Tubewalker: The Tube, on Foot

Copyright © Mark Moxon 2024

All rights reserved

This version was compiled on 31 March 2024

This work has been released under the Creative Commons licence Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). This means you are free to distribute this work to others as long as you retain this copyright notice, do not use the work for commercial purposes and do not alter, transform or build upon this work. For more details please read the full licence.

Front cover: The Gherkin, photographed on my tubewalk from Aldgate to Tower Hill

See www.tubewalker.com for more information

Map

Preface

Between June and August 2008 I walked the entire Tube network, station to station and line by line (and above ground, as I’m not completely insane). This is the story of that walk.

More details of my tubewalk can be found at www.tubewalker.com, where you can also find over 9750 photographs, route maps, points of interest and tips for those looking for a different way to explore London on foot.

I’ve released this book and its companions via a Creative Commons Licence, which means you are free to distribute it to everyone and anyone, as long as you distribute it on a non-commercial basis and make no changes to it. If you know someone who might like this book, please pass it on; I make no money from it, but I do enjoy the thought of people reading it and recommending it to their friends.

Finally, please be aware that this book attempts to be humorous every now and then, so there’s a slight chance that it might cause offence to those who think my sense of humour is as amusing as a puddle of mud. On top of this, some parts will be out of date – which is why each article is dated – and others will betray the naivety of a walker who discovered the suburbs of London by throwing himself into it headfirst. It is, however, an honest account of how I felt as I explored the Tube network on foot, and as such, I hope you enjoy it.

Mark Moxon

June 2014

What is Tubewalking?

An Introduction to Tubewalking

I fell in love with city walking when I discovered the London Loop, the long-distance orbital path that circles the edges of Greater London. This was back in 2002, and I cemented my relationship four years later with the Capital Ring, the Loop’s younger sibling. I loved both walks; although walking through a capital city might not be as glamorous as exploring moors or climbing mountains, the city’s charms are unique – even in much-maligned suburbia – and it didn’t take me long to get hooked.

The problem was, I devoured the Loop and Ring as quickly as I could, thrilled by the discovery of places I’d seen on the front of Tube trains; Uxbridge came and went, closely followed by High Barnet and Cockfosters, and when I finally came to the last day of the Ring, I was bereft. And then it struck me, lying in bed one night, that maybe I should walk across London instead of around it, perhaps following the general direction of the Northern and Central lines... and from that came my plan to do the mother of all tubewalks: the London Underground, on foot.

At first I thought I’d follow the rules of the Tube Challenge, except on foot, but it just didn’t feel right. Then a good friend suggested I simply walk each line in turn, and that idea soon gave birth to my own, personal rules for tubewalking. I then spent the winter planning my route and setting up this website, ready for the start in June 2008.

I completed my exploration of the London Underground on 29 August 2008, and you can read all about it in this very book.

The Rules of Tubewalking

In its simplest form, a tubewalk is nothing more than a walk that starts and ends at a Tube station, so all you need to become a tubewalker is a couple of Tube stations, a dose of motivation and some time to kill. You certainly don’t need someone like me laying down rules.

However, I did need some rules, because in summer 2008, I set myself the challenge of tubewalking the entire Tube network, and something that big needs a few rules. I therefore formulated the following guidelines for my own, personal tubewalk before I set off.

- Follow the Tube: I’m only allowed to walk between two stations if there is a Tube line between those stations.

- Walk the Line: If a Tube line exists between two stations, then at some point I need to walk between them. It’s OK to do this via another station, if that’s legal; so, for example, if I walk from Camden Town to Mornington Crescent to Euston on the Northern line, then I’ve also effectively walked the direct route from Camden Town to Euston.

- No Repeats: If there is more than one Tube line between two stations – for example, Westminster and Embankment are joined by both the Circle and District lines – then I need only walk that segment once. This is to prevent repetitive strain injury and certain madness.

- Exceptions: The only station that isn’t accessible on foot is Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3, which is bang in the middle of Heathrow Airport. Instead of walking all the way to the station, I’m going to walk as close as I’m allowed, and then I’m going to hop on a public bus for the last part through the tunnel under the runway (I’ve talked to BAA, and they understandably don’t allow pedestrians to walk under the runway, so the bus is the next best thing). Apart from that, I’m going to visit every station on every line, on foot and above ground.

- Just the Tube: I’m only going to visit stations on the London Underground, so that means I won’t be walking the Docklands Light Railway or the London Overground (I want to leave something to come back for when the insanity strikes again!). I will be walking the East London line, because although it is no longer open, there is a bus replacement service run by London Underground, so technically it is still part of the Tube network.

These rules enabled me to walk the entire Tube without repeating myself and without missing anything. I also tried to take in as many interesting destinations as I could, because after all, tubewalking is supposed to be fun... and it certainly turned out that way.

Walking Through Tube History

When you walk the Tube, there are plenty of options for the order you walk it in. You can walk each line in alphabetical order; or you can walk it from east to west or north to south; you can even walk it randomly; but if you’ve got an interest in history, I highly recommend you walk it in chronological order (as I did), so you can see how the Underground grew from humble beginnings to the city-wide network it is today. The table below shows the order in which the lines were opened, based on the opening dates of the oldest sections of the lines we know today. I walked the lines in roughly this order, and I’m glad it did, as it turned my tubewalk into a walk through Tube history.

(A quick note on the East London line. When I walked the Tube, the East London line was closed and being re-engineered as part of the London Overground, but because London Underground was running a bus replacement service, this meant the East London line was technically still part of the Tube, and would be until it re-opened. So I walked it... and I’m glad I did.)

Line

Date Opened

Section

Notes

Metropolitan

10 Jan 1863

Farringdon to Paddington

Opened as the Metropolitan Railway

Hammersmith & City

13 Jun 1864

Paddington to Hammersmith

Opened as part of the Metropolitan Railway

District

24 Dec 1868

Gloucester Road to Westminster

Opened as the Metropolitan District Railway

East London

7 Dec 1869

New Cross Gate to Wapping

Opened as the East London Railway

Circle

6 Oct 1884

Inner circle completed

The first section to open was High Street Kensington to Gloucester Road, which was opened as part of the Metropolitan District Railway on 1 Dec 1868, but the Circle line first came into being when it was completed in 1884

Waterloo & City

8 Aug 1898

Waterloo to Bank

Opened as the Waterloo & City Railway

Northern

18 Dec 1890

King William Street to Stockwell

Opened as the City & South London Railway; King William Street station was just south of the current Monument station

Central

30 Jul 1900

Shepherd’s Bush to Bank

Opened as the Central London Railway

Bakerloo

10 Mar 1906

Baker Street to Lambeth North

Opened as the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway

Piccadilly

15 Dec 1906

Hammersmith to Finsbury Park

Opened as the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway

Victoria

1 Sep 1960

Walthamstow Central to Highbury & Islington

Opened as the Victoria line

Jubilee

1 May 1979

Baker Street to Charing Cross

The Jubilee line incorporated the Baker Street to Stanmore section from the Metropolitan/Bakerloo lines, which was originally opened on 10 Dec 1932; the original route went from Green Park to Charing Cross, but the extension re-routed the line via Westminster

Metropolitan Line

Aldgate to Finchley Road

2 June 2008

This is clearly going to be fun. I’ve been rained on, I’ve got a mysterious black stain up the side of my left leg, I’ve spent ages wandering around, hopelessly lost, at least twice, and I’ve still had a wonderful day’s walking. London bodes well, much to my relief.

Some of this probably has to do with the fact that it’s Monday and I’m not at work. There’s something deeply satisfying about stepping out into the middle of a busy city, safe in the knowledge that the rush around you is no longer anything to do with you. It’s a bit like being in one of those car or phone adverts, where the world blurs past in a mad hurry while a relaxed and slightly smug man in a knowing haircut strolls through the chaos, smiling at the rat race around him. I felt a bit like that as I stepped out of Aldgate station, if you ignore the bit about the haircut.

I soon managed to wipe the smugness off my own face by getting utterly lost within 30 seconds of starting my first tubewalk. As I was taking a photo of the Gherkin peeking over the buildings at the end of a small lane, I realised that no, it probably shouldn’t be in that direction, but over there instead, and after a quick scramble with the map I realised that, yes, I was heading in the direction of Cornwall when I should have been heading for north Wales. It’s an easy thing to do, particularly if you’re the kind of alpha male who refuses to take directions and knows that yes, it’s over there, just follow me. I’m no longer that kind of person, believe me...

Anyway, here are the highlights of my first tubewalk from Aldgate to Finchley Road, a very pleasant introduction to the world of tubewalking.

Aldgate to Liverpool Street

Aldgate station, opened on 11 November 1876, feels like an old station; as you get off the train, daylight filters through the roof, an unusual feeling for a city-centre underground stop. The Metropolitan Railway, as the original underground line was called, was built using the cut-and-cover technique, so the lines are nowhere near as deep as the later Tube lines. Indeed, as you walk the Metropolitan line through the City, you can’t help but notice the railway popping up here and there, in cuttings or below bridges. It truly is a subterranean railway, rather than a Tube line, and it’s all the more charming for it; it feels Victorian, a bit a Heath Robinson even, and the thought that the trains ran on steam until 1905 makes it even more amazing. The Victorians were clearly something else.

From Aldgate to Liverpool Street, the feeling is of the ultra-modern rubbing shoulders with the rather ancient. The Gherkin and its siblings dominate the skyline, popping up at the ends of side streets and lending a gentle, curvy air to the more traditional office blocks. Devonshire Square comes as a pleasant surprise, a quiet, paved space with a circle of trees in its centre, sheltering some pleasant benches that no doubt fill up at lunchtime. I like these pockets of peace in the bustle; they’re the walker’s equivalent of the alcoholic’s moment of clarity...

Liverpool Street to Moorgate

It isn’t far from Devonshire Square to Liverpool Street station, though the ‘Street’ part of the sign has fallen off, so it’s currently called Liverpool Underground Station. I presume this isn’t a permanent change, though it wouldn’t be the station’s first name change, as it originally opened as Bishopsgate on 12 July 1875 before being renamed Liverpool Street in 1909.

Not far from Liverpool Street is pretty Finsbury Circus, an oval green space with a silky smooth crown green bowling green in the centre (home to the City of London Bowling Club, no less). To the south of the Circus was the site of Bethlem Royal Hospital from 1675 to 1815, the mental hospital that gave us the word ‘Bedlam’. It’s a somewhat more peaceful place these days, and no doubt a popular sandwich spot for lunching City folk, though at mid-morning it’s more of a Mecca for workers popping out for a cigarette (and who can blame them?).

It’s a quick stroll from Finsbury Circus to Moorgate station, on the other side of busy Moorgate. The station is a pleasant, red brick affair, dating from 23 December 1865, and you can walk through the station to the other side, where there’s yet another entrance opposite.

Moorgate to Barbican

I didn’t think it would be, but the Barbican turned out to be the highlight of my walk. Until today I’ve never explored the Barbican, assuming it was some bizarre post-war concrete experiment that was best avoided. How wrong I was! It’s fascinating to wander around, and I got completely lost for the second time when I thought it might be a good idea to try to walk through the complex to the station on the other side. It’s a complete maze, but it’s great fun, particularly if you climb up a couple of floors to the high walkway that connects all the important bits. I got happily lost here for some time, and even the friendly librarian I asked for directions couldn’t stop me from getting lost again within a few steps of leaving her library, but that’s the charm of the Barbican. You wander through curved corridors and round concrete corners, and suddenly you bump into monstrous skyscrapers towering over lakes, ancient churches, portions of the original City wall and hordes of schoolchildren screeching their way through their days out. It’s been voted London’s ugliest building, but I think time will vindicate the designers; I love it, with its rows and rows of apartments decorated with flower boxes spilling their bright colours out over the surrounding streets. It took me ages to track down Barbican station at the end of one of the walkways, but I was a happy wanderer indeed.

Barbican to Farringdon

Not far from the Barbican is the church of St Bartholemew the Great, an early Gothic masterpiece, tucked away on a side street south of Smithfield Market. It’s well worth the detour, and is simply charming, not least because it’s so easy to miss. It’s also a popular spot for office workers having a fag break; I can see the appeal.

I’ll remember Smithfield Market for some time, though not because of the meat stalls (I was far too late to witness any activity) or the impressive buildings of the Central Market, which date from 1868. No, I’ll remember it because just as I wandered into the market proper, I trod on a paving stone that gave way, spurting a jet of oily, black goo all the way up my left leg and down into my previously pristine white trainers. I’ve trodden on plenty of squirting paving stones in my time, but this was fetid, and I couldn’t quite believe it; City folk flocked around, popping out for their mid-morning coffees, and there I was, suddenly scarred with tramp juice. Luckily the market itself is a great antidote to being doused with liquid offal, and even though it’s a quiet place in the daytime, it must be quite a sight at 4am as the traders set up shop. I don’t intend to find out, though; I’m not a morning person.

Farringdon station is just along Cowcross Street from the market, and this is where the real history of the Tube begins, for the oldest underground railway in the world was opened here on 10 January 1863, joining Paddington to Farringdon along the Metropolitan line (though these first tunnels are actually used by the Hammersmith & City line these days). The station itself looks quite similar to Aldgate station, but being the original City tube station, it’s just that little bit more impressive.

Farringdon to King’s Cross St Pancras

From Farringdon I walked north along St John’s Lane, where the impressive stone St John’s Gate spans the road before leading into Clerkenwell. It’s subtle, but the atmosphere of the buildings starts to change, albeit slowly. There are some lovely mews round the back of St James’s Church and some pleasant green spaces in Spa Fields Park and Wilmington Square, but it’s a bit of a shock to reach King’s Cross Road and the huge open area of the Mount Pleasant Royal Mail Sorting Office. It might date from 1889, but it feels as if you’ve fallen off the edge of the historical City and into a bland land of commerce and factory.

It’s a similar story all the way to King’s Cross St Pancras; the buildings aren’t as polished as in the more affluent parts, but the redevelopment of this area is clearly having an effect, and there’s no better demonstration than the new St Pancras International terminus. It’s breathtaking, wandering into St Pancras and looking up at the newly restored roof and brickwork; it really feels like an international terminus, with platforms on two levels, a 9m-high statue of a couple of commuters getting fresh below the impressive station clock (the sculpture is called The Meeting Place)... and that incredible roof. It’s brilliant.

King’s Cross St Pancras to Euston Square

Not quite so brilliant is the spot a few blocks south of the British Library in Tavistock Square, site of the 7 July Bus Bomb. On an overcast Monday morning it’s a peaceful spot, with a leafy garden in the centre of the square quietly minding its own business, and it must have been an incredible shock to see the roof being ripped off the number 30 at 9.47 in the morning. It’s a strange feeling, watching double-decker buses driving over the very spot where, nearly three years ago, London was brought to a standstill.

The next station along the Metropolitan is Euston Square station. Initially I walked straight past it, and it was only when I spotted Warren Street station in the distance that I realised what I’d done... so I doubled back and crossed busy Gower Street to touch the walls of the station (which I’m doing at every stop). The station entrance is little more than a hole in the side of a building, as the front of the block is smothered in scaffolding and blocked off from public view, which could explain why I ignored it so comprehensively. No offence intended.

Euston Square to Great Portland Street

Much more obvious is Great Portland Street station, which sits alone at the northern end of Great Portland Street, after a short walk past the looming Euston Tower and the grand entrance to University College Hospital. The station is an oval building housing a restaurant, shops, a florist, subterranean toilets and the Tube station itself, like a Victorian shopping mall in miniature. I like it when Tube stations reveal themselves; it’s normal in the suburbs, but in the centre of town, they’re so often incorporated into other buildings, or completely hidden underground. Good for Great Portland Street, then, for standing alone on such a busy junction.

Great Portland Street to Baker Street

From Great Portland Street to Baker Street, I followed Marylebone Road with a strong sense of déjà vu, as until Friday this was my commuting route. It might not strike the casual walker as an interesting road to follow, but this entire road was ripped up to build the original Metropolitan line, so in a very real sense the road itself is part of the world’s first subterranean railway. Charles Dickens lived at 1 Devonshire Terrace (now 15-17 Marylebone Road) from 1839 to 1851, where he wrote The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, A Christmas Carol, Dombey and Son, and David Copperfield; and just before Baker Street station you have to fight your way through the tourist chaos outside Madame Tussauds, which is always fun when you’re commuting with sharpened brolly in hand. Madame Tussauds now incorporates the old Planetarium, one of my favourite little buildings in the city, with its little Saturnine planet plonked on the top like the architectural equivalent of a springy table tennis antenna hat. It reminds me of the cover to the Pixies’ Bossanova, which is a good memory, and every time I go past, I secretly hope it will shake its dome and bounce its antennae around like the mischievous child I imagine it to be. I’m still waiting, but I’m waiting in hope.

Baker Street to Finchley Road

Buried deep in the large building on the corner of Baker Street and Marylebone Road is Baker Street station, the last of the original stations from the first section of the 1863 Metropolitan line (the line actually went on to Paddington, but this part is no longer part of the Metropolitan, but the Hammersmith & City). The station itself is decked out in tiling showing the pipe-smoking profile of Sherlock Holmes, whose fictitious address of 221b Baker Street is just round the corner. It’s now home to a Sherlock Holmes museum and shop, of course, and is just up the block from a Beatles store and opposite a rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia emporium. Holmes would probably approve, and might even deduce that this is a prime tourist spot.

It’s a short hop across a pedestrian crossing to Regent’s Park, one of my favourite London parks. I’m going to be visiting the park again on my Bakerloo walk, so today’s jaunt only took in the western and northern reaches of the park, including the lovely boating lake, with its landscaped views across to the private residence of The Holme (jealous? hell, yes). Unfortunately the rain that started dribbling down at Great Portland Street suddenly turned up the volume, leaving this part of the park looking far from its best, but further north the park spreads out into playing fields with wide horizons, and if you’re going to walk through the rain, this is the way to do it. Stranded in the middle of these fields is The Hub, a café perched on an earth mound with a 360° view of the park; normally it’s a great spot for a lazy coffee, overlooking the football matches and dog walkers, but I’m afraid I shot past, aiming for the relative dryness of the Tube.

Even more disappointing in the rain is the panoramic view from Primrose Hill, though it’s still impressive to see London laid out before you, the City to the left and the BT Tower dominating the centre of town. On a sunny day, Primrose Hill is one of the best views in London; on a day like today, it’s windswept, lonely and arguably more atmospheric, though it’s easy not to dawdle.

Heading down from Primrose Hill, it’s almost like stumbling into an architectural face-off. The houses at the base of the hill are gorgeous and full of character, but it doesn’t last, because on the northern side of King Henry’s Road, the old stone houses give way to much more modern fare, and it’s quite a contrast. Rising in the near distance are tower blocks whose window mould you can sense even from this distance, and Finchley Road is a similar mix of the lovely and the unloved, all the way to Finchley Road station, at the end of this leg.

So that’s day one done and dusted, and what a great walk. Indeed, the only problem with a walk this varied is fitting it all in; I was forever pulling out the camera and snapping away while trying to balance an umbrella and maps in the other hand. If this is a taste of things to come, I’m a very lucky person to be spending the next three months walking the Tube. Bring on the summer weather!

Finchley Road to Wembley Park

4 June 2008

I’ve never been much of a morning person, to be honest. I’d much rather roll over and bury my head in the duvet than get up and see the sun rise, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about long-distance walking, it’s that you have to get up early to get the miles in. Or, to be more accurate, you do if you’re biting off as much as you can chew; when I walked across Britain I would get up as early as the breakfast part of bed and breakfast would allow, and when you’re camping on the trail, getting up is often a blessed relief. But this walk is different, and it’s a distinct pleasure; I’ve been getting up at 7am for the last couple of years (and I was getting up even earlier than that when I worked for a boss who once told me that Monday mornings were her favourite part of the week), but now I’m master of the clock, I get up when it suits me, and when you’ve only got seven miles to walk in a day, that’s not very early at all.

It makes a big difference, because it takes at least two hours to blow the cobwebs away, and unlike with more traditional trails, I’m still commuting every morning. Gone are the mornings, waking up to the alarm clock to be greeted by the sight of mist rising from the valley below my B&B window; I’m never going to zip back my tent flaps to see the dew glistening on the hedgerows; and I’m not even able to look forward to my morning mound of bacon and eggs before jumping back onto the trail. No, your average tubewalk takes about as long to get going as my brain, because every tubewalk starts with a Tube journey.

So perhaps the best justification for starting late is that I miss the rush hour, and what a difference it makes. I don’t get crushed, I don’t get stuck next to the guy with the drip in his nostril that needs to be sniffed back up every 20 seconds, and I don’t have to put up with the sound of gangsta-rap-meets-iPod from my neighbour’s tinny earphones, because after about 9.30am the Tube is almost spacious, especially as I start my journey at a terminus, Ealing Broadway. It’s most relaxing, and gives me a chance to shake the morning out of my eyes before hitting the trail.

Tubewalking might even make me appreciate the Tube again, and that’s saying something.

Finchley Road to Wembley Park

But I digress, because today’s real story is the weather. It’s glorious: summer has finally arrived, though traces of yesterday’s heavy rain are all around. The grass squelches a bit and you don’t want to brush past any bushes, but compared to Monday’s drizzle this is dream walking weather.

Perhaps that’s why I instantly adored the suburbs tucked away behind the Finchley Road. The main road is busy, noisy and feels more like the A41 than a road with a name, but hop over the Thameslink and London Overground lines and turn west, and it only takes a few steps to dull the juggernauts into a distant memory. I’m going to be exploring a worrying amount of suburbia on this walk and I’m sure I’ll be sick of it before too long, but it’s only day two and I’m nosey enough to find the suburbs fascinating. The variety of building styles in West Hampstead is impressive, and there are some wonderful old mansion blocks along West End Lane and Fortune Green Road. I tend to judge suburbs by whether or not I could live there myself, and I could probably live here, though that normally means I couldn’t afford it; even with a collapsing housing market, I think West Hampstead might have to remain on the list marked ‘aspirational’. Oh well.

The mansions peter out as Fortune Green Road swings right to rejoin the Finchley Road, but fear not, because there’s a good reason, and it lies along a thin and shady path on the other side of Fortune Green. It looks like the kind of path you’d think twice about walking down if this wasn’t such a posh suburb, but it’s well worth the effort because it cuts straight through the middle of Hampstead Cemetery. It’s quite pleasant walking down a public footpath right between the graves in the dappled sun, but this place must be completely horrifying at night. You can duck into the cemetery after about a hundred yards, and it’s worth taking a quick detour to visit the twin Gothic-style chapels just off the path. In terms of famous graves, I’m perhaps a bit young to recognise most of the names, but I can tell you that Florence Kate Upton, the creator of the Golliwogg, is buried here, as is Peter Llewelyn Davies, the inspiration for Peter Pan. Indeed, Llewelyn Davies was plagued by being identified as the ‘original Peter Pan’ throughout his life, and ended up committing suicide; stick that in your pipe as you wander through the graves after twilight...

After passing through some pleasant playing fields belonging to Hampstead School, the suburbs switch from mansion houses to the overtly expensive, though it doesn’t take long before a clear rule of suburbia kicks in: the closer you get to traffic, the shoddier the buildings, and even the most charitable suburban fan wouldn’t class Cricklewood Lane as a des res, especially as it marks the boundary between Camden Council and Brent. The difference between the two is immediately obvious, and although things pick up pretty quickly as Cricklewood Lane disappears from view, Cricklewood is clearly a very different place to West Hampstead.

It’s still leafily pleasant, though. It’s all curved streets, red brick houses and neat lawns round here, and after weaving through the strangely silent streets, I burst out into a huge, open, grassy area called Clitterhouse Recreation Ground, which you will all know is famous for being the home of Hendon Football Club. Nobody was playing as I stomped on towards a tower block in the distance, possibly because the ground was like a sponge and would suck a football in without drawing breath. I gingerly squelched onwards, encouraged by the swift progress of an old lady ahead of me who was happily pushing her shopping bag in front of her, undaunted by the gurgling sounds from beneath the ground.

Things got even earthier as I reached the northern edge of the recreation ground and ducked past Whitefield School. Loitering outside the school was a small group of dudes, lurking just down the road from a policeman in a stab-proof vest, and as I reached the North Circular Road, I spotted a sign for the nearby shopping centre that seemed to sum the area up. ‘S o Ce e’ it announced, scoring a paltry 5 out of 14 for spelling, and that’s not counting the picture of a walking stick man, who had also been scrubbed from the sign; I was so impressed I decided to take a photo, and as I lined up my camera, a police car with four thick-vested occupants pulled up in front of me, blocking the traffic.

‘We’d like to know why you’re taking pictures,’ said the driver in the inflection-free tone that they clearly teach you at Police school.

I’d like to say that I came back with something witty, like ‘Well, officer, that’s a statement, not a question, so would you like to rephrase that?’ or ‘Is it ’cos I’ve got long hair, fascist?’, but my quality upbringing forces me to swallow my irritation at the police’s lack of politeness and answer their questions without hesitation but with a heavy feeling of guilt.

‘I’m tubewalking,’ I said, aware that this might not actually help. ‘Um, I’m walking the London Underground for charity and taking photos as I go...’

‘Ah, that’s nice,’ he said, looking at me as if I was nothing more than a harmless eccentric. Damn, that policeman was good.

So it was a bit of a relief to cross the North Circular Road to Brent Cross Shopping Centre, where they didn’t seem to mind me taking as many photos as I wanted. I also felt on home turf, as I’ve already walked this part of the world; day 10 of the Capital Ring passes to the north of the shopping centre, and after a quick shortcut through John Lewis, I climbed up to the suburbs of Brent Cross to join the Ring for a short hop.

Since I was last here, Brent Cross has been hit by a plague of shopping trolleys, but it’s no ordinary plague. Within five minutes of leaving the shopping centre, I’d passed one, two, three, four, five, six, seven shopping trolleys lying abandoned in the street, but there was something different about these trolleys. I’m used to seeing Sainsbury’s and Tesco shopping trolleys kicking about the capital, and Safeway and Morrisons trolleys are practically licensed in some parts of town, but these trolleys were... from Waitrose! I’ve never seen a plague of Waitrose trolleys before, and they looked even more lost then their street-smart brethren do round my manor. Indeed, with the exception of the last trolley, who had obviously settled into his new location with a shrug of permanence, they huddled together in pairs. It was almost touching, the poor, posh dears.

They’d best stay away from the Edgware Road, then, because again things get pretty grimy as the traffic gets closer. Luckily it’s only a couple of strides along the Capital Ring to Brent Reservoir, or, to give it its popular name, the Welsh Harp. The Welsh Harp Open Space is a lovely part of the world, with woodland, meadows, swans and a charming pool by the side of the lake that was created by a World War II bomb. Unfortunately it was also home to a mother who insisted on screaming at the top of her voice every time her toddler child wandered off the straight and narrow (which he appeared to do with every step), but she finally dragged him away for some serious home-based yelling, and I settled down by the shore for a spot of lunch.

This set me up to tackle the final leg through Kingsbury and Chalkhill, after leaving the Capital Ring at Old St Andrew’s Church, home to an overgrown and atmospheric graveyard that’s hidden from the road by thick trees. A road of mock Tudor houses leads to the fiercely busy Blackbird Hill, where the local shops unwisely continue the mock Tudor theme, and from there I decided to try the Brent Green Walk, a path through the Chalkhill Estate that looks very handy on paper. Unfortunately the map doesn’t show the locked gate halfway along the walk, though it does show an alternative path that now exists only as the foundations of the expanded Chalkhill Children’s Centre. Giving up on the scenic route, I wandered through the estate towards the distinctive hoop on top of Wembley Stadium, passing a couple of stab-vested plain clothes policemen having cautionary words with a couple of black guys in a car. I resisted the urge to take any photos, like a good little boy, and walked briskly to Wembley Park station without looking back.

So I’ve now reached zone 4, and it’s been a pleasant introduction to suburban tubewalking (the Metropolitan line doesn’t have any stations in zone 3, which is why I took such a detour from the line itself on today’s walk, but I’ll be following the line more closely when I walk this area again on the Jubilee line). Out here in zone 4 the green spaces are bigger, the noise from the traffic is less intense, and the average house price is gradually dropping. It’ll be interesting to watch this trend continue as I head out into Metro-land...

Wembley Park to North Harrow

5 June 2008

The weather gods must be smiling on me, because today opened with pure blue skies all the way to the horizon. Their timing is good, because although yesterday’s walk took me from the urban landscape of zone 2 into the noticeably greener zone 4, today is when I finally broke out into proper countryside. The Welsh Harp Open Space might be a pleasant interlude, but it’s still defiantly urban; the view across the reservoir to Neasden is quite built up and the nearby Edgware Road takes no prisoners, but today the countryside seems to stretch on and on and the sky is considerably bigger. I’m not into the woods yet – that will take at least another two zones – but I can sense that the balance of power is shifting, and when the sun is out, it’s easy to be thankful.

Wembley Park to Preston Road

I’m going to be a bit tired of Wembley Stadium by the end of the week. I spent yesterday steering towards the giant hoop and today’s walk starts with a view down long, straight Olympic Way as it leads all the way to the stadium, and tomorrow I’m going to be back here on a day off from tubewalking to see the Foo Fighters raise the roof. But it’s such an impressive and imposing building that it’s still fascinating even after days of gazing, the hoop giving it an otherworldly atmosphere, like an urban Jodrell Bank. It might have been late arriving, but it’s a fitting home for the nation’s favourite sport, and Wembley Park station is equally impressive. Obviously designed to enable huge crowds of screaming fans to get in and out as quickly as possible, a cascade of steps falls down from the entrance to a subway under the main road, taking the coloured scarves and party atmosphere off to the stadium below. I bet it’s quite a sight on match day.

No such grandeur for me, though, as I snuck out of the side entrance into Bridge Road, turning north away from the stadium and into the suburbs of Barn Hill. This is prime Metro-land, the suburbia that sprung up in the Metropolitan line’s wake back in the first few decades of the 20th century, and Barn Hill is a particularly pleasant example; indeed, it’s sometimes hard to imagine a time before suburbia, but it’s places like this that surely coined the phrase ‘I remember when this was all fields.’ Arthur Mee, the British writer who was most famous for The Children’s Encyclopaedia, wrote in The King’s England that Wembley was the ‘epitome’ of Metro-land, and it’s easy to see why; the likes of Barn Hill are classic city suburbia, complete with twitching net curtains and still waters that you just know run deep.

It’s a pleasant stroll up the hill with Wembley at your back, and suddenly it is all fields, as the ‘burbs give way to the greenery of Fryent Country Park. I’ve walked through these parts before, and I enjoyed it; that was a couple of years ago on the Capital Ring, and I thought I’d take it again today, as day 9 and day 10 of the Ring link Harrow and Fryent Country Park in a most pleasant way, albeit in the opposite direction to today’s tubewalk. Last time I was here I enjoyed the views from the top of Barn Hill onto Wembley Stadium, excited that I was approaching the hallowed turf for the first time; today I used it to wave au revoir to the golden arch, at least until tomorrow.

Barn Hill is mainly clad in dappled woodland, so apart from the view from the summit over Wembley there’s not a lot to see, though there is a pleasant pond on the summit, created by the landscape designer Humphry Repton, where the locals bring their dogs for a paddle on hot days like this. Sliding down the slippery path into the country park brings you out into open space, and there, to the left, I got my first view of Harrow, the spire of St Mary’s Church perched on top of the hill like the spike on a kaiser’s helmet. Indeed, I was probably still gawping at it when I reached a nasty spot of marshland by the Jubilee line, a bit of shock under pure blue skies, but Tuesday’s rain is proving difficult to drain, and this wouldn’t be the last lawn-cum-pond experience of the day.

And finally I broke new ground, but only because I got lost round here when I did the Capital Ring on 2007 and ended up taking a suburban detour that missed out the muddy forest in the corner of the country park. It might not mean much, but I like to think it means my map-reading skills are improving with age...

Preston Road to Northwick Park

Preston Road station is just west of Stanmore Junction, where the Jubilee line turns north towards Stanmore, leaving the Metropolitan line to continue out into Buckinghamshire on its own. Preston Road itself is not the loveliest part of the world, but it’s hard to find main roads in London that are. Luckily the suburbs of Preston follow the normal pattern of increasing in beauty as the main road recedes, and it isn’t far to Preston Park, a genuinely lovely little suburban park (or it is when the sky is Saharan like it was today).

The next point of interest is South Kenton station, but don’t be fooled, as it’s actually on the Bakerloo line and not the Metropolitan (so I’ll visit it properly when walking from Willesden Junction to Harrow & Wealdstone). The two lines do battle a little further north at the corner of Northwick Park, which opens up the sky a few minutes from the station. To the west, the spike of Harrow-on-the-Hill is a little closer that it was from Fryent, but to me, Northwick Park isn’t the home of great views and huge playing fields, it’s home to a bench that suddenly wrenched me back to 2 April 2007. It’s strange how memories latch themselves on to the most insignificant things, but as I walked into Northwick Park today, I glanced at a bench, and there I was, just over a year ago, taking a break and tucking into my lunch, not quite halfway through a double day of Capital Ring walking. I waved at myself as I walked past, but I didn’t seem to notice.

I did notice two elderly walkers coming the other way, clutching the guidebook for the Capital Ring. That’s the second couple I’ve spotted doing the walk (the others were near Old St Andrew’s Church yesterday) and I’m surprised at the high numbers. When I did the Ring over the space of a year from summer 2006 to summer 2007, I didn’t meet one other person doing the walk, but I suppose that makes sense, as for the last two days I’ve been swimming against the tide and doing the Ring backwards. It’s good to see others enjoying it; I loved it, and was sad enough when it ended to come up with this walk instead. That’ll teach me.

Northwick Park to Harrow-on-the-Hill

I ducked off the Ring for a short while to visit Northwick Park station, right next to the Harrow campus of the University of Westminster, and from there I struck west along a shaded path, sandwiched between the university and St Mark’s and Northwick Hospitals. It’s quite a busy place, this path, because it’s clearly the designated smoking area for the hospital. There are black bin bags pinned up every few yards, presumably for the butts that still manage to litter the path, and when I wandered through it was proving a popular spot; then again, on a day like this, who wouldn’t fancy a fag break out in the sun, even if you have to spend it skulking in the dingy undergrowth?

I picked up the Ring again on the other side of the roaring A404, while wandering alongside the playing fields of Harrow School. This really is a lovely part of the world, and as Football Lane rises to the summit of Harrow’s eponymous hill, it passes all sorts of school buildings, from the Music School to the Museum of Harrow Life, before turning left in front of the Speech Room, and wandering past the Vaughan Library and the flint-coated school chapel. On a good day, which this was, you can see the city in the distance, framed between the library and chapel, with Canary Wharf, the Gherkin and Tower 42 shimmering in the far distance. It looks a world away, and it’s particularly emotive when you’ve just walked from there; it’s one of the perks of tubewalking, being able to glimpse where you’ve been, and where you’re going.

This is where the Capital Ring disappears off in the direction of Sudbury Hill (which I’ll be walking through on the Piccadilly line), but I turned up the hill to visit St Mary’s Church, the spire that dominates Harrow from a distance. It’s a gorgeous church, surrounded by lush greenery that surely provides a handy smoking spot for rule-breaking public schoolboys, and the views west out to Ruislip from the side of the hill are impressive; I’ll be out that way on my Central line walk, luck permitting. For views that are slightly closer to home, the nearby Grove Open Space is a pretty patch of greenery, surrounded by some lovely houses that are just a stone’s throw from the Tube station (and presumably a lot further from most people’s pockets).

Harrow-on-the-Hill to North Harrow

The design of Harrow-on-the-Hill station hints at the architectural excellence of Charles Holden’s seminal Tube stations (such as Sudbury Town, Arnos Grove, Southgate and Oakwood on the Piccadilly line extension), but it turns out to be a much more functional affair, having only the glass slats on the front to remind you of Holden’s more impressive designs. The station acts as a pedestrian crossing over the line and dumps you into the main shopping area of Greenhill, where buses rumble past as if to rub your nose in the fact that Harrow-on-the-Hill station is a world away from its namesake. The architect Hugh Casson regarded Harrow as the ‘capital city’ of Metro-land; I’m not sure the appeal is quite as obvious these days, though perhaps that says more about the old Metropolitan Railway’s publicity department than anything else.

Happily escape is easy, and a quick jog up College Road and through the underpass beneath the busy A404/A312/A4005 junction (an experience that’s as pleasant as it sounds) takes you to Harrow Recreation Ground, where you’re greeted by a cricket pitch, a pavilion and a huge sigh of relief. It’s amazing how the many green spaces of Greater London shield themselves from the droning outside, but Harrow Recreation Ground does just that, with wide open spaces, tennis courts, football areas and, bizarrely enough, a ‘Sensory Garden for All’. There’s even a gate that takes you through to Harrow Cemetery, though this is no Hampstead; it’s more like an overgrown field with mouldering graves scattered randomly throughout, though on a sunny summer’s day it has a definite faded charm about it.

The final stretch through the backstreets of North Harrow is pure suburbia, all the way to North Harrow station, whose entrance hides beneath a wide railway bridge, as if it doesn’t want to be found. Perhaps it doesn’t, because by this point the Metropolitan line has become quite sleepy; fast Metropolitan line trains don’t stop here, shooting past on the other side of the station on their non-stop journey between Rickmansworth and Harrow-on-the-Hill. I think I’m going to enjoy walking through outer Metro-land; it’s all starting to slow down and take its time, and I think I’ll do the same as I make my way into the outer reaches of zones 7, 8 and 9, where only the Metropolitan line dares to go...

North Harrow to Watford

9 June 2008

There’s something quite physical about the effect of Monday mornings on me, and today was no exception. Yes, I couldn’t wait to get out into the sun and get walking, but the high pollen count turned my mind to molasses, and on the Metropolitan line, that can be fatal.

You see, the Metropolitan line isn’t quite as simple as the Tube map would have you believe. Hidden from casual users who rely on the standard Tube map is a system of fast and semi-fast trains that’s a bit of a shock to those of us who are used to Tube trains stopping at every station, and this morning I picked the wrong train and ended up on the edge of zone 7 before I knew what had hit me. That’ll teach me for looking at the front of the train, seeing ‘Amersham’ and thinking, ‘OK, North Harrow is on the way to Amersham, so this is the one for me.’ It wasn’t, and it took me a fair amount of slow and frustrating backtracking to reach the start of today’s walk.

