the Liberty line, runtiest of the Overground family. The SL12 thus provides an invaluable new service by connecting the Elizabeth line to the District line and c2c, previously only doable slowly and indirect. Initial loadings look good, especially on the hyperleap between Romford and Elm Park which would previously have been 10 stops on the 252.

n.b. The new buses smell new, also they have USB ports at every seat.
n.b. If you're sitting at the front on the top deck there's no STOP button in sight, only one out of reach at the top of the stairs. (In fact the nearest button is on the back of your seat, furthest from the aisle, but nobody's going to see it there.)
n.b. Elm Park remains quite flaggy, whereas most other London suburbs have taken down their threadbare red crosses.

From Elm Park to Rainham the corridor of housing is quite narrow so three routes already follow the same route south for almost two miles. The SL12 now adds a fourth which is perhaps over-frequent overkill. I suspect whoever assembled the original SL12 consultation had never been to Rainham because they failed to include a stop in the town centre, but thankfully everyone screamed and buses do now call at the key Tesco interchange. The leader of Havering Council remains unimpressed that adjacent development areas like Beam Park have been missed, thus is already lobbying for "a second Superloop to reach those parts missed by the current service", but populists do tend to want the moon on a stick.

Part 3 - To The World's End

Within Greater London there are only two places where you can draw a circle with diameter two miles and not hit a TfL bus route, or at least there were. One is the middle of Richmond Park and the other was the Ferry Lane trading estate south of Rainham, a remote industrial stripe amid the marshes by the Thames estuary. It's long been TfL's aim to fill this latter gap, saving estate employees a lengthy walk, but never previously justifiable in terms of cost. In 2019 an exceptionally detailed study of Bus Services in London Riverside East considered multiple imaginative scenarios and concluded that the only potentially feasible option was a peak hours shuttle from Rainham station, no more than six buses a day. Instead the Mayor has sent brand new double deckers running five times an hour, a decision you could describe as questionable.

n.b. The first SL12 of the day departs at 5am, the last arrives at 1.15am.
n.b. The SL12 terminates here even at the weekend when nobody's working.
n.b. The only reason this isn't absolutely bonkers is that the bus company's garage is just round the corner off Ferry Lane, so the vehicles would have to run empty anyway.

After leaving Rainham Tesco the SL12 ducks under the railway and enters the top end of the industrial estate. The first stop is called Rainham Station South Side, although it's a bit of a hike to a train so not the friendliest of interchanges. We've entered a world of big sheds and open marshes, one you probably only recognise if you've walked the last leg of the London Loop. The A13 scythes through on a concrete viaduct, chopping the estate in half, the SL12 terminating on the other side between a huge distribution warehouse and a scrap metal yard. The contrast with the Gants Hill roundabout, indeed with any other Superloop route, is extreme. Let's hope the employees who actually work here find the SL12 useful.

n.b. The south side of the estate is a long thin loop of road that's over a mile long. And yet the SL12 only stops at the very top end, exiting by doing a full anti-clockwise circuit, so anyone employed at the tip faces a ten minute walk to catch a bus that goes straight past their workplace. In the consultation 11 people requested an additional stop on Ferry Lane but this was not taken forward.

Part 4 - Beyond the SL12

Now that London's bus network has a new remote terminus, what might you discover if you come here?

A five minute walk through the estate brings you to the edge of the Thames estuary, hidden behind a thick concrete wall to help keep potential floodwater at bay. Stand atop the embankment and you can see the incinerator at Belvedere and the town of Erith, also perhaps a number of large ships and small boats sailing by. A plaque on the wall confirms this as the landing point for the Pilgrim Ferry, an estuary crossing operational between the 12th and 19th centuries, initially aimed at those making a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Should TfL ever chooses to reinstate the ferry, the SL12 is perfectly poised to make the connection.

Havering Council have recently spent money making this liminal stripe a tad more attractive for workers taking a fag break, courtesy of the Rainham Riverside Public Realm Improvement Project. They've added proper steps, garden seating, several bright yellow bins and a substantial metal pergola lookout, all with informative signage. Best not imagine the smell when this was the site of a factory manufacturing fertiliser from fish carcasses. I particularly liked The Museum of Garden Escapes, a raised bed of non-native self-seeded plants laid out on the footprint of the former Three Crowns pub. Full marks, at least compared to how it used to look.

The estate ends at a wall of silos belonging to the Tilda rice factory, this being the furthest south the SL12 gets. Follow the squished riverside path past their private jetty and you emerge onto an undefended stretch of estuary and, at least at low tide, a spread of mudflats. The chief attraction here is a fleet of concrete barges constructed during the war when building materials were scarce, and intended for use fuelling the D-Day landings. A decade later they were dumped here in the Thames as protection from the great flood of 1953 and here they remain, sunk into a beach at a variety of angles, slowly not-rusting away.

