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Tubewalker: The Tube, on Foot

Victoria Line: Brixton to King's Cross St Pancras

Brixton station
Brixton station

It's a bit like walking on eggshells round here at the moment. Every night I check out the weather forecast, wondering whether I'm going to get a soaking on tomorrow's walk, and every night the forecast is for scattered showers, sometimes heavy, sometimes not. And so I get up in the morning and frown out of the window, angry at yet more pathetic August weather and expecting the worst.

Brixton to Stockwell

Electric Avenue
Electric Avenue

Brixton has an image problem, which is perhaps not surprising as there were serious race riots in 1981, 1985 and 1995, and the images stay in the collective consciousness for a long time... but it's been 13 years since the last riot, and things look pretty buoyant, at least to the casual observer. Brixton station has an impressive new entrance, boasting a huge glass Underground roundel above a large steel staircase, and at the top of the stairs you burst out into Brixton Road, one of the liveliest high streets I've seen for a while. The last time I was here I remember watching a naked woman running down the street, completely out of her mind, while concerned members of the public tried to calm her down and stop her playing with the traffic; I didn't see anything quite as bizarre today, but Brixton is the kind of place where you feel something is about to happen, and it's very invigorating.

40 Stansfield Road, childhood home of David Bowie
40 Stansfield Road, childhood home of David Bowie
Stockwell Park Crescent
Stockwell Park Crescent

Stockwell to Vauxhall

Stockwell Garage
Stockwell Garage

Past the station, the Studley Estate dominates the view along Binfield Road, with a high rise block in front of you and sturdy blocks either side of the road, but keep on going to the bend in the road and you get your first glimpse of the Grade II*-listed Stockwell Garage. When it opened in 1952, the graceful concrete and steel arches of Stockwell Garage created the largest unsupported area under one roof in Europe, and it could house 200 buses; it's still in use as a bus depot today, and when you reach Lansdowne Way, look to your right to get an idea of just how immense the structure really is.

A memorial on the corner of Guildford Road and St Barnabas Villas
A memorial on the corner of Guildford Road and St Barnabas Villas
Miniature houses in Vauxhall Park
Miniature houses in Vauxhall Park

Vauxhall to Pimlico

The SIS Building
The SIS Building

This whole area is dominated by two huge developments. On the southwest side of the bridge is St George's Wharf, a massive apartment development whose peaked towers look like confused cockroaches, or perhaps a row of startled WALL-Es. Much more impressive is the SIS Building on the northeast side, the home to the security service MI6. It really looks like the headquarters of a spy agency; it means business, and it's no surprise that when the Provisional IRA fired a mortar at the building in 2000, it effectively bounced off, causing only minor damage.

Pimlico to Victoria

Lillington Gardens Estate
Lillington Gardens Estate

The architecture along Tachbrook Street is a face-off between the old and the new. On the western side of the road is a row of Victorian terraces of the kind you can see pretty much anywhere in London, but on the eastern side of the road is the mid-1960s Lillington Gardens Estate, which is an absolute corker. Layers of red brick balconies cascade down towards the road, ending in pubs and shops and ground floor flats with pretty gardens, and the difference between this fluid design and your average tower block is huge. The inhabitants of the 780-odd apartments in the estate are keen on window boxes, and the result is not unlike a red-brick version of the Barbican; it was deservedly made a conservation area in 1980, and is proof that not all 1960s social housing was a disaster.

King's Scholars' Passage
King's Scholars' Passage

Victoria to Green Park

Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace

The streets north of Victoria are an amazing mishmash of modern high-rise blocks and ancient buildings, particularly along Stafford Row, where Georgian houses cower in the shadow of some amazing glass structures, and some disgusting examples of concrete gone wrong. In particular, the Thistle Westminster Hotel on Warwick Row is astoundingly ugly, and its lower levels look like they're oozing black blood. Someone put it out of its misery, please!

Green Park to Oxford Circus

The Royal Arcade
The Royal Arcade

I really enjoyed walking with my parents for the last two sections today. For one thing it slowed me down, and in the centre of town that's no bad thing, as I can be a bit of a single-minded walker and it's sometimes hard to forget than I'm not commuting. The streets between Green Park and Warren Street are packed tightly together and every few doors there is something else to look at, but in my haste to chew up the miles when walking alone, I tend to rush through the last few bits of a tubewalk, missing out some of the subtleties. It's also good to have a different perspective on hand; I would have walked straight past the shop at the bottom end of Savile Row without blinking an eye, but Dad took one look at it and said, 'Well, I never! I didn't know Ede and Ravenscroft were based here.' It seems that they are London's oldest tailors and robe makers, and in particular they make wigs for the legal profession; I'd never have known that if I hadn't been tubewalking with a member of the legal profession, but then again, I was busy looking for the old offices of Apple Corps at number three – proof, as if it were needed, that three pairs of eyes are better than one.

3 Savile Row, home of Apple Corps in the 1960s
3 Savile Row, home of Apple Corps in the 1960s
The cab shelter in Hanover Square
The cab shelter in Hanover Square

Oxford Circus to Warren Street

Great Titchfield Street
Great Titchfield Street

It's less commercial on the way to Warren Street, and the peace as you leave Oxford Street and duck into Great Portland Street is a considerable relief. Most shoppers seem unwilling to leave the comfort of the crowds on the main road, but they're missing out, for tucked away between Great Portland Street and Great Titchfield Street is Oxford Market, a relatively quiet square with lots of good restaurants and outside seating. Indeed, things get even quieter as you head north along Great Titchfield Street, past amazing Regency mansions made from red brick and Portland stone, all the way to Riding House Street. Look left at this point and you should be able to see All Souls' Church on Langham Place, which is opposite BBC Broadcasting House, a spot I visited back on my Bakerloo walk.

The BT Tower from below
The BT Tower from below