Possibly more irritating, though, was that I’d waited at Rayner’s Lane for 15 minutes for a Metropolitan line train to take me down to Harrow-on-the-Hill, which is where I picked the wrong train north... and Rayner’s Lane is only ten minutes’ walk from North Harrow station. You’d think by now I’d have learned that sometimes it’s quicker to walk than take the Tube, but instead I enjoyed three bonus trips on the Metropolitan line that I didn’t even need to take.

See? Monday mornings can even happen to you when you’re not working. Thankfully the walk – when I finally started it an hour later than planned – was a complete delight, and it didn’t take long to wash the cobwebs away. God bless the English countryside...

North Harrow to Pinner

The suburbs of zone 5 are noticeably greener than those of zones 3 and 4, and this short leg is a good example. When planning my route, I decided that in the absence of any obvious points of interest – which the unkind would argue defines suburbia – I’d walk via as many green spaces as possible. In the glorious sunshine, this approach is paying heavy dividends, as the parks of outer London are lovely, and one such example is the long, thin Yeading Brook Open Space, just down the road from North Harrow station. The open space is a long, thin stretch of lush greenery, with the backs of houses visible to the south through thick undergrowth, and the gentle trickle of the Yeading Brook hiding behind thick bushes to the north, sandwiching a pleasant, winding path that’s completely cut off from the clatter of the outside world. There’s a small stone bridge over the river, no litter to speak of, and on a Monday morning, not a soul to be seen. It’s a blessed relief after the clanking of the Tube, and sets the scene perfectly for a day of green below and blue above.

Soon after popping out of the western end of the Yeading Brook Open Space and turning north through pleasant and tidy suburbia, there’s another suburban treat in the form of Pinner Village Gardens. Considerably more open than the open space, this is again a delightful place to while away a few sunny minutes, and the entrance onto Rayners Lane hints at why: the steps leading up to the park are awash with colour, spilling out onto the busy junction with Marsh Road. It’s a great example of the parks of suburbia invading the streets of the city, and sets the scene for the greenery that seems to have taken over the northern reaches of the Metropolitan.

Indeed, the energetic traffic of Marsh Road is a bit of a shock after the peace of the parks, but it’s only a short walk to Pinner station and the last Metropolitan station of zone 5. Opened in 1885, Pinner station is a bit of a shed, tucked away up a side street next to a large Sainsbury’s, but don’t worry; the station buildings get a lot more interesting towards the end of today’s walk.

Pinner to Northwood Hills

From the station, a quick backtrack takes you past the King George IV pub and into Pinner Memorial Gardens, which continues today’s theme not only by being exquisitely manicured, but intriguing too. As I arrived at the park gates, a policewoman waved at me, popped her head out of her fluorescent car and asked, ‘Are you going to be walking in the park?’

‘I was planning to,’ I said.

‘That’s fine,’ she said, ‘but would you mind sticking to the paths?’

‘Sure,’ I said, and set off into the park to be greeted by a uniformed dog handler and a massive and presumably extremely hot Alsatian, sniffing through the undergrowth to the side of the path. I’d have asked the handler what he was looking for, except he was having a devil of a time trying to persuade his faithful bloodhound to jump into a bed of nettles and have a good sniff around. The dog was having none of it; I guess that in this heat, even highly trained Alsatians get arsey, and who can blame them?

Luckily there were no sleuthing canines up at the park lake, as this is clearly where the mothers of Pinner gather en masse on a Monday morning to air their children... although, come to think of it, this could be where the nannies of Pinner bring their charges, as the park marks a boundary in the fortunes of the locals, quite literally. The tailored and luscious garden surrounding the eastern end of the lake is a bit of a give-away, but hop up West End Lane for a block and turn left into High View, and there you have it: a whole road of houses for whom ‘semi-detached’ is the feeling after a few too many glasses of chardonnay, rather than the only option you can afford. It’s a very green road, with bushy trees invading from the nearby parks, and if you stop and stand still for a moment or two, it’s a challenge to hear anything apart from the odd twittering bird, or perhaps a distant buzz saw. Zone 6 can be a lovely place to live, if you’ve got the bank balance.

On the other side of the B466, the small park of Cuckoo Hill is a relatively uninteresting open space, without any of the views that the name might imply, though as a spot for exercising the dogs or crashing out with a nanny-and-child-free picnic, it’s worth the detour. More interesting and slightly wilder are the fields just after the housing of Wrenwood Way, though most of the fields to the north are fenced off and the path is forced round the edge, on the wrong side of a wire fence.

There’s a noticeable difference in the quality of housing when the path pops out into Chamberlain Lane. Don’t get me wrong, this is still a pleasantly quiet spot, but compared to the opulence of High View, the walk north to Northwood Hills is a bit more... well, pebbledash, I suppose. To the right there are some lovely views over the fields that you’ve just walked round, and the allotments are pleasant enough, but Joel Street is a busy place, the Northwood Hills Hotel has a slightly worn air about it, and the station itself won’t win any architectural prizes. However, even somewhere as apparently self-effacing as Northwood Hills Hotel was where one school-age Reginald Dwight cut his teeth by playing the piano every Friday evening for one pound a night. It wouldn’t be long before he teamed up with Bernie Taupin, changed his name to Elton John, and started on the star-studded road to super-stardom, but this is where the magic started, unlikely though that sounds.

It doesn’t really manage to make Northwood Hills feel any more vibrant, though; indeed, Northwood Hills station was opened on 13 November 1933, while its neighbouring stations were both opened in the previous century (Pinner in 1885 and Northwood in 1887), so right from the start it had some catching up to do. In a sense, it feels as if it still has.

Northwood Hills to Northwood

There isn’t much to report about the walk from Northwood Hills to Northwood, though there’s an early highlight just north of Northwood Hills station in the form of a Wimpy restaurant (well, it’s a highlight for me, as Wimpy restaurants never fail to make me smile, though I’m not sure why). The houses along the busy A404 (or Pinner Road, to give it its proper title) are much like the houses along any busy road in London, and if England had qualified for Euro 2008, you get the feeling that there would be England flags hanging out of most of these windows. As it is, there’s one lonely house proudly flying the Italian flag, and there’s a large England flag in the window of the Olde Northwoode pub, up by the Metropolitan line bridge over Rickmansworth Road; then again, it also sports blacked-out windows and a sign announcing ‘Adult Entertainment Daily, 2pm-10pm’, which isn’t terribly enticing, to be honest.

Things take a turn for the better along Hallowell Road, a very pleasant suburban backwater where you’d be surprised to see any England flags. The gardens are tidy and on a Monday morning the garden waste recycling bags take over the pavement, and in a change from the norm, it’s the red brick of the modern St Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church that sticks out as a new-build in this area of older, more traditional houses. It’s only when you reach Green Lane, home to Northwood station, that things revert to form; Tube stations are rarely situated in the most desirable part of town, and although central Northwood is not a bad spot, its suburbs are much more attractive than its main roads.

Northwood to Moor Park

Somewhere on today’s walk, I left London behind. I’m not sure where, exactly, but if I think of Harrow, I think of North London, whereas when I think of Watford, I think of Hertfordshire. If I had to pick the spot where this happens, it would be on this section, somewhere between Northwood and Moor Park; it shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, to learn that half a mile to the west of this leg lies Kewferry Road, two houses from which were used in filming for The Good Life. Goodbye London, hello home counties!

It’s evident from the first few steps that we’re back into the affluence last seen in Pinner. The houses along Eastbury Road are defiantly detached, with mock Tudor replacing the pebbledash and luscious gardens buffering the main road. I’d planned to follow a right of way along the side of the Tube line, but although I tracked down the wooden gate that surely led to the green dotted line on my Ordnance Survey map, it was stubbornly locked and wouldn’t budge despite the full weight of my shoulder crashing into it, so I shrugged back onto the main road and viewed the houses through a slightly different light: I don’t mind money and I don’t mind opulence, but I do mind people obstructing rights of way, as that’s the thin end of the wedge. Still, even the communist buried deep within me sighed with pleasure at some of the houses along the way; it’s a lovely spot, is Eastbury.

I managed to turn back onto the right of way a little further up the road, taking a short path that wound round a large tree, growing right there in the middle of the path; turning right at the Tube line, I followed it through some very uncooperative explosions of nettles and brambles, the first bit of my walk that hasn’t been suited to trainers and ankle-high socks. But it didn’t last, and soon enough I was lapping up the suburbia of Bourne End Road, on the way to a junction with the London Loop.

It’s weird, but I remember this part of the world well, even though it’s five years since I was last here on day 9 and day 10 of the Loop. Perhaps it’s because the path south from Moor Park station is a Loop link path, so I’ve already walked along it twice, or perhaps it’s because the grassy fields south of the Sandy Lodge Golf Course look on paper like a great place to crash out with a picnic, but in reality the grass is just too thick, and the overhead power cables rustle a little too energetically to make it a relaxing spot. Instead I opted to stop for a bite to eat in the thin strip of woods between the Tube line to the west and the golf course to the east, even though the only place with suitably comfortable tree trunks is where the locals come to dump disposable barbecues, cans of Stella and cigarette butts. Never mind, because we’re about to step into the poshest spot on the Metropolitan line so far...

Moor Park to Croxley

Moor Park station is rather functional and shed-like, but I’m still taking photos of all the Tube stations, even the boring ones, just to prove I’ve been there. The biggest challenge is managing to take a picture without a juggernaut or double-decker bus blurring into one side of the shot, but out here in the countryside, it’s a lot easier. Still, that didn’t stop me lining up a distance shot of the station, showing the raised platforms behind the entrance, just before a main in a suit walked bang into shot from the left. I figured I’d give him a couple of seconds to get into his car, but I wasn’t expecting him to laugh in the process.

‘Ha!’ he smiled, managing to imbue his chuckle with enough sympathy for me to look in his direction. ‘That’s always happening to us when taking pictures of houses.’

‘I bet it is,’ I said, noticing that he’d come out of an estate agents’ office right next to the station. ‘I have real trouble with the traffic in town, I can tell you.’

‘I know what you mean,’ smiled the estate agent, and hopped into his car. It was a short exchange, but it made me feel good; having yet to jump on the property ladder, I’m going to savour this conversation as the first and possibly the only genuinely empathetic conversation I’ll ever have with an estate agent. My house-owning friends tell me that empathy is not high on most estate agents’ agendas, particularly in these days of negative equity.

If there is a recession coming, then they forgot to mention this to the inhabitants of Sandy Lodge Road, where the houses are absolutely huge, the trees lining the road are gargantuan, and the pavement is made up of gravel, which looks lovely when you drive everywhere, but which is a little tiresome for those of us on foot. But this isn’t the kind of place where they particularly want to welcome visitors, unless you’re a builder or a servant; indeed, the cliché of the Philippino maid and the Polish builder is graphically illustrated by a stroll down Sandy Lodge Road, as every few houses there’s either a swarthy gardener heaving a mower round the lawn in a glistening T-shirt; a shrill, south-east Asian accent screaming at the rest of the house help from inside the gleaming entrance hall to another palace; or a team of bare-chested builders, singing along to the radio while creating yet another extension or landscaping yet another driveway. In the main, the houses are pleasant, though when they go over the top, it’s truly horrendous (white Doric columns are never going to be a good idea, are they?). This is Desperate Housewives territory, if ever you’ve seen it, and it’s rather fun to walk through.

Unfortunately the next part of my route, a quick section along the A4145, wasn’t fun to walk through at all, despite beautiful views into the Withey Bed Wood and along the River Colne. Most A-roads have a wide enough verge to accommodate at least a single file of walkers, but this stretch of busy Moor Lane has no verge for most of the half-mile from Sandy Lodge Road to the Vale Industrial Estate, and if anyone is mental enough to want to follow in my footsteps, I’d recommend avoiding this stretch altogether (though it’s hard to see an obvious alternative by looking at the map, to be honest). Luckily there are signs warning motorists that there may be pedestrians along this part of the road, so at least nobody sounded their horn, but it’s a blessed relief to cut into the industrial estate and into Common Moor.

Common Moor is, without a doubt, proper countryside. It’s large enough to hide the traces of civilisation around the periphery behind bushes and trees, and if it wasn’t for the electricity pylons along the southern edge and the hill of Croxley Green poking above the trees to the north, you could easily convince yourself that you were in the middle of nowhere. So perhaps this is the point where I finally left London; if so, that fits the Tube map rather well, as Moor Park is in zone 6, while Croxley is in zone 7, and everyone knows that zones 7 to 9 aren’t proper London, and are an invention purely to keep the Metropolitan line within the Tube system.

It’s a short but enjoyable stroll across Common Moor to a bridge across the River Colne, and a few yards further on, the Grand Union Canal, which we’ll come back to in a minute. For now, though, Croxley Green is up a steep path, where Croxley station dominates this corner of the Watford Road, which it shares with the inviting Red House pub. Looking like a large suburban house, Croxley station was opened as Croxley Green in 1925, but was renamed plain old Croxley in 1949 to differentiate it from the nearby Croxley Green railway station. It’s a strange thing to find this far out, a Tube station, but that’s the Metropolitan line for you; it boldly went where there was literally nobody, and suburbia arose in its wake.

Croxley to Watford

When I dropped back down the hill to the Grand Union Canal, Monday morning struck again, catching me unawares after such a lovely day’s walking. Clearly thinking not one little bit, I crossed to the south of the canal to join the Grand Union Canal Walk, blissfully unaware that it actually goes along the north bank of the canal. It was only when the towpath peeled away from the canal at a weir feeding the River Gade, and headed into a bland industrial park, that I spotted my schoolboy error, so if you’re wondering why my photographs are magically taken from the wrong bank, now you know. The only positive aspect to this accidental detour was my close approach to the proposed site of Ascot Road station, part of the proposed Croxley Rail Link, which would see the original plans of the Metropolitan Railway fulfilled by joining the Metropolitan line to Watford Junction (the Tube line never made it into Watford town centre, stalling at the rather peripheral Cassiobury Park). If this ever gets completed, it will transform this part of the Tube, but for now, it’s still a bit of a sleepy backwater, and is all the more pleasant for that.

I couldn’t get back to the canal until I reached the Watford Road, but I doubled-back and strode south along the canal walk for a while anyway, just to see what I’d missed, and it’s a treat. I love canal walking, particularly when there are plenty of narrow boats about (as there are round Croxley), and I was impressed enough to change my plan to head into Watford along the A412, and to continue heading north along the canal for a bit more.

This turned out to be a good move, not least because the Grand Union Canal is a lovely little canal. Heading all the way to Birmingham, there’s a long-distance walk along the towpath all the way from Paddington to Birmingham, and it’s tempting; a friend of mine cycled it last year, and he loved it. But I couldn’t stay on the canal long, and soon turned east into Cassiobury Park, a fitting end to this tale of parks, big and small.

Cassiobury Park is lovely, and miles away from the urban sprawl of central Watford. Soon after crossing the canal into the park, there’s a set of paddling pools that are clearly a crowd-pleaser on hot Mondays like this, and the rolling grassland stretches out in front of you, with not a building in sight. This is the land of lazy cycle rides in the afternoon, of Frisbees and football, and I’m so glad I added the extra mile or so to detour this way; it’s great. Indeed, it’s hard to believe that just south of the park is the Metropolitan line, but there it is, Watford station, another Tube station disguised as a large suburban home.

This time I couldn’t work out which of the two Tube trains would be leaving first, despite looking quite hard, but luckily an entire school of children with amusingly tied ties pushed past me and started filling up the train on the right, so I followed and was soon caught up in a saga involving signal failure, a lack of announcements and resignation on my part that the Tube is more enjoyable to walk than to take. But even signal failure can’t take away the fact that this is a very pleasant corner of the capital, and I’m even more optimistic about zones 8 and 9. It’s going to be a bit of a shock walking through the city centre again after all this pleasant countryside strolling...

Moor Park to Chorleywood

11 June 2008

Today I didn’t walk alone, sharing the short hop from Moor Park to Chorleywood with my mate Neal, who lives in Beaconsfield and therefore constitutes the closest thing to a local that I can muster. Sadly he wasn’t able to enjoy the wall-to-wall blue skies I’ve been walking under for the last few days – the theme for today was only sunny intervals – but at least the rain that’s approaching from the west held off, and when you’re travelling light and don’t have umpteen layers in your backpack, keeping dry is a pretty major objective.

This is an enjoyable and hardly stressful part of my tubewalk; indeed, if you ignore the Waterloo & City line and the three small segments left of the Circle line after walking the Metropolitan, District and Hammersmith & City portions, this is the shortest tubewalk I’m doing, at just six miles. What a good choice for sharing, then; alone, I doubt I’d have stopped for a leisurely mid-morning coffee in Rickmansworth or an enjoyable pint of IPA in the Black Horse on Chorleywood Common, and looking back on this quiet little leg, it’s arguable that those were the highlights. I’m already looking forward to my next shared tubewalk, despite being a lone walker by trade.

Moor Park to Rickmansworth

I was thankful early on for Neal’s company, as without him I’m not sure I’d have had the nerve to tackle the walk’s first hurdle. Leaving Moor Park station, we wandered past the friendly estate agents, along the small road that doubles as Moor Park’s shopping precinct, and past the large houses that line Main Avenue, and I told Neal about the last time I’d been walking in this area, on my tubewalk from Wembley Park to North Harrow. One of the things that stuck in my mind was the western end of Sandy Lodge Road, where there was a manned booth at the entrance to a private estate, and there was absolutely no question of non-residents being able to poke their noses in and have a good look around... and then, just as Neal was describing his own experience of driving through a private estate in the area, a sign appeared round the corner saying that the road I’d planned to walk down was private and closed to through traffic.

‘Bugger,’ I said. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘Well,’ said Neal. ‘We’re not traffic, are we?’

‘Good point,’ I said, and persuaded by this irrefutable logic, we headed west into the heart of Moor Park Golf Course, winding through a dense forest with glimpses through to long fairways and distant tees through gaps in the trees.

And then, pow! We came round a corner into a clearing, and standing there like a huge Lego experiment was this massive Palladian mansion, three storeys high and surrounded by tennis courts, marquees and, more worryingly, lots of expensively clad people pushing golf carts around. It felt like stumbling on a Bond villain’s headquarters, out in the middle of the Hertfordshire countryside, and I was suddenly gripped by visions of us waltzing into the middle of this exclusive golfing cartel, being surrounded by henchmen and thrown in the dungeons for at least 42 days.

‘Pah!’ said Neal, a veteran of many an upmarket golf course. ‘Wear a collared T-shirt, and you can go anywhere,’ he continued, pointing to his attire, and he was right; if I squinted correctly, Neal almost looked like he was dressed for golf. ‘You can be my caddy,’ he said, and strolled off into the middle of the throng, clearly in his element, while I tried to sneak the odd photograph without trying too much to look like a long-haired trespasser.

And then a man walked up to us, pulling a trolley behind him, and I thought the game was up. ‘Excuse me,’ he said in a Brummy accent, and my blood ran cold. ‘Um, do you know the course at all?’

‘No, sorry,’ said Neal, ‘I don’t,’ and off the man went, searching for his tee. It seemed that all the people milling around were strangers to the club, and according to a sign at the clubhouse (which the mansion turned out to be), Moor Park was hosting a charity tournament. Our cover was assured, and I even dared to fish out my Ordnance Survey map to work out exactly where the nearby public right of way was, so we could join it before being rumbled. And all the time, people flooded in and out of the clubhouse, or Moor Park Mansion as it’s more properly known. There can’t be many golf clubs with a palatial clubhouse dating from 1679, let alone many whose grounds were landscaped by Capability Brown, and I felt rather privileged to be there... especially as I wasn’t supposed to be.

The right of way – which crosses the golf course from southeast to northwest – is the only legal way to walk across the golf course, and we joined it as it crossed the driveway, taking it via fairways and tees where groups of golfers waited to tee off in a shotgun start (which, Neal explained, is where groups of golfers assemble at each tee, and then tee off simultaneously, thus preventing each team having to wait endlessly at the first tee for all the other teams to tee off). After the mix of rain and sun that we’ve been having, Moor Park is a luscious place, with deep green rough and pristine putting surfaces, and as nobody was actually playing as we walked, it was relaxing in a way that walking across golf courses rarely is.

From the golf course, Rickmansworth is a short stroll along the A404, on the other side of the junction of the Grand Union Canal and the River Colne. There are some pleasant locks down here, though the visitors’ centre was closed as we wandered past, and just up from the canal is Church Street, home to the parish church of St Mary the Virgin and some charming old houses. The High Street is somewhat more modern, and the modern theme continues through the northern end of the town centre all the way to the footbridge over the Tube line, which leads in a roundabout way to Rickmansworth station. Styled in a similar way to its neighbours down the line – a long, brick, flat-roofed affair that doesn’t win any prizes for imagination, in other words – it was smothered in scaffolding when we arrived, while Tube trains pulled in as normal.

Rickmansworth to Chorleywood

The suburbs of Rickmansworth stretch a long way to the west, and after a short section of A-road, we dived right in. It’s not an unpleasant place, is Rickmansworth, and there are some good-sized houses along Meadow Way and Highfield Way. The mix of architecture is intriguing, especially on the further reaches of Highfield Way, where the houses are a mishmash of sixties, seventies and more modern, as if the estate started out with larger gardens which have since been sold off for more development.

Though the suburbs go on for some time, they soon run up against an immovable object: the M25. Surprisingly, the area around the capital’s busiest motorway is mainly thick woodland, and the motorway itself is carried by a huge concrete bridge, miles above the Metropolitan line and the little lane that we snuck along to join Rickmansworth to Chorleywood. I have to say that this bridge is deeply impressive from underneath, and not a little scary; I’m always bowled over by large structures, and the M25 is indeed a large structure. Add in the continuous rumbling of heavy traffic above your head, and you’ve got a view of the motorway that makes your eyes cross.

Despite the motorway, the houses along Berry Lane and Dog Kennel Lane are instantly a step above the suburbs of Rickmansworth. Set back from the road, they’re large and clearly expensive, which perhaps isn’t surprising, as a short distance north the woodland opens up into the wide expanse of Chorleywood Common, a delightful area of scrubland, meadow and woodland that manages to host a small nine-hole golf course in its centre without making anyone feel unwelcome. There are lovely views of Christ Church from the common and a pleasant pond in the northern corner, and Chorleywood itself is delightful.

It’s perhaps no surprise that in a 2004 survey of 32,482 English neighbourhoods carried out by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Chorleywood West came out as having the highest quality of life. It isn’t hard to see why; this is perfect English country living, yet it’s connected to London via Chorleywood station, which was opened in 1889 as part of the Metropolitan extension to Chesham (and, in keeping with the archetypal image of English countryside, the trains ran on steam here until electrification in 1961). What a fitting end to yet another delightful walk through the Metropolitan countryside.

Chorleywood to Amersham and Chesham

12 June 2008

‘Scattered heavy showers’ said the weatherman, and he wasn’t kidding. As I fell out of Neal’s car into the paltry shelter of the bus stop at Chorleywood station, the rain cranked up from light drizzle to power shower, and all of a sudden my decision to travel lightly didn’t look so clever. For the first time, and hopefully the last, I wished I’d brought my proper walking boots rather than my trainers, because out here, it’s proper countryside, and proper countryside is no place for trainers.

That’s why it’s even weirder to bump into the London Underground roundel out here than anywhere else. Chorleywood station is in zone 7, along with Rickmansworth, Croxley and Watford, but Chalfont & Latimer is alone in zone 8, and Amersham and Chesham make up the entirety of zone 9. Other lines look on in envy: the Central, District and Piccadilly lines just about make it to zone 6, while the Northern, Bakerloo and Jubilee lines run out of steam in zone 5, but there’s the Metropolitan, striding out, way past the M25, into territory that is truly its own. It makes for a tubewalk that is purely rural, with farms, cows, forests and rights of way being the norm. It’s bizarre to think that this idyllic part of the home counties is served by the London Underground, but there you go: it is. And even in the driving rain, it’s a charming place to explore, a whole world away from the other end of the line, back in the heart of London.

Chorleywood to Chalfont & Latimer

Until this walk, I’ve pretty much ignored my Ordnance Survey maps, apart from the odd confirmation when my printed Google Maps have been a bit ambiguous: in the city, Ordnance Survey maps are practically useless, as you really need a map with road names rather than contours. But out here it’s different, and I tucked my printed maps into the depths of my pack, away from the looming rain clouds, and pulled out Explorer maps 172 and 181, which promptly got soaked before I could stuff them into my plastic map carrier.

Indeed, the rain got worse before it got better, forcing me to take temporary shelter under a corner shop awning in the centre of Chorleywood before the weather gods finally took pity and eased back the throttle long enough for me to dash through the suburbs of Whitelands Avenue and into Carpenter’s Wood. The first of an awful lot of woods on this stretch of the Tube, Carpenter’s Wood and its neighbours Hillas Wood and Whitelands Wood were thick enough to create their own weather systems, because although the skies had temporarily cleared outside, I was to enjoy my own, personal weather display, squeezed as I was between the canopy and the slushy mud of the forest floor. The thing is, woodland is like the climate equivalent of Sky Plus, because the rain that had soaked my maps back in Chorleywood was now sitting trapped in the canopy, waiting for a brisk wind to bring it down on my head all over again... which happened every few steps through the woodland. Beautiful it might have been, but wow, was I soaked by the time I reached a tunnel under the Metropolitan line and joined the Chiltern Way, heading north.

When I designed my walking route for today, I got quite excited, as I knew I was going to be walking through some beautiful countryside. What I didn’t know, and couldn’t know, was that it would be hidden for most of the day behind high hedges, only peeping through every now and then, and rarely in a photogenic way. I’d thought that the Chiltern Way would be a guarantee of great countryside views, but I picked the wrong section, for the bridleway up to the A404 is thin, lined with thick hedges, incredibly muddy and, if I’m honest, a bit disappointing. It does wind through the pleasant trees of Halsey’s Wood and on a sunny day it would be quite lovely, but I just managed to get wetter and wetter as my trainers got waterlogged and I built up an annoying sweat beneath my waterproof. I wasn’t too sad to wave goodbye to the Way at the A-road; I obviously caught it at its least imaginative, because with a name like the Chiltern Way, how can you fail to be a great walk?

I left the Way to visit the nearby village of Chenies, and what a masterstroke this turned out to be. Chenies is delightful, with a small village green surrounded by lovely houses, a local primary school screaming with glee just nearby, a charming flint church, and most impressively, the Manor House. It was closed when I wandered past, but there’s a right of way that slips between the Manor House and St Michael’s Church, from where you can have a good old nosey into the front garden. It’s English village beauty at its best, and I’m so pleased I made the effort to detour via the village green rather than taking the more direct route to the west.

The only downside of my detour was getting another royal soaking as the wind rattled the eaves of the wood to the north of the village... but even though I moan, I do love walking through woodland, even if all my photographs look the same (I’m not a supporter of the Woodland Trust for nothing, you know). Besides, being mollycoddled by woodland makes the views all the more impressive when they leap out at you, and the view along the Chess Valley towards Latimer – which I would walk through later on the way to Chesham – coincided with a break in the clouds and some welcome sunshine, making the countryside smell like a damp blazer and bringing a beam to my smile.

After another stretch through Walk Wood and a swift turn to the south, I reached the outlying houses of Little Chalfont before joining the A404 for a short hop to Chalfont & Latimer station, the first of two visits today, as it’s at this point that the Metropolitan line splits, the western branch heading to Amersham, and the northern branch to Chesham. Arbitrarily choosing to do things alphabetically, I headed west.

Chalfont & Latimer to Amersham

Little Chalfont is sliced in two by the Metropolitan line, and the suburbia on the northern edge of the line is not particularly stunning; indeed, the estate to the east of Bell Lane is perhaps best summed up by the fact that one house had a locked trailer parked in the drive proclaiming it sold excellent burgers, which I suppose makes a nice change from mouldering caravans or cars with bricks for wheels and tangleweed in the carburettor. Indeed, the estate was spotless, and suffered only from slightly uninspiring architecture rather than anything approaching inner city decay, and this is perhaps not surprising, as after a stretch through yet another dripping wood and past Boughton Business Park, the path suddenly bursts out into farmers’ fields. This is Raans Farm, and even though it is bound to the south by the Metropolitan line track (which it shares with mainline trains at this point) and hosts an amazingly busy mobile phone mast at its western end, there’s a definite rural feel to this part of the world.

It’s a bit of a shame to leave the fields and join Raans Road into Amersham, passing a large industrial park and joining the noisy and shockingly fast traffic on the A404. I’m convinced that the route I picked into Amersham was the wrong route, because along the whole stretch – along the A-road, past King George V Field and around the back of the law courts – the architecture (with a few pleasant exceptions) is pretty dull. I’m guessing that Amersham has a picturesque centre tucked away somewhere, but it doesn’t appear to be to the north of the Metropolitan line. Instead, it’s all red brick developments and slightly tired suburban houses, and the most impressive building, a huge behemoth near the station that I thought must be a council building or a strangely modernist church, turned out to be the multi-storey car park next to the Tube, and with that I walked up to Amersham station, touched the brickwork, and wondered if Chesham was going to be a bit of a let-down too. I shouldn’t have worried, as the next leg would make up for the slightly uninspiring nature of this section... and besides, even though Amersham isn’t that exciting, it is the highest Tube station at 147m above sea level, so in its own way, it’s unique. Who needs architecture when you’ve got statistics?

Chalfont & Latimer to Chesham

At a little under four miles (well, 3.89 miles to be exact, according to Transport for London), the Tube line between Chalfont & Latimer and Chesham is the longest section between two stations on the whole of the London Underground, which perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise, as zone 9 clearly has its own rules. It also turns out to be one of the prettiest sections, which again shouldn’t ruffle any feathers. What is surprising is just how out in the sticks this part of the world feels, yet it’s joined to the City by a Tube line. That, frankly, is bizarre, especially as that service is essentially one train every half an hour that shuttles between Chalfont & Latimer and Chesham, effectively making the spur to Chesham its own little self-contained line (OK, some trains from London do head to Chesham instead of Amersham, but they’re a rarity). I can only assume that London Underground runs this section of the line at a loss in a spirit of public service; if so, then thank goodness for government-run services like this, as they manage to make walking the Tube that little bit more interesting.

Right from the off there’s a properly marked trail taking you from Chalfont & Latimer to Chesham, and not being a fool, I followed it. The Chess Valley Walk follows the River Chess all the way from Chesham to Rickmansworth, with a spur to Chalfont & Latimer station, and although it’s light on way markers until you join the main route, it’s a great little walk. From the off, it seems to pick out the loveliest places to live, heading through the northern reaches of Little Chalfont and through suburbs that defiantly don’t have burger vans parked in their gardens. And then, boom! It breaks through the sodden West Wood and into the Chess Valley at Latimer, and suddenly you’re in a different league. The sky stretches out along the valley floor, and perched on the hill opposite, hidden from view until you cross Latimer Road, is Latimer House, a defiantly private estate that’s owned by the De Vere group, and which therefore devotes its life to hosting business conferences and the like. The Chess Valley Walk tiptoes round the eastern flanks of the house, ignoring a right of way that would take you past the front of the house, because much greater riches can be found in the village of Latimer itself, in the form of a charming church and an ivy-clad old rectory that makes your heart sing.

But obstinate privacy is clearly the theme for Latimer, as further up the road there’s a stonking estate called Parkfield Latimer whose gates are not meant for those who’ve walked for miles through the dripping rain. Instead the right of way slips round the side, past fields and into the woodland of Tooley’s Croft, where signs make sure you know your place and don’t accidentally stray into the precious woodland that the estate has claimed for itself. It makes you appreciate the importance of the little green dashed lines on the Ordnance Survey, as without a decent network of rights of way, we simply wouldn’t be allowed to explore our own country; I never thought I’d say this about a tubewalk, but I’m grateful for the brave souls who made the Kinder Scout trespass, because without their rebellious attack on the land-owning gentry, tubewalking in zone 9 would be all A-roads and angry drivers, and that doesn’t bear thinking about.

But we do have rights of way, and the countryside just keeps on rolling as the Chess Valley unfolds along its own green dash. After skirting the edge of Frith Wood, the Walk zigzags through Blackwell, slipping between Blackwell Hall and Blackwell Farm with only a glance or two of the buildings (though it’s enough to make you wish you were lucky enough to live there). The farmland stretches on into fields full of cows and cow-pats, and it’s a bit of a shock to have to re-join Latimer Road, albeit for a few yards only. There’s no verge here, but there are helpful drivers who will whizz past at ridiculous speeds while flicking rude signs at you to tell you to get off the bloody road. There may be a right of way along here, but I don’t think the drivers see it that way...

Luckily the signs take you off the road after just a few yards and take you alongside the River Chess, the first time this part of the Walk actually follows the river. It’s not the biggest river in the world, and just as you’re making friends you hit another set of fields and turn right into a water processing plant, where the blue bottles that grace water-coolers throughout the capital are loaded onto trucks.

Once the path rejoins the River Chess, it sticks to it, passing an old mill pond and flanking the large open area of Chesham Moor. This is nettle country and thin socks and trainers are on the edge of sensible footwear, but I wasn’t expecting to be hissed into a huge batch of the buggers by a large swan protecting her clutch of cygnets right there, on the riverbank. Judging by the flattened troughs through the stinging thicket, I wasn’t the first person to come across the warning hiss of Her Majesty’s flock, and remembering that swans can break your neck if you think you’re hard enough, I jumped into the nettle soup and winced my way in a wide arc around the nest. Man might have conquered the planet, but out here in zone 9, the veneer is pretty thin.

For the final hurrah, I headed back to the Metropolitan line, by now a single track line serving Chesham station and precious little else. The Balks, to give the woodland on the hill above Chesham its proper name, is thick and uninviting after heavy rain, and I’m not sure I’d recommend the claustrophobic cycle lane that skirts the Balks to get to the station, but it does give you one last look at the most remote Tube service on the network as it plies its gentle trade along the Chess Valley, and in that sense it’s a fitting end to a delightful walk in the country. I’m not sure this is really tubewalking, but when the sun finally breaks through the rain clouds and you inhale a big lungful of country air, who’s counting?

Harrow-on-the-Hill to Uxbridge

16 June 2008

I’m sorry to report that I’ve just finished my first uninteresting tubewalk, and I’m simply happy to be home. It wasn’t a bad walk, by any means, but either I picked the dullest route possible from Harrow to Uxbridge, or this isn’t a part of the capital that is particularly suited to long-distance walking. Yes, there were some pleasant spots, and I’m still glad I did it, but in the competition to answer the question ‘What was your favourite part of the Tube?’, I’m afraid the Uxbridge branch of the Metropolitan line won’t be getting my vote.

However, I am pleased to have finished walking the entire Metropolitan line, as even including today’s bland wander, it’s been a great start to my tubewalk. The Metropolitan line has a fascinating city section, the wonderful Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill, some truly lovely suburbs on the way to Harrow-on-the-Hill, and the classic English countryside of Chorleywood and Chesham. What more can you ask for? (Except for a high note to finish on, I suppose...)

Harrow-on-the-Hill to West Harrow

It’s a short walk from Harrow-on-the-Hill to West Harrow, and a fairly urban one. Heading out of Harrow-on-the-Hill station, the A404 takes you to an underpass that goes under the A312, and which is best summed up by the fact that there are TV screens at all the entrances, showing what’s going on at the exits. They weren’t switched on when I walked through, as I assume they only put them on at night, but it’s almost scarier walking into an underpass that has earned TV surveillance than walking into one in ignorance.

From the underpass, West Harrow station is down Vaughan Road, a pleasant enough suburban street that would, on a normal day, be a nice little walk, with its terraced houses with dragons on their roofs, and an intriguing green tin church tucked between the houses. Monday, though, is obviously bin day in Harrow, and although there were bins out on the main street, they looked like they’d invaded Vaughan Road with particular verve. Residents get three huge wheelie-bins out here – a green one for refuse, a blue one for recycling and a brown one for garden waste – and when they’re all rolled out onto the pavement, it’s an oppressive sight. On a positive note, I did come across a wheelie-bin cleaning service later in the afternoon, which was a good sign as even wheelie-bins can smell, but I still didn’t hang around too long.

West Harrow station itself doesn’t really look like a Tube station; it looks more like an eco-house, or a small library. I have to say I rather liked its modesty, and appreciated the way it fitted into the surrounding suburbs. Not a lot of Tube stations do that, really...

West Harrow to Rayners Lane

Not far from West Harrow station, along Wilson Gardens, is West Harrow Recreation Ground. It’s a slightly functional park, with a lot of the open space given over to football, but parks are always welcome breathing spaces on a tubewalk, and this is no exception, particularly as it signals a noticeable drop in the standards of the suburbs: between here and Ruislip, things get slightly more faded and the paint peels a little more, though only in comparison to the delights of North Harrow and Pinner, which are just to the north. It’s not nasty round here, just a little unloved.

Welbeck Road is not too bad and has some attractive houses dotted among the terraces, but the big change hits you at the footbridge over the Piccadilly Line, as this is where the locals like to dump their crap (and I’m afraid I do mean that literally). There are burned-out sofas, piles of DIY detritus, rusty beer cans from a whole range of countries, and noticeable amounts of dog shit. The bridge itself is smothered in artless graffiti and is home to yet more rubbish, and the estate on the other side of the line continues the theme, with rubbish spilled along the street and a palpable sense of nobody giving a shit. It saddens me to see people destroying their own community, but it makes me feel powerless; if people want to dump their rubbish in hidden corners of the city rather than take responsibility for their own lives, there doesn’t appear to be a great deal that anyone can do about it.

Rayners Lane station is a short walk along – you guessed it – Rayners Lane, past rows of mock Tudor and pebbledash houses and round the back of the flats overlooking the A4090. The station is a lot more obvious than West Harrow, with a large brick tower looming over the main road, complete with the same slatted glass windows that Harrow-on-the-Hill boasts (not surprisingly, as both were redesigned by Charles Holden in the 1930s in his signature style). It fits its surroundings as well as West Harrow, but this is a brash, loud main road, and this clearly requires a different kind of finesse, particularly as the station is just down the road from the old Art Deco cinema, now the European Centre for Zoroastrianism. It’s an interesting area, if a little noisy from the traffic.

Rayners Lane to Eastcote

As Rayners Lane is one of the more major stops on this tubewalk, I figured I’d try to buy a sandwich here, to eat in Roxbourne Park, just down the road. This was trickier than I thought it would be, as Rayners Lane boasts a KFC, a Subway, some corner shops that don’t stoop to sandwiches, a pub, and nothing else obvious that’s of use to the walker looking for lunch. I made the mistake of not bringing my own lunch a few days ago, and ended up wandering around North Harrow, looking for a sandwich, only to discover that the sole option was a range of 99p sandwiches in a local corner shop; they tasted absolutely repugnant, my ham and cheese salad sandwich being packed with something approaching space shuttle food. This time I braved the Subway, having never dared before, and compared to the 99p sandwich option, it wasn’t at all bad; I’ll remember that next time I’m caught out with no lunch in a sandwich desert.