A short distance away, anchored eight metres down into the riverbed, is a twisted mass of galvanised steel in humanoid form. This is The Diver, a submersible artwork installed in the year 2000 by artist John Kaufman and dedicated to his grandfather who used to be a diver in the old London Docks. Come at low tide and the entire sculpture stands proud above water level, but as the Thames slowly rises the diver starts to vanish, until at certain spring tides each year the top of the helmet is fully submerged. Previously to get here would have been a 40 minute hike from Rainham station but now it's only 20 minutes from a Superloop bus stop far more convenient for the middle of nowhere, at The World's End.

Minnie's Coffee and Food

2026-09-06T07:30:00.000+01:00

Life viewed from London E3

An extraordinary thing is happening tomorrow on Stroudley Walk, a new cafe is opening! We've had fried chicken for a while and a juice bar gave it a go after lockdown, but this is the first time there's been a sitdowner with macchiatos, croissants, hash browns and lasagne. It's called Minnie's Coffee and Food and it made me double-take.

It lurks underneath Zellie Emerson House, one of four new housing blocks hereabouts, in a small unit I'd assumed would stay uneconomically empty. Instead our local social housing company have hired out the space as part of their HARCA Café Collective, "an initiative making quality food and drink accessible and affordable to residents and visitors across Bow and Poplar". It's not clear whether Minnie is the owner's name or a reference to Minnie Lansbury the East End suffragette, but given the estate's history and thematic rebrand I'd assume the latter.

Apart from the obvious hot drinks the menu also includes breakfast options (until 11am), snacks and a limited range of lunches. I can't remember the last time anywhere round here did a genuine cooked breakfast, and OK there's no bacon but £8 is a pretty good deal. As for lunches each day of the week brings a single meat or vegetarian choice (Mondays curried, Tuesdays stir-fried, Wednesdays filo royale, Thursdays lasagne and Fridays crispy with potato wedges), also soup, also foccacia-based sandwiches, also six quid salads. And yes I know you've probably had this round your way for ages but this is Stroudley Walk for heaven's sake, a culinary dead end since time immemorial.

Like most modern food outlets they've not bothered with a website just an Instagram account nobody would ever think to search for. Unnervingly the first post said "Almost ready to serve you!" and that was in June. Also their tagline is "More than just coffee, we’re a community" which I reckon is wilfully unproven given they haven't opened yet. But opening day is Monday at 7.30am and to celebrate they've got a special offer of 50% OFF ALL HOT DRINKS UNTIL MIDDAY. I live nearby and have a kettle so not even Builders Tea for 75p is going to tempt me in, but I wish Minnie well as gentrification finally sparks to life in Stroudley Walk. It's what the incomers who've paid half a million to live in the tower nextdoor have been waiting for, indeed long expected.

Unblogged September 1986

2026-09-06T07:00:00.000+01:00

30 unblogged things I did in September 1986

They didn't have blogs or the internet forty years ago, so here are 30 things I didn't digitally publish at the time. To help you get your bearings I was 21, teetering between university and a job, so chose to delay things by undertaking an extra year's study up north.

Mon 1: Sign on at the dole office, but am called to one side to undergo a random check. Thankfully they weren't tough checks in those days. [On TV: London Plus with John Stapleton]
Tue 2: My university tutor pops up on Radio 1 Newsbeat talking about vaccinated chickens. Get a phone call inviting me to a job interview on Friday but turn them down because I've decided oil economics isn't for me.
Wed 3: Have to go for a job-related medical. Worried it might be a full strip-off but it's no worse than filling a bottle and getting my blood pressure checked. [The supervising medic was called Dr Doodoo]
Thu 4: Two friends from university drive over and meet the tortoise, then we go for a walk round Ruislip Lido, watch the water skiing and have cheeseburgers in Wimpy. [Ooh look, I have a photo]

Fri 5: My dad takes the morning off work but the man from Anglian Windows never turns up to do the survey and I have rarely heard him so cross.
Sat 6: Wimbledon FC beat Watford 1-0 to stay top of Division 1, so I annoy my brother by putting a Womble on the doorstep when he gets home from the match. [On TV: Episode 1 of the season-long Doctor Who story, Trial of a Time Lord]
Sun 7: Mum and Dad are debating where to go for a silver wedding getaway next month [it turns out to be a cottage near a radar station in Norfolk]
Mon 8: University friend returns and drives us down to the Odeon Marble Arch to watch Aliens. Thoroughly enjoy. [Alas moving up north will squash this budding friendship] [A quick check online and I see he's just retired from his top job in the City]
Tue 9: When our nextdoor neighbour moved out she gave us £40 to go out for a family meal, so tonight we go to the Ponderosa Steak House in Watford High Street, a legendary venue. I have sirloin steak and they forget to offer us any free refills.
Wed 10: Buy a £299 Sony hi-fi from Tottenham Court Road and nearly collapse lugging it home on the tube.
Thu 11: For my 'final' meal Mum cooks roast lamb (washed down with a bottle of Riesling) and lemon meringue pie. [nobody has ever made lemon meringue pie as well as my Mum did]

