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Tubewalker: The Tube, on Foot

Jubilee Line: Stanmore to Dollis Hill

Fryent Country Park
Fryent Country Park

I was hoping that this, the last line on my tubewalk, would start with a bang rather than a whimper, but I've just got back from ten of the most tedious miles I've had to endure so far on this walk, and the only silver lining I can think of is that I'll never have to walk through this part of London again. I suppose there could be an element of fatigue creeping in after so many tube lines, and I'm certainly looking forward to finishing next week, because the novelty of walking through the suburbs has well and truly rubbed off. But I'm looking back through my photos from today, and apart from a couple of nice parks and Wembley Stadium, there's nothing but endless suburbia and industrial wasteland, and that doesn't make for good walking.

Stanmore to Canons Park

Stanmore station
Stanmore station

Things don't start out too badly, though. Stanmore station looks for all the world like a large suburban house complete with dormer windows and chimneys, and it just shows what different approaches the Metropolitan Railway and London Underground had to station design. Back in 1932, when the station was opened as the terminus of the Metropolitan's Stanmore branch, the Metropolitan Railway was a separate company to London Underground, and while it was building stations that looked like suburban houses, London Underground was building the futuristic Southgate and the modernist Arnos Grove. The following year, the Metropolitan Railway would be taken over by the London Passenger Transport Board and the Metropolitan line would become part of the Underground, and in 1939 the Stanmore branch was taken over by the Bakerloo line, before finally becoming part of the new Jubilee line in 1979.

Canons Park
Canons Park

Attention all dog owners

A male is targeting dog owners in this park and subjecting them to verbal abuse. Someone has also been placing meat in the park laced with pins. If eaten this could be extremely harmful to your dog. Please take extra care when walking your dog and help us catch the person responsible.

The King George V Memorial Garden
The King George V Memorial Garden

Despite this, the benefical effect of the funding shows because it's a great little spot, with the walled King George V Memorial Garden in the centre of the park and lots of impressive trees spread across the lush lawns. This whole area was once the garden of a palatial home built by the First Duke of Chandos between 1709 and the late 1720s, and although nothing remains of that house, another mansion to the north of the park that dates from 1754 is now the North London Collegiate School. In the 1800s the garden was modernised by the new owner, the Solicitor General, under the direction of the ubiquitous Humphry Repton, and there's a white stone temple in the north of the park that dates from this period. It all makes for an enjoyable stroll south to the station.

Canons Park to Queensbury

Pleasant gardens on Cotman Gardens
Pleasant gardens on Cotman Gardens

There's another stretch of fairly anonymous suburbia to the southeast of the station, along Buckingham Road and Chandos Crescent, where a friendly milkman stopped by the side of the road to ask me if I had the time, and to inquire whether I was lost (I guess the sight of someone studying a map and taking pictures of such unremarkable suburbia is a rare one). I wasn't, I replied, and he tootled off down the road in his float, whistling loudly; and smiling at this classic suburban image, I turned into Chandos Recreation Ground, the only interesting thing I'd been able to find between Canons Park and Queensbury. In the event, it turned out to be pleasant but nothing special, with wide open playing fields, tennis courts, a dilapidated pavilion that the council are fixing up, and not a lot else.

Queensbury Methodist Church
Queensbury Methodist Church

Queensbury to Kingsbury

Clouds gather over Clifton Road
Clouds gather over Clifton Road

Not far south from Queensbury station, past a huge Morrisons supermarket and on the other side of the busy A4140, is Queensbury Park, another park that's perfectly adequate, but nothing terribly special. It's then a long slog through the suburbs of Clifton Road and along the busy A4006 Kenton Road, which is hardly the most exciting walking companion. Things perk up a bit at Kinsbury Circus, where the Kingsland Hotel stares over the roundabout at some intriguing modern apartments above a Tesco Express, and then Kingsbury Road takes over, with Mock Tudor shops introducing a long, wide road that's lined with the standard range of high street brands.

Kingsbury to Wembley Park

Fryent Country Park
Fryent Country Park

More semi-detached suburbia lines Valley Drive, though at a corner of Mock Tudor houses there's an escape route into the countryside, for this is the northern entrance into Fryent Country Park, which I last visited on my Metropolitan line walk from Wembley Park to North Harrow, way back on day three of my tubewalk. It's such a relief to spill out into proper countryside after street after street of housing, and the walk up to the top of the hill in the north of the park, which is crowned by a Capital Ring signpost, is short but sweet, with some great views to Stanmore in the north and Harrow to the west. The Ring heads west from here into the half of the park on the other side of Fryent Way, but I already walked that way back in June, so today I headed due south, eventually cutting through a rather damp wood to the junction of Fryent Way and The Paddocks.

Wembley Park to Neasden

Wembley Park station
Wembley Park station

The easiest way to get to Wembley Stadium from the station is down the massive staircase to Olympic Way, the pedestrianised road that leads due south to the stadium. The last time I walked down here I shared the experience with 80,000 rabid Foo Fighters fans, but it's a different experience when you're pretty much alone. The stadium is still utterly imposing, but when you're stuck in a crowd it's difficult to appreciate just how huge it is; when it's just you, though, it makes you feel even smaller than normal.

The statue of Bobby Moore
The statue of Bobby Moore
The hoop at Wembley
The hoop at Wembley
Tyres in Wembley Park
Tyres in Wembley Park

Neasden to Dollis Hill

The old Post Office Research Station from Gladstone Park
The old Post Office Research Station from Gladstone Park

The houses in this neck of the woods have seen better days, and it's a relief to spill out of Prout Grove and Lennox Gardens into Gladstone Park, an attractive park that rises from train tracks, up the side of a hill and to a small lake and house on the summit. Unfortunately Dollis Hill House, which dates from 1825, is currently hidden behind scaffolding and plastic sheeting, but it's worth popping to the top for a glimpse of a deeply impressive and historic building to the north of the park. Topped by a green tower not unlike the one on Waltham Town Hall, this is the Post Office Research Station where Tommy Flowers and his team built the first Colossus computer over an 11-month period in 1943, thus creating the world's first programmable electronic computer. It was also where ERNIE (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment) was built in 1957 for picking Premium Bond winners, though these days it's home to exclusive apartments rather than epoch-defining boffins.

Dollis Hill station
Dollis Hill station