Roxbourne Park is an enjoyable park, with a large cricket pitch, a pig-ugly pavilion and enough space to explore. It’s only a short walk north to the Yeading Brook Open Space and Pinner Village Gardens, which I visited on the way to Watford, and although Roxbourne isn’t quite as pleasant as the parks of Pinner, it’s a good spot for lunch. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a trek to Eastcote station from the park, through some particularly uninspiring suburbia. I’ve enjoyed most of the suburbs I’ve explored so far, but I’m afraid the suburbs of Eastcote just don’t do it for me; slightly faded and rather monotonous, they’re worth passing through quickly to get to the station, which again sports a blocky tower with slatted windows, though with a slightly more modest stature than Rayners Lane.

Eastcote to Ruislip Manor

Heading south from the station along Field End Road, it’s not long before you come across an impressive mock Tudor house on the right, with a drive that leads through to Cavendish Recreational Ground. The house, which I assume is a pavilion, overlooks another cricket pitch, and to the left of the boundary line the park opens up into Bessingby Park, with wide open playing fields and a path to the western entrance. Despite its size, the park feels a little hemmed in by the suburbs around, and feels more like two playing fields stuck together, than a manicured park (which is probably because that’s exactly what it is).

The suburbs on the way to Ruislip Manor are fairly standard stuff, but once you hit Victoria Road, things hot up a bit, as this is a great little shopping street. OK, the shops aren’t necessarily anything to write home about, but the layout is typically suburban, with shops along each side of the street, all housed in one long building, with flats above the shops. The red brick is quite charming, and it’s a surprise after the slightly dull approach. Ruislip Manor station itself is a bit of a letdown after the proud towers of Rayners Lane and Eastcote, as it’s tucked away under the bridge carrying the Metropolitan line over the main road and looks like it’s trying to hide from view, but perhaps this is a blessing, as Victoria Road is enjoyable enough without another red brick and glass tower.

Ruislip Manor to Ruislip

It’s hardly any distance from Ruislip Manor to Ruislip, which makes you wonder why they bothered to build the former; Ruislip opened in 1904 and Ruislip Manor was added in 1912, an indication that Ruislip grew considerably in the meantime. When mapping out this walk, I tried to find a more interesting route between the two stations than simply following busy Pembroke Road from one to the other, but there’s nothing particularly obvious in the area to break up this leg, and after walking it, I think I was probably right.

Ruislip station itself is hidden away from the main road down a cul-de-sac that buses have made their own, and even though the station is impressively large and built to look like a proper train station, there’s not a lot to make you linger.

Ruislip to Ickenham

Along Kingsend, the houses improve, switching from the faded suburbia of Eastcote to the detached and clearly expensive homes of the well-to-do. It doesn’t last too long, though, as Ickenham Road provides another relatively uninteresting section along a busy B-road, past West Ruislip station (the western terminus of the Central line, which I will be visiting at a later date) and down into Ickenham itself.

The centre of Ickenham is actually rather charming, with two welcoming pubs, a pleasant high street, and a round shelter, stranded in a sea of cars; Ickenham station itself is a short detour up a side road. Strangely there are no signs pointing you towards the Tube, and it’s perhaps not surprising, as the station is a very low-key affair indeed. It was demolished and completely rebuilt in the 1970s, and it looks like it; it’s completely unremarkable and rather sad, tucked away along a backstreet and looking for all the world like a cheap clubhouse rather than a railway station.

Ickenham to Hillingdon

From Ickenham, things improve, for a while at least, for this is where the Hillingdon Trail plies its trade. It starts in Cranford, to the south, and heads north to Springwell Lock, not far from Rickmansworth, and although I only joined it for a short section down to the manic A40, it was lovely. Sandwiched between green fields (which sport signs saying that this is private land, so no motorcycles please), the trail plods along a leafy country lane for a while, before reaching the Yeading Brook, which blocks your path. It looks as if there is a path straight ahead, over a bridge, but alas this is fenced at the end, so you have to make a choice: left or right.

Unfortunately the local retards have attacked the two information panels at the entrance to the bridge with their spray-cans, blotting out any hints as to where the Hillingdon Trail goes at this point, and the only other sign simply tells you that there’s a footpath to the left and a footpath to the right, which is rather obvious. A couple of stick-on markers on the signpost pole seemed to point left, but I checked the map and the Hillingdon Trail turns right, along the brook, so I’m guessing that the friendly locals have also rotated the signpost through 180°, a joke I first enjoyed when getting lost on day 1 of the Capital Ring. Ha bloody ha, lads; I just hope you’re happy down there at the bottom of the gene pool.

After some more enjoyable field walking, there’s a bit of a shock. Low-flying planes coming in to land at nearby RAF Northolt suddenly appear overhead, even managing to drown out the increasingly loud drone from the A40, and before you know it the main western route out of London is there, straight ahead. Luckily the Hillingdon Trail nips under the A40 and its feeder road, because there’s no way you could cross here; it knows it’s about to turn into a motorway, does the A40, and it already means business. Instead a couple of graffiti-laden tunnels and a relatively peaceful cycle lane alongside Western Avenue take you to Long Lane, from where a right turn and some pedestrian crossing shenanigans bring you to Hillingdon station.

It’s worth going into the station, which is actually at the other end of a long walkway. Not only are the views from the walkway impressive (though only in the sense that the A40 is a scary and noisy beast below you, and is therefore worth staring at, if only in terror), but the station is delightful. The original Hillingdon station, which was opened a little bit further north along the line in 1923, was the last new station to be built on the Metropolitan line; the new station, however, was opened in 1992, and that same year it won the Underground Station of the Year award. The station is light and airy, being made of glass and steel, and it’s a strange place to find such a delightful piece of architecture, perched over the rumbling bowels of the A40, and seemingly miles away from anywhere.

Hillingdon to Uxbridge

I found the final stretch to Uxbridge deeply frustrating, perhaps because I spent ages trying to get round a large and stubbornly fenced-off RAF base, unable as I was to track down a right of way that was clearly marked on my Ordnance Survey map, but which seemed to be inaccessible from the road. Luckily, before that I enjoyed some quality time in Hillingdon Court Park, a large and luscious park with some massive trees and plenty of room to breathe, but perhaps it lulled me into a false sense of security, because it was just after leaving the park that things started to go wrong.

I’d wanted to walk round the edge of the Hillingdon Microwave Radio Relay Facility, because technology interests me, and it sounded like a good place to head for. I was wrong, because this whole area is fenced off behind thick, green steel fences, and although I’m pretty sure the green dashes on my map weren’t lying, I couldn’t find my way to the right of way that I could clearly see on the other side of the fence; so, for the second time on the Metropolitan line, I had to give up on a right of way. I don’t like doing this, because rights of way should be obvious and usable by the public, but my irritation gave me enough strength to stomp around the suburbs of east Uxbridge, looking for an alternative. I marched into a housing estate, only to bump up against more green fence, and it was only on the way back to the main road that I realised this must be RAF accommodation... though, come to think of it, I’m not sure how I knew this, it was just, well, obvious. Strange.

Happily, once I’d calmed down and stopped kicking every stone I could find, I started looking around me and realised that the houses of east Uxbridge are quite delightful. Honey Hill is simply lovely, with some charming late Victorian semi-detached houses (complete with dates carved in the stonework) and Uxbridge itself continues the theme, with impressive office blocks that haven’t been battered with the ugly stick, and a pedestrianised high street that’s packed with shops, pubs, statues and a good vibe. Uxbridge station, another Charles Holden effort, is an impressive building, particularly inside, with four Tube lines heading out from under a large glass canopy roof. It’s a fitting end to a long walk that isn’t terrible... but isn’t that exciting either.

Hammersmith & City Line

Hammersmith to Barking

17 June 2008

Wow, I really wasn’t expecting this walk to be amazing, but amazing it is. The architecture throughout the whole walk is stunning, the history is palpable, and it’s a great example of the rich and the not-so-rich rubbing shoulders in the characteristic way that defines London’s suburbs.

I’m surprised, because a few years ago I used to live in Chiswick, just down the road from Hammersmith, and until a few weeks ago, I commuted every day into Paddington. But ask me if I fancied walking round either of them, and I’d probably have said, ‘No,’ particularly if you were talking about the urban end of Hammersmith, away from the Thames. It just goes to show that I might live in London, but I still only skim the surface (but then again, how often does anyone really look at things when they’re commuting?). I clearly didn’t look at things terribly hard when I lived down the road, but now that I have, I’m delighted. Welcome to the Hammersmith & City line, one of the most delightful walking areas I’ve come across so far.

Hammersmith (Hammersmith & City) to Goldhawk Road

Hammersmith station might not be the most obvious introduction to the delights of the area, with its incredibly busy traffic and hectic shopping crowds, but its history is long and distinguished. Opening on 13 June 1864 as part of the Metropolitan Railway’s western service (though it was moved slightly south to its present location in 1868), this station pre-dates the other Hammersmith station, which lives beneath the Coca-Cola headquarters across the main road and serves the District and Piccadilly lines. It might look a little dwarfed by the surrounding chaos, but when the original station opened, Hammersmith was a relatively small settlement outside London. Standing by the Hammersmith Road, it’s difficult to imagine the good old days, but the population went from a measly 10,000 in 1801 to 250,000 in 1901, and a lot of that was down to the railway.

It gets a little easier to imagine a backwater Hammersmith as you head north to Brook Green, a lovely little green space, complete with pub, tennis courts and a respite from the traffic. Further peace can be found down the backstreets, along the northbound Tube line, and I have to say, these suburbs are charming. I’m as surprised as anyone whose only experience of Hammersmith is the shopping centre and chaotic King Street, particularly as it doesn’t take much effort to get away from the chain stores and into delightful suburbia. It’s all Victorian and Edwardian terraces round here, and the houses along Lena Gardens and Sulgrave Road positively gleam in the sunshine; there’s clearly a pride taken in this area that gets smothered back in the throng, but out here, in the quiet suburbs, it’s evident.

Goldhawk Road station can be reached by taking an easy-to-miss path off Sulgrave Road and following the line of the Tube, passing the railway arches to the London United Shepherd’s Bush Depot, where buses come for a well-earned rest and cup of tea. The station itself is buried into the southern side of the bridge over Goldhawk Road, with a couple of modest entrances either side of the tracks.

Goldhawk Road to Shepherd’s Bush Market

From Goldhawk Road, the most direct and interesting route is through Shepherd’s Bush Market, a long, thin and very entertaining market that stretches all the way to the next Tube stop. The Tube is a dominating factor round here, passing alongside the market to the north along a high embankment, and towards the northern end of the market the arches come into play, revealing a whole street full of shops just on the other side of the railway. The market is fairly varied, with fruit, clothes, food and plenty of stalls selling cheap bric-a-brac; I’ll remember it for the group of women in full burqas, excitedly examining gold silk underwear at the lingerie stall, proof that underneath our cultural exteriors, we’re all humans.

Arriving at the Uxbridge Road is a bit of a shock after the pedestrianised bustle of the market, and Shepherd’s Bush Market station, like Goldhawk Road, is tucked under the bridge, though at the northern end this time. Dating from the original opening of the line, the original Shepherd’s Bush station was moved to this location and reopened on 1 April 1914, at the same time as Goldhawk Road station. The station was known as plain old Shepherd’s Bush until this year, when it was renamed to Shepherd’s Bush Market, to distinguish it from Shepherd’s Bush station on the Central line.

When I did my tubewalk in 2008, Wood Lane station was still being built. I walked the following two sections on 12 October 2010, two years and four months after my first visit.

Shepherd’s Bush Market to Wood Lane

Just a short walk east from Shepherd’s Bush Market station, you soon arrive at the corner of the common, and there it is, the big story round here: Westfield London. Dominating the space to the north of Shepherd’s Bush, Westfield is the largest shopping centre in London (ahead of the Centrale in Croydon), the fourth largest shopping centre in the UK (behind MetroCentre in Gateshead, the Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre, and Bluewater in Kent), and the largest urban indoor shopping centre in the European Union; or, to put it another way, it’s the size of 30 football pitches with over 250 shops.

Unfortunately they don’t like people with cameras in Westfield, and as I snapped a handful of shots of the glossy interior, the inevitable security guard strode over, waggling his finger and shaking his head. He gave me the usual weak excuse about terrorism and 7/7 bombings and said I would need a permit to take photos in the shopping centre, but when I explained what I was doing and promised not to take any more, he relaxed a little and we fell into conversation. I told him about all the stop and search forms I got during my original tubewalk, which cheered him up a bit, and he told me about a bomb that was found in Brent Cross shopping centre, and I sucked my teeth and nodded sagely, which he seemed to appreciate. He said if he caught me again then the company policy was to delete all the photos off my camera, so I told him I was leaving anyway and we parted company with a smile and a pat on the back. It could have been worse, I suppose.

Wood Lane station is at the northern end of Westfield; I only missed it by a whisker when I did my original tubewalk in summer 2008, as Wood Lane opened on 12 October 2008, exactly two years ago today. The front façade is an impressive 25m high, with tall panes of glass above a wide entrance and lots of brushed stainless steel and aluminium, and the angular entrance hall cleverly prevents any thoughts of blockiness, despite the modern design.

Wood Lane to Latimer Road

Slipping back to Westfield from Wood Lane station, there’s an interesting clash between the ultramodern White City bus station, built as part of the Westfield development in 2008, and the huge Grade II-listed red brick Dimco buildings that tower over the bendy buses. Originally built in 1898-9 as an electricity generating station for the Central London Railway (which became the Central line), the buildings later fell into disrepair, but because they’re listed, they couldn’t be knocked down and the shopping centre had to be built around them. They’ve since been refurbished and are used as an overnight garage for buses; fans of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? may also recognise them as the film location of the Acme Factory.

Leaving Westfield behind, there’s a set of stairs and a lift that take you over the busy A3220 and down into the kind of housing that I enjoyed on my original walk from Shepherd’s Bush Market to Latimer Road. This is a land of contradictions: there are grey tower blocks right next to pleasant cul-de-sacs, huge office complexes rubbing shoulders with quiet café squares, and as I took a photo of the junction of Bramley Road and St Ann’s Road, I fell into conversation with an Israeli man who was hobbling along the road.

‘Don’t take my picture!’ he said, waving his arms and grinning. ‘I’m a wanted man!’

‘That’s why I was waiting,’ I smiled back. ‘Wouldn’t want to get either of us to get in trouble, eh!’

‘Heh,’ he laughed. ‘Why are you taking a photo, anyway? It’s not much to look at.’

So I explained my tubewalk to him as we wandered towards Latimer Road station, and he looked at me as if I was mad.

‘Have you been drinking?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Blimey,’ he said.

‘Have you?’ I asked, grinning.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, and laughed as I took a picture of the local pub. ‘Ah well, at least one of us is sane.’

‘Indeed,’ I said, not sure which one of us he was referring to, and he headed off down a side street, laughing to himself as I ducked into Latimer Road station.

Here’s what I wrote on my original walk from Shepherd’s Bush Market to Latimer Road, without going via Wood Lane.

Shepherd’s Bush Market to Latimer Road

Between Shepherd’s Bush Market station and Latimer Road, the theme is traffic, and lots of it. Shepherd’s Bush is a much-maligned suburb, and I think it’s probably down to the constant din of cars, vans and trucks crawling their way round Shepherd’s Bush Common. It makes it impossible to appreciate the breathing space of the common, as it’s hemmed in on all three sides by horns blaring and the acrid wafting of exhaust fumes, but if you can shut out the noise and look around you, Shepherd’s Bush isn’t as bad as its reputation would imply.

The Shepherd’s Bush Empire hides behind the traffic on the western edge of the common, its amazing history not evident from the road. Used by the BBC from 1953 to 1991, this was where shows like Wogan, Crackerjack, Hancock’s Half Hour, The Old Grey Whistle Test, That’s Life!, The Generation Game, The Basil Brush Show, Juke Box Jury, This is Your Life and Jim’ll Fix It were recorded, and since the BBC left the building, it has hosted gigs by the likes of Radiohead, David Bowie, Neil Finn, Elton John and the Rolling Stones, despite (or perhaps because of) its small capacity of only 2000. Clearly the noise of the traffic doesn’t penetrate to the inside, which is quite an engineering feat.

The route continues to the eastern end of the green and over the frantic Holland Park roundabout. The roundabout hosts the Landmark Tower, a large glass barometer that shows the current atmospheric pressure with blue-coloured water, and which was built to make the last bit of the London Ring Main, which was completed here. It’s not a place to linger unless you’re a car, but luckily it’s only a short hop to Royal Crescent and the glorious architecture of St Ann’s Villas.

This is a gorgeous part of London, with houses that are modest, yet clearly to die for. Elton John lives just off the road, down a side street, and there’s a large Sikh gurdwara to the west, but it’s the buildings along the southern half of the road that make the walking so enjoyable. The traffic is less fierce and the relief is palpable, and just as you’re getting used to the lovely townhouses and intricately patterned brickwork, it morphs into an estate that’s clearly not in the same league as the pop stars down the road... but it still feels pleasant, and kind of right, that everyone should be able to share this part of the world. The local estate pub, The Favourite, is an architectural disaster, it has to be said, but the grounds are clean and it’s a welcoming area, all the way to Latimer Road station. Dating from 1868, this is yet another Tube station that lives in the base of the bridge carrying the line overhead.

Latimer Road to Ladbroke Grove

From Latimer Road the story is high-rise living, and every corner reveals another huge tower block, each of them different in some way. Unlike some parts of the city, where walking under tower blocks can make the blood run cold, this is an unthreatening and peaceful place, and it’s an easy stroll to St Mark’s Road. Turn left up here and left again, though, and you come to Bartle Road, which used to house a block called 10 Rillington Place. This was the home of one Reg Christie from 1938 to 1953, where he performed at least six murders (including that of his wife), and probably more. He was also widely thought to have blamed one of his murders on a neighbour, Timothy Evans, who was then hanged for this crime; the fact that the victim in this case was Evans’s baby daughter caused a public outcry, and this helped contribute to the abolition of the death penalty in 1965.

Luckily this is all in the past, and the lovely houses of Lancaster Road soon give way to Ladbroke Grove, on which Ladbroke Grove station sits in a blaze of colour. Dating from the original line-opening in 1864, the station was known as Notting Hill, then Notting Hill & Ladbroke Grove, and then Ladbroke Grove (North Kensington), before it became plain old Ladbroke Grove in 1938, and this colourful past is reflected in the psychedelic tiling and paint-work on the bridge, which, as ever on this line, houses the Tube station. It’s a bustling little part of the world, is Ladbroke Grove, and it’s no surprise to find that one of Britain’s premier psychedelic bands, Hawkwind, was formed round here in 1969. Far out!

Ladbroke Grove to Westbourne Park

Heading southeast and up the hill along Ladbroke Grove is an exercise in architectural amazement. The estates of Latimer Road are well and truly left behind, because the buildings along the rising hill to Kensington Park Gardens are stunning. Crescents of gleaming cream Victorian town houses line the side streets, and it should come as no surprise to find that we’ve crossed into Notting Hill. Known for being affluent and fashionable – and made internationally famous by the eponymous Hugh Grant film – there is no doubt that Notting Hill is a lovely place to explore on foot. At every turn there is yet another gleaming block of Victorian excellence that you can’t help but photograph; progress is slow, but dawdling is a pleasure.

Turning down Kensington Park Gardens takes you to Portobello Road, which is world-famous for its market. The market stretches all the way to Golborne Road, but the most picturesque part is between Chepstow Villas and Westbourne Grove, where you can hardly move for happy tourists clicking their way through the antique stalls and picturesque houses. This is the largest antiques market in all of Europe, but further up, the market switches to fruit and veg, and then to assorted items like CDs and souvenirs, before changing to clothing, and finishing with second-hand goods and various bric-a-brac. To say it is charming is an understatement; it’s a delight.

Turning from the end of the market into Golborne Road, the street stalls turn into food stalls, serving anything from curry to Chinese; hell, there was even an Indonesian warung there, the first I’ve seen since Indonesia. But the most impressive aspect of Golborne Road is the towering block at the eastern end: this is Trellick Tower, and its imposing structure is a familiar landmark. This 1972 creation was designed in the Brutalist style, and the style’s name is well chosen, as it’s a formidable structure. It’s name-checked in one of my favourite Blur songs, ‘Best Days’, where the lyric goes ‘Trellick Tower’s been calling,’ and the tower is now deservedly a Grade II* listed building, while the flats are regarded as highly desirable residences. It’s certainly a difficult building to ignore.

Westbourne Park station is a short walk past Meanwhile Gardens and along the Great Western Road, and is stretched out along the road, with two entrances and lots of signs sticking out above the pavement saying, ‘This queue is for the Underground only.’ Dating from 1866, it’s in a bit of a lonely spot, surrounded by railway and the pounding of the A40, though I guess it has a good view of Trellick Tower...

Westbourne Park to Royal Oak

From Westbourne Park, the dominating factor is the Brunel Estate, a huge collection of black brick buildings that’s run by the City of Westminster Local Authority. It’s a slightly dark affair after the bright buildings of Notting Hill, but the houses along Westbourne Park Villas slip back into the more attractive vernacular of the area, despite being lined along the main train line into Paddington. One of the houses on Westbourne Park Villas was home to the poet and author Thomas Hardy, who lived here from 1863 to 1874. An even more pleasant alternative route might be to go along Westbourne Park Road, past the church, but however you get there, you’ve got to cross the garish bridge over the main line to reach Royal Oak.

Royal Oak station is the least-used station on the Hammersmith & City line, with 1.38 million passengers per annum, and it’s not terribly surprising, as you can easily walk to Paddington from here. The station is almost invisible, hidden behind the red girders of the Porchester Road bridge over the railway line, which might also have something to do with it; whatever, it’s another one to tick off before ducking back towards Paddington.

Royal Oak to Paddington (Hammersmith & City)

The backstreets from Royal Oak to Paddington are gorgeous, and it’s hard to believe that you’re so close to such a busy railway terminus. Gloucester Terrace, Porchester Terrace North and Orsett Terrace are again full of gleaming white townhouses, but it isn’t long before you reach Bishop’s Bridge Road and the corner with Eastbourne Terrace.

When I originally mapped out this area, I didn’t know how to get into Paddington station, and specifically to the Hammersmith & City Tube station (like Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush before it, Paddington has two very separate Tube stations: there’s the Hammersmith & City station in the north of the mainline station, and the Bakerloo, District and Circle station to the south of the mainline station, in Praed Street). I’d assumed you turned east along Bishop’s Bridge Road and there would be some kind of walkway or steps down from the road into the station, but I was wrong, and ended up going past the station, down North Wharf Road and into Little Venice, a detour neither I nor my slightly worn feet were expecting to take. I eventually found my way into the station and out the other side, back to where I’d arrived on Bishop’s Bridge Road after the lovely terraces of Royal Oak... but at least I now knew how to tackle it, and this is how it goes.

Head south down Eastbourne Terrace, and turn left into Paddington railway station through a small gate in the western side of the station, about halfway along its length. From here you can enter the main station and marvel at the amazing roof, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and opened way back in 1847. Turn left and head to the northern end of the station, following signs for the Hammersmith & City line that take you up onto a gallery, from where the views of the station are even more impressive. And there, at the eastern end of the gallery, is the diminutive entrance to Paddington Tube station. From this point east, this is the oldest underground railway in the world, as although the Metropolitan line was the first line to open, the tracks that it used are now part of the Hammersmith & City line, so this section from Paddington to Farringdon is, technically, the world’s first underground railway, opened by the Metropolitan Railway Company on 10 January 1863.

Paddington (Hammersmith & City) to Edgware Road

Heading past the Tube station, a quick left turn takes you up a sloping walkway to the Grand Union Canal, which starts here in Paddington Basin (or Little Venice, as this area is also known). Undergoing massive redevelopment, Paddington Basin is home to the headquarters of Marks and Spencer, who occupy a transparent building whose yellow lifts you can see into from the street (which is presumably a metaphor for transparency in business: after all, this is not just a see-through building, this is a Marks and Spencer see-through building). To get to the business end, you double-back at the bridge and go back along the canal before crossing a bridge to your left and joining North Wharf Road.

Construction work prevented me from skirting the basin itself, though I was able to dip into the basin every now and then to take a peek. The buildings round here are impressive, and when it’s finished it should be quite a sight, but for now it’s best to get back to Harrow Road as it cowers under the shadows of the Harrow Road Flyover. Peeking through from the other side of the road is Edgware Road station, but don’t be distracted, as this is the Bakerloo line station of the same name: the Edgware Road station for the Hammersmith & City, Circle and District lines is to the right, along Cabbell Street, sitting proudly on the corner with Chapel Street, opposite the incredible red behemoth of Hyde Park and Oxford and Cambridge Mansions.

Edgware Road to Baker Street

Although the direct route to Baker Street is along Marylebone Road, there’s a much more interesting route down through the mansions of Marylebone. For a fan of buildings, like me, this area is a gold-mine, with amazing mansion blocks every few yards. They’re all designed differently but they’re all designed to be impressive, and it’s a delight.

Starting with the aforementioned red monsters of Hyde Park Mansions and Oxford and Cambridge Mansions, the route takes you along Shouldham Street and right into George Street. The buildings are incredible, but they’re pipped at the post (for me, anyway) by Montagu Square, and in particular number 34, at the northwest corner of the square. Ringo Starr leased Flat 1, the ground floor and basement flat, from 1965 to 1969, and although he soon moved out to live with his wife, Maureen Cox, he let an impressive array of people stay there.

The most exciting of these (for me, anyway) was Jimi Hendrix, who stayed there with Chas Chandler when he first came over to London, and threw paint at the walls during an acid trip (after which Ringo had to have the walls repainted). John Lennon also stayed there in 1968, after getting together with Yoko Ono and moving out of Kenwood, the house he shared with his wife Cynthia; the flat was raided by the London Drug Squad, where they found some hashish, leading to John and Yoko’s arrest. Lennon pleaded guilty, leaving Yoko to go free, but she still miscarried their baby not long after. This event forced Ringo to agree not to let the flat out any more, and he sold his lease in 1969.

In Montagu Square I made friends with the local street cleaner, who spotted my map and assumed I was a tourist. He was a little surprised to find out I was from Ealing, while he hailed from Portugal; he was certainly happy to be cleaning the streets of Marylebone, and I can see why.

From Montagu Square it’s a short walk up Upper Montagu Street to Baker Street Town Hall, which also houses the Westminster Register Office. This is where Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman on 12 March 1969, and Ringo married Barbara Bach on 27 April 1981; clearly, this area is rich in Beatles history, which perhaps explains the Beatles shop just up from Baker Street station, a bit further along the Marylebone Road.

For details of my walk between Baker Street and Liverpool Street, see the story of my Metropolitan line walk from Aldgate to Finchley Road.

Liverpool Street to Aldgate East

Finding your way out of Liverpool Street station is a challenge, and I didn’t exactly manage to end up where I wanted to be. Still, nowhere is far from anywhere else in central London, and it didn’t take long to find the traffic of Bishopsgate. It did take a while to track down Catherine Wheel Alley, though, as the entrance is miniscule and easy to walk past. It’s worth the effort, however, because as soon as you’re a few yards down this tiny alleyway, the noise of Bishopsgate disappears, and you’re in a world of twists and turns that sneaks you through to Middlesex Street.

I like wandering through this part of the City, because the backstreets are fascinating. Swinging wildly between construction work, architecturally intriguing social housing, local pubs and sneaky glimpses of the Gherkin down side streets, the walk along Middlesex Street is typical of the City experience. There’s even a street market in full swing down Wentworth Street, and it’s a bit of a shock to reach the traffic piling along Whitechapel High Street towards Aldgate East station, the point at which the Hammersmith & City line joins the District line and heads east towards Barking.

District Line

Richmond to Ealing Broadway

18 June 2008

The only problem with this tubewalk is that I’ve already walked most of it at least once, and some of it I’ve walked more times than I care to remember. This doesn’t make it any less wonderful as a walk – and wonderful it most certainly is – but it does slightly lessen the excitement when you know exactly what’s round the next corner.

Three years of living in Chiswick and three years (and counting) in Ealing make this as close to my manor as anywhere on the Tube, and the only section I don’t already know well is the short hop from Acton Town and Ealing Common. So forgive me if I sound a little less in awe than I perhaps should be, as this is a beautiful walk through some of the most luscious suburbs in the whole capital, even on the umpteenth time.

Richmond to Kew Gardens

Richmond station is not situated in the most attractive part of town; it’s right next to the busy Kew Road, far away from the riverside delights in the south of town. Obviously, the Tube avoids the regular flooding of the Thames and stops well north of the town centre, but this does mean it’s a fairly easy escape from the terminus: turn right, head over the roundabout with Mortlake Road, and after a short no-man’s land boasting a boarded up tea room and a closed pub (which have been closed for aeons, it seems), the vista opens out on the left with the Old Deer Park, home to the London Welsh Rugby Club.

Peering over the trees on the other side of the sports ground is the pagoda in Kew Gardens. Being at the other end of a short bus ride from Kew, I’m a fully paid-up Friend of Kew, which means I don’t have to fork out every time I visit (instead, I fork out once a year via direct debit, which is a lot easier to swallow). If you’re doing this section and haven’t been to Kew before, then I recommend you ditch the walk and spend a whole day wandering round the gardens, as they are stunning and a walk like this won’t do it justice. If, however, you’re like me and have already explored every corner of Kew, then popping into the gardens for a short hop makes a bit more sense.

The sights of Kew are really something, particularly early on a Wednesday morning, when you have the gardens almost to yourself (a bit of a shock for those of us more used to visiting at the weekend). As the clock strikes 10.30am, though, parties of schoolchildren erupt out of the woodwork, and the peaceful chirping of the birds is replaced by the overexcited yelping of children getting their first view of the greenhouses for which Kew is so famous. Luckily Kew is huge, so all the screaming, which would be a bit much in a confined space, is rather entertaining, and it’s fun to kick back and watch the teachers and parents try, in vain, to control their charges.

You can see why schools flock here, as it’s magnificent. I wandered past the pagoda and the Japanese gateway, before circling the massive Temperate House and following Cherry Tree Walk towards the fluid curves of the Palm House. The rose garden is being replanted and is currently a lawn, but the Palm House Pond is as sculptured as ever, and even for a regular like me, it’s hard to leave through Victoria Gate, as there’s always so much more to see.

Luckily the suburbs of Kew are delightful, and it’s a pleasant stroll to Kew Gardens station through the shops of Kew village. The station is an attractive affair, looking much more like a train station than a Tube station (possibly because it’s also on the London Overground). There’s a stylish pub right next door, a gated mews along the line to the north, and an atmosphere that screams ‘Kew’. If you squint your eyes, you can almost kid yourself that Queen Victoria is still on the throne...

Kew Gardens to Gunnersbury

Heading north from the station along Leyborne Road gives you a chance to wallow in the peace and quiet of Kew. OK, planes still chunder overhead on their way to touchdown and there’s still a fair amount of traffic around, but by London standards this is a quiet backwater, and it’s lovely. The housing doesn’t feel so expensive that you feel like a trespasser (as it can in some of the more exclusive parts of Kew, nearer the green), but instead it feels like the kind of place you could possibly afford to live one distant day, given a big dose of luck and a fair career wind. It is a long way from the City, after all, and with just one lifeline – the District line, which crosses Mortlake Road ahead – it’s perhaps a little more cut off than the well-connected require... though I’m sure the house prices round here are still jaw-dropping, as it’s such a lovely part of the world.

After crossing Mortlake Road, a path follows the Tube line to the Thames, passing the concrete monster that is the Public Records Office. I don’t know whether it was designed to look like something out of Nineteen-eighty-four, but it succeeds admirably; the windows are tiny and peep out of the harsh concrete exterior like archers’ slits in a modernist castle, and they give the impression that the occupants can survey their surroundings without being spotted by nosey twerps like me. It’s a strange beast to find in Kew, and it’s a bit of a relief to get to the Thames.

The cottages along the river are to die for, and all the way to Willow Cottages – where there’s a path that takes you along the front of the houses – you pass houses that almost make it seem worth the risk of living right next to a river. This is a lovely part of Kew, and a short walk takes you to Kew Green, where summer afternoons see the locals playing cricket on the green while the pubs fill the tourists with ale and a Victorian ideal of Englishness leaves one with a strange sense of longing. The impressive St Anne’s Church dominates the western half of the green, while old buildings like the herbarium and library line the edges. It’s a dreamy little place, this, even on a dull Wednesday morning.

Over Kew Bridge you come to the delicious riverside buildings of Strand-on-the-Green. It’s worth strolling along the riverside for a while, as the houses beyond the Bell and Crown pub are distinctly photogenic, and the Bell and Crown itself is a good stop for a bit of refreshment, if it’s not too early. This is a good place to get the feeling of the Thames tide, as at very high tide the walkway in front of the pub floods, but at low tide the Thames turns into mud-flats with little more than a trickle of water in the main channel. It’s a sobering thought, particularly in this age of melting ice caps and dire predictions.

From the Thames it’s a short stroll through the delightful Chiswick Village private estate to Gunnersbury station, which lives beneath the hard-to-miss British Standards Institute building. The station is hard to spot unless you already know it’s there; the back entrance is hidden away down a couple of alleyways, and the main entrance on Chiswick High Road seems to be devoid of all signs until you’re actually inside. It’s all the stranger, as like the other Richmond line stops, Gunnersbury is on the London Overground, so this is no backwater stop: trains go all the way to Stratford from here, all the way on the other side of the city.

Gunnersbury to Turnham Green

I’m a bit biased towards Chiswick, as I spent three very happy years here sharing a flat with some delightful friends while having more fun than was strictly sensible. The feeling of walking from Gunnersbury station to Turnham Green and past my old doctor, my old dentist and my old flat... well, it’s heady stuff, is nostalgia. But then Chiswick is a lovely place, even if it’s a little too cappuccino belt for some, and even though Chiswick High Road is a busy place with a good range of shops and more pubs, restaurants and coffee joints than you can shake an au pair’s allowance at, I still like the place. It even has its own local record label just off the green – Independiente – who can boast Travis, Embrace and Martina Topley Bird on their books, and it’s not every Nappy Valley suburb that can boast that.

It’s a pleasant walk along a back alley called Linden Passage, past the huge tower of the Catholic church and back to the High Road. I had originally thought that it was round here that the first V2 flying bomb landed on London in World War II, but you can’t believe everything you research on the Web, and it turns out that the bomb actually landed opposite 5 Staveley Road, some way south of here. So, scrubbing that particular point of interest from my itinerary after a bit of fruitless searching for the commemorative plaque, I headed back for the High Road I turned past the Balans restaurant and into Chiswick Common. The park is bordered by the Tube line to the north, where District and Piccadilly trains rush east to the city and west to Heathrow, Uxbridge, Richmond and Ealing.

It isn’t far to Turnham Green station, a confusing name as Turnham Green is some distance away (indeed, Turnham Green itself is nearer to Chiswick Park station, our next destination). Buried into the eastern half of the bridge over Turnham Green Terrace, the station entrance is a modest affair, home to a flower seller and next door to an attractive pub. I’ll be back here tomorrow, to start the long journey east towards Upminster.

Turnham Green to Chiswick Park

It’s all greenery from Turnham Green to Chiswick Park, as the whole stretch crosses Acton Green Common. This time the Tube rumbles away to the south, and this long, thin stretch of enjoyable parkland is split in two by Fisher’s Lane, which ducks under the Tube via not one, not two, but three bridges. In the centre is the original bridge, which would have carried the original 1879 line, but now it carries the westbound Piccadilly service and the District line to Ealing. On the northern side of the original arched brick bridge is a sturdy iron bridge that carries the same services heading east, while the iron bridge to the south carries the District line to and from Richmond, peeling off to the south just west of Chiswick Park station.

At the end of the green, just past the church, there are some lovely little cottages along Hardwicke Road, but the best is left for last, as Chiswick Park station is a corker. The original station opened on 1 July 1879 as part of what was then called the Metropolitan District Railway (now the District line), but between 1931 and 1932 it was rebuilt to a design by Charles Holden, the most significant station architect of them all. The station is dominated by its tall, semi-circular ticket hall, with large panels of clerestory windows that let light into the structure. Inside, the ticket hall is light and airy, a surprise for such a solid structure, and the icing on the cake is a huge brick tower, emblazoned with the London Underground roundel and the station name, which was built to make the station visible from Chiswick High Road. This is my favourite Holden station so far, and it makes the likes of Rayners Lane look positively industrial (though given Rayners Lane station’s position on its busily eponymous road, its industrial appearance is well placed). Perhaps it’s the round design that makes the difference, but whatever it is, I love it.

Chiswick Park to Acton Town

There isn’t a great deal to report about the walk to Acton Town along Bollo Lane, except for students of sociology, who might enjoy the way in which Chiswick bluntly morphs into Acton at the London Overground level crossing about halfway between the two. The Chiswick end starts with the Gunnersbury Triangle, a cute little nature reserve that’s tucked away off the road, and then it’s all lovely Victorian terraces, with The Bollo proving an excellent place if quality gastro-pubs are your thing. The enjoyable suburbs continue all the way to the railway line, and then bang! You’re into Acton, and it’s all industrial estates and council housing.

However, there is one interesting point to note. As you cross the London Overground, look to your right, and you can see South Acton railway station along the track. It might not seem like much, but Acton is the only place in the whole UK to have stations at all four points of the compass, not to mention the middle. North Acton, West Acton and East Acton are all on the Central line, South Acton is (as mentioned) on the London Overground, and for good measure there’s also Acton Central (on the Overground) and Acton Town (on the District and Piccadilly lines).

Like Chiswick Park, Acton Town station was also rebuilt between 1931 and 1932 to a design by Charles Holden, but it’s a rectangular affair and as such doesn’t quite do it for me. Then again, it’s stuck on a busy road junction that white vans make their own, so perhaps it’s an unfair competition, as Chiswick Park is in a much quieter part of town.

Acton Town to Ealing Common

It’s all backstreets to Ealing Common, and the industrial estates of Acton don’t make it here. Instead, this is the Kingdom of Mock Tudor, with entire rows of houses flying the black and white flag. The other side of the Tube line is home to the London Transport Museum Depot at Acton, where vintage trains are stored, and just north of that is the large Ealing Common Tube Depot, but you’d never know, because Carbery Avenue and Tring Avenue are such peaceful spots.