Fri 12: A very long drive up the A1 with the boot full of boxes. Mum refuses to drive over the Humber Bridge so we take the M18 and M62 to Hull. I'm not convinced she's impressed by my new student digs (and neither am I). One of my new flatmates takes me out for beers along the Cottingham Road. [this never happens again]
Sat 13: Explore Hull, mainly to find food, a barber and a photobooth because I need 4 mugshots for registration on Monday. Start to suspect the girl in the room nextdoor might be overwrought and clingy.

Sun 14: Struggle to cook in the communal kitchen because it's shared by six of us. No toaster so we have to use a ropey gas grill. My Smash instant mash proves far too watery.
Mon 15: Successfully register for the course in a very analogue manner, i.e. laminated cards, pigeonhole numbers and pins in maps. [On TV: Calendar with Richard Whiteley]
Tue 16: Introductory lecture and seminar. Try to discover who amongst my new coursemates is worth making friends with. [should have stayed for lunch rather than going down the chippy]
Wed 17: Use one of my photos to get myself a student railcard [aww, cute], then dash back to college for a video narrated by Annie Nightingale.
Thu 18: A first visit to the work experience location. Mr Kipling gives us a tour of the building.
Fri 19: A quiet evening in implodes somewhat when my clingy neighbour pours out her troubles and tells me she has weight issues, nervous issues, panic attack issues, agoraphobia and claustrophobia, also fear of travelling, also she hasn't told her parents any of this but she has told me. I fear this is going to be tough.
Sat 20: Up early to whizz across country to a friend's 21st birthday party in Cheshire (via Doncaster and Liverpool). Help cut the cucumbers. Her boyfriend sends a bouquet from Crewe hospital where he's recuperating. It never gets wild because three generations are present.
Sun 21: Sleep on the sofa, then return the cutlery to the sailing club and start my 5-hour journey back. Thank goodness for the emergency pack of Garibaldis.

Mon 22: First day of work experience. They've nicknamed me Lofty after Michelle's fiancé on Eastenders.
Tue 23: Second day of work experience. They didn't tell me to wear trainers so I have to stay in the viewing area.
Wed 24: Third day of work experience. Remembered my trainers this time so I get to participate.
Thu 25: Fourth day of work experience. Rachel says she's thinking of quitting already.
Fri 26: My paranoid neighbour knocks on my door and asks if I'd look after her tub of 40 Valium for her. [I should never have agreed - see October 10th].
Sat 27: Go exploring down Whitefriargate and The Land of Green Ginger. My neighbour has started banging on our adjoining wall. I've started pretending I'm out.
Sun 28: I'm discovering what it's like to be the chosen confidante of someone who's chronically depressed. Please stop fiddling with my frog.
Mon 29: The Hull Daily Mail celebrates its 101st birthday by going tabloid. [On TV: On Brookside, Heather walks in on Nick overdosing on heroin]
Tue 30: Potentially suicidal are you? This was not how I was expecting my first month in Hull to turn out... (it gets a lot better on October 16th)

September events diary 2026

2026-09-05T07:00:00.000+01:00

It's September again but never fear, London's putting on a last flurry of events, activities and happenings before the nights draw in and we're all invited. Here's my weekend-by-weekend guide to free September delights.

All month
» Totally Thames (Sep 1-30): Once again a whole month of river-focused events, many ticketed, ranging from art to walks to virtual talks to a folksong singalong. Thankfully the website's events section is easier to scroll through these days, but it's still hard to spot the highlights.
» Lambeth Heritage Festival (Sep 1-30): Dozens of free talks, guided walks and openings across the borough (plus a proper 36-page brochure to flick through, bliss). Hats off to whoever organises this every year. If you live locally you should definitely take a look.