So it’s tree-lined suburbs and clean streets all the way to Ealing Common station, which sits on the rumbling Uxbridge Road. Again rebuilt by Charles Holden, this time in 1930 to 1931, the design is constructed in Portland stone and features a tall seven-sided ticket hall with glazed screens on all sides, some of them featuring the outline of the Underground roundel in blue outline. I’m told the design is very similar to the one at Hounslow West; I’ll no doubt find out when I do the Piccadilly line.

Oh, and for all you fast food fans, the Nando’s next to Ealing Common was the first to be opened in the UK, flinging its doors open in April 1992. It’s a modest place to start a peri-peri chicken revolution, and the restaurant is pretty small compared to its younger brothers in town, but it all started right here...

Ealing Common to Ealing Broadway

This final leg is very much a personal trek through Ealing and you might wonder what all the fuss is about, but I have to say, I am fond of where I live. Peta and I moved to Ealing from Balham three years ago, intending to rent for six months while we found somewhere to buy, but we ended up renting such a pretty little workman’s cottage – complete with a real fire, a garden, jasmine climbing over the front door and a white picket fence – that we never got round to it... and now that the market is gently collapsing and we’re still here, enjoying our lack of mortgage in the quiet ‘burbs of Ealing.

It’s a pleasant place, is Ealing, though casual visitors to Ealing Broadway won’t necessarily come away with that impression, as the town centre is fairly functional and the shopping centre is crowded even on weekdays. From Ealing Common station, then, it’s best to skirt around the centre, and it’s a short stroll to Ealing Common, which it has to be said isn’t the most exciting green space in London, but it does have the advantage of being large and relatively wild (the grass is left to grow long in certain areas, which gives it a meadow-like vibe on sunny days). At the western edge of the green is a great little pub, The Grange, which serves a good pint and excellent food, albeit at prices that are best swallowed whole.

From the pub, Warwick Road takes you to the main road south out of Ealing, and it does it in some style. This is lovely suburbia, with large detached houses, some of them smothered in wisteria, and others hiding behind manicured hedges. The delights continue for about ten minutes until you pass the Ealing Campus of Thames Valley University on your right (originally founded in 1860 as the Lady Byron School, according to the blue plaque by the university entrance), and you come out opposite the earthier and more affordable Castle Inn on St Mary’s Road.

Turn right up here and you’ll come across what is arguably the best pub in Ealing, the Red Lion. Sitting opposite Ealing Studios, it’s known to its regulars as Stage Six (the film studio equivalent of the 19th hole). The walls are smothered with photos of Ealing stars and the beer is excellent; grab some before you head up to the Broadway, because it’s much harder to find anything palatable up there.

Ealing Studios itself is not that much to look at, as all the magic happens behind closed doors, but it’s still an emotive name, being officially the oldest film studio in the world. It’s possible to spot the studios themselves from a little further up the road, behind a new set of offices which also sport the Ealing Studios logo.

From the studios the road passes Pitzhanger Manor, behind which is pleasant Walpole Park, and then it’s a short hoof through the shoppers along the Broadway to Ealing Broadway station, which sits under a white office block in a pretty nondescript manner. This whole area is earmarked for redevelopment, though there is much debate over what form that redevelopment will take. Nobody is denying that central Ealing could do with a polish, however, and if Crossrail gets the go-ahead, Ealing Broadway will be only six stops from Liverpool Street, making is even more of a des res that it already is. Perhaps we should have bought a house after all...

Turnham Green and Kensington (Olympia) to Victoria

19 June 2008

Things started off on the wrong foot this morning, and I have to admit it spoiled things for a little while. As I lined up to take a shot of Turnham Green station – more to make a note of my starting time than anything else, as I already have a shot of the station from yesterday’s walk – a man, who was unloading flowers from a white van, walked up to me and said in a fairly brusque manner, ‘Oy, why are you taking pictures of the Tube?’

‘Well,’ I said, putting on my best smile. ‘I’m walking the Tube for charity and taking photos of all the stations as I go, to prove I’ve been there.’

He didn’t react at all, which wrong-footed me slightly, as most people break into a smile when they hear what I’m doing, and wish me luck. Indeed, he kept staring at me, as if this was no explanation at all.

‘Um,’ I said. ‘I’m heading off to Stamford Brook now, along the District line,’ hoping that this would do the trick. Instead, he just looked at me as if I was something unwelcome he’d picked up on the sole of his shoe, and went back to unloading his flowers. I wondered if I’d done something to offend him – having long dark hair and a beard, perhaps, with the Middle Eastern suntan of someone who’s been walking for three weeks in the summer sun – but then I realised he was driving a white van, and figured I’d better head off before he decided I was a terrorist and tried to lock me up for 42 days without charge.

Turnham Green to Stamford Brook

It particularly annoyed me that I should get the cold shoulder from the locals at Turnham Green station, as I lived here for three years and still consider it a kind of home. Feeling a little rejected, I slumped east from the station along Bath Road, but it wasn’t long before the pretty houses of Chiswick started to cheer me up. Separated from the busy main road by the Tube line, this is a landscape of desirable detached and semi-detached houses, with the odd bit of greenery thrown in for good measure.

Stamford Brook station dates from 1 February 1912 and is tucked away to the south of the railway bridge. It’s a notable station for one reason: back on 5 January 1964, this was the first station to have an automatic ticket barrier installed. Automatic ticket issuing was introduced in the 1920s, but it took another 40 years before London Underground could dispense with human inspectors at the other end. Just imagine what all those early employees would think of the Oyster card system...

Stamford Brook to Ravenscourt Park

From Stamford Brook the houses get even more delightful as you approach the 32-acre Ravenscourt Park, a large, airy park that consists of a wide open grassy area in the southern half, and a manicured garden to the north. A popular spot with the pram-pushing inhabitants of Nappy Valley, it’s an enjoyable place to relax when the sun is out. The park was originally the gardens of Ravenscourt House, which was built in 1650 but was destroyed in 1941 by incendiary bombs during the Blitz; the only remaining building is the stable block, which houses a pleasant café in the middle of the park.

Ravenscourt Park station is just off the southeast corner of the park, on the other side of the railway bridge. The station was originally opened on the London and South Western Railway line to Richmond on 1 April 1873, though it was originally called Shaftesbury Road, and on 1 June 1877 the Metropolitan District Railway (now the District line) extended its lines from Hammersmith to just east of the station, thus linking this part of the world into what we now know as the Underground. The station is reasonably large, with the red brick ticket hall extending quite a way down Ravenscourt Place, opposite some lovely houses.

Ravenscourt Park to Hammersmith

From Ravenscourt Park I thought I’d join King Street, the main shopping road in Hammersmith, just to set the tone for the next couple of stations. King Street is a busy shopping street that stretches all the way from Chiswick to Hammersmith, and walking along the main road is an interesting exercise in seeing the cappuccino cafés of Chiswick slowly morph into the Primarks and Prets of Hammersmith. It is much more pleasant away from the main road (like everywhere in the city), but a quick burst of King Street is good for the soul, if only to compare the Chicken Cottages and curry houses with the delicious architecture to be found in the backstreets.

Hammersmith station (which is a separate entity from the Hammersmith & City line’s station of the same name) continues the theme by being buried deep in a huge shopping centre. The original station buildings were demolished in the early 1990s and were rebuilt as part of the Broadway Centre, which combines the Tube station, a bus station, a shopping centre and office space (the latter housing the headquarters of Coca-Cola Great Britain Ltd). If you aren’t here for the shopping, though, this isn’t a particularly exciting place to linger, though the shops are a convenient place to stock up with refreshments, should you fancy a break.

Hammersmith to Barons Court

Easily the most famous Hammersmith landmark (for me, anyway) is the Hammersmith Apollo, just south of the shopping centre. Dating from 1932 and designed in an Art Deco style, it was known as the Hammersmith Odeon from 1962 to 1963, and during this, its heyday, it hosted all sorts of famous artists, including the Beatles, Queen, Bob Marley and Neil Young. But the most famous event took place in July 1973, when David Bowie played his last show as Ziggy Stardust, famously announcing the break-up of the Spiders from Mars before the last number, much to the surprise of the band, who had no idea their careers as Bowie’s backing band were over.

Down Fulham Palace Road from the busy Hammersmith flyover is Charing Cross Hospital. The name comes from the fact that the hospital was originally located near Charing Cross, but in 1973 a new building was opened in Hammersmith, and the hospital moved, taking its name with it. It’s an impending building, dominating the skyline, but the best views can be had from Hammersmith Cemetery around the back of the hospital, a quiet place away from the traffic chaos of Hammersmith. Indeed, when I wandered through the graves in the patchy sun of an English summer, I stumbled across a woman sunbathing in a skimpy, bright orange Brazilian bikini, right there among the graves; I’m sure the local residents appreciated her company, albeit silently.

Barons Court station is a Grade II listed building, and it’s easy to see why. Opened on 10 October 1905 and designed by Harry Ford (who also designed the Earls Court Road entrance to Earl’s Court station, a couple of stops down the line), the station opening lagged somewhat behind the opening of the line, which dates from 1874. Back then this whole area was rural and was mainly made up of open fields and market gardens, so there was no need for a station in this area, but when the housing boom kicked in during the late Victorian period, a new station was opened to serve the District line. The timing was chosen well, as it was also built to serve the new Piccadilly line that opened slightly later on 15 December 1906.

Barons Court to West Kensington

A short stroll from the station, along a road of large, three-storey Victorian terraces, lies Queen’s Club. There was a hive of dismantling activity as I walked past, the club having hosted the traditional pre-Wimbledon tennis tournament just last week (incidentally, Rafael Nadal won, and became the first Spaniard to win on grass in 36 years).

The impressive Victorian terraces continue along Baron’s Court Road (yes, the road has an apostrophe but the Tube station doesn’t, a bizarre situation that is reversed for Earl’s Court station in Earls Court), but all pretence at quiet suburbia goes out of the window at the junction of North End Road and Talgarth Road, which manages to redefine the concept of traffic chaos. I should know, because back in 1995, I spent nine happy months living in a room on the top floor of the Famous Three Kings pub (which was known back then as the plain old Three Kings). My mate Lawrence was the assistant manager, and I was looking for somewhere to live in London, so he said I could stay in the spare room in his top-floor flat, rent free, if I gave it a lick of paint, bought some furniture and did a couple of nights behind the bar every week. Not being stupid, I snapped up the offer and moved in straight away. The fact that I worked from home three days a week and had no rent to pay meant that we drank rather more than we should have done, and many was the late night that we’d pop out to the dodgy chicken shack over the road, or to the 24-hour corner shop on the other side of the junction. And all the time the traffic rumbled below, a seemingly constant drone of horns, over-accelerated motorbikes and chuntering trucks.

Opposite the pub, and currently shrouded in scaffolding, lives a grimy block of flats that were used as the filming location for Renton’s London flat in Trainspotting. The irony isn’t lost on me, as the Three Kings was known as a bit of a drug den (at least until Lawrence and his parents, who were the managers, came in and cleaned it up), and a number of the dealers lived in the block over the road. I can remember one of them vividly, as he would often come into the pub, happily tripping away at the bar and causing no problems at all; you learn a thing or two, doing the graveyard shift in a pub like the Three Kings. These days, the renamed and refurbished Famous Three Kings is a completely different venue, and the flats opposite are being renovated; still, at least I’ll be able to bore my grandchildren with stories of when everything round here was drug dealers and junk food shops...

West Kensington station sits next to the pub, its Charles Holden-designed frontage dating from 1927 (though the station was originally opened in 1874 as ‘Fulham – North End’ and was renamed as West Kensington in 1877). It’s not the greatest piece of Holden architecture, though, and is rather dwarfed by the Famous Three Kings’ impressive glass entrance, right next door, not to mention the constant queue of vans, buses and trucks outside.

West Kensington to Earl’s Court

The only sensible way to get from West Kensington to Earl’s Court is to brave the A4 (or West Cromwell Road, as it’s known round here). If you can zone out the traffic and try not to breathe too deeply, it’s an interesting walk over a raised road that crosses the rail tracks that feed Earl’s Court to the south. Not only are there two Tube lines passing through here – the District and Piccadilly – but this is also London Overground territory, with the line heading south through West Brompton and on to Clapham Junction. It makes for an impressive view.

Respite is swift, though, because as soon as you turn off the road and into the crescent of Philbeach Gardens, the thick-set terraces reduce the screaming of the traffic to a gentle background rumble. Tucked away in the northwest corner of the crescent are two interesting buildings – the ultra-modern Adshel Centre, and the imposing, red brick, Gothic architecture of St Cuthbert’s Church – and the crescent itself is shaded, leafy and an oasis, given its close proximity to Earl’s Court. It’s also home to the Philbeach Hotel, one of London’s longest-running gay hotels, dating from the days when Earls Court was the gay capital of London (and Soho was still dominated by grubby prostitution, rather than chic gay bars).

Earl’s Court station is a stone’s throw from the end of the crescent, the Warwick Road entrance sitting opposite the huge entrance to Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre. Rebuilt between 1936 and 1937, the western entrance to the station looks a bit like a squat version of the top of the BT Tower, with a circular glass tower sitting over the curved entrance. It’s interesting, at least.

Earl’s Court to Kensington (Olympia)

The spur line from Earl’s Court to Kensington (Olympia) was originally built as part of the Outer Circle, some of which has now morphed into the London Overground joining West Brompton to Kensington (Olympia) and Willesden Junction, and some of which is now the District line spur from Earl’s Court. Although it’s a short Tube journey that is mainly aimed at those attending exhibitions at Olympia, it makes for a lovely tubewalk, once you get out of Earls Court, anyway.

Heading north up Earls Court Road, you pass the Earls Court Tavern and soon reach the wide avenue of the A4. Cross over, and suddenly things start to look up, as we’re moving into Kensington, one of London’s most exclusive suburbs. The best clue can be found down Logan Place, where at the end of the road, past some pretty mews, is a wooden door, painted green, marked ‘Garden Lodge, Logan Place’. This is the last home of Freddie Mercury, and the door is smothered with messages from fans, carved into the paint-work. ‘I still love you!’ cries one, while another says, ‘Freddie, we’ll never walk alone; we miss you.’ It’s enough to bring a tear to the eye; Peta and I were talking the other night about which pop star we’d bring back from the dead if we had the power, and Freddie Mercury was pretty high up on the list. Yep, we miss you, Freddie...

Turning back along Pembroke Road and up Pembroke Villas, prepare to be impressed, because this corner of London is exquisite. The houses of Pembroke Square are lovely, but even they pale into insignificance compared to the beauty of Edwardes Square. The Scarsdale pub on the way into the square is wonderful, and the buildings surrounding the square, which was built between 1811 and 1820 as part of the Holland House Estate, are very pleasant. It’s the garden in the middle of the square that is the real treat, though as it’s a private garden, all you can do is peek inside. That is, unless you don’t realise it’s private, as I didn’t, and someone has left the gate open, in which case you can pop your head in, scour the scene for signs saying that this is private property (which they don’t appear to have), and nip in for a nosey round. I was happily enjoying my visit, but when I tried to exit at the other side of the garden, I discovered that all the other gates were locked, and the penny dropped that this was probably not a public garden after all. Worried that I might be apprehended for trespassing, what with me and my long hair, I made my escape quickly, smiling at the slightly bemused gardener on my way out in silent appreciation at his handiwork. I believe Edwardes Square is open once a year during the Open Garden Squares Weekend, and it’s well worth a visit.

Unfortunately Kensington High Street is a bit of a shock after the peace of Edwardes Square, but the buildings are still impressive, particularly along Warwick Gardens. Possibly the most impressive building is the Inland Revenue office at Charles House, not because it’s terribly beautiful, but because it looks exactly how you’d imagine an Inland Revenue office to look. It’s just a stone’s throw from the bridge over the railway line, where Kensington (Olympia) station sits, tucked away to the side of the Olympia Exhibition Centre. Olympia dates from 1886, and the Grand Hall, which covers some 450 ft by 250 ft, was said at the time to be the largest building in the kingdom to be covered by just one span of iron and glass. It’s still an impressive sight today.

Earl’s Court to Gloucester Road

Back at Earl’s Court, it’s a continuing architectural treat as you walk along Barkston Gardens from the eastern station exit (this exit is pretty similar in appearance to Barons Court station, which is no coincidence as they were both designed by Harry Ford, this one a little later, in 1915). You stumble across the likes of St Jude’s Church in Courtfield Gardens (which seems to fill up the entire square), long crescents of five-storey Victorian terraces, and the impressive house of the lyricist WS Gilbert at 39 Harrington Gardens.

Gloucester Road station is again a bit of a shock, as with most of the stations along the District, it is on a busy road junction. This is because the District line was built using the cut-and-cover technique, in which roads were dug out, the railway dropped in, and the road covered over; this means that the line follows the road, and so do the stations. While I was snapping the station, waiting for a break in the traffic so I could get a clear shot, a Chelsea tractor containing uniformed police pulled up and looked knowingly in my direction, but after my first run-in with the police, I knew exactly what to do.

‘I suppose you want to know why I’m taking photos of the Tube station,’ I said as I wandered up to the window. ‘You’re not the first policemen to ask me.’

‘Um, yeah,’ said the officer in the passenger seat, possibly not used to such earnest co-operation from a hippy.

‘I’m walking the London Underground for charity,’ I said, waving my printed route map in his face. ‘And I’m taking a photo of each station to prove I’ve been there.’

‘Ah, OK,’ said the driver, beaming at me. ‘Well, that’s fine, then – good luck with that.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, and turned back to the Tube station. Something tells me this is going to be a recurring theme, which is perhaps not surprising, given the zeitgeist image of bearded men with backpacks on the Tube...

Gloucester Road to South Kensington

Not far along Cromwell Road from the Tube lies the striking building of the Natural History Museum, its terracotta façade looking for all the world like a massive Victorian layer cake. Opened in 1881, over the road from the Victoria and Albert Museum (which itself was founded in 1852), the Natural History Museum houses some 70 million items, including a famous cast of a Diplodocus skeleton that sits in the central hall of the Waterhouse building, just beneath the main towers. It’s a staple of school visits, and I can still remember visiting the dinosaurs for the first time; it’s not something you forget in a hurry.

South Kensington station is just down Exhibition Road from the museums, and you could say the station extends along half the road, as there’s a pedestrian walkway under Exhibition Road that serves all three museums (the Natural History, Victoria and Albert, and Science Museums). The station itself is hidden behind busy traffic, and still bears iron latticework proclaiming this to be part of the ‘Metropolitan and District Railways’, which was the case when it opened in 1868 as the western terminus of the original section of the District line, connecting South Kensington to Westminster. Around the back of the station, to the southeast, is a disused Piccadilly line building (from when it was still known as the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway) that sports the instantly recognisable ox-blood red glazed terracotta tiling of the GNP&BR’s other stations. This used to provide access to the deep-level Piccadilly line platforms, but was dropped when escalators replaced the lifts.

South Kensington to Sloane Square

I chose a fairly roundabout route to Sloane Square, because the area to the south of Kensington – Chelsea – is lovely, and this is the only opportunity on my tubewalk to take in some of the great sights of this part of town. Heading south towards the river, I crossed Fulham Road before taking a break for lunch in the pretty little garden next to the impressive St Luke’s Church on Sydney Street. Built in Bath stone to resemble King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, it has a grand neo-Gothic style, and dates from 1824, which roughly translates into a very grand-looking church indeed.

Next up is a short section along the King’s Road, one of the most fashionable shopping streets in the capital, and then it’s a right turn down Flood Street, past an antiques centre, a pub, some impressive apartment blocks, and into the stunning mansion blocks of Cheyne Walk. Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful used to live at number 48, just the other side of Albert Bridge, and they’re not alone: other famous Cheyne Walk residents include the landscape painter JMW Turner (who died in 1851 at number 119), Bram Stoker (who lived at number 10), the American artist James Whistler (number 96), Keith Richards (number 3), and Ian Fleming (who rented a flat here while working on his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale). That’s not bad for one road, really.

Heading east along the river, with Battersea Park on the opposite bank and Battersea Power Station in the distance, I walked past the Chelsea Physic Garden and Tite Street (where Oscar Wilde lived, at number 34), and to the Bull Ring Gate that leads into the gardens of the Chelsea Royal Hospital. This impressive building, which is home to the Chelsea Pensioners, probably looks better when the lawn isn’t being re-seeded, but it’s still a glorious building. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren and completed in 1692, it was founded in 1682 by Charles II as a home for the ‘succour and relief of veterans broken by age and war,’ and is still going strong.

It’s an enjoyable walk past yet more intricate terraces to Sloane Square, where Sloane Square station hides almost apologetically in a corner of this traffic hotspot. Architecturally the outside isn’t that interesting, but inside there’s real engineering at work, for when the Metropolitan District Railway built Sloane Square station in 1868, they had to divert the River Westbourne, which runs through Hyde Park as the Serpentine, and which was once crossed by the Knight’s Bridge that gives that suburb its name; above the platform, you can still see the large iron pipe that carries the river safely down to the Thames.

Sloane Square to Victoria

This is a hugely expensive part of town, and the walk from Sloane Square to Victoria wafts across one of the most exclusive addresses in town, that of Belgravia. Groaning under the weight of foreign embassies and old money, it’s a wonderful place to walk through (well, unless you’re a communist, in which case it must be awful). Everywhere you look there are amazing white stucco terraces gleaming off into the distance, and the whole area is relatively unchanged from when it was developed in the 1820s by the 2nd Marquess of Westminster, Richard Grosvenor. Money still talks round here, and Belgravia is one of the most expensive areas in the world, which possibly explains why you can find Margaret Thatcher (who lives in Chester Square), Roman Abramovich, Joan Collins and Nigella Lawson here.

Arriving at busy Buckingham Palace Road is a bit of a shock, the mood switching from historic to ultra-modern with the glass-topped Victoria Place Shopping Centre reflecting the clouds and the glass-fronted London Googleplex, home of Google in the UK, gleaming in the sun. And just around the corner, on the south side of a busy bus stop, is Victoria station, its impressive frontage and huge clock all but hidden by the metal canopy that covers the entrance. The Tube station is buried beneath the bus stop, and gets horribly busy at rush hour, so much so that staff often close the access stairway when the platforms get too full. I used to commute this way when I lived in Balham, and ended up walking from here to where I worked in the V&A, rather than take the Tube. Perhaps that’s where the inspiration for this tubewalk came from, after all...

Victoria to Bow Road

23 June 2008

I’ve finished today’s walk with a pain in the base of my neck, just above my left shoulder. It’s a familiar pain that I tend to get after long hikes, but today’s trek through central London was under ten miles long, which normally isn’t enough to trigger this particular niggle. I think I know the cause, though: it’s the constant stopping and starting.

This isn’t so much because of traffic lights or problems walking through a cityscape; actually, I’ve found (much to my surprise) that I can get up quite a speed walking through the city, particularly on the backstreets where there are fewer people and the traffic isn’t so heavy. But even when I’ve got some speed up, I keep having to stop to take photographs, and I don’t think my body is used to it. Sure, the countryside is photogenic, but if you go for a walk through the English countryside and take a picture every couple of minutes, you’ll end up with hundreds of photographs that look almost exactly the same, with the top half blue and the bottom half green. In a city like London, though, every corner reveals a unique and often stunning building that I just have to photograph (particularly as I’m using a digital camera and I’m downloading the photos every night, so I don’t have to exercise the restraint I have to when carrying film or a restricted number of memory cards). The result? I’m not getting into my normal, natural walking flow; I tend to look up most of the time, rather than watching where I’m putting my feet; and every few minutes I’m stopping to snap another landmark. Put it all together, and it’s straining my neck muscles.

Add in the fact that in some locations – particularly Tube stations on busy junctions – the traffic is so constant and so laden with double-decker buses and tall, white vans, that waiting for a clear shot of the station is a fool’s game. I’ve learned to be quick on the shutter and to accept that traffic-free photography is something only the insanely early riser can enjoy, but it all adds to the delay. Luckily, the resulting photographic storyboard of each walk is well worth the effort, especially when paired with the readings from my GPS... and hey, isn’t that what massage oil is for? Exactly.

Victoria to St James’s Park

Compared to the to-die-for buildings of Belgravia that I passed through on the way to Victoria, life heading east of the station is much more businesslike, quite literally. Turn right along Victoria Street, and it’s one huge office complex after another, whether it’s the graceful curves of Cardinal Place (where Microsoft has its London headquarters), the sky-scraping Portland House, the ‘stack of glass cubes’ that is the headquarters of John Lewis, or the rather more traditional windowed office block of Westminster City Hall. The designs are not as cutting edge as in the City or Docklands – perhaps not surprisingly, given the deep pockets of the City’s tenants – but it makes for an interesting walk.

Tucked into a small nook on the south side of Victoria Street is Westminster Cathedral, the mother church of the Roman Catholics in England and Wales. It’s an impressive building, dating from 1903, with a huge tower reaching 274 ft into the sky and an instantly recognisable Byzantine design; however, if you’re walking along Victoria Street on a clear summer morning, you’ll have to squint into the sun to see the red and white stripes all up the tower and on the church front, so make sure you pack your sunglasses.

St James’s Park station is not far from Victoria Street; just turn left up Palmer Street to find the station’s side entrance, but for a far more impressive sight, turn right along Petty France to 55 Broadway, where you can find the main entrance.

St James’s Park to Westminster

The Broadway entrance to St James’s Park station doubles up as the entrance to London Underground Headquarters, which you can see just inside the entrance. Step back from the station entrance, though, to take in the bigger picture, because 55 Broadway is quite a building. Designed by the ubiquitous Charles Holden and built between 1927 and 1929, the building is clad in Portland stone and has an Art Deco feel to it, and dotted all over the building are sculptures, ten in all, that denote the winds (north, south, east and west, each represented twice) and day and night. At the time these sculptures caused quite a stir in conservative London, particularly Jacob Epstein’s Day and Night, which eventually had to have a couple of inches removed from the penis of the smaller figure. (If you’re visiting, Day can be seen on the southeast flank of the building, while Night is on the northern flank.)

Heading north from 55 Broadway along Carteret Street quietens things down quite a bit. Queen Anne’s Gate and Old Queen Street are lovely streets, full of 18th century townhouses and olde worlde pubs, but as soon as you duck out the eastern end and turn right, it’s back into the chaos, because this is prime tourist-ville. On your right is the imposing Methodist Central Hall, and opposite is the rather less attractive Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, but that’s not why the tourists gather in gaggles outside these two buildings; the reason is the excellent view of Westminster Abbey, the imposing Gothic church where the kings and queens of England are crowned and buried. If you move around a bit, you can even get a view of the abbey with the Houses of Parliament poking out from behind; for the first time on this tubewalk, I’m exploring areas of London that are world famous, rather than locally notable.

Just south of Westminster Abbey is Dean’s Yard, a pretty space that leads to Westminster School to the east. Most tourists don’t venture in here, which is surprising given that it’s just off the manic forecourt of the cathedral, but perhaps that’s because it feels like a spot for quiet contemplation rather than umbrella-following. Pass through the yard to Great College Street and walk to the east, and the Houses of Parliament leap out at you from behind a hoarding, Victoria Tower dominating the skyline. This is where TV journalists stand when they’re reporting the day’s events in Westminster, but familiarity doesn’t make it any less impressive. From here it’s a short walk past the intricate eastern end of Westminster Abbey and statues of George V and Richard I, and Westminster station is along Bridge Street, just after Parliament Square.

Westminster to Embankment

From Westminster station, the initial views are dominated by the Clock Tower (which everyone knows as Big Ben, even though that’s strictly the name of the bell), but walk to Westminster Bridge and look to your left, and it’s difficult to know which view is more impressive: the Victorian intricacy of Charles Barry’s home of democracy, or the ultra-modern and breathtakingly large hoop of the London Eye on the other side of the river. The Eye is a beautiful piece of sculpture, and I challenge anyone to walk north along this part of the Embankment without missing everything to their left. Did I check out the Norman Shaw buildings, or the Territorial Policing Headquarters, or even the Ministry of Defence? Hell, no, I was too busy admiring the Eye to worry about minor things like government...

Strolling along the Victoria Embankment is always a delight, despite the heavy traffic that pounds along there all day – but then, you don’t look at the traffic, you look at the river. What you probably don’t do is look at the Embankment itself, but when it was built between 1865 and 1870, it was an impressive feat of engineering. The original 1868 District line started at South Kensington and went as far as Westminster, but the Embankment carries an extension all the way from Westminster to Blackfriars, with the lines running underneath the road; it also carries a major sewer east towards the Thames estuary, one of the six main sewers created by Joseph Bazalgette, Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, who was responsible for the project. Add in the major traffic thoroughfare, a pleasant riverside pavement and some lovely gardens on the other side of the road, and you’ve got one of the major achievements of Victorian engineering, right there under your feet.

Embankment station is just the other side of Hungerford Bridge, and was opened on 30 May 1870 as part of the District line’s extension to Blackfriars. The station was originally known as Charing Cross, and was also known as Charing Cross (Embankment) before becoming plain old Embankment in 1976. Oh, and the station we now know as Charing Cross was originally called Trafalgar Square, and was also known as Charing Cross (Strand) before becoming Charing Cross in 1979. I bet you’re glad you asked!

Embankment to Temple

Next to Embankment station is one of the public gardens created at the same time as the Victoria Embankment, and a pretty little garden it is too. South-facing Victoria Embankment Gardens, as it is imaginatively known, soaks up the sun, while the lovely buildings of the Adelphi and the Savoy loom over the north side (well, the Savoy is currently wrapped in plastic, so it doesn’t so much loom as squat at the moment, but you can see the idea). Just watch out for thieves, as they operate in this area, so if you stop for lunch here, as I did, keep an eye on your stuff.

You have to rejoin the main road at Waterloo Bridge, but it’s still a pleasant stroll along the river to Temple, passing Somerset House and King’s College on your left (though they’re far too high to see from down here, so you’ll just have to take my word for it). Across the river is the Royal National Theatre and IBM South Bank, and suddenly, there on your left, is a small courtyard with a couple of market stalls and the entrance to Temple station (which, interestingly, is the only Tube station to share its name with a Paris Métro station).

Temple to Blackfriars

Right next to Temple station, and the inspiration for the station’s name, are the Inns of Court. Every barrister in England and Wales has to belong to one of the Inns, which act as supervisory and disciplinary bodies for the profession, and although most barristers have their chambers elsewhere, the Inns are still the spiritual home of the Bar. There are four active Inns of Court – Lincoln’s Inn, Gray’s Inn, Inner Temple and Middle Temple – with only the last two being in the complex next to the Tube station (Lincoln’s Inn and Gray’s Inn are a little further north).

Each Inn is based on the layout of an Oxford or Cambridge college, with quadrangles surrounded by chambers, as well as a hall, a chapel, libraries and gardens. This makes for an enjoyable stroll, as you can explore most of the Inns and a lot of the gardens without needing a permit. Some areas are more beautiful than others – Temple Gardens, for example, is lovely, though it was smothered in a huge marquee when I visited – but because the barristers can park their expensive cars outside their chambers, a lot of the quads do end up feeling more like exclusive car parks than Oxford colleges. Still, those that don’t allow car access are charming, and it’s a peaceful spot after the traffic along the Embankment.

Heading out onto Fleet Street, I struck east, ready to explore the backstreets of the City. In designing the route for this and the next leg, I thought I’d stick to the smaller backstreets, in the hope that they would reveal secrets that the tourists along the main drag miss out on; certainly, the smaller streets in the suburbs are often more charming than their busier, more arterial siblings. However, I must have plotted the least imaginative route possible through old London Town, as I wove through street after street of the backs of offices and people catching a smoke break, without really unveiling any treasures. OK, I did manage to squeeze past St Bride’s Church, but it was too cramped to get a good view of the church, and I was quite relieved to reach New Bridge Street, under which the River Fleet runs.

This river, after which Fleet Street is named, flows underground all the way from its northern source on Hampstead Heath, through Camden Town, King’s Cross, Clerkenwell and Farringdon, before reaching the Thames just south of here, under the spans of Blackfriars Bridge. Well, I say the river ‘flows’, but that’s being kind, for the River Fleet has long been known as one of the dirtiest and smelliest rivers in the fragrant history of London. As long ago as 1290 the River Fleet was cause for complaint, when the monks of the nearby White Friars Monastery complained to the king that even their incense couldn’t cover up the river’s stench. By the 14th century the river had turned red with the blood from Smithfield’s slaughterhouses and tanneries, and if you fell into the river in the 1600s, the chances are you’d suffocate rather than drown, as back then the Fleet was more rotting rubbish than river (though this didn’t stop oysters being sold to passers-by on the Fleet Bridge). Things got so bad that in 1765 the city planners decided to cover up the southern stretches of the Fleet, and in 1863 the construction of the Metropolitan line covered up the section along Farrindgon Road, so today the river is invisible as is slowly ekes its way towards the Thames.

Londoners might have conveniently hidden their smelliest river under roads, bridges and buildings, but the Fleet had the last laugh. Victorian London still used the underground river as a sewer, but unknown to those living above the Fleet, a dangerous amount of toxic gas was gradually building up underground, until one day in 1846 the river literally exploded in three places. In Clerkenwell, not far north of here, three houses for the poor were totally destroyed by a huge torrent of raw sewage as the Fleet burst out of its subterranean tunnel. The main road through King’s Cross, some way north of here, blew up and stopped traffic dead in its tracks. And if you were lucky enough to be on the steamboat that was chugging its way under Blackfriars Bridge on that fateful day, you’d have been blinded by a massive explosion under the bridge on the northern bank, deafened by a huge bang, suffocated by a cloud of the foulest fumes known to man, and your boat would have been smashed against the bridge.

Blackfriars station lies just east of the bridge, hidden behind busy traffic; it’s a pig to reach overground, so it’s best to use the subway.

Blackfriars to Mansion House

Again, I chose the backstreets to take me through the City, and again, it wasn’t as thrilling as I’d hoped it would be. This whole area pulsates with history, and the way to get the best out of it is to explore the area slowly in the company of a knowledgeable guide or a decent guidebook. Shooting through on a tubewalk probably isn’t the best way to appreciate the subtleties of the City, unless you know what you’re doing, which I have to admit, I don’t particularly.

It also doesn’t help that this area is currently being dug up. I know that Shakespeare trod the boards in and around Playhouse Yard, but the street itself isn’t that unusual, as the best stuff can be found by turning into Church Entry and poking around the maze of alleys, which would have been very familiar to Shakespeare when he lived and worked here at the end of the 16th century. But I couldn’t find my way in, as the little lanes north from Ireland Yard were blocked off, so instead I shot through to Carter Lane and past a Youth Hostel based in what used to be the Choir Boys School for St Paul’s Cathedral. I soon ended up popping out to the south of St Paul’s Cathedral, which easily provided the best view of this leg, particularly from the northern end of the Millennium Bridge, a little further south on Queen Victoria Street.

Mansion House station is a bit further east along the main road, and it’s very modest on the outside, being little more than a couple of small doors in the corner of a building on Cannon Street. This is, not surprisingly, the theme for a few stops, as the value of prime above-ground real estate forced the Tube stations below ground, and forced any architectural statements well out of reach of the Metropolitan District Railway.

Mansion House to Cannon Street

The most famous landmark on the short walk to Cannon Street is probably the house of Richard Whittington on College Hill, though all that remains of the house is a plaque, as it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Richard Whittington, who inspired the pantomime tale of Dick Whittington, was a very successful London merchant who was appointed Lord Mayor in 1397 (and who would go on to be appointed Mayor three times in total). He financed quite a few public works, but almost all of them disappeared in the fire, and all that is left is a plaque in College Hill and the story of Dick Whittington, his cat, and his rags to riches story of walking to London and becoming mayor. I guess it’s a legacy, though perhaps not the one he would have chosen.

Down College Hill and along College Street, you go past the Church of St Michael Paternoster Royal (another Christopher Wren church), and Cannon Street station is just up Dowgate Hill, opposite a huge construction site.

Cannon Street to Monument

I don’t have anything particularly interesting to say about this leg, to be perfectly honest. Tired of wandering along the backstreets, I simply walked along Cannon Street, leaving the rather ugly 1965 Cannon Street station building behind and strolling past the large shops and office blocks of Cannon Street to the junction of King William Street and Gracechurch Street.

Monument station is mainly underneath this junction, only poking its head above ground via a group of subways dotted around the junction. However, the main entrance can be found just round the corner in Fish Street Hill, a stone’s throw from the Monument from which the station takes its name.

Monument to Tower Hill

The Monument is currently clad in scaffolding and plastic sheeting, with the base cordoned off by barricades, and this does tend to detract from the charm of this area. The Monument, designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, was built to mark the spot where the Great Fire of London started in 1666, though the fire actually started 202 ft away in Pudding Lane, which is why the Monument is 202 ft high. When the Monument is unwrapped, this area is well worth a visit; sadly, it’s less interesting when it looks for all the world like a giant prophylactic.

Luckily it isn’t far from here to the Tower of London, which most definitely isn’t under wraps; far from it, as the recent development of the forecourt to the west of the Tower is designed to give a good view of proceedings while giving the throng of tourists plenty of space to mill about while soaking up the atmosphere. There’s no doubt that the Tower is a well-deserved UNESCO World Heritage Site, and even when shooting through on a tubewalk, the atmosphere is deeply historic.

Of particular note to tubewalkers is the round brick booth just south of the main ticket office, which marks the entrance to the Tower Subway. This tunnel under the Thames dates from 1869, and it’s important because its construction saw the first use of the Barlow-Greathead Shield, the system that would go on to be used to build all of London’s deep-level Tube lines, starting with what we now know as the Northern line. The paying public were towed along the subway in a horizontal lift, but it went out of business when Tower Bridge was opened. It is now used to house telecommunications cables, but without the Tower Subway, we wouldn’t have the Tube system we have today.

The most interesting thing about Tower Hill station is the section of the original Roman city wall right next door. The original station on this site, called Tower of London, was opened in 1882 as part of the Metropolitan line, but only two years later the Metropolitan and District lines were joined up to form what we now know as the Circle line, and a new station, Mark Lane, was built to the west of the Tower, and Tower of London station was shut. However, there simply wasn’t enough space at Mark Lane to cope with visitor numbers, so the current Tower Hill station was opened in 1967, on top of the original Tower of London station; round here, even the Tube stations have archaeology.

Tower Hill to Aldgate East

It doesn’t take long to leave tourist London behind, and to be honest, I was quite relieved to be heading out into a slightly more real version of London: tourism is fine, but I’ve lived here for a while and the sights and sounds of the camera shutter are probably less intriguing to me than the clash of cultures in the suburbs.

This section between Tower Hill and Aldgate East is a transitional walk, going from the history of the Tower, past some fairly uninspiring office blocks, through an area of housing along St Mark Street, and through to the busy redevelopment around Aldgate East station, which has a newly built entrance on the south side of Whitechapel High Street. The station itself was designed to be completely subterranean, so again there’s not a lot to see for the walker, particularly as the whole area is hidden behind a latticework of scaffolding.

Aldgate East to Whitechapel

At last, some real London to explore! Gone are the clean streets and slick tourist operations of the City, and the difference is obvious from the second you step out of Aldgate East and head east. Sure, look back and there’s the Gherkin in the near distance, but this is Whitechapel Road, and it sure ain’t tourist central; it’s a lot more interesting than that.

My first point of call was Altab Ali Park, where the drunks of east London come for a sunbathe, presumably after being ousted from the City so they don’t pester the tourists. Merrily lining up my camera to take a shot of the park, a man shouted over to me to take his picture, and afraid that he was high on the local juice, I smiled at him but politely ignored him; but he called over again and I realised he was sober, and simply wanted to talk to me about my camera. We chatted for a few minutes about memory sticks and shutter speeds, while around us the drunks snored and, in the case of the neighbouring bench, shouted toothless threats at each other in the slurred language of the terminally fried. ‘This is more like it!’ I thought as I said goodbye to my new-found friend and headed off to Fieldgate Street.

This is not a terribly white area, and it’s great; this is the borough of Tower Hamlets, whose name most people only know from the news (and often bad news at that), but that makes it far more interesting to me than the clinical tourism of the City. The population of Tower Hamlets is 51 per cent white and 33 per cent Bangladeshi, and the way the different cultures mix is fascinating. For example, Fieldgate Street is home to the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre, and right next door is the Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue, surrounded on three sides by the Islamic centre. The streets are full of Asian faces and burqas, and having fallen in love with the Indian subcontinent and being a big fan of Islamic architecture and culture, I felt right at home, despite being one of very few white faces around.

On the other side of New Road, opposite Whitechapel station is the Royal London Hospital, which is probably best known to non-medicinal people as the hospital where Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, was given lodgings. The story goes that Merrick was being exhibited in an empty shop in Mile End Road opposite the hospital, and a physician called Frederick Treves saw him and offered him his business card, hoping that he would submit for a medical examination. Some time later Merrick was caught up in a disturbance in Liverpool Street station, and unable to speak intelligibly, he handed the business card to police; Treves picked him up and arranged accommodation for him in the hospital, where he thrived and became quite the celebrity in Victorian society, until his death in 1890.

Whitechapel to Stepney Green

Just along from Whitechapel station is the Blind Beggar, a pub that is home to two very conflicting events. It was outside this pub in 1865 that William Booth preached his first sermon, which would lead to the formation of the Salvation Army (an event celebrated by two statues of Booth in the park a little way along the road). In contrast, it was in this pub on 9 March 1966 that Ronnie Kray murdered George Cornell, a rival gangster.

But Whitechapel Road isn’t a morbid place, despite its history; it’s host to a colourful street market that stretches from west of the Tube station all the way to the Blind Beggar, and the range of shops is a long way from the bland brands of most high streets. And when the shops end and a long, thin garden starts, there are some beautiful almshouses back from the main road at Trinity Green that date from 1695, and which were built for mariners’ widows whose husbands had not returned. One of the almshouses even has a model sailing ship on its roof, while there’s a lovely chapel at the end of the green to complete the symmetry.

The nautical connection continues at 88 Mile End Road, on the other side of the road, where Captain James Cook, the famous sea explorer, used to live. It’s now an empty block between a mini-mart and a Chinese restaurant, but it is at least marked with a plaque. To say this part of the world is steeped in history is an understatement...

Stepney Green to Mile End

After Stepney Green station, which dates from 1902, there’s a small turn left into Mile End Place, which is worth a detour, as it’s home to some gorgeous 19th century workman’s cottages, quite a surprise when compared to the surrounding area. Soon after is 253 Mile End Road, which was built as a home for elderly Sephardi Jews, and behind which is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Britain; it is now used as accommodation for the nearby Queen Mary College, which is part of the University of London.

Just before the main college buildings, look up at the sculptures on the front wall of what used to be the People’s Palace. The original building, which dated from 1887, burned down in 1931, and the replacement you see is now part of the college, but five sculptures along the front of the building by Eric Gill (who also provided three of the wind sculptures on the London Underground headquarters at 55 Broadway) denote drama, music, dance, brotherhood and sport, in celebration of the original Palace.

Queen Mary College itself is further down the road, opposite a large estate, and its main entrance, the Queen’s building, is an impressive sight from the road. At the end of the college is the Regent’s Canal, which flows through Mile End Park, though you can hardly see any of this from the road. Instead, there’s a large yellow bridge over the road with grass growing on the top, linking the two parts of the park on either side of the road. This is the Green Bridge, and I’ll be exploring this part of the world in more depth when I walk the Central line from Liverpool Street to Leytonstone. I just hope the weather is as good then as it was today.

Mile End to Bow Road

The final leg from Mile End to Bow Road is lovely if you take the scenic route (otherwise it’s just another hoof along the A11, which is slightly less interesting). The terraced houses along Aberavon Road, Morgan Street and Lichfield Road are neat and attractive, and Tredegar Square is a pleasant Georgian square, the southern and western sides of the square dating from the 1830s, with the rest of the square being completed by 1847.

Back on the main road, now known as Bow Road, it’s not far to Bow Road station, whose ticket hall is a Grade II listed building. That could explain why the ticket hall is so cramped, but it does have a certain charm to it, and it still manages to evoke the spirit of 1902, when the station was opened. It makes for a fitting end to my first tubewalk through the East End of London; I’m certainly looking forward to continuing further east on the next District line leg.

Bow Road to Becontree

26 June 2008

Ha! And I thought this section would be pretty boring, and possibly a bit grim. How wrong I was, which only goes to show you shouldn’t always believe what you hear. For weeks people have been asking me about my route, and specifically whether I’m going to be walking through any dodgy parts of town, and the two areas at which people tend to suck in their breath are the eastern stretches of the District and Central lines, and the East London line. Thinking about it, though, most of those doing the sucking haven’t actually been to east London, they just get their news from the Evening Standard or the Daily Mail, and assume that everyone east of Aldgate carries a knife. They are, of course, completely wrong, and it’s a real shame.

Today was my first real walk in one of those areas, and I loved it. OK, there are some areas where the paint is peeling a little too much, and there are others where giving up and starting again might be the best course of action, but these are in the minority. For the most part, the eastern London boroughs are a fascinating cultural blur, and on a sunny June day, you can’t go wrong. I can’t wait to explore the rest of it.

Bow Road to Bromley-by-Bow

Turning right out of Bow Road station, it’s a fairly uneventful few minutes above ground to Bow Church DLR station, because all the interesting stuff is below decks. On the approach into Bow Road from the southeast, underground trains have to negotiate the steepest section of track on the whole Underground. At 1 in 28, or 3.57 per cent, this is where trains heading into the City duck into the sub-surface tunnels under the Bow Road.

Soon after the DLR station, on the other side of the road, is an old Co-op building from 1932, though it’s now host to a Costcutter store. A little further on is a statue of William Gladstone, trying to make himself heard over the traffic, and here I thought I’d turn south to follow the railway line, taking me into Bromley High Street. And this is where things start to go a bit wrong, though only for a short while.

Bromley High Street feels a bit unloved. On a hot summer’s day the barren square at the western end of the street is a lonely place, and the boarded up pub and tumbleweed atmosphere of the minimalist shopping mall are enough to bring anyone down. The local high-rises loom overhead and the sun bakes the tarmac, and it’s hard to picture the old village green that used to be here, because there’s not a lot of greenery in evidence these days. Back in February 1913, the suffragette Emily Pankhurst started her Bow campaign by making a speech here and smashing the window of the nearby funeral parlour with a brick, but the local council cleared the area in the 1930s and it was heavily bombed in the Second World War, so things have changed quite a bit. The Rose and Crown pub apparently dates back to the early 18th century, but it’s currently boarded up, and the sense is of a past long gone, rather than of history.

Don’t panic, though, because a quick left turn down Bruce Road brings you to Kingsley Hall, and things immediately improve. Founded back in 1915 by Doris and Muriel Lester, who also ran a nursery school on Bruce Road, Kingsley Hall was set up as a ‘people’s house’ where anyone could drop in for a chat and a bit of prayer. Indeed, such was the success of the hall that in 1931, when Mahatma Gandhi came to London for the Round Table Conference, he said he didn’t want to stay in a hotel, but would come if he could live with the working classes. Muriel had stayed at Gandhi’s ashram in India, so he came to stay at Kingsley Hall.

This theme of helping the community is neatly summed up by the lovely little green space behind Kingsley Hall. Bob’s Park is a small place, and on the way in I smiled at a yawning street sweeper and got a bright smile back; this upbeat attitude is further personified by the Bromley-by-Bow Centre, which backs on to the park. When I walked past, the centre was busy and full of the kind of positive energy that it would be good to see in the high street, so when I think of Bromley-by-Bow in the future, I think I’ll choose to remember Bob’s Park, rather than the main drag.

Bromley-by-Bow station is a short walk south along the hectic A12, raised up high on the crest of the road bridge over the railway tracks. It’s not a particularly lovely location for a station, and I didn’t linger.

Bromley-by-Bow to West Ham

There’s an underpass under the A12 near the Tube station, but although it gets you to the other side of the road, you can only turn south, which was no use for me as the District line swings north-northeast from here, a direction it maintains all the way to the end of the line (except for a small wiggle as it passes through Barking). Luckily there is another underpass a little further north, which takes you to the Tesco on the other side of the road, and then into Three Mills Heritage Area.

I came a bit of a cropper in Three Mills, which is a bit of a shame as I’d designed a route I was particularly looking forward to. The heart of the Three Mills area are House Mill and Clock Mill (the third mill in the name disappeared in the 16th century) which sit on the Lee Navigation in a pretty spot to the east of the A12. House Mill, with its stocky brickwork, is the largest tidal mill in Britain, though its wheels are no longer in use; the mill was built in 1776 by Daniel Bisson, and it is a Grade I listed building. Clock Mill, on the other side of the cobbled yard, has a clock tower and two conical towers in the style of oast houses in Kent (the mills were used for grinding grain before distilling it). The current Grade II listed building dates from 1817, with the clock tower dating from 1753, and between them, the two mills and the nearby Miller’s House make for an atmospheric sight that’s well worth the effort.

Also sharing the Three Mills area is Three Mills Studios, a dedicated film and television studio with 14 stages and more than 200 production offices. This is private property, so once you’ve wandered through the Three Mills area, you have to turn left towards Three Mills Green, a triangle of grass that’s bound on two sides by water, and by the studios to the south. Unfortunately the southeast corner of the green is currently closed off due to engineering works on the Prescott Channel to the east, which cut off the route I’d been planning to take across Three Mills Island, past the site of the Big Brother house from series one and two, and up to the Greenway. I walked up a hill in the park to see if I could find a way through, and I poked my head into the site office to ask whether there was a way through, but finding nobody and not wanting to dither about too much, I gave up on my original plan and headed north along Riverside Road, eventually coming across the Greenway next to the Victorian Abbey Mills pumping station.

I like the Greenway. I first came across it when walking day 14 of the Capital Ring, and although it does rather whiff of sewage, it’s a great walking destination. Designed by Joseph Bazalgette, who also designed the Victoria Embankment, the Northern Outfall Sewer stretches from Hackney to Beckton, where north London’s sewage is treated and dumped into the sea; the Greenway is a cycle and walking track that sits on top of the sewage pipe, and apart from the strange smell every now and then (which is no worse than walking along the Thames on a hot, sticky summer’s day), it’s a lovely way of walking through east London, high up above the surrounding suburbia.

The Abbey Mills pumping stations are an impressive sight, particularly with Canary Wharf peeping through in the background. The Grade II*-listed Station A is right next to the Greenway and dates from 1868, and was built in an impressive Byzantine style that earned it the nicknames ‘The Cathedral of Sewage’ and ‘The Mosque in the Swamp’ (the latter due to the large minaret-like chimneys that used to tower over the engine house); Station F, meanwhile, is the modern replacement that came into use in 1997, and while it’s not as beautiful as its elder sibling, it’s an impressive sight, with its silver slatted walls and curved roof.

Soon after the pumping stations, the Greenway crosses the Jubilee line (where I will be walking on my very last day), and just after crossing the A1011, there’s an exit down towards West Ham station. The station is red brick, blocky and looks more like a bus terminal than a Tube station, a result, perhaps, of the modernisation of the station when the Jubilee line extension came through here in 1999. It does have some shops, though, which proved a handy refreshment stop on such a hot day.

West Ham to Plaistow

For this section, I stayed on the Greenway, enjoying good progress along the flat and straight path. Looking over your shoulder back towards the City is a great game, as the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf stand as a backdrop to suburban views, railway lines, parks and, just before the turn off towards Plaistow, the East London Cemetery, though all you can see of the latter are a few half-glimpsed graves through the trees.

Turning left from the gentle walking of the Greenway into Plaistow (pronounced ‘Plaa-stow’) is a bit of a shock, as this is high-rise territory, and to be honest, it isn’t terribly inviting. Plaistow Road station is a short walk west along the busy Plaistow Road, perched on top of a bridge over the railway line (a common configuration for stations along this part of the District and Hammersmith & City lines). The ticket booking hall is a listed building and dates from 1905, but that doesn’t manage to make Plaistow any more delightful; on a positive note, though, Plaistow is currently going through extensive urban renewal, with the older council estates being replaced by new social housing, and the Olympics in 2012 should help too. I hope it does.

Plaistow to Upton Park

The short walk down from the station to the Black Lion pub is pretty forgettable, but at the Black Lion things start improving. Reputedly a favourite haunt of Dick Turpin, the Black Lion is Plaistow’s oldest pub, and you can still see the entrance to the courtyard that coaches would have driven through, all those years ago.

Another interesting spot is along Richmond Street, just off St Mary’s Road, where Old St Mary’s Graveyard still contains a few old graves in the corner of a leafy urban park. When I visited, it was mainly being used as a place to shout loud swearwords into one’s mobile phone, but photographs don’t capture screeched obscenities, and it’s not a bad-looking park, with a large children’s playground. The childhood theme continues a few roads later, after passing a pub done up in the West Ham colours of claret and sky blue, as the path slips between two school playgrounds. Schools are a great way of getting to know an area’s ethnicity, and the Borough of Newham (which covers West Ham, Plaistow and East Ham on this part of the Tube) is, according to 2005 figures, the most ethnically diverse borough in the whole country, with 39 per cent of the population being White, 33 per cent being Asian (mainly Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi), and 22 per cent being Black (mainly African). The borough also has the second-highest percentage of Muslims in Britain, at 24.3 per cent. Not surprisingly, the school yard reflects this diversity, though there’s no difference in the amount of joyous noise made by kids, wherever you are, and taking a path between two different schools, both of them enjoying a lunchtime break, is quite the experience.

The happy cultural mishmash of Newham is even more evident as you approach Upton Park, and specifically Queen’s Market on Green Street. It’s great fun, and it’s well worth wandering through the market, if only to soak up the bright colours, interesting smells and unashamed tack of the market stalls. The main road is equally vibrant, and after the slightly downbeat tone of Plaistow, I loved Upton Park; people cross the road here in the same way they do in Asia – without even glancing at the traffic, in other words – and when the crowd surges, you do too. It’s the next best thing to being in the Indian subcontinent, and that’s a real compliment, believe me.

Upton Park to East Ham

From the station, I headed east along the backstreets to Plashet Grove, where rows and rows of late Victorian terraced houses stretch past churches and mosques. The borough’s image might be tarnished – in a 2007 study carried out for a Channel 4 programme, Newham came out as the fourth worst place to live in Britain, after Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Merthyr Tydfil – but in the strong midsummer sun, this doesn’t feel like a deprived part of the borough. Some parts on this tubewalk, like Bromley High Street and the Plaistow Road, look like they’re feeling the strain, with boarded up shops and front gardens doing a convincing impression of landfill, but along Plashet Grove it feels as if there’s much more pride in the community; after all, it doesn’t cost money to sweep your front yard, just effort, and effort is free, even in the most deprived areas.

Plashet Park is a pretty and very open space to the north of the road, whose southern entrance is marked by the impressive Passmore Edwards Public Library building, now used as Newham Registry Office. The park itself is large and airy, and even has a zoo, which has been home to all sort of animals, including goats, ponies, wallabies, llamas and Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs.

Just down the road from the park – past a girls school where the large number of headscarves again demonstrates the diversity of the local population – is East Ham High Street, where an iron portal over the road welcomes you to the town centre. The high street is full of small, local shops, and has a completely different feel to the clinical brand names along the high streets of Hammersmith or Ealing. East Ham station was opened by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway in 1858, though the District Line service didn’t start until 1902; this is perhaps not surprising, as when the railway was opened, the area was described as a ‘scattered village’, something that’s hard to imagine just 150 years later.

East Ham to Barking

East Ham is separated from neighbouring Barking by the twin barriers of the North Circular Road and the River Roding, which can be reached from East Ham via the long, straight Burges Road. The road is lined with terraced houses, with the side streets packed with yet more terraces, and even though the area could perhaps do with some more trees to provide shelter from the hot sun, there’s nothing obvious to point to deprivation, apart from the large number of satellite dishes, which always seem to thrive in poorer areas.

The throbbing North Circular is past a large gas tower (which was running on empty as I wandered past, perhaps not surprisingly given the current fuel crisis). On the other side are large industrial units selling storage space and building supplies, and the road weaves past a huge Wickes and a large Tesco before crossing the River Roding and arriving at Barking. This is no longer Newham (it’s the borough of Barking and Dagenham instead), but in terms of deprivation, the centre of Barking is still ranked among the bottom 10 per cent in the country, and although it’s not a horrible place by any means, it could benefit from a bit of urban renewal. When I visited, the centre of town was given over to a large market, which seemed mainly to specialise in cheap clothes and unidentifiable things made from brightly coloured plastic, but it was buzzing and busy, and that made Barking a pleasant place to wander through.

Barking station is nothing to shout about, and it signals the eastern terminus of the Hammersmith & City line; from here to Upminster, the District line flies the London Underground flag on its own.

Barking to Upney

There isn’t much between Barking and Upney except for suburbs, and they stretch on and on into the distance, like an urban equivalent of Route 66 crossing the American desert. Side streets turn off Salisbury Avenue at right-angles and disappear in a similarly straight fashion into the horizon, and along the sides of every stretch of roadside are endless terraced houses, all of the same basic design. Apart from some notable side streets, there are hardly any trees along the pavement, and when the sun is beating down on the back of your neck, the place feels like an oven; in west London, there are trees everywhere, and you take them for granted, but when they’re missing, you really notice it. With trees, this would be a lovely place to explore; as it is, it’s pleasant enough, but the roads do stretch a long, long way, and it’s quite a trek to Upney.

Upney station is, like a lot of the stations along this stretch of line, perched on top of a bridge over the railway line, and as such it’s not a terribly picturesque location. The station building is a squat and unimaginative brick affair, built in 1932 with none of the flair that, say, Charles Holden was applying to the likes of Chiswick Park in the same year, but you can’t win them all, I suppose.

Upney to Becontree

The designers of east Barking could learn a thing or two from the people who built The Drive, the road that leads from Upney Lane to Mayesbrook Park. Smothered in trees and bushes for the whole length of the road, and with neatly formed shrubbery beds at each end of the road, it’s so much more enjoyable to walk down than the dry, desert plains of Salisbury Avenue, and it makes a suitable entrance to Mayesbrook Park. This wide, open space has two large lakes, a friendly local population of Canada geese, and locals who apparently bring their dogs here to fight (followed, interestingly, by the locals themselves fighting, proving that dog owners look and act just like their dogs).

The park denotes the switch from zone 4 to zone 5, a boundary that I always feel marks the end of London and the start of the home counties (though geographically this isn’t the case, as Greater London generally stretches to zone 6). The wide open expanse of Mayesbrook Park certainly feels more rural than urban, though the suburbs after the park are fairly indistinguishable from the suburbs of Barking, so I guess the difference is all in my mind. Certainly, at the eastern edge of the park lies the Roundhouse, a pub which scores 2.2 out of 10 on the Beer in the Evening website, with typical comments from readers being ‘Scarier than hell on a hot day’ and ‘Deep Purple played here in 1962 [and] it’s been going downhill ever since.’ This is a shame, because tucked around the back of the Roundhouse is Bragg Close, a small street named after Billy Bragg, the Bard of Barking. Somehow I think he deserves better than being stuck next to a pub that, according to one critic, ‘has always got at least one broken window – enough said, I think!’ Perhaps this is still London, after all.

It’s another long suburban road to Becontree station, but at least the houses have a bit more breathing space here, with semi-detached housing taking over from the terraces every now and then. The station is again perched on top of a bridge and has the same blocky look as Upney; it’ll be interesting to see if this theme continues to the eastern end of the District line, just one more day’s walk away.

Becontree to Upminster

30 June 2008

Well, I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy this walk as much as I did. I mean, look at the facts. It’s the Monday after a heavy weekend, and I should have a personal black cloud over my head; it’s a long commute to the start of this walk from west London; it’s hot and humid, and I hate hot and humid; and, most of all, the heart of this walk goes through Dagenham, and all anyone ever talks about when I mention Dagenham is the closure of the Ford factory in 2002, and they don’t tend to smile as they mention it.

But it turns out that this is a great part of the world to explore on foot, especially when the sun is out, because this is zone 5 and 6, and it feels like it. The Metropolitan line equivalent is the stretch from Harrow to Moor Park or the section through Ruislip, and for walking, the two ends of the capital compare favourably... and that, I guess, is the real surprise. Perhaps west London simply has better public relations people, because I didn’t see this coming at all.

Becontree to Dagenham Heathway

It only takes a couple of minutes to get from Becontree station to the greenery of Parsloes Park, and a pleasant park it is too. The western half of the park is planted and landscaped, with a large central pond that’s all but hidden by the plush trees and bushes growing on the shore. The eastern half of the park is quite a contrast, being all football pitches and wide, open spaces.

The park’s highlight isn’t the greenery, though, it’s the pavilion in the middle of the footy pitches. The building is a pretty nondescript brick affair, sitting squat and fairly uninspiringly in the middle of all this flat land, but walk closer and its true beauty is slowly revealed, for this pavilion is smothered in the most amazing graffiti. Graffiti is one of the perks of urban walking, even though most of it is artless rubbish, because when it’s done well, it’s astounding. The Greenway has some good graffiti, as does the Parkway Walk near Finsbury, and I can now add the pavilion in Parsloes Park to the list.

After the end of the park, it’s a short stretch of suburbia all the way to Dagenham Heathway station, which is tucked away between shops in the bustling main drag of Dagenham. As I walked along the street, admiring the shops and wondering whether to get a can of something cold to hold against my forehead, it struck me that, for the first time since the centre of town, most of the people were white. The shops were back to normal after the excitement of Tower Hamlets and Newham, and although the last crowded place I visited, Barking, wasn’t quite as ethnic as, say, Upton Park, there was still a heady cultural mix in the market. Dagenham on a Monday morning is most definitely white, and it’s the same all the way to the end of the line.

Dagenham Heathway to Dagenham East

From Dagenham Heathway to Dagenham East, the most direct route is almost exclusively along suburban backstreets, and it’s not at all unpleasant. The houses are mainly terraced pebbledash affairs, but even though they might not be the most attractive suburbs in the world, they’re clean and lived in, and a long way from the image of closed factories that might spring to mind when you think of Dagenham.

Dagenham East station is another Identi-Kit District line station, and really isn’t worth dwelling on. Like most of the stations along this section of the District line, the station building is a low brick block on the crest of a bridge over the line, with stairs leading west down to the line. If there’s one big difference between west and east, this is it; even the most box-like of Holden’s west London designs are more inspiring than the eastern stations...

Dagenham East to Elm Park

I love the way that urban walking forces complete opposites to rub shoulders; it’s like a suburban version of the Tube itself, where different classes, ages and cultures have to share the most intimate spaces without complaint. When walking through London, sometimes you cross a road and find yourself switching from the poshest of the posh to the poorest of the poor, and sometimes you can find the most exquisite beauty buried deep in an unrelenting urban sprawl, but this section contains one of the clearest contradictions I’ve seen for a while.

Just north of the station, a small path leads behind some shops to Foxlands Lane, which winds its way past some extremely well-fortified fencing on the right and playing fields on the left. And then, after a few minutes, the path bursts out into the Chase Nature Reserve, a lovely patch of real countryside, and you turn around to find that behind all that security camera fencing lies a huge chemical works, belting out products for the pharmaceutical industry. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, the chemical plant’s chimneys making an intriguing backdrop to the nature reserve’s wild fields.

Actually, as large industrial complexes go, the Sanofi-Aventis factory is pretty unintrusive; indeed, it goes to great pains to make sure you don’t even see it, with its thick fencing and serious security doors along Foxlands Lane. And even if it was a smoke-belching satanic mill – which it doesn’t appear to be – the nature reserve is big enough and wild enough to get away from it all, with the Beam River running through the eastern reaches, horses munching away on grass to the north, and plenty of rugged bushes and trees to hide behind. It’s a real treat, and heralds our arrival into zone 6 with an appropriate air of rural beauty.

Elm Park station is the other side of some enjoyable suburbia. The standard of housing slowly improves along this section, morphing from terraces to semi-detached, and although the architecture is still rather monotonous – there’s little variety between homes, and most are simple boxes with roofs, not unlike a primary school version of the suburbs – there’s clearly a lot of house-proud residents round here, and their flare for keeping neat and attractive front yards and gardens is evident. I appreciated it, anyway.

Elm Park to Hornchurch

Elm Park turned out to be a little gem. Not only is the station along a lovely little high street, with lots of shops, a large pub (called The Elm Park) on the main roundabout, and a distinct lack of traffic, but just north of the main drag is another green space, Harrow Lodge Park. The River Ravensbourne flows through the park (though it’s really just a stream at this point), and it feeds into a long lake with a bridge over the middle section from where you can see more Canada geese and swans than you can count.

This is clearly a place for picnics on the grass, because I only spotted one bench in the entire park, but in weather like this, lunching on the grass is the best option anyway (though there is a park café if you’re feeling particularly luxurious). If you live in south or west London, then you’ll notice that the skies are relatively peaceful round here, with the planes flying much higher than those approaching Heathrow or Gatwick. It makes it that much easier to doze off...

East of the park, while heading into Hornchurch, the housing takes a further turn for the better. Semi-detached is the norm, though there are some attractive sets of terraces, though the larger number of bungalows gives Hornchurch a slight air of retirement village. That’s all blown out of the water by the huge pub on Station Lane, the Railway Hotel, which must be able to serve the entire district in one go without breaking a sweat; it’s certainly a welcome stopping point before the last stretch to Upminster, as Hornchurch station – another building from the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway’s standard mould – is just along the main road, past an attractive line of shops.

Hornchurch to Upminster Bridge

The most direct route from Hornchurch to Upminster Bridge would take you along yet more suburban backstreets, but there’s a much more rewarding option to be enjoyed if you head south to join the London Loop for a stretch. The River Ingrebourne is a 27-mile tributary of the Thames that flows from Brentwood in Essex down to Rainham on the Thames, and the London Loop follows it for some of day 14 and most of day 15. I decided to follow the Ingrebourne north, joining the Loop south of Hornchurch station, at the eastern end of Hacton Drive, and it turned out to be a good move.

When I walked the Loop back in 2003, I didn’t rate this section very highly, but then I did walk it on a grey day in December, and with it being the last day of the Loop, I had high expectations. On a sunny day in June, though, the Ingrebourne is a very pleasant companion, and the path that winds alongside the stream is so easy to follow that you can slip into a bit of a daze as you wind between the houses of Hornchurch and into Upminster.

Upminster Bridge station is on the main road, which can be reached by walking around Hornchurch Stadium, home to the non-league football side AFC Hornchurch. There are a few shops to keep the station company, and the Bridge pub (which could do with a paint job), but at least the station has a notable architectural feature, that of the polygonal ticket hall, which echoes the station at South Ealing, though without the attractive glass windows. The floor tiles inside the station also sport a reverse swastika, which was less controversial when the station was opened in 1934 than it would be now, and the station is distinctive for being the least-used station on the whole of the District line. After such a run of forgettable stations, this is really quite an achievement...

Upminster Bridge to Upminster

The lack of interest in Upminster Bridge might be partly because Upminster station is not far away. Backtracking past the stadium along St Mary’s Lane, it’s worth visiting the Grade II* listed Upminster Windmill to the north of the road; this octagonal smock mill is currently being refurbished, with the hope that it will become the only working windmill in Greater London. It currently only has one sail in place, as the other was damaged in February 2007, so it does look a little odd, but it’s still worth the short detour.

A little further on, to the south, is the pleasant town-centre space of Upminster Park, which combines a park, tennis courts and a welcome ice-cream hut into one enjoyable package. The centre of Upminster is just north of the park, with shops and St Laurence’s Church clustered around a central traffic junction, and a little further on is Upminster station itself, the eastern terminus of the District line. The front of the station is completely modern, but tucked round the side along Station Approach is the original Victorian ticket hall, dating from when the station was opened in 1885 as part of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway.

So I’ve now crossed London from west to east, and have just one more day to go before the District line is in the bag. I didn’t expect it to be a highlight, but the eastern section of the District has been a delight, and it’s a bit of a shame that east London is so poorly served by Tube lines, as only the Central line gets this far out in this part of the world. Perhaps I’ll have to walk the DLR at some stage; this is an interesting part of the world, after all.

Wimbledon to Edgware Road

1 July 2008

There were two themes to this walk today: the first was money, and lots of it; and the second was sun, and lots of it. Both of them are quite exhausting when stretched out along an entire 12.5-mile walk, but wow, the photographs are really something, especially when you consider that in this fierce sunlight, I’ve only been able to take north-facing pictures for most of the day.

I was joined for the Wimbledon to Fulham Road section of today’s walk by Jez, a mate of mine from university days whom I haven’t seen for years, and as always, company made the miles fly by. I almost felt guilty stopping us in our tracks to take yet another photograph, but the architecture of southwest London is simply stunning, and it would be a crime not to capture it under such perfect blue skies. I’ve walked around this part of London quite a bit, but I’ve never connected all the different parts into one walk, and I can safely say that walking from Wimbledon to Edgware Road is an education in desirable residences that comes as a bit of a shock after walking the eastern end of the District line. Wimbledon and Upminster might be connected, but you’d never guess it.

Wimbledon to Wimbledon Park

While I was waiting for Jez to negotiate the Tube to Wimbledon, I thought I’d take a few photographs of Wimbledon station, so we could set off as soon as he arrived. This is the first week of the Wimbledon tennis championships and the forecourt of the station is all done up in AstroTurf, with a large-screen Wii tennis game to occupy the crowds of people spilling out of the station, and a queueing system that looks rather like the line for a sheep-shearing station, albeit a really rather posh one. Because of this, security is predictably tight at Wimbledon station (even though the nearest Tube station to the tournament is actually Southfields, a couple of stops up the line), so I wasn’t particularly surprised to be accosted by a couple of police officers – one of each sex, naturally, this being Wimbledon – who asked me why I was taking photographs of the station.

I gave them my usual spiel about walking the Tube for charity, and they smiled and said that was really quite cool, but then the policeman pulled out a pad and started scribbling. ‘We’ve got to fill in a stop and search form,’ he said, slightly sheepishly, and asked me for my name, address, date of birth and ethnicity while his colleague called in on her walkie-talkie, asking whether ‘Mike Oscar X-ray Oscar November’ was the name of a known criminal. Apparently it isn’t, but I am now the proud owner of a stop and search form that says (and don’t forget to put on a police accent when reading this):

The above male was stopped at the above location under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act as I saw him taking photographs of Wimbledon BR station. He informed us he was walking the London Tube network for charity; no further action taken.

Jez was quite impressed when he arrived, and we set off west from the station, wondering if we could collect any other forms along the way.

It doesn’t take long to get from the busy main road in Wimbledon to the much more peaceful backstreets of Wimbledon Village. We only brushed the edge of the Village, which runs west to Wimbledon Common, but it’s clearly a place where the money runs deep. Large houses sit behind tall trees, kept away from their neighbours at a good arm’s length while Chelsea tractors sit on curved gravel drives, sharing a private joke with the other family cars. To cap it all, this part of the Village is crowned by a lovely English church spire, that of St Mary’s of Wimbledon, which strikes into the pure blue sky like a conqueror’s flag stuck into the top of the hill. It peeps out from behind the security fences, dominating the view for miles around, and along Arthur Road from the church, you come over the crest of a hill and the church’s location makes sense, for on the distant horizon, away to the northeast, you can see the London skyline, with the London Eye, Battersea Power Station, Tower 42 and the Gherkin clearly visible (well, they are on a stunning day like this). Some of the palaces up here have this view from their bedroom windows; I guess that’s why they cost so much.

Wimbledon Park station is a quiet little place that looks for all the world like a petite suburban cottage next to a bridge over the line. It opened on 3 June 1889 as part of the extension of the Metropolitan District Railway from Putney Bridge to Wimbledon, though the lines were actually built by the London and South Western Railway to connect this area to Clapham Junction. It feels decidedly sleepy round here, in contrast to the hectic Wimbledon station, just one stop down the line.

Wimbledon Park to Southfields

The Tube station gets its name from the park next door, a park that the Capital Ring crosses on its most glorious section, day 6. Landscaped by Capability Brown in the mid-18th century, Wimbledon Park has tennis courts and a children’s play area near the eastern entrance, but the most impressive feature is the large park lake in the centre, where people come to sail and canoe among the geese and swans. It’s a surprisingly large body of water, and just across the lake you can glimpse the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, which is currently hosting the Wimbledon tennis championships.

North of the lake and round the other side of the athletics stadium is the first evidence of the championships, as this is where people are allowed to camp overnight in the ticket queue; there’s even a Code of Conduct for queueing pinned up on the fence, pointing out that ‘queue jumping is not acceptable and will not be tolerated’ and ‘if you have to leave the queue, you should negotiate your position with those around you and/or a steward.’ It makes you proud to be British, to see rules put down in writing that are genetically hard-wired into those of us who are born in these islands.

The Tube station that is closest to the All England Club is Southfields station on Wimbledon Park Road. We must have been the only people trying to head towards the station, but the crowds were terribly polite and good-natured, and even though we were swimming upstream, it was surprisingly easy, given the hordes pouring south to see the tennis. Andy Murray won a massive victory yesterday and the atmosphere is upbeat; it’s probably good to enjoy it while it lasts, as, like the hot weather, it’s probably too good to be true.

Determined to use the crowds to increase my chances of scoring another stop and search form, I stood resolutely in the middle of the flow, sticking out like a rock in a river as I snapped away at the Tube station, which looks very similar to Wimbledon Park, with the L&SWR lettering above the entrance and the date of 1889. But despite my best efforts, the copious policemen, who must have spotted me, didn’t bat an eyelid; I guess there must be loads of people taking photos of everything round here, and if they issued a form to everyone, they’d still be processing last week’s backlog; presumably here, rather than at Wimbledon station, judicious tolerance is deemed to be the best policy.

Southfields to East Putney

Although the suburbia between Southfields and East Putney is less mansion-esque than Wimbledon Village and a lot more semi-detached, it is still very pleasant. Striking new developments along Sutherland Grove rub shoulders with more traditional 20th-century suburbia, while the Tube line runs along a cutting, only ducking below ground for a short stretch under the A3. Mock Tudor makes an appearance at times, though on the other side of the A3, along Keswick Road, the houses break away from their neighbours to become detached again, and defiantly so. We’ve now crossed into Putney, and it shows; a quick scan of the Web shows that a two-bedroom penthouse flat on Keswick road can be snapped up for a measly £1.1 million, with a monthly service charge of £325 on top of that. Bring on the property crash, I say...

But Putney is a lovely place, and I am walking along the Tube line, where the most expensive properties live – if you’re willing to live a walk or bus ride away from the Tube, the prices tumble pretty quickly, as away from Wimbledon, the Tube is your transport lifeline, and even a short distance brings prices down. East Putney station is tucked away on the Upper Richmond Road as Putney starts to morph into rather more affordable Wandsworth to the east; the station sits back from the road behind a covered florist’s stall, its three red and yellow stone arches all but invisible from the road.

East Putney to Putney Bridge

As the name East Putney implies, the Tube line actually runs to the east of Putney, leaving the main railway line to Richmond to take sole honours for having a station on Putney High Street. The Tube line crosses the east-west main line just north of Upper Richmond Road, and the bridge is visible from Oxford Road, where you can also get a good view of Putney railway station to the west. Travelling on a raised viaduct, the Tube line weaves through the lovely houses of northeast Putney, and as you walk north along Oxford Road, the side streets to the east are spanned by iron bridges, all the way to Deodar Road, whose houses back on to the river.

Most people cross from Putney to Fulham via Putney Bridge at the northern end of the high street, but there’s a less-known pedestrian walkway along the eastern side of Fulham Railway Bridge, the eight-span girder bridge that carries the Tube across the Thames. Dating from the opening of the railway in 1889, the walkway gives expansive views of the Thames to the east (though the railway line blocks views of Putney Bridge to the west). We crossed at high tide, and the river looks absolutely massive from this vantage point; if you squint, you can just make out the next bridge along, Wandsworth Bridge, but it’s right at the edge of your vision.

Over the river, on the far bank, are some deeply impressive mansion blocks that we’ll walk past in the next section, and once across, it’s a short walk under the arches to Putney Bridge station. The station is actually built into the arches of Fulham Railway Bridge, but it is named after better-known Putney Bridge to the west. Interestingly, the station isn’t even in Putney, for we’re now in Fulham, and north of the river; crossing the river on a tubewalk is always cause for celebration, as only 32 Tube stations out of a total of 277 live south of the river, and that’s including four stations on the East London that will soon be incorporated into the London Overground, leaving just 28 south of the river. Six of these are on the District line, with the rest on the Northern, Victoria and Jubilee lines, so enjoy the south London tubewalks while you can, as there aren’t many of them...

Putney Bridge to Parsons Green

If you thought the architecture of Wimbledon and Putney was impressive, then wait until you see the mansion blocks of Fulham; they are deeply imposing, and I would have more photographs of them if the sun hadn’t been in completely the wrong place for decent photography. Instead we slunk along Ranelagh Gardens in the shadows of the 1930s mansion blocks of Rivermead Court (where a four-bedroom flat can be snapped up for a measly £1.8 million), while on the opposite side of the road even the modern blocks manage to look great, with window boxes draping their greenery in pleasant contrast to the light brown brickwork.