Weekend 1: September 5/6
» Greenwich+Docklands International Festival (21 Aug - 6 Sep): This significant splurge of spectacular performances delivers artistic wonders annually. The GDIF brochure now mostly tells you what you've missed. On this final weekend there's a heck of a lot of dancing in Stratford on Saturday and a street dance finale in Woolwich on Sunday.
» Lambeth Local History Fair (Sat, from 10): A coming-together of local societies, heritage organisations, friends groups and local history publishers at Brixton Library. Includes short films and guided walks.
» Creative Mile (Sat, 11-5): Art in venues across Brentford, a full mile from the canal basin to the Steam Museum.
» Black on the Square (Sat, from noon): The Mayor's latest culturally-themed Trafalgar Square takeover, now in its fourth year. Performers include Triniboi Joocie and Tomorrow's Warriors.
» Brassworks (Sat, from noon): A Festival of Horns at Woolwich Works, also noisy parading up and down outside.
» Croxfest (Sat, from noon): OK this one's not quite in London, but where else are you going to hear The Silent Rogues, Lickin Stick, Many Bats and Our Friends Electric other than on the Green in Croxley?
» Denmark Street Sessions (Sat, 1-11): A heck of a lot of live performances down former Tin Pan Alley.
» Angel Canal Festival (Sun, 11-4): Waterside gaiety beside City Road Lock, this year celebrating its 40th anniversary. The Mayor of Islington usually arrives by narrowboat. I went in 2023.
» Brompton Cemetery Open Day (Sun, 11-5): Includes opportunities to meet bees, birds of prey and Chelsea Pensioners.
» Palmers Green Festival (Sun, 12-5): All the fun of music on the green, donkey rides and dozens of community stalls in Broomfield Park N13.

Weekend 2: September 12/13
» Open House London (this weekend and next): The grand-daddy of architectural festivals, with hundreds of weird and wonderful buildings throwing open their doors across the capital for two weekends. The online calendar currently includes 819 properties, over 500 of which are "just turn up". It's quite central-London-centric again this year (3 in Havering but 98 in Westminster), although I always think the outer boroughs have some of the genuine treasures. It's possible to search by date, borough, event type and map location and also to filter out events that are fully booked. As ever there's far too much to choose from, but if you need inspiration here are my reports from 2018, 2019, 20 22, 20 23, 20 24 and 20 25. Be there or regret it for the subsequent 51 weeks.
» Heritage Open Days (Fri - next Sun): In an awkward overlap, the nationwide opening-up of historic buildings coincides with Open House again this year. 121 are in the capital, including sculpturetastic Dorich House, 600 year-old Harmondsworth Great Barn and the British Vintage Wireless and Television Museum (many appear in the Open House listings too).
» London Design Festival (continues next weekend): Hundreds of design-er events, many aimed at "the trade" but others more public-focused. I see TfL have an installation at The Pickle Factory all week, for example.
» St Katharine Docks Classic Boat Festival (Sat, Sun): Annual gathering of small boats near Tower Bridge, including Dunkirk Little Ships, dockside entertainment, opportunities to go on board and yachting celebrity Tom Cunliffe.
» Hampton Court Open Gardens (Sat, Sun): One of half a dozen opportunities annually to explore the palace's historic grounds for free.
» Markfield Road Festival (Sat, Sun): Art, DJs and a carnival procession, spilling out into the streets up N15 way.
» Scadbury Open Weekend (Sat, Sun, 2-5): Archaeological excavations at the moated medieval manor house near the Sidcup bypass. I went in 2022 and enjoyed.
» The Great River Race (Sat from 10.15am): 300 craft engage in a spectacular paddle up the Thames from Docklands to Richmond.
» Emerge East (Sat, 11-9): Placemaking exercise at Barking Riverside, including DJ AG, sauna sessions, nature workshops and a Luke Jerram inflatable.
» Thames Tidefest (Sun, 6-6): River-based activities scattered between Brentford and Chiswick, with a particular marquee-focus at Strand-on-the-Green, W4.
(yes there is far far too much going on this weekend, they should spread it out better)

Weekend 3: September 19/20
» Open House London: Weekend two
» Heritage Open Days Weekend two
» Bermondsey Street Festival (Sat, 11-7): A designery "village fête", plus the obligatory dog show, plus curated live music, plus food and stalls. Now in its 20th year.
» Chiswick House Dog Show (Sun, 11-4.15): With a theme of 'Faithful Hound', celebrity judges give the dogs of W4 the runaround.
» Pearly Kings and Queens Harvest Festival (Sun, 1.30): Cockney royalty offers live entertainment in Guildhall Yard.

Weekend 4: September 26/27
» Woolmen’s Sheep Drive and Wool Fair (Sun, 10-4): The celeb leading this year's first tranche over Southwark Bridge will be revealed shortly, but they'll do well to beat Mary Berry or Michael Portillo. Come too for wool-related trade stalls and lamb burgers.
» Brixton Windmill Harvest Festival (Sun, 1-5): Milling, Morris dancing and making hedgehog buns, as autumn draws in.
» Something Else Probably (maybe): I'm still looking, but there must be something.

n.b. This year the Chelsea Physic Garden Open Weekend is at the start of October...
n.b. ...and the annual Thames Barrier all-day closure is on Sunday 11th October.
n.b. Peckham Festival and the Mayor's Liberty Festival are having a year off.