At the end of the street is the Hurlingham Club, an exclusive sports club that is frequented by the kind of people who snap up four-bedroom flats in Rivermead Court for breakfast; the waiting time for membership is currently over 15 years, and there’s no access for the likes of you and I, at least not until we find fame through the pages of Hello! magazine. Instead, turning north on Napier Avenue and east along Hurlingham Road takes you past the football pitches of Hurlingham Park (which is open to the public) and past yet more astonishingly pretty mansion blocks and terraces. This is Parsons Green, and yet again, money is everywhere.

Perhaps the best illustration is the White Horse pub at the northern end of the green (where, incidentally, women happily sprawl in skimpy bikinis in weather like this, topping up their already impressive tans, but without having to pay by the hour). Known in its 1980s hey-day as the Sloaney Pony, it is a lovely pub with a small beer garden out the front, where Jez and I stopped for a cold beer and a natter, while the frankly beautiful women of Putney sailed past in their tiny summer dresses, on the way to spend an afternoon shopping on the King’s Road, or perhaps to share a coffee with all the other yummy mummies while their nannies look after young Tarquin and Gwynnie back at home. With the scorching sun in the blue sky above and queues of eye-goggling beauties wandering along the road, it felt like being on holiday somewhere exotic; I had a continental lager to celebrate, as even I can’t manage real ale in this temperature.

However, the summer dresses aren’t the give-away that Parsons Green is a bit pretentious; no, it’s the names for the White Horse’s toilets, which aren’t marked ‘Men’ and ‘Women’, but ‘Pistols’ and ‘Dolls’. This is, apparently, a reference to Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 2, in which Pistol is a friend of Falstaff, and Doll Tearsheet is a whore in the Boar’s Head Tavern. Whatever the reason, I had to think twice before picking my door, and frankly, I could do without that kind of crap in a pub. It’s a good job the rest of it is so enjoyable...

Parsons Green station is just along the road from the pub, hiding just to the south of the railway bridge over Parsons Green Lane. It doesn’t have any pretensions, but then, the Tube is a great leveller.

Parsons Green to Fulham Broadway

Fulham Broadway is not far from Parsons Green, and the back route along the south of the Tube line is by far the most pleasant way of connecting the two (the alternative, the Fulham Road, is busy and rather less pleasant). Heading east from the station, Novello Street is a treat, with a whole terrace of pastel-shaded cottages leading to the nearby Walham Green. There’s a primary school opposite, which nicely ticks the box marked ‘cachement area’, and on a sunny day this looks like a little slice of paradise, but because the Tube line runs along the back of the gardens, houses here typically go for more than £150,000 less than an equivalent elsewhere in Parsons Green (though a three-bedroom house on Novello Street will still set you back £850,000, so the entry requirements are not a great deal lower).

Walham Green at the end of the street is another pretty urban park where stripping off to one’s sunbathing attire is clearly compulsory in this weather, and the houses beyond the green are just as eye-catching, with some delightful terraces overlooking the park. It isn’t far to Fulham Broadway, though, where traffic and busy shops take over, and it perhaps is no surprise that the entrance to Fulham Broadway station is buried deep in the Fulham Broadway Shopping Centre, with the old street-level station, which was closed in 2003, now housing a TGI Friday’s restaurant. Here I sadly had to leave Jez, who had to head back into town for a prior engagement, and I struck out for Edgware Road on my own.

Fulham Broadway to West Brompton

The most dominating feature along Fulham Road is Stamford Bridge Stadium, home to Chelsea Football Club. Stamford Bridge has been the home to Chelsea since the club’s formation, and indeed the club was founded because the owners of the stadium offered it to Fulham Football Club but were turned down, so they decided to form their own club to make use of the stadium. Thus Chelsea Football Club was founded on 14 March 1905 in the Rising Sun pub (now The Butcher’s Hook) opposite the Fulham Road entrance to the stadium, and they’ve since gone on to be one of the top clubs in the world.

The stadium is a massive and very modern-looking building, occupying a large corner of ground between the District line to the north and the London Overground line to Clapham Junction to the east, though in this age of health and safety regulations, the fact that fans can only enter the stand via the Fulham Road entrance is problematic, restricting ground capacity to about 50,000 (compared with a capacity of 100,000 when the ground was first opened). The club plans to expand capacity, so you can expect the stadium to become even more imposing in the coming years.

It’s apt that on the other side of the London Underground line from this huge cathedral of football is a graveyard, and Brompton Cemetery is a fascinating place to explore. It’s one of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ cemeteries built after an 1832 act of Parliament encouraged the establishment of private cemeteries outside London, to cope with the population of the city more than doubling and the consequential lack of burial grounds (the other six cemeteries are Kensal Green, West Norwood, Highgate, Abney Park, Nunhead and Tower Hamlets). Dating from 1840 onwards, the graves in Brompton Cemetery are impressive, despite (or perhaps because of) their large numbers; there are over 35,000 of them, packed in among the cemetery buildings. The locals use the cemetery as a local park, even bringing in deck chairs to soak up the rays among the graves, and with its formal layout and impressive Basilica-styled chapel at the end of the central tree-lined avenue, you can see why. Even more entertainingly, Beatrix Potter used to live nearby (incidentally, she lived just round the corner from where Diana Spencer lived before she married Prince Charles), and it is said she took the inspiration for a number of her character’s names from graves in Brompton Cemetery; though most of them have now disappeared into the undergrowth, the records show there are graves here for the likes of Jeremiah Fisher, Mr McGregor, Mr Nutkins, Mr Brock and Peter Rabbett.

West Brompton station is to the west of the main cemetery gate, along Old Brompton Road. The station was opened in 1869 by the Metropolitan District Railway as the terminus and only station on the extension from Gloucester Road to West Brompton (Earl’s Court station would be added as an intermediate station a couple of years later, in 1871). In this sense, West Brompton was the vanguard of the extension work that would link southwest London into the Tube network, thus creating the District line we know today.

West Brompton to Earl’s Court

It isn’t far from West Brompton to Earl’s Court, but if you head east along Old Brompton Road, you pass two seminal London landmarks: the Troubadour Club and the Coleherne pub.

The Troubadour was founded in 1954 as part of the renaissance of the London coffee house; coffee houses had originally been popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, but they went into decline in the first half of the 19th century, and only made a comeback in the heady social upheaval that started in the 1950s and continued on throughout the 1960s. The Troubadour was arguably one of the centres of London intellectual life: it was here that Private Eye was first produced and distributed; early Ban the Bomb meetings were held here, which would lead to the formation of CND; the Black Panthers met here in 1968 after the Paris riots; and it was here that Bob Dylan first played in London. It also hosted gigs by Jimi Hendrix and Paul Simon, and Led Zeppelin would come and jam here after their gigs in Earl’s Court. It’s still going strong, with an expanded downstairs venue and an upstairs restaurant.

Next door to the Troubadour is an equally seminal venue, though perhaps for a different meaning of ‘seminal’. The Coleherne can lay claim to be London’s most famous gay pub, and it was certainly one of the first, as it’s been plying its trade for over 30 years. It was mentioned in Armistead Maupin’s Babycakes – the first work of fiction to acknowledge the arrival of AIDS – as well as the Stranglers’ song ‘Hanging Around’ (‘I’m moving in the Coleherne/With the leather all around me/And the sweat is getting steamy’). It was also infamous for being the stalking grounds for three different serial killers: Dennis Nilsen (whose houses I’ll be brushing past on the Northern and Jubilee lines), Michael Lupo and Colin Ireland. My girlfriend used to meet her female friends here in the early 1980s, as it was one of the few pubs you could go into as a woman without the local drunks leering over you as you sipped your Babycham. Thankfully, things have moved on, and the Coleherne is just one of many gay pubs, but you could say that this is where it all started...

Earl’s Court station is up Earls Court Road, past some busy shops, some equally busy traffic and a whole sequence of impressive mansion blocks built in distinctive red brick. The original station dates from 30 October 1871, when it only occupied this, the eastern half of the present building; the western half opened on 1 February 1872, to serve what is now the northbound line to Kensington (Olympia), but which back then was part of the Outer Circle. The entrance on Earls Court Road dates from 1915 and was designed by Harry Ford, who also designed the similarly styled station at Barons Court.

Earl’s Court to High Street Kensington

On the opposite side of the road to the station is Hogarth Road, and just down here, on the left, is Hogarth Place, a cute little pedestrianised street that’s home to two wine bars, a pub, an estate agent and a handful of restaurants and shops. It leads into Kenway Road, a quiet place with a whole row of local shops and some attractive terraced houses.

The architecture steps up a gear on the other side of Cromwell Road, with the pure white Victorian terraces of Abingdon Villas and Scarsdale Villas sitting comfortably next to more modern developments that happily manage to be sympathetic to their surroundings. One property in Scarsdale Villas is regularly used for ‘stars at home’ features in Hello! magazine, and it was once let out to U2 for two months when they toured Europe, so their families could have a proper home while the boys hit the stage. It’s that kind of area, though interestingly, because the area is so full of terraces that have now been split up into flats, Kensington is part of the most densely populated local government district in the UK (or the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, as it’s known). Walking along the backstreets, you can see why, though it’s a long way from the ‘pack ’em in’ image the statistic might imply; this is crowded urban living, Kensington-style.

High Street Kensington station is just to the right along Kensington High Street, and like Fulham Broadway, the station is buried deep inside a shopping centre, some way from the road entrance. This western stretch of the District line was originally part of the Metropolitan line, rather than the District line, the two different lines being run by two very separate companies who often refused to do business together. The extension to the original Metropolitan line from Paddington through High Street Kensington to Gloucester Road was opened in 1868, thus completing the western half of what we now know as the Circle line (though the circle wouldn’t be squared until 1884, when Aldgate and Tower Hill were finally connected after lots of squabbles and a very expensive bit of engineering beneath the City).

High Street Kensington to Notting Hill Gate

Kensington High Street is a busy place, and if you’re not interested in the shops, it isn’t a place to hang around, though the escape out of the chaos is enlivened by the impressive Barkers building, the former Derry and Toms building (on top of which you can find the largest roof garden in Europe, the Kensington Roof Gardens), and the fine Victorian Gothic St Mary Abbots Church, which dates from 1872.

Respite from the madness is only a short walk away, in the form of Kensington Gardens (which is effectively the western section of Hyde Park). Another popular spot for sun worshippers, the park is dominated by Kensington Palace, a residence of the Royal Family since the 17th century that is probably most famous for being Princess Diana’s official residence until her death in 1997. It was outside the palace’s gates that mourners created an ad hoc memorial of flowers that soon became known as the Field of Flowers.

Flanking the palace to the west is Kensington Palace Gardens, the most exclusive residential street in London (it isn’t known as Billionaires Row for nothing). Irritatingly, photography is forbidden along the entire street, mainly because the road is home to a number of terrorist targets such as the Israeli and Russian embassies, so I can’t show you just how impressive the Queen Anne-style mansions along the southern section are. The more Italianate buildings along the northern stretch are less impressive but still feel steeped in money and power, and although it’s a desirable residence, I couldn’t help feeling a bit unwelcome. I’m sure this is the point; if I was rich enough to live here, I wouldn’t want spotty Herberts like me poking their noses into my life, either.

At the top of Kensington Palace Gardens lies Notting Hill Gate, and the wide expanse of the A40. Notting Hill Gate station is completely subterranean, the only evidence of its existence being the four subways down to the station entrance under the main road.

Notting Hill Gate to Bayswater

The white Victorian terraces of Notting Hill positively glow in the strong sunlight, and a walk along Pembridge Gardens and into Pembridge Square is an exercise in spotting snippets of ornate stucco through the thick trees. Equally well hidden is the Greek Orthodox St Sophia’s Cathedral on Moscow Road; during World War II the Greek government ruled in exile from London, and St Sophia’s became the cathedral of the entire Greek nation until Greece was liberated. It’s of a Byzantine design, and is hidden from the road by trees, so you can only see the distinctive dome from certain angles.

Bayswater station is a little further along the road, on Queensway. As I approached the station, I spotted a couple of vested policemen loitering in the lobby, and aware that I’d probably be stopped and searched if I started taking pictures of the station, I thought I might help them along a bit. So I wandered up to the nearest Bobby and told him I was walking the Tube for charity and taking photos as I went, and every time I tried it in the vicinity of the Police they stopped me... so could I have permission to take a picture of the station without being questioned?

‘That should be OK,’ he said, ‘but let me just check with my colleague, as we’re in the middle of an operation.’

‘OK,’ I said as he went off to explain things to his companion, who glanced over to me with a look I’m getting used to, that of the establishment looking someone up and down, and concluding that they’re harmlessly insane.

‘That’s fine,’ said the officer on his return, ‘but just one, OK?’

‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘I’ll be over the other side of the road,’ and with that I popped over the pedestrian crossing and took two photographs of the station, purely because an authority figure had asked me not to. Take that, Section 44 of the Terrorism Act!

Bayswater to Paddington

My sense of direction took a bit of a bashing from the stupid stick after I left Bayswater, perhaps due to a rush of adrenaline at breaking the law. I really wanted to swing through Leinster Gardens, but the roads are all north-south round here, and I spent ages zig-zagging through the stuccoed terraces of Inverness Terrace and the hotels of Queensborough Terrace, trying in vain to find the connecting side streets that would take me east. In the end, the direct route would perhaps have been better, as the only reason I wanted to take in Leinster Gardens was to see numbers 23 and 24, and in the event, there isn’t much to see at all.

23 and 24 Leinster Gardens don’t actually exist as houses, as they are simply façades. Behind them lies the Tube line from Bayswater to Paddington, and this open-air section was needed for the original steam-powered locomotives to vent their condensers, to prevent the tunnels from filling up with smoke. The Metropolitan Railway built fake frontages for numbers 23 and 24 so this process would be hidden from residents of this upmarket area, and the façades are still there today. Unfortunately there are two huge and very bushy trees bang in front of them, so after the wet spring and sunny start to summer that we’ve had, numbers 23 and 24 are practically invisible, and it’s only by examining the windows closely that you can see they’re blocked out and there’s nobody home.

On the way to Paddington railway station on Eastbourne Terrace, you pass the 19th-century boulevards of Devonshire, Gloucester and Westbourne Terraces. The houses form long rows of stuccoed terraces, most of them four or five storeys high, and all of them built in a recognisably Georgian style (Victorian terraces had yet to replace traditional Georgian design in the early Victorian period). Bayswater was one of the most exclusive areas of its day, and it’s not hard to see why; it’s truly impressive.

Paddington station lies at the southern end of the railway terminus, on the southern side of Praed Street (pronounced ‘Prayed Street’). This station was opened in 1868 as part of the Metropolitan Railway’s extension from Edgware Road to Gloucester Road, and to differentiate it from the original Paddington underground station to the north (which is now on the Hammersmith & City line), it was originally called Paddington (Praed Street), though the latter part of the name was dropped in 1948. The original station frontage on Praed Street still has ‘Metropolitan Railway’ along the top of the building, just to remind us who started it all.

Paddington to Edgware Road

It isn’t far from Paddington to Edgware Road, and to avoid repeating the Bakerloo line walk from Paddington to the similarly named but separate Edgware Road Bakerloo line station, I headed along South Wharf Road, between St Mary’s Hospital and Paddington Basin. There are some interesting views of the hospital buildings, in particular the tall chimney of the incinerator and the block on the right that proclaims that Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin here in 1928 (though the laboratory where he made his discovery is actually on the other side of the hospital, along Praed Street). St Mary’s Hospital is also where heroin was first synthesised in 1874; that’s not a bad record for one hospital, really.

Edgware Road station is back along Praed Street, after a busy crossing with Edgware Road; here the District line ends and the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines continue east to the City. And that brings me to the end of the District line, a walk that encompasses the richest and the most deprived parts of London in one long and varied meander. I’ve really enjoyed it, and not just because of the amazing weather; the District line is a fascinating line to walk, and I can’t recommend it enough.

East London Line

Shoreditch to New Cross and New Cross Gate

3 July 2008

My original plan for this tubewalk didn’t include the East London line, as it was closed in December 2007, and when it re-opens, it won’t be part of the Tube network any more (it’s going to be extended and included as part of London Overground instead). So I happily ignored it when planning my route, and thought nothing of it until someone posted to a London Underground blog saying that until it re-opens, the East London line is technically still part of the Underground, as London Underground is running a replacement bus service, thus effectively keeping the line open. So, here I am, walking the East London line, much to my surprise.

Truth be told, I was quite pleased to have to shoe-horn the East London line into my schedule, as this line contains the oldest section of railway in the whole network – the bit that goes under the Thames between Wapping and Rotherhithe, through the Thames Tunnel. The only reason that the East London line isn’t regarded as the first underground railway is that Sir Marc Brunel’s Thames Tunnel originally catered for pedestrians only. The tunnel – which dates from 1843, some 20 years before the Metropolitan line opened – didn’t carry trains until 1869, some six years after the Metropolitan line became the first subterranean railway.

This is also a part of London I’ve never explored before (I visited a friend in New Cross once, but I don’t think that really counts as exploration). People who get their impressions of east and southeast London from the Evening Standard tend to wince a bit when you mention the likes of Millwall Football Club, Wapping, Deptford and New Cross, and this morning didn’t exactly help. Last Sunday the bodies of two French students were found in a burned-out flat in Sterling Gardens, just a few yards from my planned route from Surrey Quays to New Cross, but this morning police announced that instead of being the accident they first thought it was, it turns out that they were tortured and stabbed up to 250 times before being set alight.

All aboard for a lovely walk to New Cross, then!

Shoreditch to Whitechapel

Shoreditch station closed in June 2006 so that work could start on extending the East London line north to join the rest of the London Overground, but the bus replacement service still serves the station, so I thought I’d better start here. Predictably for a station that’s been closed for two years, it’s smothered in graffiti and looks a little forlorn, an image that isn’t helped by the barking winos who live in the park next door. The City of London might be just a stone’s throw away, on the other side of Brick Lane, but the City this ain’t; this is Tower Hamlets, and a forgotten corner of Tower Hamlets it is too. As if on cue, it started to drizzle as I snapped away, and I was thankful that at least my photography wasn’t irritating the local police, wherever they were.

Heading along Buxton Street, past Spitalfields City Farm and a school, things started to liven up a little bit. On the corner with Vallance Road is a house with a blue plaque to Mary Hughes, the daughter of Thomas Hughes, the author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays. In her desire to care for the impoverished locals of the East End, she ended up living with them, where she stayed until moving to Kingsley Hall in 1915, by which time she had become a ‘shabby and sometimes verminous woman’ who was totally committed to helping those around her. She met Gandhi when he stayed in Kingsley Hall in 1931, and in 1926 she set up the Dew Drop Inn in this corner house on Vallance Road, the name being an intentional pun, as it was set up as a hostel for the homeless and needy. She ran it until her death in 1941, at the ripe old age of 81.

It’s a short walk from the old Dew Drop Inn through the renovated terraces of Lomas Street to the back of Whitechapel, where Durward Street runs east-west behind the station. This street used to be known as Buck’s Row, and this is where Jack the Ripper perpetrated his first murder, in the wee hours of 31 August 1888. The victim, Mary Ann Nichols, was the first of the Ripper’s five murders, all of which occurred in this area of London. I’ll be visiting three other Ripper murder sites on my tubewalk – one on the Circle line and two the Central line – as well as the odd Ripper victim’s grave.

Joining Durward Street to Whitechapel Road is Fulbourne Street, a diminutive street that boasts a connection with communist Russia. Back in May 1907, this street hosted a meeting of communists that included a number of people who would become household names, including Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin; during the conference, Stalin and Litvinov slept in a hostel for down-and-outs in Fieldgate Street, which I visited on my walk from Victoria to Bow Road.

Whitechapel station is along the main road, tucked away behind the Whitechapel Road street market, opposite the Royal London Hospital.

Whitechapel to Shadwell

The stretch from Whitechapel to Shadwell has one theme: housing. The variety is impressive, from slightly grim-looking tower blocks to Victorian mansion blocks, with some good examples of good, modern social housing, as well as examples of why the 1960s weren’t a particularly great decade for architects. There are building sites where glass-clad office blocks are rising into the sky, but for a lot of this section the architecture is old and slightly faded; there’s enough renovated terracing to give the area a positive boost, though, and you come out the other end with a feeling that although it isn’t terribly pretty, it probably will be one day, because the buildings have great character. All they need is a bit of repointing, a bit of a clean, and they’ll be worth a fortune...

Historically, this area was known as Blue Gate Fields, which was one of the worst slum areas in Victorian London. As the docks grew up on the river to the south, this area became a home for many of the dock workers and passing sailors, and a contemporary report from 1883 said, ‘the dens to which, every night of the year, drunken sailors are betrayed, swarm and flourish openly and defiantly in spite of the police.’ It’s not quite as bad these days...

Shadwell station is still up and running, as it’s also on the DLR, and the presence of a working railway station livens things up. Along the railway arches to the west of the station are some great fishmongers and butchers (all halal, of course) and there’s a new bus stop being built outside the station, which is buried deep within the bridge carrying the east-west DLR line overhead.

Shadwell to Wapping

The shops continue from the station down to The Highway, where things suddenly start to look a lot more polished. Turn south down Garnet Street and look for a sign pointing left into Shadwell Basin, and after negotiating a small set of steps, there, laid out in front of you, is a huge expanse of water, lined with attractive apartment blocks. Most of the London docks to the west of here were land-filled to save the cost of maintaining them, but Shadwell Basin, which is still connected to the Thames, was left alone, and the view east to Canary Wharf is lovely. Peeping over the trees to the east of the apartment blocks is the spire of St Paul’s Church, which is traditionally known as the Church of Sea Captains; originally built in 1656 (though the current church dates from 1820) this was Captain James Cook’s regular church, and John Wesley used to preach here.

The theme of turning docklands into residences continues throughout this section, all the way to the king of the conversions, Wapping. Regeneration of this area started in earnest in the 1980s, under the auspices of the London Docklands Development Corporation, a government quango set up to redevelop the area with a combination of commercial and residential properties. In 1986, News International – publishers of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and the News of the World – built a massive, £80 million printing works in north Wapping, and relocated the production of their newspapers here, causing the print unions to strike, and consequently lose their jobs. The sacked workers picketed the plant, which gained the nickname ‘Fortress Wapping’ when the protesters effectively besieged it, though things didn’t work out for the unions and the strike was called off in 1987.

Wapping station is at the eastern end of the high street, and is currently closed, the Tube logo scrubbed from the outside along with anything that might identify it as a railway station.

Wapping to Rotherhithe

Although Wapping and Rotherhithe stations are within spitting distance of one another, only separated by the Thames, they’re a long way apart by foot. The nearest pedestrian crossing (now that Brunel’s tunnel is used for trains) is Tower Bridge, some way to the west, but this detour does contains some wonderfully atmospheric stretches of river bank, and it’s a pleasure rather than a chore.

For a start, the regeneration of Wapping is spectacular, and strolling along Wapping High Street is a delight. The street is lined on both sides by old warehouses, now converted into riverside apartments and restaurants that ooze urban charm. Although you can’t see the river from the street, you can feel its presence in the buildings around you; the rebuilding has managed to preserve the atmosphere of a city dockland, and it makes for a very enjoyable stroll. Of particular note is the Prospect of Whitby pub, which claims to be the oldest Thames-side tavern in the country, dating from 1520. It became known as the favourite pub of ‘Hanging’ Judge Jeffreys, the judge who presided over the Bloody Assizes, at which harsh sentences were handed out to the Duke of Monmouth’s followers following the rebellion of 1685. Another pub in on the street, the Town of Ramsgate, also claims to have been a haunt of Judge Jeffreys; clearly he brings in the tourists.

Further along the river, the docklands of Wapping suddenly give way to more modern creations on the river banks just east of Tower Bridge. At last you get some decent views of the river, and what views they are, too, with Tower Bridge just upstream and Butler’s Wharf on the opposite side of the river. The impressive glass-frontages of the development on Cinnabar Wharf give way to a small park, where a dove-shaped sculpture rests as a memorial to all those who lost their lives in the docks of London during the Blitz. From here it’s a short walk along St Katherine’s Way to St Katherine Docks, which I never even knew existed, even though I’ve visited the Tower of London and wandered across Tower Bridge on a number of occasions. It’s an amazing area, with expensive yachts lounging in the marina, overlooked by boutique shops, residential flats, offices and the rather dated Tower Hotel, which takes pebbledash architecture to new heights.

Next door to St Katherine Docks is Tower Bridge, the Victorian masterpiece that has become an icon of London. It’s a busy tourist area and this whole area is worthy of dedicated exploration, but for those of us just passing through, the grassy spot on the south bank, just to the west of the bridge, has to be one of the most entertaining places to stop for a lunch break that London has to offer. With the Tower of London on the other side of the river, the sun on your back and plenty of tourists to watch, it’s a classic.

Heading east from Tower Bridge, along the south bank of the Thames, the main story is yet more converted warehouses, in particular the imposing Butler’s Wharf, which was built in the 19th century as a wharf and warehouse complex. It apparently contained the largest tea warehouse in the world, but now it’s home to a string of pleasant restaurants along the river bank, with great views of Tower Bridge and the City from the apartments above. The warehouse conversions continue through St Saviour’s Dock and past New Concordia Wharf. This area was originally called Jacob’s Island, and in the early 19th century it was a notorious slum. Charles Dickens use it as the setting for Fagin’s den in Oliver Twist, and Bill Sykes met his maker in the dank swamp that was the Folly Ditch, which surrounded Jacob’s Island. It’s considerably more civilised these days.

As you reach Bermondsey Wall East, things slowly start to pull away from the breakneck redevelopment around Tower Bridge, and the warehouses begin to get a bit more derelict. The Chambers Wharf and Cold Stores building is a good example; built in the 1930s, it was the building of this huge warehouse that split the continuous Bermondsey Wall lane into Bermondsey Wall East and Bermondsey Wall West. Apparently it is now earmarked for development into 750 apartments, and it’s hoped that you’ll be able to walk along the river front (which you can’t currently).

The transition away from the developers is complete by the time you reach Rotherhithe, and it’s easy to picture the old Victorian streets, with their poverty, crime and fascinating characters, in a way that it’s much harder to do in spotless Wapping. I’m not saying Rotherhithe is grim – far from it, I found it rather charming – it’s just that its character hasn’t been redeveloped to the same degree, so the streets feel that bit more authentic. The views across to Wapping are expansive, and around St Mary’s Church there’s a palpable sense of history, with a church having existed on this site since 1282.

Just before the station, you come across the Brunel Museum, which is housed in the engine house for the Thames Tunnel (it held steam-powered pumps that were used to extract water from the tunnel). Rotherhithe station itself, again shorn of all markings that might give it away as a train station, sits a little further south on Brunel Road.

Rotherhithe to Canada Water

It’s a short walk from Rotherhithe station to Canada Water, but the transition is impressive. The housing around Rotherhithe station is relatively modest, but at the southern end of Swan Road there’s an open green space, and on the other side the developers have really got stuck in. New apartment blocks are rising round here like mushrooms after rain, and the reason is just round the corner.

Canada Water station is on the newly extended Jubilee line, and it shows. Opened in 1999 and built on a derelict site that was formerly occupied by Albion Dock (part of the old Surrey Commercial Docks), the station building is based round a massive glass drum, 25m across, into which you descend to reach the platforms. Natural light floods the ticket hall in a nod to Charles Holden’s high-ceiling designs on the District and Piccadilly lines, and it’s a beacon of modernity in this previously quiet backwater of southeast London.

Canada Water to Surrey Quays

South of Canada Water station is Canada Water itself, a lake and wildlife refuge that was created out of the Canada Dock. This whole area was part of Surrey Commercial Docks, which stretched north and east all the way to the river, but as with the docks to the north of the river, they closed down in the 1970s, leading to a decade of decay, before the London Docklands Development Corporation took over in the 1980s and started injecting money. One of the biggest projects was to fill in the southern half of Canada Water, on which they build a huge shopping centre, leaving the northern half intact for conversion into a wildlife refuge. It’s a little crowded in by the Tube station and a huge sports and leisure mega-store on the other side, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable as an oasis among the shoppers.

Surrey Quays Shopping Centre, which occupies what used to be the southern half of the dock, is huge, and crossing the car park seems to take ages, but if you’re in need of refreshment before hitting the twin stretches to New Cross, it’s a useful stop-off. Surrey Quays station is again an anonymous building on the corner of Lower Road and Rotherhithe Old Road, at the southern tip of the car park.

Surrey Quays to New Cross

There are two separate lines from Surrey Quays to New Cross, which makes absolutely no sense when you consider how close New Cross and New Cross Gate stations are. Predictably, this is down to the competitive nature of the Victorians and the railway boom of the 1830s. The first line was opened in 1839 by the London and Croydon Railway, who built a station near Hatcham and called it New Cross; then, in 1849, the South Eastern Railway built a station about 600m to the east, which they also called New Cross. This strange situation continued until 1823, when both companies were taken over by the Southern Railway, when the western station was renamed New Cross Gate.

In order to walk the line in the proper order, I decided to walk from Surrey Quays to New Cross, then to take the replacement bus back to Surrey Quays and walk to New Cross Gate. I didn’t realise this when planning my walk, but this allowed me to explore both east and west New Cross, and they’re surprisingly different.

The eastern journey to New Cross starts off along the busy Lower Road, which does have some pretty buildings tucked away from the traffic, though generally this is a place for cars, not humans. A quick turn right into the suburbs north of Deptford Park improves things considerably, and the park is large and open, though fairly flat and functional. Over the other side of the railway line is the more landscaped Folkestone Gardens, with a pretty pond with weeping willows draping into the water, and a large children’s playground at the southern tip.

Back across the tracks again, social housing starts to take over, with three large pastel-coloured tower blocks to the east and, at the northern end of Kerry Road, a rather sad, boarded-up area that clearly needs some attention. This turns out to be a blip, though, as the neat housing of Kerry Road soon gives way to the allotments along Amersham Vale, after which the road is dominated by the huge Waldron Health Centre. New Cross station, which is still going strong as a national rail station, is just on the right, before New Cross Road.

Surrey Quays to New Cross Gate

So the eastern route to New Cross starts off with a main road and some enjoyable parks before getting a bit earthier as it approaches New Cross, but the western approach does things in reverse, starting with the earthier side of life before leading to a lovely conservation area.

The initial stretches along Oldfield Grove are pleasant enough, though the views at the end are dominated by the nearby waste processing plant, with its huge chimney and satanic-mill design. The housing round here is new and not unpleasant, and one of the road names – Regeneration Road – gives it away.

Things change considerably on the other side of the many tracks separating west New Cross from east (I counted at least six bridges, though some of them are clearly unused). Turning south you come across New Den Stadium, home to one of the most notorious football clubs in the capital: Millwall Football Club. Local cars have stickers on them proclaiming, ‘No one likes us, we don’t care’, the name of the song that Millwall fans started singing in the 1980s as a response to continued criticism of their behaviour. The bad old days of Millwall being known for hooliganism are long gone, though, and the area is not at all unpleasant. The stadium is difficult to see in its entirety from the road, though as you turn away from it, towards Ilderton Road, you get a better sense of how large the venue is.

After the stadium, I headed east along Surrey Canal Road, which follows the route of the long-gone Grand Surrey Canal. It’s easy enough to imagine that this road was once a canal, as it has banks and a bridleway while the traffic rumbles along what was once the canal basin. To the east, where the railway crosses at the junction with Mercury Way, used to be a junction with the short-lived Croydon Canal, which was the first canal to be formally abandoned by an Act of Parliament, back in 1836; this section was sold to the London and Croydon Railway, who opened their line along the canal’s route to what is now New Cross Gate.

Mercury Way has some pleasant new housing to the west, but what the estate agents won’t point out is the cacophony of industry on the other side of the road. This is where skips are brought once full, and an army of diggers crunches their contents into a big pile of scrap, ready to be taken to landfill. The clouds of dust and screeching noise of machinery are quite impressive, though perhaps not so much if you live round here. Luckily it doesn’t last too long, and the houses to the south are a little more peaceful.

Heading south along Monson Road takes you into an area of much older housing, though the developers are still at it. Specifically, they are attacking the Duke of Albany pub with vigour, which is all the more interesting because this was the pub that was used in Sean of the Dead, where it was known as the Winchester Arms. It’s being turned into apartments, which means some lucky people will be able to say they live in the Winchester – nice.

On the other side of Eckington Gardens lies the heart of Hatcham Conservation Area, an estate that was built between 1848 and 1894 by the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers on what used to be the grounds of Hatcham House. Most of the houses were meant for working class people, though I’m sure things are different now, as the terraced houses are lovely and no doubt command a handsome sum.

Meanwhile, down on the main New Cross Road, New Cross Gate station is still active, serving national rail trains. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how to get to New Cross in two different ways, both of which are worth the effort.

Circle Line

Aldgate to Tower Hill and Gloucester Road to High Street Kensington

4 July 2008

I’ve already walked most of the Circle line while walking other lines: I walked from Aldgate to Baker Street on the Metropolitan line, Edgware Road to Baker Street on the Hammersmith & City line, and High Street Kensington to Edgware Road and Gloucester Road to Tower Hill on the District line. That leaves just two little corners of track that are exclusively used by the Circle line: Aldgate to Tower Hill and Gloucester Road to High Street Kensington.

To save time, I thought I’d slip them in along with my walk on the Waterloo & City line. Strictly speaking, I should be walking the Waterloo & City line after the Northern line, as I’m supposed to be walking these lines in chronological order, but it made much more sense to stick all these little, central-London walks together on the same day, and they go well together. For the record, the Circle line was finally completed on 6 October 1884, though the first section of what we now know as the Circle was actually the High Street Kensington to Gloucester Road section, which opened on 1 October 1868. I’ll leave it up to others to debate which came first, the District or the Circle, and instead I’ll stick to the walking...

Aldgate to Tower Hill

Come to think of it, I should have walked this leg the other way round, having walked anti-clockwise round the Circle line on my Metropolitan and west-east District line walks... but I’m never that clear-headed first thing in the morning, so I went for the direction that I’d written down. Still, it doesn’t really matter, because whichever way you do this walk, it’s a good one. The theme of this leg is modern architecture, and it takes in two of the most famous examples of mould-breaking design to be found in any city in the world. One example, the Gherkin, dominates the London skyline, while the other, the Lloyd’s Building, is all but hidden from view until you stumble on it, but both of them have played a major part in dragging London into the modern age.

But we’re jumping the gun a bit, because the walk starts at Aldgate station, the place where I started my tubewalk a little over a month ago. Around the corner from St Botolph’s Church is Mitre Square, the scene of the murder of Catherine Eddowes by Jack the Ripper back on 30 September 1888. This was the most western of the Ripper’s five murders, and was the only one in the City of London. This murder, the fourth, happened on the same night as the third murder – Elizabeth Stride was found earlier in the night just southeast of Aldgate East station, in what is now called Henriques Street. The Mitre Square murder took place in the southern corner of the square, which is now occupied by a flower bed, a handful of benches and the gateway to a school-yard.

On a slightly cheerier note, one of my favourite London buildings lies just along Bury Street. The Gherkin, or St Mary Axe (to give it its official title), needs little introduction, with its distinctive curved shape protruding into the sky. Walking around the bottom of skyscrapers is always an interesting process, and the Gherkin is no exception, though on a sunny day, it’s easy to be blinded by reflections from the thousands of gleaming windows. It’s a toss-up between the Gherkin and the BT Tower for my favourite London building; I’ll be visiting the latter on my Victoria line walk from Brixton to King’s Cross St Pancras, and I’m already looking forward to it.

From the Gherkin it’s a short hop to the Lloyd’s Building, another seminal London sight. Built between 1978 and 1986, this ‘inside-out’ building has its stairs, lifts and pipes on the outside, leaving an uncluttered and open space inside. The twelve glass lifts that run up and down the outside were the first of their kind in the UK, and 22 years of weathering haven’t dimmed the inventiveness of the design.

The route southeast towards Tower Hill continues with glinting glass skyscrapers towering over more traditional buildings, like Fenchurch station and St Olave’s Church, before we reach the bulk of Trinity House, overlooking a little park next to Tower Hill. The view over the Tower of London is delightful here, and Tower Hill station is just over the road, underneath a popular viewpoint of the Tower that’s as interesting for its tourist activity as it is for the view. It’s a great way to finish off a treasure trove of architecture, taking us all the way from the four-year-old Gherkin to the 930-year-old Tower.

For details of the walk between Tower Hill and Gloucester Road, see the story of my District line walk from Turnham Green to Victoria and Victoria to Bow Road.

Gloucester Road to High Street Kensington

The walk from Gloucester Road to High Street Kensington is – like all walks through Kensington – a catalogue of exclusive and extravagant residences. However, there is one thing that differentiates this walk from the others in Kensington, and I didn’t even know it was there until I stumbled on it. Just off Launceston Place, stretching to the east and west, lies Kynance Mews, and after the imposing terraces of Kensington, these mews are a breath of fresh air. The western side is particularly beautiful, and it is obviously a source of great pride to those lucky enough to live in it, because the houses are all painted different colours, there are loads of luscious plants and shrubs growing in pots along the road (with some houses smothered in gorgeous greenery), and even though you’re in the middle of a city, there’s a definite back-country feel to the road. The walk is worth doing for these mews alone.

A bonus is the imposing Christ Church, just to the north of the mews, which is best seen from Victoria Road (you can reach the road via a small set of steps on the right as you walk down the mews). Walking up Victoria Road and into St Alban’s Grove, the mansion blocks that characterise so much of Kensington reappear with a vengeance, and the architecture continues in this vein until Kensington Square, a surprisingly quiet and leafy square given its proximity to Kensington High Street, which is just to the north, on the other side of the Barkers Building.

As you walk along Derry Street to the high street, look up and to your left, and you’ll see the greenery of the Kensington Roof Gardens on top of the former Derry and Toms building. This is the largest roof garden in Europe, and although you can access them from Derry Street, they are not open to the public (though you can book them for private functions). Kensington High Street station is just along the high street, buried deep in a shopping centre and away from all the noise.

Waterloo & City Line

Waterloo to Bank

4 July 2008

The Waterloo & City line is a funny one, having just two stations, Waterloo and Bank. At only 1.5 miles long, it is easily the shortest line on the Underground, and it is the only line that runs underground for its entire length (the Victoria line almost manages this, but it runs overground to its depot, while the entire Waterloo & City line is underground). It also has no direct connection to the rest of the rail network, so carriages are hoisted in and out using a road-mounted crane just south of Waterloo railway station, and even weirder, it’s the only Tube line whose speed limits and speedometers are in kilometres per hour; the rest of the network uses miles per hour.

Opened in 1898, the Waterloo & City line was the world’s second deep-level Tube railway, the first being the Northern line (though I’m walking this one first as it was much more convenient to slot it in with my Circle line walks). It didn’t become part of London Underground until 1990, over 100 years after it was opened, when British Rail – who operated it until that point – was nationalised. Locally known as ‘the Drain’, the Waterloo & City line is a lot more pleasurable to walk along than its nickname might imply...

Waterloo to Bank

The journey by Tube might be short and sweet, but it’s quite a lot slower by foot, as there’s so much to see. When walking through the centre of town on the District line, I was slightly uninspired by the tourist areas of the City itself, having seen them so many times before; but I never tire of walking along the river, so that’s where I headed from Waterloo station. The best exit to head for is the one that comes out in the middle of the main line station, as all you need to do is turn left onto the pedestrian bridge over York Road, pop down the steps to the left, and then turn right into Jubilee Gardens, home of the London Eye.

It’s all river walking from here to the Millennium Bridge, and what a fantastic walk it is too. The South Bank is a real tourist delight, and justifiably so, especially on a sunny day, as the sun lights up the north bank without once getting in your eyes. Starting out from the massive wheel of the Eye, the walkway goes past Hungerford Bridge (from where Terry and Julie watched the sunset in the Kinks’ classic ‘Waterloo Sunset’), in front of the Royal Festival Hall and along to Queen Elizabeth Hall. The latter still sports the graffiti of the skateboard fraternity, who have made the architectural dead-zone under the hall their own since the early 1970s, but there are plans to close it down (despite it being the UK’s busiest skate park and the spiritual home of British skateboarding). The graffiti isn’t as talented as some I’ve seen on my walks, and I wasn’t too pleased to have to stand in pools of piss to take photos of the more impressive designs, but that’s urban living for you. It’ll still be a shame to see it go, the acrid stench notwithstanding.

The walkway continues past the National Theatre to a corner with fantastic views of St Paul’s Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge, with Somerset House and the Victoria Embankment opposite. There’s a collection of restaurants back from the river here, as well as a little garden, and just along the river is the Oxo Tower, an Art Deco building that dates from between 1928 and 1929. The company wanted to advertise its products on the building, but when permission was refused, the architect designed the upper windows so that they just happened to have an ‘O’, an ‘X’ and another ‘O’ in a vertical row; very sneaky. The tower has since been refurbished to include a restaurant, shops and exhibition space for design-related exhibits, though it was still swathed in scaffolding as I walked past.

Blackfriars Bridge is next, followed by the strange sight of the stumps of the old Blackfriars Railway Bridge still poking up from the water, just before the new railway bridge. Beyond the bridges are some wonderfully located flats and a pub, and then the huge tower of Tate Modern thrusts into the sky. Housed in the former Bankside Power Station, which was designed by the same man who designed Battersea Power Station, it sits at the southern end of the Millennium Bridge, while St Paul’s Cathedral sits proudly at the northern end. There can be few more beautiful river crossings in the world, and the views from the bridge are breathtaking.

The dome of St Paul’s Cathedral dominates the view as you walk north to Cannon Street, the sheer size of the building becoming more and more impressive as you get closer. It’s hard to tear your eyes away, especially in bright sunlight, but the end is near, just down Queen Victoria Street. Walking through the City is a much more claustrophobic experience than walking along the river, and Queen Victoria Street is possibly not the most interesting road in town, but before reaching Bank, it’s worth taking a little detour to St Stephen Wallbrook Church, where you can wander around the lanes behind Mansion House before bursting out into the junction of Poultry and King William Street, where the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange form an impressive finale to this walk.

Bank station itself lives underground, and the only evidence of its existence are the signed staircases heading under the road. The station is actually in two parts; the other part is called Monument and is shown as a separate station on the Tube map, though officially this is regarded as one station, called the Bank-Monument complex. Somehow, I think the two names sound better...

Northern Line

Morden to Kennington

7 July 2008

OK, I’ve got to be a bit careful here, because I don’t want to be unfairly harsh on south London. The weather has taken a turn for the worse and the less trustworthy tabloids are claiming that it’s going to rain solidly for the rest of the summer, but I mustn’t let my sodden socks and grey-spattered photographs drag me down when writing up today’s trudge. However, I don’t think there’s any way of avoiding the fact that I felt pretty morose along much of this walk, and deep down, I think it’s the area rather than me.

I’m not coming at this section from a position of complete ignorance, as Peta and I lived along this part of the Northern line until three years ago (in Balham to be precise). I thought it might bring back lots of happy memories, wandering past our old haunts, but instead I came out the other end really rather thankful that we’d moved. I was happy enough when I lived here, but I was happy when I lived in Chiswick, and I loved my tubewalk through that neck of the woods... though as Chiswick and Ealing feel as if they’re related, that’s perhaps no surprise.

So I’ll try to be objective, but bear in mind that I didn’t see south London in its best light, and I perhaps might have missed its mojo. Still, at least the walk starts and ends on a high...

Morden to South Wimbledon

Morden station is on the busy London Road, just off the A24 (which I ended up following all the way to Clapham Common). I didn’t fancy hanging around there in the rain, so I pulled on my Gore-Tex jacket, popped up my umbrella, started practising my one-handed photography technique, and headed east for Morden Hall Park. Morden Hall itself is just off Morden Road, and although I’m sure this National Trust property is well worth a visit, the real gem for walkers is the large and extremely lush park that stretches out to the north and east. I’d been expecting the usual landscaped grounds with a duck pond and rolling views to the Hall, perhaps with a tower block plonked in the background to bring us all back down to earth, but I didn’t see Morden Hall Park coming at all. It’s all overgrown and wild, and you need to take the paths if you’re going to make any headway through the undergrowth (especially in this rain). Streams seem to come from all sides as the River Wandle splits into multiple channels, and it’s easy to imagine yourself cut off from the bustle of London... because you are. It must be glorious on a sunny day; it’s even great in the rain.

Signposts for the Wandle Trail take you north and across a set of tram tracks, before a path takes you past Deen City Farm, invisible behind trees to the left (though you do get the occasional glimpse of the farm). The Wandle keeps you company to the right, and soon after crossing Merantum Way, you come to Merton Abbey Mills. Back in 1802, John Leech, a calico printer, set up the Merton Abbey Print Works here, and in 1831 they were bought by the firm of Edmund Littler, who supplied printed material to Liberty & Co. in Regent Street; in 1881 the designer William Morris opened a design and manufacturing works a little further downstream, and the two soon became fierce competitors. Liberty took over Littler’s factory in 1904 and continued to produce work here until 1972, but the area has a continuing association with arts and crafts, with a popular weekend market (which calls itself ‘London’s Alternative Market’), regular live music events, and 15 shops selling things like musical instruments, jewellery, books and all sorts of other arts and crafts.

If you weren’t doing a tubewalk, you wouldn’t bother to head west down High Path towards the A24; instead, you’d probably continue north along the Wandle Trail towards Wandsworth, where the Wandle meets the Thames. But I have to remember that I’m walking the Tube, so I turned off into a street of backyard garages, terraced cottages and large residential tower blocks, only to discover that down this road, on the corner of a fairly down-to-earth housing estate, lies The Trafalgar, CAMRA’s 2007 pub of the year for southwest London. It wasn’t open as I walked past, but this pub gets excellent reviews; maybe next time.

South Wimbledon station is back on the main Morden Road. It’s a Grade II-listed Charles Holden station dating from 1926, when the Bank branch of the Northern line (known then as the City & South London Railway) was extended from Clapham Common to Morden; all the stations from Clapham South to Morden are 1926 Holden creations, and apart from Morden, which looks like it’s been sat on by an office development, they are all Grade II listed. South Wimbledon station looks a little drab these days, as the white-grey Portland stone is starting to go black from the top, making the station look a little unloved. The vertical glass slats still look good, and even though this is a busy road junction and there’s precious little space to fit in a building, Holden clearly knew his stuff.

South Wimbledon to Colliers Wood

I tried to find an interesting route from South Wimbledon to Colliers Wood, but I couldn’t manage it without taking an unnecessarily long detour, so instead I just walked along the main road, straight to the station. As with pretty much every busy road in London, the road walking was hectic and pretty forgettable, though the road does join the Wandle again at the site of William Morris’s printing works, which is now home to a spectacularly large Sainsbury’s-cum-Marks-and-Spencer.

Even more spectacularly large is the Colliers Wood Tower, which really should be put out of its misery. Looming over the centre of Colliers Wood like a huge black monolith, it is stunningly ugly, a fact confirmed by a BBC poll in 2006 in which it was voted London’s ugliest building, taking 52 per cent of the vote against 23 per cent for the next contender, the Tower Hotel by Tower Bridge. Colliers Wood Tower was also one of the ‘dirty dozen’ in Channel 4’s Demolition programme, where the public nominated the UK buildings they would most like to see blown to smithereens. When the local council asked residents, 86 per cent described the Tower as the worst thing about living in Colliers Wood. I concur.

Colliers Wood station cowers beneath the shadow of the beast, another 1926 Holden creation that is suffering from black rot creeping down the stonework. I hope they manage to find the funds one day to clean these stations up; they’d look spectacular when sparkling.

Colliers Wood to Tooting Broadway

Just over the road from Colliers Wood station is Wandle Park, a small but prettily formed green space through which the Wandle winds in an explosion of plants and trees. The park was formerly the site of Wandle Park House, which Lord Nelson is thought to have visited on a number of occasions; the house, which was demolished in 1962, was built in about 1791 for the Scottish journalist James Perry, editor-owner of the Morning Chronicle, the most successful newspaper in Georgian times.

Round the back of the park are some attractive terraces, but to get to the next station you have to join the main road for a while, and that’s not terribly thrilling. I decided to take a small detour via Mitcham Road to take in the newly cleaned Tooting Library and the 1931 Art Deco Tooting Gala Bingo, formerly the Granada Tooting Cinema. According to the V&A – and they should know – this latter building is considered by many to be the most spectacular cinema in Britain, though you have to go inside to appreciate the full grandeur. There’s a foyer with columns, a grand staircase, and even a hall of mirrors, all of which were designed by Theodore Komisarjevsky, a Russian prince with a background in theatre management and design.

Tooting Broadway station, again a 1926 Holden design, has a 1911 statue of Edward VII outside, and although the statue came first, the station frames it as if they had been built together. Again the rot is setting into the Portland stone, but there’s a little more space here, and Holden’s design doesn’t disappoint.

Tooting Broadway to Tooting Bec

The trek north up Tooting Broadway is another noisy journey along the busy A24, now known as the Upper Tooting Road, though there are some interesting sights along the way. The first, just north of the Tube station, on the right, is Broadway Market, the largest indoor market in south London. There are over 100 traders tucked away in a honeycomb of corridors and open areas, with stalls selling fish, meat, clothes and all the other stuff you’d expect to find. It’s definitely worth exploring.

There was one major downer that hit me at the market, though. I got shouted at by a group of loitering locals as I took a couple of snaps of the inside of the market – looking at me with undisguised disdain, they insisted that I should have asked their permission before taking a photo of their corner of the market, even though they were hidden behind the crowds and I didn’t even know they were there until they leapt out of the woodwork. I think there may have been a bit of territorial black-alpha-male posing behind their in-my-face attitude, but whatever the reason for their anger, it did throw me off kilter a bit, rather like being the victim of road rage.

As a result, I didn’t particularly enjoy the rest of my wander along the A24, despite the many interesting shops along the way. This is the centre for the Pakistani Muslim community in south London, and the shops reflect this, with quite a few Indian and Pakistani clothes shops, restaurants and sweet shops along the way. Normally I’d love this kind of thing, but I didn’t feel welcome after my brush with the grumpy locals in the market, so I didn’t waste any time getting to Tooting Bec station. The station has two entrances; the smaller one on the eastern side of the road provides access to a subway under the road, while the larger building on the western side contains the ticket hall and access to the station below. I like the subway access building; it’s like a pocket version of a normal Holden station, and it’s really rather cute.

Tooting Bec to Balham

In an attempt to get away from the tedious A24, I designed the routes for all the rest of today’s sections as loops, leaving the road as soon as possible and only returning to visit the next station. From Tooting Bec, the most scenic route is to head east to Tooting Graveney Common, and then on to Tooting Bec Common, a pleasantly open green space that’s shaped like the constellation of Orion, with the railway slicing it in half from top to bottom, and Bedford Hill running across the belt in the middle. This has the effect of making the common feel rather smaller than it actually is, but it’s an enjoyable space to wander through. I was particularly grateful for a few shards of sunlight as I followed the Capital Ring for a while, which comes through here on day 5; there’s nothing quite as depressing as trying to walk across an open common when the wind is howling and the rain is pelting, but I was spared this ordeal... just.

On the way out of the common, just north of the second railway bridge, is a playground with an amazing bit of graffiti on the building behind. This building is the Triangle Youth Club, and the graffiti is by VOP (that’s short for Visual Orgasm Productions), a four-person graffiti writing crew made up of Stylo, Dane, Mear and Solo One. They’ve been creating street art since 1988, and if this is anything to go by, they’re seriously talented (you can see more of their work on their website).

Balham station sits right next to a national rail station of the same name, though the two are operated separately. Again opened in 1926, Balham is perhaps best known for a devastating World War II air-raid incident, when a 1400kg bomb fell on the road above the station, causing the northbound platform to partially collapse. A bus then crashed into the crater, and the broken water mains and sewers above the platform gushed into the Tube tunnel, eventually reaching to within 100m of Clapham South station. Because the deep-level Tube lines were used as shelters by the public, 64 people died in the attack, according to a plaque in the entrance hall (though other sources say that either 65 or 68 died, depending on who you believe). Although the damage closed the line, it was fixed pretty quickly; the bomb fell on 14 October 1940, and the line was reopened on 12 January 1941, which is an impressive turnaround (particularly by today’s standards).

Balham to Clapham South

If you’re ever inspired to walk between Balham and Clapham South yourself, I wouldn’t recommend you take the same route as me. I only went this way to take in the flat where Peta and I lived in Balham, and I almost wish I hadn’t, for the suburbia to the east of the main road is pretty uninspiring. It didn’t seem quite as dull when we lived here, but you should never admit to yourself that your home is crap, at least not until you’ve moved out. We knew as soon as we moved from Balham to Ealing that we’d made the right decision, and heading back into Balham on a rainy Monday morning didn’t change my mind.

OK, there are some pleasant terraces along Hazelbourne Road, and some of the older estates have some intriguing (though perhaps not terribly beautiful) architecture, so don’t think I’m slamming the whole area. But the 1930s block of flats above Clapham South station is still as ugly as sin, the estates along Weir Road and Poynders Road are still fairly drab, and the main road – now called Balham Hill – is hardly riveting. It is much more pleasant to the west of the main road, so I’d stick to that if I were you.

Clapham South station itself is another 1926 Holden station, bang on the southern corner of Clapham Common. What isn’t apparent from the road is the deep-level shelter down below, one of eight built along the Tube to provide shelter during air-raids. Each deep-level shelter is made up of two parallel 370m-long tunnels, of the same dimensions as a normal Tube tunnel; the idea was that these tunnels would go on to form part of an express Tube line that would bypass certain stations, so shelters were only built next to stations that would be bypassed. Each tunnel was split up into an upper and lower deck and would hold up to 8000 people, and they were built between 1940 and 1942 at Belsize Park, Camden Town, Goodge Street, Stockwell, Clapham North, Clapham Common and Clapham South on the Northern line, and Chancery Lane on the Central line (proposed shelters at St Paul’s and Oval stations were never completed). Originally only the government used these shelters – General Eisenhower used the Goodge Street shelter, for example – but as the bombing intensified, Belsize Park, Camden Town, Clapham North, Clapham South and Stockwell were opened up to the public. These days... well, who knows what’s down there?

Clapham South to Clapham Common

Clapham Common is a fairly typical common, except it’s huge. Like most commons, it isn’t landscaped, but is little more than a huge triangular wedge of grass, more like a big field than a park. There’s a bandstand in the middle and an oval lake, the Long Pond, along the eastern edge, and on a windy day like today it catches the breeze like nobody’s business. Stand in the middle of the common and the sky is very big indeed...

Clapham Common station is on the northeast corner of the common, in a traffic island at the southern end of Clapham High Street. It opened in 1900 as the southern terminus of the City & South London Railway, which had just been extended from Stockwell; it would remain as the terminus until the extension to Morden in 1926. The station entrance is a small domed building with two entrances that take you down into the ticket hall, which is completely underground; it’s quite a cute-looking station, truth be told.

Clapham Common to Clapham North

I simply followed Clapham High Street to reach the next station, because Clapham High Street is an interesting road in its own right. I’ve been clubbing down here more times that I can remember, mainly in the Two Brewers, and it’s good to see that the mix of pubs, gay bars, restaurants and shops is still as varied as ever, even though the street still manages to look a little worn.

Clapham North station is not one of the best-looking Tube stations on the planet; it was originally opened in 1900 as part of the two-station extension from Stockwell to Clapham Common, but the external building was replaced in 1920, and since then it has been re-clad. It’s a bit of a mess, though, and the white tiling around the top of the entrance looks like the inside of a particularly nasty public toilet. It’s slightly more distinguished inside, as Clapham North is one of only two stations on the Underground that still has an island platform, wedged between the northbound and southbound tracks (the other station is Clapham Common, just down the road).

Clapham North to Stockwell

Heading west from Clapham North, you step into a strange mix of lovely Victorian terraced houses and large estates. The estate buildings are pleasant, if a little dark, and it’s an entertaining wander through the backstreets towards Larkhall Park, a wide open green space in which I managed to pick up an unwelcome and extremely smelly dog shit that buried itself deep in the ridges in my walking boots; this is the first such accident I’ve had, which isn’t bad really, and luckily the rain arrived not long afterwards and gave me a chance to wash it off in the wet grass.

Heading east from Larkhall Park takes you into some less attractive social housing, with high rises peeping over the terraces, but it still isn’t as bad as some estates I’ve seen, and among the estate buildings are newly built private houses that help leaven the mix. Stockwell station sits on a corner on the A3, a not-very-attractive brick affair that dates from 1971, when the Victoria line was opened. The original building was similar to Kennington, but these days it’s just a damp architectural squib on a busy A-road, more famous for the 2005 police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes than anything else. However, it was the southern terminus of the original City & South London Railway, which opened in 1890 as the world’s first deep-level tube railway, and north from here is the oldest tube railway in the world, so it isn’t all bad.

Stockwell to Oval

On the other side of the A-road lies Stockwell Park Conservation Area, a delightful collection of Georgian buildings dating from the 1830s. The spire of St Michael’s Church dominates the area, which was set up as a suburban development and quickly became an exclusive neighbourhood with lots of imposing villas. It’s surrounded by estates and social housing, in particular the 1930s Stockwell Gardens Estate and the 1950s Studley Estate, the latter following the destruction of the Blitz. The Conservation Area is like a little oasis of architectural brilliance among the more workaday housing that Stockwell is more associated with.

Mostyn Gardens is an interesting green space on the other side of the A23 from the Conservation Area, mainly because it isn’t flat. It’s a bit like a huge bowl, with grassy mounds all around it, and it probably makes a pleasant spot for relaxing when it isn’t raining. Back on the A23, known here as Brixton Road, the buildings are actually rather pleasant, with the bizarre layer-cake Byzantine architecture of the 1902 Christ Church, and a row of attractive four-storey Victorian terraces behind a little lawn. At the top of the road is St Mark’s Kennington Church, which was built between 1822 and 1824 and is now a Grade II*-listed building. Over the road from the church is Oval station, which is all clean and tidy, having been recently re-tiled, as befits a station next to one of the country’s great cricket grounds.

Oval to Kennington

Oval Cricket Ground is just down the road from the station, though you’d be hard pressed to recognise it as a station; as you approach it, you’re looking at the rear of the pavilion, and it looks for all the world like a normal mansion block, but with fewer windows. All the glory is inside the ground, but you can’t peek in from the encircling road, as the stands are too high. Back in 1844, the Kennington Oval was a market garden that was owned by the Duchy of Cornwall; now it’s the 21st-century home of Surrey Cricket Club, though it’s still owned by the Duke.

I was originally going to wander through Kennington Park on the way north, but this stretch of the A3 is deadly straight (having originally been a Roman road) and there are railings in the central reservation that stop you from jaywalking, so instead I stuck to the left-hand side of the road and headed for Cleaver Square. This delightful square is surrounded by lovely Georgian terraces and has a cracking little pub, the Prince of Wales, tucked away in the corner. Unusually for London squares, it doesn’t have grass in the middle, but a hard dirt surface that’s perfect for playing boules. The City and Guilds of London Art School is just round the corner, back on the main road.

Kennington station is just along the main road, with its distinctive dome on top. This dates from the original opening of the City & South London Railway in 1890, and indeed this is the only station on that original stretch that hasn’t been rebuilt in some way. The dome was built to contain the lift mechanism, and it looks great, making for a charming end to this long slog through south London.

Kennington to Euston to Kennington

8 July 2008

I’m genuinely surprised how long today’s walk took. Given the mileage, it should have been a bit shorter than yesterday’s longer haul through south London, but instead it took over an hour more. The reason? Almost all of the loop from Kennington to Euston and back is through heavily built-up areas, and they’re so much slower to walk through.

One of the differences is that there is so much more to see, and it highlights a problem with my whole tubewalking escapade: I can only hope to capture the vaguest flavour of what it’s like to walk through London. Out in the rural zones of the Metropolitan line it’s much easier on both the foot and the camera, but when I’m walking though the centre of town, I can’t let a photograph pass me by, and all the stopping and starting takes its toll on my walking time.

Still, that hardly matters, it just means I have to find the time to write up my city exploits from somewhere else, as it’s normally too late to do anything when I get in except have a cup of tea and a piece of cake. It’s a hard life, being a tubewalker...

Kennington to Elephant & Castle

From Kennington station it’s a short wander along the busy A3 to the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, past some rather faded buildings that look as if they’re suffering from the effects of sitting in exhaust fumes for too long. The shopping centre is not much better, being voted in 2005 by readers of Time Out as London’s ugliest structure, but there is a £1.5 million regeneration project afoot for the whole of the area that plans to restore Elephant and Castle to the major south London hub it once was, rather than the depressing concrete jungle it’s become. These plans include the demolition of the shopping centre in 2010, as well as the redevelopment of social housing in the area that is deemed to have failed.

Hopefully the area will then be more sympathetic to the impressive 1861 Metropolitan Tabernacle opposite, a massive church that looks completely out of place opposite the dull mess of the shopping centre. The only other thing of note among the busy traffic is the Michael Faraday Memorial in the middle of the roundabout, which is effectively an impressively large metal box with very little to suggest what it is; it actually contains a transformer for the Northern line, appropriately enough given that Faraday was such an important figure in the science of electricity.

Elephant & Castle station is in two parts. The Northern line station – which was originally opened in 1890 as part of the City & South London Railway, the first deep-level Tube line, which we now know as the Bank branch of the Northern line – is in the northwest corner of the shopping centre, and is all shiny metal with sleek, modern lines, having been rebuilt first in the 1960s and again in 2003; the Bakerloo station, which dates from 1906, is on the northern side of the roundabout, and shows off the classic design principles of the Tube architect Leslie Green, who was responsible for designing the stations on the original sections of what are now the Northern, Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines. His characteristic designs were mostly two storeys high, with large semi-circular windows at the first floor level, and a distinctive cladding of ox-blood red glazed terracotta tiles (like the defunct Piccadilly station I came across at South Kensington). I’ll be coming across a lot more Leslie Green stations on the next few lines, as my chronological walk through the Tube reaches the early 20th century.

Elephant & Castle to Borough

From the chaos of the main roundabout, it’s a relief to dive into the quieter streets to the northeast, though it is still very urban (the park I walked through to the east of Avonmouth Street was more concrete than grass, and perhaps could do with cheering up a bit). However, Trinity Church Square is well worth a visit, with its Georgian terraces, dating from between 1824 and 1832, surrounding the bulk of Trinity Church, which is now called the Henry Wood Hall and is used for orchestral rehearsals. The garden is only open to residents, and contains one of the oldest statues in London, possibly of Alfred the Great, though you can’t see a lot from the plebian side of the fence.

Borough station is back in the traffic on the A3, and although it was originally opened in 1890 as part of the City & South London Railway, it has recently been completely restored, as it had fallen into a rather sad state of disrepair. This is the northernmost station that still exists that was part of the original line; the original City & South London Railway ran from Stockwell to Oval, Kennington, Elephant & Castle, Borough and King William Street, which was just south of the present Monument station. King William Street was closed in 1900 when the line was extended north to Moorgate via London Bridge.

Borough to London Bridge

Being part of the main road from the south of England into the City, Borough High Street makes for a busy walking companion, but there is respite to be found. The George Inn, just off the main road on the right, is London’s only surviving galleried coaching inn. The current inn, which lives on its own large cobbled courtyard back from the noise of the traffic, dates from 1676, when it was rebuilt after a fire swept through Southwark, though originally all three sides of the courtyard would have been galleried, rather than just the one side that survives (the Great Northern Railway used the George as a depot and pulled down two of its galleries to build warehouses, leaving just the south face). It was too early for a beer as I walked past, which is a shame, as it’s an amazing pub.

On the other side of the main road is Borough Market, one of London’s most famous markets. You have to catch it when it’s open to see it in its full glory – the retail market is only open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, though the wholesale market is open weekday mornings from 2am to 8am – but walking through it when it’s shut is still an atmospheric experience. There has been a market here since Roman times, though the current buildings date from 1851, with various additions since (such as the 1932 Art Deco entrance on Borough High Street). Keep an eye open for Southwark Cathedral peeping over the buildings as you wander underneath the railway arches; I’ll be back to explore this area further on my Jubilee line walk from Green Park to Canada Water.

London Bridge station is massive, and the Tube station is well hidden beneath the national rail station. The Tube first opened here on 25 February 1900, as part of the City & South London Railway’s extension from Borough to Bank and Moorgate. There are entrances on Tooley Street, Borough High Street and in the middle of the railway station; it’s a very big station.

London Bridge to Bank

The architecture around London Bridge is not among the prettiest in the capital, so it’s a relief to cross over London Bridge, with its great views east towards Tower Bridge. A bridge has existed on or near the existing London Bridge since Roman times, and it was the only bridge over the Thames below Kingston until Westminster Bridge was opened in 1750. It’s easy to see what an important bridge this is, even though these days it’s a fairly functional concrete structure that was built between 1962 and 1972, and looks it.

On the way to Bank, I decided to swing via the site of 20 Fenchurch Street, where they’re building a new skyscraper. Nicknamed the Walkie-Talkie Tower and due to be completed in 2011, it will have a large viewing deck and sky gardens on the top floor, which will be open to the public. That should be something to behold, as will its design, which has a distinctive ‘top-heavy’ form.

Just before the Lloyd’s Building, make sure you turn left into Leadenhall Market so you can join people like me, standing there and staring at the amazingly ornate roof. Painted in maroon, green and cream, the roof is amazingly ornate, and is quite breathtaking; it was designed in 1881 by Sir Horace Jones, who also designed Billingsgate and Smithfield Markets, and there has been a market here since the 14th century.

Heading west along Cornhill, don’t miss the Gothic porch into St Michael’s Church, tucked away just off the street. The church itself is a Wren design dating from 1670 to 1677, but the porch on Cornhill is a later addition from 1858-1860. Further along the road, it’s hard not to be cowed by the impressive architecture of the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England. The former building is now a shopping centre, albeit a particularly impressive one that dates from 1844, but the Bank of England is still very much in business, as it has been since 1734.

Bank station is completely subterranean, the only signs of the station being the numerous subways dotted around the road junction.

Bank to Moorgate

Heading northwest from Bank, there are some lovely thin streets of a type that I just love stumbling upon; my favourite is the relatively plain Ironmonger Lane, as it’s not wide enough to carry a bus, and curves at just the right angle to enhance the feeling of being hemmed in by city buildings. It makes it a bit of a shock to burst out into the wide open courtyard of the Guildhall, which makes a great spot for contemplation and maybe a bit of lunch. The Guildhall is the ceremonial and administrative centre of the City of London and the Corporation of London, so it’s effectively the town hall for the City. The current building along the northern side of the courtyard is impressive, and parts of it date from 1441; it was the only stone building not belonging to the Church that survived the Great Fire of London in 1666, though there have been plenty of additions since, such as the rather grand entrance, which was added in 1788. St Lawrence Jewry Church on the southern side of the square was rebuilt by Christopher Wren after being destroyed in the fire, but it was burned down again during the Blitz, after which it was rebuilt yet again in a similar style to the Wren church.

Turning from the old to the new, the buildings to the north of the Guildhall along Basinghall Avenue are stunning. We all know about the buildings that break the skyline – the Gherkin, Canary Wharf and so on – but there are plenty of amazing creations that you can only see if you visit them yourself, and the amount of glinting glass and gracious curves along Basinghall Avenue and Coleman Street is impressive. On the other side of London Wall lies the amazing Moorhouse Building, built in 2004. This building has the deepest foundations in London, going down to a depth of 57m, and it’s also the first building to be designed specifically with Crossrail in mind, as it has a shaft down to the station under the building. Its curves are very gracious, but that’s not surprising, as the architect was Sir Norman Foster, the designer of the Gherkin.

Moorgate station is on the left, just past the Moorhouse Building, the entrance dating from the 1900 extension to the City & South London Railway, when it was opened as Moorgate Street.

Moorgate to Old Street

Heading north from Moorgate, the first point of interest is Finsbury Square, which is either a lovely square or a bit of an architectural disaster, depending on which angle you look at it from. In the middle of the square is a lovely bowling green with some very pretty flower beds, and as the square is large and surrounded by some grand buildings, this makes for some great ‘city square’ views. However, the southern end of the square is full of rather ugly pre-fab buildings that make it look like a failed experiment in cheap urban development, and this is a great shame, as otherwise it’s an impressive place.

Back on City Road, it’s worth popping into the Bunhill Fields Cemetery, though the graves are fenced off from the public, so you’ll have to do your grave-spotting from a distance. Used as a burial site for non-conformists from the late 17th century to the middle of the 19th century, notable residents include William Blake, John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe. On the other side of the road is the fine Georgian building of Wesley’s Chapel, which was built by John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists, in 1778. Wesley lived in the house next door for the last 11 years of his life, where he died on 2 March 1791. He is buried in the garden to the rear of the chapel, along with six of his preachers, his sister Martha Hall, and his doctor and biographer, Dr John Whitehead.

Old Street station is north along City Road, and is completely hidden beneath the large roundabout where City Road meets Old Street. Originally opened in 1901 as part of the City & South London’s extension from Moorgate to Angel, the only signs of the station from above ground are the signed staircases down to the shopping arcade and station below the hectic roundabout.

Old Street to Angel

I worked in Old Street for three weeks a couple of years ago, and as a place to work, it’s not great. Old Street itself is busy and doesn’t have a terribly wonderful selection of shops or eateries, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there and onto another contract; I therefore didn’t waste much time heading north from the main road and into the estates that dominate this area. The estates aren’t at all ugly, and there’s evidence of redevelopment work of gardens and play areas along Radnor Street, which is good to see after the sorry state of some of the inner-city estates I’ve visited.

The estates suddenly change into much more desirable residences as you cross City Road, past an incredibly ugly building that turns out to be the lift shaft from the old City Road station. This station was opened in 1901 as part of the extension to Angel, but closed again in 1922 due to low numbers of passengers.

It’s in Graham Street that the atmosphere turns from the gritty reality of urban housing estates into the rather more exclusive residences of Islington. City Road Basin is the site of some impressive residential development, and you can visit the basin via the Graham Street Park at the northern end of the road. Even more enjoyable is the short stretch of the Regent’s Canal to the north of Vincent Terrace, where the towpath is open to the public. It’s a peaceful experience, gazing at the backs of the houses on Noel Street with the pretty narrow boats moored just below, but it’s short-lived, as the canal soon disappears into the 886m-long Islington Tunnel.

Islington High Street is a short walk along some beautiful streets lined with lovely Georgian-style terraces, and Angel station is a little further to the north. Angel was originally opened by the City & South London Railway in 1901 as the northern terminus of the extension from Moorgate, and it’s now famous for having the longest escalators in western Europe. These were added in a major revamp of the station in 1992, which aimed to cut congestion and overcrowding by removing the island platform and replacing the small capacity Otis lifts with escalators. The exterior of the station was rebuilt at the same time, so there are no terracotta tiles here.

Angel to King’s Cross St Pancras

From Angel to King’s Cross, the walking is delightful. This is expensive territory, and Myddelton Square and Lloyd Square are wonderful. The former was built between 1826-1828, with the church of St Mark the Evangelist in the middle being added in 1827 at a cost of £16,000; the Georgian terraces surrounding the central green are great. Lloyd Square is even more impressive, the surrounding houses dating from 1820-1830, each of them sporting a distinctive pediment instead of a third storey (thankfully without supporting columns, which would perhaps be too much). There’s a private garden in the middle of the square, with great views down the hill towards the BT Tower.

Percy Circus can be reached along some interesting backstreets (bizarrely, for this area, there’s also a boarded-up old pub, the Percy Arms, that could do with some attention, but I guess that goes to show that pubs are having a hard time throughout the whole country, even in the poshest areas). According to a blue plaque, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin, founder of the USSR, stayed at 16 Percy Circus in 1905. The Circus itself looks a little worn (though in a charming way), with one corner sporting a modern and fairly uninspiring bit of social housing; that’s probably because we’re nearly in King’s Cross, and King’s Cross is a much more earthy part of London than Islington.

King’s Cross St Pancras station can be found along some interesting backstreets, where old warehouses are being converted into pleasant office and residential blocks. King’s Cross is the Next Big Thing, now that the terminus for the Eurostar has opened its doors in St Pancras, and you can see its potential. The station itself is a massive affair, being the largest interchange on the Tube network, with six lines on four pairs of tracks. The main entrance is on the north side of the road, but there’s a subway entrance on the south side too.

King’s Cross St Pancras to Euston

From the station, I decided to wander through the backstreets to the south of the busy Euston Road, and it’s a surprisingly enjoyable part of town. I say ‘surprisingly’ because I’ve never heard anyone associate King’s Cross with good walking, but I came across a nice little pub and a number of quaint terraces well away from the noise of the main road. OK, so there are quite a few monstrous buildings that don’t exude a lot of charm – for example, the UNISON Headquarters is huge and not the prettiest monolith in the world – but I enjoyed my wander towards Euston.

Euston station is another massive affair, with the Tube station buried deep beneath the mainline station. This is where the Bank and Charing Cross branches of the Northern line meet; I’ll be walking north from Euston tomorrow, but today’s walk is a loop up the Bank branch and down the Charing Cross branch, so from here I turned south on the long walk back to Kennington.

Euston to Warren Street

It isn’t far from Euston to Warren Street, and by far the best way to walk it is via Euston Street, and in particular the Bree Louise, one of those pubs you wish you’d known about for a lot longer. It serves a massive range of great real ales, but just as importantly, it also serves exquisite pies with a good range of fillings, rounded off with mash, veg and gravy. If you’re passing through here at the right time of day, stop for lunch; failing that, stop for a pint. It’s great, and Euston Street is quiet enough to feel away from it all, just for a while.

The chaos of Euston Road kicks in again on the approach to Warren Street station, which opened on 22 June 1907 as part of the original Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway. This deep-level Tube line served 16 stations on opening, from Charing Cross up to Camden Town, where it forked to serve Golders Green and Archway; we now know it as the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line, after extensions took it from Golders Green to Edgware, and from Charing Cross down to Kennington. Warren Street was originally called Euston Road, but it changed its name the following year. The current station building is not the original, which was designed by Green in the same ox-blood red style that he used for the City & South London Railway stations; this was replaced by the current Portland stone building when escalators were installed in the early 1930s.

Warren Street to Goodge Street

The most direct route to Goodge Street is along Tottenham Court Road, but this is a seriously busy shopping street, and it’s much more enjoyable to walk along the parallel Whitfield Street. Sporting a number of pleasant pubs and restaurants, it’s also home to the Marie Stopes Clinic. Back on 17 March 1921, Marie Stopes opened the UK’s first family planning clinic in Holloway in north London, which offered a free service to married women and gathered scientific data about contraception. In 1925, the clinic moved to Whitfield Street, where it still operates today, having changed the way the world thinks about birth control.

Further down the road and behind Goodge Street station is Pollock’s Toy Museum, which houses an eclectic but fascinating collection of toys from around the world. It’s run by the grandson of the founder and is well worth a look.

Goodge Street still sports its original Leslie Green design, complete with the characteristic ox-blood red tiles. This is a good example of how Green’s designs were built with a flat roof, to enable further buildings to be placed on top. Deep under Goodge Street station is one of the eight deep-level air-raid shelters along the Tube, but this one is particularly important, for it was from here on 6 June 1944 that General Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, announced the invasion of France.

Goodge Street to Tottenham Court Road

Just to the south of the Tube station is a lovely little mews on a small square, Colville Place, which is well worth a visit; I dare not even speculate how much one of these charming townhouses might cost, but it’s fun to walk through. Charlotte Street is just along the end of the mews, and if I was to do this walk again I’d probably just walk down Charlotte Street to Oxford Street, but for a reason that I can’t recall right now, I decided to design a route through a couple of pedestrian tunnels to Newham Street. This turned out to be a lot less interesting than Charlotte Street, though if you look right as you come into Newham Street, there’s a good view of the BT Tower, and that’s always a pleasure.

Oxford Street hardly needs an introduction: it’s busy, touristy and chaotic, but it’s always fun to walk along. Tottenham Court Road station is on the corner with – you guessed it – Tottenham Court Road, in a really grimy building that heralds a new design on my tubewalk, as the station was originally opened on 30 July 1900 as part of the Central London Railway, now the Central Line. In common with the other stations on the original line, the station was designed by Harry Bell Measures, though the station has been considerably modified in the meantime. The Northern line, in the guise of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway, came through here on 22 June 1907, using Oxford Street as its station name, but an interchange was built in 1908, when both stations were named Tottenham Court Road

Tottenham Court Road to Leicester Square

Leaving Tottenham Court Road, the most obvious building is the towering Centrepoint, which dominates the junction with Oxford Street. In contrast, Soho Square is relatively quiet, with its central garden that’s popular with lunching employees and tramps alike. Head down Greek Street, and you come to Soho, the traditional home of everything that is sleazy about London, though these days it’s pretty tame, and instead of prostitution, it’s the gay capital of London and a major tourist attraction.

Old Compton Street is a fun place to wander down, with its theatres, restaurants and gay bars, and just over Shaftesbury Avenue is Gerrard Street, home to the Chinese community in London. Until the 1970s this was just another run-down part of sleazy Soho, but gradually Chinese restaurants and shops started to take over the area, and it’s now regarded as London’s Chinatown, complete with decorated Chinese arches at the entrances to the street. Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club originally opened in the basement of number 39, though it moved to Frith Street in 1965, where it’s still going strong.

The main entrance to Leicester Square station is back on Charing Cross Road, its Portland stone façade dating from a station revamp in the early 1930s. However, a smaller entrance on the opposite side of the road is still decked out in the red terracotta tiles of the original 1906 Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway station.

Leicester Square to Charing Cross

The twin themes of Charing Cross Road, south of the Tube station, are books and theatre, with Wyndham’s Theatre and the Garrick Theatre rubbing shoulders along the eastern side of the road. Further down, opposite the blocky statue of Edith Cavell – the British nurse in World War I who helped hundreds of Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium – is the National Gallery, and then the view opens up on Trafalgar Square, with Nelson’s Column dominating the scene. I’ll be visiting Trafalgar Square properly on my Piccadilly line tubewalk from Hammersmith to King’s Cross St Pancras, so today I only brushed the northeast corner.

Outside Charing Cross station sits Eleanor’s Cross, though it’s currently wrapped up in a huge tower of scaffolding and blue sheeting, hiding any signs of the monument inside. This cross is an 1865 replacement of the original Eleanor Cross that stood on the south side of Trafalgar Square, and the cross is regarded as the official centre of London as far as legislation and measuring distances from London are concerned.

Charing Cross station used to be two separate Tube stations: the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway (now the Bakerloo line) opened a station here on 10 March 1906 and called it Trafalgar Square, while the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (now the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line) opened another one called Charing Cross on 22 June 1907, which at the time was the southern terminus of the new line. The two stations, after various name changes, were combined into the current Charing Cross station when the Jubilee line was built in 1979; originally Charing Cross was the southern terminus of the Jubilee line, but when the line was extended in 1999, the Jubilee line was diverted via Westminster and Waterloo, and the Jubilee platforms at Charing Cross were closed. They’re now used for filming.

Charing Cross to Embankment

It’s a tiny walk from Charing Cross to Embankment, down Villiers Street and past the entrance to Victoria Embankment Gardens, which I visited when walking the District line from Victoria to Bow Road. Villiers Street is lined with pubs, restaurants and shops, with yet more shops in the shopping centre in the main Charing Cross building on the right, though at busy times the crowd has to be seen to be believed. In the arches to the right as you walk down the hill you can find the famous Heaven nightclub, which has been entertaining the gay community in flamboyant style since 1979.

Embankment station is at the bottom end of the street, and luckily you can walk straight through the station foyer to Victoria Embankment without needing a ticket.

Embankment to Waterloo

Just outside the station exit are the steps up to Hungerford Bridge, though you do have a choice of which side of the bridge you walk along. If you want the traditional view of the City, as immortalised in the Kinks’ song ‘Waterloo Sunset’, then you should take the first set of steps, but if you want a view of the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye, go under the bridge and take the steps on the other side. Whichever choice you make, you won’t be disappointed, as this is one of the best river views of them all.

Jubilee Gardens is on the other side of the river, dominated by the huge London Eye and the tall, Portland stone-clad skyscraper of the Shell Centre on the eastern side of the grassy area. This is a great place for people watching, with mime artists entertaining the tourists along the walkway, while others stare up at the frankly astounding bulk of the Eye.

Waterloo station is just along York Road to the left, and the easiest way to get to the Tube is up the steps outside the Shell Centre, which take you into the main hall of the railway station, where there’s an entrance to the Tube. Alternatively, you can keep going along the road and turn right to see the impressive main entrance to the station, and follow the steps up to reach the same spot. The extension from Charing Cross to Kennington was opened via Waterloo in 1926, after the City & South London Railway and the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway were amalgamated into the Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited, the forerunner of today’s London Underground. However, the first Tube station at Waterloo was opened on the Waterloo & City line on 8 August 1898, followed by the Bakerloo on 10 March 1906, so the Northern line was a bit of a latecomer to the party.

Waterloo to Kennington

It’s a rather boring walk along York Road and Lambeth Palace Road from Waterloo to the eastern end of Lambeth Bridge, but it’s worth the effort to see Lambeth Palace, the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The red brick gatehouse dates from 1440, though nearby St Mary-at-Lambeth Church is somewhat more modern, having been rebuilt around 1850.

Just as imposing are the apartments of Parliament View, on the other side of the road junction from Lambeth Palace. The 183 apartments and seven penthouses have great views of the Houses of Parliament, and the curved glass design is rather attractive. A three-bedroom apartment here currently sells for about £850,000; it’s not hard to see why.

Things suddenly get a lot earthier as you step into the backstreets behind Parliament View. This area was bombed in the Blitz and subsequently got rather run-down, but before this fate, Lambeth Walk was notable for its street market and working class culture, so much so that the song ‘The Lambeth Walk’ from the 1937 musical Me and My Girl was named after the street. These days it’s home to a few apartment blocks and is a quiet and pleasant little spot, though it does smell of burned coffee beans, as Costa Coffee’s roasting works is next to the railway line on Old Paradise Street, and it’s pretty fragrant.

Between here and Kennington Road is a large estate, with tower blocks overlooking the enjoyable green space of Lambeth Walk Doorstep Green. The high-rises aren’t the most attractive on the planet, but there is plenty of lovely housing over the Kennington Lane, in Chester Way and along Cottington Street. And there, a little walk south along Kennington Road, is Kennington station, back where we started this morning. It’s a long walk, this, but it takes in such a huge swathe of central London that it has to be one of the more interesting tubewalks you can do. Just make sure you leave plenty of time for photography...

Euston to East Finchley

9 July 2008

I guess this walk is best summed up by the following report from today’s London Paper.

‘Monsoon’ in Capital

Monsoon-like conditions hit the capital today, as forecasters warned half a month’s rain could fall on London in just 24 hours. A Met Office spokesman said, ‘It’s thoroughly wet and miserable.’

I can vouch for the last bit; it certainly was wet and miserable out there. However, I was joined for this section by my good friend Bill, and it’s amazing how good company in the face of climactic adversity makes everything seem all right. Yes, we got completely soaked, as the rain didn’t stop for one second, but this is an interesting tubewalk and even in the rain it’s worth doing. Just remember your umbrella; Bill didn’t, and by Highgate the rain had reached his boxers... and you never want that to happen, believe me.

Euston to Mornington Crescent

Turning north from the concrete forecourt of Euston station – which looks fairly drab in the rain, with its washed-out picnic tables and penchant for pebbledash grey – we headed past the now disused Tube station from the original opening of the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line, then known as the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway. The distinctive Leslie Green design of ox-blood red terracotta tiles is still evident in the building on the corner of Melton Street and Drummond Street, though all the markings have long since gone. It’s a short walk from there to St James Gardens, a small wedge of green among the monoliths, but this isn’t the most beautiful part of London, especially in the rain; however, if you look behind you when walking up Hampstead Road, you do at least get a good view of the BT Tower rising in the distance, and for fans of the tower (like me), it’s always a comforting sight.

Looking forward and to your left, you soon pass the very impressive Carreras Building (now known as Greater London House) on the other side of Hampstead Road. Dating from 1926, it is one of the best-known Art Deco buildings in London, and at 168m long and with architecture inspired by the Egyptian temple of the cat-goddess Bastet, it’s quite a sight.

Mornington Crescent station sits on the junction of Hampstead Road and Eversholt Street, surrounded by busy traffic. The location might be a bit hectic, but the station building is clad in the familiar blood-red tiling of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway, and as such it’s a distinctive building, sitting there are the bottom of Camden High Street. There’s a paved triangle in the middle of the junction with some seats and a statue, which would be a pleasant resting spot in the sun, but in the driving rain it’s perhaps not the best place to stop, so we didn’t.

Mornington Crescent to Camden Town

The quickest way from Mornington Crescent to Camden Town is along Camden High Street. It’s a bit of a grungy street, not unlike the rest of Camden, but it has a decent range of shops, and if you look along the tops of the buildings (something we rarely do when out shopping) there are some interesting period designs to be seen. Camden is a trendy area, which means its fans positively enjoy the slight air of decay about the place. Others might not be so impressed, though I rather enjoy it.

I used to work on Bayham Street in the building that now houses Getty Images, so we took a detour to see if much has changed. It hasn’t, despite it being some 15 years ago that I was Technical Editor on Acorn User. Working here was my first introduction to working in London, and I loved it; I was at the perfect age for Camden, and we got on well. The office is still there, with different occupants, but I think I’m perhaps a little too old to appreciate Camden in quite the same way as I used to in the early 1990s; I don’t think my liver could cope with that style of living any more...

Camden Town station is again done up in the ox-blood red livery of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway and, like Mornington Crescent, it sits on a busy junction at the end of the High Street. Opposite the station is the World’s End pub, said to be the largest pub in England, and the whole area is spattered with kebab restaurants and fried chicken outlets. It’s perfect for students, but a little passé for those of us approaching 40.

Camden Town to Kentish Town

We took a wrong turn off Kentish Town Road and ended up walking towards Camden Lock, but that particular delight is reserved for my jaunt from Camden Town to Edgware, so we retraced our steps and ended up in the backstreets of Kentish Town. This is a land of large council estates, some of them deeply impressive buildings that tower over the main road, despite sitting back from the street behind car parks and gardens. Of course, there are also some rather uninspiring examples of housing round here, some peeling so much paint that they’re presumably only good for squatting, but even in the gloom of a constant downpour, this isn’t a horrible place.

Indeed, as you head north along Anglers Lane, the side roads reveal some lovely terraced houses, and although the urban character of Camden is still very much in evidence, you get the feeling that things are improving all the time. Kentish Town station, another ox-blood red building, sits on Kentish Town Road, right next to a glass-roofed shelter, which proved very handy in the continuing downpour. There are views west towards the rolling green hills of Hampstead Heath, where I’ll be walking on my tubewalk from Camden Town to Edgware.

Kentish Town to Tufnell Park

I’m glad I designed such a rambling route between Kentish Town and Tufnell Park, because it gave us the chance to explore the beautiful suburbs of Tufnell Park, something that would never have occurred to me otherwise. The reason for the long-winded approach was simple: I’d heard that the flat from Spaced – the cult TV show starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Jessica Stevenson before they went on to receive international acclaim for Sean of the Dead – was round here somewhere. I typed the address into Google Maps, stuck the marker on my map, and designed an appropriate route through the suburbs. Unfortunately Google Maps got the right road, but the wrong end of it, so my carefully plotted jaunt soon fell apart, not helped by the fact that I’d wanted to take a short-cut through an estate on Torriano Avenue, but couldn’t find any way through.

Never mind, for there are some lovely parts of Tufnell Park, and the walking is delightful, even in the rain. The first such delight is Torriano Cottages, a hidden backstreet off Leighton Road that hides 15 lovely Victorian cottages (though it also hides the kind of people who give you wicked stares if you wander down their lane with a backpack and camera, so don’t hang around or the twitching net curtain brigade will probably get you). Torriano Avenue, just round the corner, is another desirable area, though it’s not as attractive as I’d expected from descriptions I’d read on the Web (apparently the actor Bill Nighy, who played Sean’s step-dad in Sean of the Dead, lives round here, and there’s quite a social scene around the local pub, though perhaps not on a wet Wednesday morning).

23 Carleton Road was the house used for outside shots of the flat in Spaced, and it signals a change in the quality of housing. Until this point most of the roads are lined with estates – quite pleasant ones, but estates nonetheless – but from here the architecture improves considerably. Impressive terraces line the roads, and although some parts could perhaps do with a little attention, the overall atmosphere is one of good, solid housing that will be here for an awfully long time to come. They don’t build them like they used to, and Tufnell Park is a good example of why, perhaps, they should.

Tufnell Park station is, of course, covered in ox-blood red tiles and sits on a road junction, a consistent theme along this part of the world’s first Tube line.

Tufnell Park to Archway

From Tufnell Park, things just get better and better as you head up towards Highgate. The houses get bigger and more impressive as you move into Dartmouth Park, the area named after the Earl of Dartmouth, who bought the land here in the mid-18th century. You soon join the southern perimeter of Highgate Cemetery, with the odd grave peeping through the thick trees, but the real show starts when you reach Holly Village, a bizarre but attractive collection of nine Gothic cottages on the corner of Chester Road and Swain’s Lane. This is the bottom corner of the cemetery, and while walking north up Swain’s Lane, make sure you look left at the private Holly Lodge Estate. Huge blocks of Mock Tudor housing line manicured streets, and the streets are closed off with chained gates (one of which has obviously been driven into by someone trying to leave the estate at speed while not concentrating very hard). Each road has a different style – Mock Tudor flats, Mock Tudor terraces, Mock Tudor houses and so on – but you’ve probably guessed the common theme. This is Mock Tudor heaven, in a prime spot overlooking the cemetery, and I guess you either love Mock Tudor... or you don’t.

Highgate Cemetery is one of the few places in London that is more atmospheric in the rain, and I’m glad we (or, rather, Bill) paid the £3 per person entrance fee. I’m even more glad we bought a photocopied grave guide for £1, because alongside the impressive grave of Karl Marx (the biggest draw-card and well worth the effort of a visit alone), there are two graves here that I didn’t know about, and I’m delighted to have stumbled upon them.

The first is Richard Smith’s grave, or ‘Stoney’ Smith as he was known. And why is this man important? Well, to quote his gravestone:

‘Stoney’ Richard Smith, 16 February 1836 – 28 August 1900, of Stone in Staffordshire, Macclesfield in Cheshire and London. After years of patient investigation he patented on the 5th October 1887 his improved treatment of the wheat germ and broken wheat which made the manufacture of Hovis bread possible.

I can practically hear your apathy, but bear with me, because I’m from Stone in Staffordshire, and to find out that one’s small home town produced the man who invented modern bread manufacturing – someone who was clearly important enough to be buried in Highgate Cemetery – is a surprise that brightens up even the rainiest of days. So what’s that feeling? It’s provincial pride, that’s what it is, and I revelled in it as the rain dripped down my neck.

The second was the grave of Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I used to work for Douglas back in the dot-com boom, when I was the Editor of the Earth Edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (or h2g2 for short), and although he was rarely around – instead spending most of his time in California, trying to get a film made of the book – he would be around for the odd lunch, and he was a fascinating person and very inspirational. His grave is extremely plain and I would never have found it without the map; it’s a small, granite block with the simple inscription ‘Douglas Adams, Writer, 1952-2001’. It doesn’t say ‘So long and thanks for all the fish’, but then, that wouldn’t have been his style.

There are plenty of other fascinating graves in Highgate, and grave-hunting is a great pastime. You can tell a lot from the messages people leave (or don’t leave) on their graves, and whenever I’m hunting through cemeteries, I can’t help but remember my favourite gravestone quotation of all. It’s from an interview with Noel Gallagher in the documentary The Who: Amazing Journey, when he’s talking about the fantastic John Entwhistle bass solo in ‘My Generation’:

Amazing. The great solo in ‘My Generation’. If you could write that in words, that’s what you’d have on your gravestone.

Too right, Noel. I couldn’t put it better myself.

Next door to the cemetery is the enjoyable Waterlow Park, which is pleasantly landscaped and is no doubt a delight in the sun; in the rain it’s a little gloomy, but it’s still worth the detour. The busy traffic of Highgate Hill takes you down to Archway station, by which time the architecture has morphed back into council housing and ugly high rises, none more ugly than Archway Tower, which sits on top of the Tube station like a dark nemesis. It’s horrible in much the same way that Colliers Wood Tower is horrible. Poor Archway station; as if life isn’t bad enough not being clad in red tiles, it’s squashed under a 1963 architectural disaster, though at least the tower has inspired at least one good song, the harrowing ‘Archway Towers’ by New Model Army. Every cloud, and all that...

Archway to Highgate

A long run of estates takes you north to Hornsey Rise. There’s nothing wrong with these estates – some of them look quite pleasant, even in the rain – but there’s nothing to write home about. However, halfway to the next station we joined the Parkland Walk, and things instantly improved.

The Parkland Walk, which the Capital Ring follows on day 12, is an old disused part of the Great Northern Railway line that has been turned into a walkway. This means it’s extremely flat and easy to walk along, but it also means it’s raised above the height of the surrounding suburbs on an embankment, and although it does make it hard to see what the area looks like, it makes for some sheltered and peaceful walking. We joined the walk just west of the old Crouch End station, whose raised platforms you can still see next to the trackless track; the walk goes all the way to Finsbury Park in the east, but we wanted to head for Highgate, so we trudged away in the opposite direction. The continuous rain turned the path into a bit of a stream, but luckily both of us had seen the weather forecast and put on proper walking boots, so we still made good progress, soon arriving at the Highgate end, where the old track terminates in a couple of old, dark tunnel mouths, which are sensibly fenced off from the world.

Highgate station is hidden below Archway Road, and the back entrance can be reached down a long driveway. There’s a slightly bigger entrance on Priory Gardens, but as with Archway, the guts of the operation are well hidden, though this time it’s in a deep cutting rather than a towering monstrosity.

Highgate to East Finchley

The Capital Ring continues northwest all the way to East Finchley, and it’s well worth following as it winds through two woods and through a park. The first wood, Queen’s Wood, is the wildest of the two, and even though there’s a gravel path at one point, it’s still a bit of a slippery bugger in the rain. It is, however, a genuine English wood, and you could be forgiven for believing that you were in the middle of the countryside.

Highgate Wood, just over the other side of Muswell Hill Road, is rather more open, with wider paths that were popular with the baby and buggy crowd when I was here last (though there are new entrances to the park that would make even the most dedicated buggy shuffler think twice). Again this is quiet, leafy territory, but still waters run deep, for just to the north of these two woods, just off Muswell Hill Road, is 23 Cranley Gardens, the second house where Dennis Nilsen lived and various visitors died; he committed the last three of his 15 murders here, and was finally caught when the body parts he was disposing of into the sewage system clogged up the drains and attracted the police’s attention. I’ll be walking past his other house, where the other 12 murders took place, on my walk along the Jubilee line from Dollis Hill to Green Park.

At the northwest exit to Highgate Wood, the Ring goes over the old railway line to Alexandra Palace (though you’d be hard-pushed to spot it) and through some suburbia to Cherry Tree Wood, which is pleasant enough if you can ignore the mouldering block at the far entrance, which surely needs to be put out of its misery. East Finchley station is just across the Great North Road, but before you cross, look up at the top of the station to see the kneeling archer, who looks as if he’s just released an arrow along the line towards central London. This station is another great Art Deco-style Charles Holden design, dating from the station’s rebuilding in the 1930s, and the 10 ft-tall archer statue by Eric Aumonier is the icing on a very attractive cake.

And so ends a lovely walk that even constant rain couldn’t dampen (well, psychologically, anyway). We dried ourselves out in a great little pub right next to the station – the Old White Lion – which I can highly recommend, especially for real ale lovers.

East Finchley to Mill Hill East and High Barnet

10 July 2008

After yesterday’s soaking, the weather has turned more pleasant, with sunny intervals being the order of the day (it only drizzled on me once, and that was only for ten minutes or so). I’m sorry to keep banging on about the weather, but it makes such a difference, especially out on the further reaches of the Tube, where there’s at least a small chance of coming across mud and wet grass. Weather-wise, today was a considerable relief.

It was also a much quicker walk than the section from Kennington to Euston and back, because out here in zones 4 and 5 you can get some real speed up. I hoofed through the 10.7 miles in just over four hours (an average of 2.5 miles per hour), compared to over six-and-a-half hours for the 12.9 miles around the centre of town (closer to 1.9 miles per hour). It might not sound like much of a difference, but when they’re your feet, it’s noticeable, and I really enjoyed the freedom of being able to chew up the miles today. God bless the outer zones...

East Finchley to Finchley Central

Heading north from East Finchley station, it’s an enjoyable jaunt along the High Road; the traffic isn’t too crazy, the range of shops is good and the pavements are very wide. This clearly isn’t central London, where space is at a premium, and the area is neatly summed up by the Phoenix Cinema, the oldest purpose-built cinema in the UK. Opening in 1910 as the East Finchley Picturedrome, the cinema is Grade II listed, due to its original 1910 barrel-vaulted ceiling and 1938 Mollo and Egan decorative wall panels.

Not quite as suited to the art-house image of East Finchley is the headquarters of McDonald’s UK, which occupies a large, red brick building on the opposite side of the road to the Phoenix. I’d assumed their head office would be heavily branded, but I walked right past it without noticing. Presumably they don’t want people popping in to voice their opinions on child obesity, which I can fully understand; it can’t be an easy time at the moment, working for the biggest junk food brand on the planet.

As you walk north up the High Road, you pass a couple of interesting churches, a listed Art Deco public library and the gates to a large collection of allotments run by Barnet Council, but the real reason for heading this way is the amazing St Pancras and Islington Cemetery. Established in 1852, this is the largest and the oldest municipal cemetery in London, covering approximately 190 acres that are split between the boroughs of Islington and Camden.

You could wander round here for hours, it’s that big, but even in a cursory wander like the one I took, it’s an impressive place. There’s a very neat section of over 100 war graves, a large crematorium and several chapels, but the most memorable aspect is the huge network of tarmac roads that thread through the cemetery, with graves lined up on either side. It’s like a suburban estate for the deceased, and most of the graves talk about their occupants ‘going to sleep’, adding to the feeling that this is indeed a community, albeit a slightly unusual one.

Heading west through a housing estate and under the rumbling bridge carrying the North Circular Road, there’s a fairly standard stretch of slightly faded but perfectly serviceable suburbia. Keep an eye open for the imposing Finchley Fire Station just after the bridge; it might be the effects of this tubewalk, but I reckon it bears quite a resemblance to a typical Charles Holden Tube station. And that’s a compliment...

The suburbs take us all the way to Finchley Central station. The station dates from 1867, when this part of the line was opened as a suburban railway line by the Great Northern Railway; a branch line was opened in 1872 from here to High Barnet, and this line was incorporated into the London Underground as part of the Northern Heights project, which extended the Tube line from Archway to Mill Hill East and High Barnet. There were plans for further expansion, but the Second World War got in the way, and the plans, which included linking Mill Hill East to Edgware, were shelved. Oh, and Finchley Central was also the home station of Harry Beck, who designed the original 1933 version of the schematic Tube map that we know and love today.

Finchley Central to Mill Hill East

The spur from Finchley Central to Mill Hill East is, like the Metropolitan line spur from Chalfont & Latimer to Chesham, operated as a back-and-forth shuttle for most of the day. The original 1935 plan for this part of the network was to take the existing LNER line from Finsbury Park to Edgware and tack the western section onto the Northern line, thus joining Finchley Road to Edgware via Mill Hill East and Mill Hill (The Hale); however, this was put on hold by the arrival of the Second World War, and only the section from Finchley Road to Mill Hill East was opened, to serve the barracks at the latter. The rest of the LNER line was never electrified and the tracks are now gone, leaving the Mill Hill East spur as a bit of an anomaly, but it makes for a sleepy and rather rural walk, which is always welcome.

The initial section along Dollis Road is through some fairly standard suburbia, though the views ahead from the top of the hill are enticing. At the bottom of the hill, look to your left to see the huge Dollis Brook Viaduct, which carries the Northern line to Mill Hill East. The direct route would be to continue along the main road, but for a more scenic route, strike east along the Dollis Valley Greenwalk, which we’ll also be following from West Finchley all the way to High Barnet. The Dollis Brook winds along the eastern edge of Finchley Golf Course, through thick trees that obscure everything to the left and right. The secret of following the Greenwalk is to stick to the paved path; I made the mistake once of following a side track, and although all roads lead north and eventually join up, it was a muddy old affair after yesterday’s rain.

At a major bridge over the Dollis Brook, turn left onto Lovers Walk for a sheltered and peaceful wander west through the golf course. The course is very definitely private, and signs stop you wandering onto the course, should you be tempted, but you do get some pretty glimpses onto what is obviously a top quality course. Towards the end of the lane the impressive clubhouse comes into view to the left, originally built in 1883 as the home of the wealthy Victorian businessman Henry Tubbs, and soon enough you come to the course driveway, lined with huge redwood trees.

Frith Lane and Bittacy Hill take you to Mill Hill East station in fairly bland style, though there is an impressive Waitrose near the station, if you like that kind of thing. The station itself is understandably the least-used station on the Northern line, and it manages to retain its Victorian character, perhaps not surprisingly as it was opened in 1867, more than 20 years before the deep-level Tube section of the Northern line, and only four years after the first subterranean railway, the Metropolitan Railway.

Finchley Central to West Finchley

Taking the shuttle back to Finchley Central, I wandered through yet more pleasant but unremarkable suburbia to Victoria Park, a landscaped park that hosts the annual Finchley Carnival, a large fun fair that has been held here since 1905. On the other side of the park is the striking red spire of Finchley Methodist Church, and tucked away behind the church are some lovely little detached houses and larger Mock Tudor mansions that are in contrast to the more modern blocks along Ballards Lane. The houses down Essex Park are slightly less imposing, though this is clearly still a desirable place to live.

West Finchley station hides away from the road like a shy child; it was opened in 1933 to serve a new housing development in the area, and from the start it was built in a fairly minimal style, with hardly any station buildings. As with Mill Hill East, it’s a quiet station, though probably because this is an affluent area, and cars are a way of life out here.

West Finchley to Woodside Park

At the end of Fursby Avenue we come across the Dollis Brook again, our companion almost to the end of the line in High Barnet. The pavement of the Dollis Valley Greenwalk follows the brook through pleasant strips of parkland, though as the trees lining the walk obscure pretty much all of the suburbia around, it does feel rather cut off from the rest of the world. When the sun comes out, it’s a lovely little walk, and because you’re blindly following a paved path, you just can’t get lost; it makes a nice change from hoofing round the City, turning left or right every few minutes.

North of Argyle Road the path leaves the brook to join the road through yet more expensive suburbs – I spotted at least one Rolls Royce, which is not something you see parked in suburban driveways every day – and it isn’t far to Tillingham Way, which goes past the cute houses of Twineham Green before crossing the Dollis Brook on the way to Woodside Park station. Originally opened as Torrington Park in 1872 as part of the Great Northern Railway, the main entrance to the station is on the northern side of the tracks, which you can reach by crossing the bridge over to the other side (for which you don’t need a ticket). The station looks for all the world like a house; welcome to the outer suburbs.

Woodside Park to Totteridge & Whetstone

The Dollis Brook Greenway continues north of Argyle Road, though the path is a little scrubbier and less paved for the initial section. It does pick up again, though, and it makes for a very enjoyable walk through lots of small meadows, all the way to Totteridge Lane. This part is a bit wilder than the previous section (and, indeed, the next section), and although it’s rather more constricted than the other parts, it has a slightly more rural feeling because it’s been left to look after itself.

Totteridge & Whetstone station is a few yards to the right along the main road, perched on a bridge above the railway, with stairs down to the tracks below. Dating from 1872, as with most of the stations on this section, it again looks like a large suburban house, though this is tempered somewhat by the estate agents’ office that takes up the left-hand side of the station.

Totteridge & Whetstone to High Barnet

The final stretch to High Barnet again follows the Dollis Brook Greenway, though this section is more of a motorway than a walking path, with two parallel tarmac paths, one for cyclists (on the left) and one for walkers; don’t pick the wrong one, or you won’t make any friends. This is Brook Farm Open Space, an area that used to be used for growing hay, but which is now an enjoyable sequence of meadows that follow the line of the brook northwards.

At the northern end of the meadows, the path meets Western Way and spills into a huge park, with the suburbs of Barnet visible on the hill to the northwest. The London Loop runs through here on day 11, and it’s worth following it all the way to the station. There’s a fascinating little collection of dark brick cottages on the eastern edge of the park, which have great views over the greenery towards a row of tall trees, and at the northern end of the park is the stadium of Barnet Football Club, locally known as the Bees.

The most direct route to the station is to turn left at the top of Fairfield Way and walk along the main road, but a much more scenic approach is to follow the Loop north along Potter’s Lane, and across a lovely little meadow to the east of the station, from where you can peek at the Tube trains sitting at this northernmost terminus of the Northern line. High Barnet station is just along Meadway, back on the main road, down a sloping walkway that passes the entrance to the station before continuing down to the car park and main station buildings. It’s a quiet and pleasant end to this section of the line, and is miles away from Morden station, both geographically and physically. I know where I’d rather live, anyway...

Camden Town to Edgware

14 July 2008

There’s something slightly parable-esque about the route of this walk. It starts off with the abandon of youth in carefree Camden Town and rises to the top of the pile in Hampstead, before being brought down to earth by police action around Colinwood and left to go to seed in Burnt Oak and Edgware. I’m sure Simon Mann, the old Etonian who’s just been slammed into an Equatorial Guinean jail for a failed coup, would appreciate the metaphorical aspects of the journey.

I was lucky enough to be joined by my friend Struan, with whom I shared nine months of enjoyable mayhem at my last employer. Good company always enhances a walk, and it’s particularly rewarding when the sun is shining in a clear blue sky and there’s no prospect of rain. My only regret is that when we finally decided we’d covered enough miles to warrant a rewarding pint in the sun, the supply of good pubs dried up completely... so if you’re considering this walk and fancy a pint en route, make sure you get it in before you cross the M1, because if there’s a line in the sand, that’s definitely it.

Camden Town to Chalk Farm

Camden Town is a town of two halves. When I walked along the High Barnet branch with Bill the other day, we struck north along Kentish Town Road, where the theme was social housing, and lots of it. Sure, it was pretty good social housing and I’m sure a fairly hefty proportion of it is private these days, but it really doesn’t compare to the part of Camden that lies along Chalk Farm Road, which is exquisite.

We started off with a detour along Inverness Street so I could pay homage to The Good Mixer pub, where I used to go every lunch time when I worked around the corner in Bayham Street. I’d head off via the Tube station with our art editor Tony, where we’d pick up Melody Maker (me) and the NME (Tony) before heading to the Mixer to sink two or three pints and play pool before sloping back for an afternoon of writing and snoozing back in the office. Back then the Mixer was a renowned Camden landmark and would regularly crop up in the pages of the music papers, as Food Records was round the corner and all sorts of famous people would crop up there. I have no idea whether it’s still the case, and I’m too old to care, but it was fun to say hello again.

Just up the road is Camden Lock, which these days feels more like a canalside Covent Garden that the slightly risqué market it used to be. A Starbucks sits overlooking the lock and the boutiques are clean, fresh and tailored for the tourist onslaught, and although I’m sure there are plenty of purists who mourn the grittier days, I like the new cosmopolitan feel, particularly on a sunny day, when sitting by the canal, sipping on a latte and watching the world go by is an enjoyable way to spend a morning.

A little further on, Stables Market appears to have the builders in, so no doubt the cleansing operation continues apace, and a little further on, the Roundhouse has had the same treatment, and it now positively gleams by the roadside. A famous music venue, the Roundhouse was originally built in 1847 as a turntable engine shed for turning steam trains around, as steam engines couldn’t reliably reverse and they had to be physically turned around at the end of the line. The tracks are long gone and its high ceiling makes it a popular place for kicking out the jams, a journey that started in 1966 with a gig featuring the Soft Machine and Pink Floyd to celebrate the launch of the underground newspaper International Times. It’s had its ups and downs since, but following its redevelopment in 2006, it seems to be doing well.

Chalk Farm station is a wedge-shaped building a little further north, clad in the familiar Leslie Green ox-blood red terracotta tiles of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway. The narrow width of the wedge means that this station has the longest frontage of any Leslie Green station, with eight arched windows in a row, but more impressive to me is the fact that Madness were photographed in front of the station for the cover of their album Absolutely (they originally wanted to be photographed in front of Camden Town, but the traffic was just too crazy). The station was refurbished in 2005 and the terracotta has polished up nicely; it’s now quite a sight, particularly when set against a deep blue sky without a cloud to be seen.

Chalk Farm to Belsize Park

The houses along the backstreets of Chalk Farm are delightful, particularly those along Eton Villas and Primrose Gardens. Any student pretensions left over from Camden Town are well and truly blown out of the water by now, as this is obviously an expensive area, with lovely detached houses and period terraces surrounding little greens with bright red telephone boxes.

It’s a consistently pretty stroll to Belsize Park station back on the main street, and although it is a busy thoroughfare, Belsize Park has the space to cope. The pavements are huge round here, so much so that the restaurants spill out onto the street, with entire seating sections soaking up the rays like a pleasant continental town in the tourist season. Even with the likes of Tootsies and the Gourmet Burger Kitchen taking up a section of the pavement four tables deep, there’s plenty of room left for everyone, and the result is luxurious after the cramped high streets you normally find in town. The station itself is tucked back from the street, and just to the south is a white domed building that hides the entrance to the deep-level shelter built underneath the station.

Belsize Park to Hampstead

After a short stroll along the main drag in Belsize Park, past some lovely mansion blocks and shops, it’s time to head for some greenery. The western fringe of Hampstead Heath can be reached along Pond Street, past the Royal Free Hospital and across the London Overground on South End Road; Parliament Hill then heads northwest past some exquisite terraced housing and suddenly, bang, you’re in meadowy grassland that stretches into the distance. Turn right and after a short climb you reach the summit, and there is London laid out before you, with Canary Wharf and the City on the left, and the BT Tower on the right. Under a pure blue sky, like the one we enjoyed this morning, it’s a great view; this makes up for the grey rain that greeted me at the top of Primrose Hill all those miles ago, back on day one of my tubewalk.

You could spend a whole afternoon wandering around the scrubland of Hampstead Heath (and indeed, quite a few men do just that, but we’ll come onto that later), but if you’re following the Tube you’ve got to turn back west at some point, and there’s no better place to head for than Hampstead Village, home to some of the most expensive housing on the planet. It’s easy to see why, as the houses along Well Walk and Flask Walk are absolutely divine; this might be zone 2, but the atmosphere is definitely one of an English village, and a very picturesque one at that. Even the likes of Starbucks and McDonald’s on the high street are inconspicuous, as all the shops have to conform to the Hampstead style guide, and that doesn’t include garish logos or corporate clowns. It’s a blessed relief after some high streets around town.

Hampstead station, another 1907 red terracotta Leslie Green creation, is notable for being the deepest Tube station on the network. As Hampstead Village is on a large hill, the platforms are some 192 ft below ground level, served by the deepest lift shaft on the network at 181 ft. Pray that you don’t get stuck here in a power cut, as the emergency stairs have 300 steps; that would certainly sort the men from the boys.

Hampstead to Golders Green

The houses to the north of the station continue the delightful theme of the rest of Hampstead, and it’s worth heading up Heath Street from the station so you can take the steps to the left up to Holly Mount; from here the streets wind round in a gentle fashion, each corner revealing yet another house to make the heart sing. It isn’t until you reach Branch Hill that things start to calm down with a modern block to the left, but even the modern buildings are classy round here, with some very sympathetic curved balconies looking out towards the heath.

Just to the north the road swings left, but all sorts of paths lead into the trees ahead. This is the West Heath, a wooded section of the heath that is probably best known for its transient population of cruising gay men. We didn’t see any suspicious activity – indeed, the only people we saw were mums dragging their toddlers by the hand – but there’s so much cover here that to find anything untoward, you’d have to go looking for it, which is probably why this is such a popular cruising spot in the first place.

On the other side of the West Heath is Golders Hill Park, a manicured formal park with a small zoo and lots of rolling grassland that’s perfect for a spot of lunch. It’s a bit of a shock to pop out of the other end onto Finchley Road, where the traffic is constant and the noise a surprise after the gentle pace of life in Hampstead. On the way to the station, keep an eye out for the Shree Swaminarayan Temple, which is housed in an old church on Willesden Lane; it’s good to see old churches finding new uses rather than being razed to the ground.

Golders Green station was originally the northern terminus of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway when it opened in 1907, and it stayed that way until the extension to Hendon Central opened in 1923. The modern building that replaced the original terminus is not terribly interesting, particularly when compared to the ox-blood red stations further south, and this is a busy part of town, with buses flooding in every few minutes and a hectic traffic junction right next door. It’s amazing to think that when the Tube arrived 100 years ago, Golders Green was a rural hamlet with a handful of houses and around 300 inhabitants; things changed rapidly in the next few decades, and these days it’s hard to picture Golders Green as a peaceful part of the countryside, as yet another double-decker screeches into the depot.

Golders Green to Brent Cross

The suburbia between Golders Green and Brent Cross is inevitably a step down from the village paradise of Hampstead, but it’s still an enjoyable part of the capital to walk through. Heading out along the early 20th-century buildings of the high street, you pass a Greek Orthodox Cathedral along Golders Green Road, and the old library building, which is typical of the architecture round here: it all sprang up in the wake of the Tube line, and it’s laid out a bit like Trumpton, with large period clocks on the public buildings and a functional but solid look to the street.

Further away from the station, the suburbs are fairly standard, with some crimes against taste (such as the appalling cladding on the King Solomon Hotel) and some faded but perfectly pleasant rows of semi-detached post-war houses. However it isn’t far to Brent Cross station, and my first experience of another Tube station designer, Stanley Heaps. Heaps was Leslie Green’s assistant, and following Green’s death in 1908, Heaps became the architect for Underground Electric Railways Company Limited (the precursor to London Underground) and designed a number of stations on the Bakerloo line before designing the stations on the Northern line extension to Edgware. Brent Cross station has a stone column frontage with a red brick and tiled roof building behind, with the name of the station clearly written across the top of the colonnade. The idea was to design stations that would fit into the suburbs that would soon grow around them, though I’m not sure the columns quite manage to merge with the Mock Tudor. It does make for a distinctive design, though, and I like the stations from here to Edgware (at least, those that still have the original architecture intact).

Brent Cross to Hendon Central

I’d originally planned to cross the North Circular Road at the footbridge to the north of Heathfield Gardens, but when we arrived, we found that the bridge was fenced off with warnings that it was no longer safe and closed until further notice (not surprisingly, as the bridge part is now missing altogether). Instead the sign suggested we traipse east to cross at the Brent Street footbridge, where we joined the Capital Ring for a few blocks to Hendon Park.

Hendon Park is a pleasant though not terribly exciting grassy area that flanks the Tube line as it heads north, and Hendon Central station is to the northwest, across the tracks and overlooking a busy junction on the A41. The original Stanley Heaps building has been incorporated into an impressive office block, and here the colonnade works really well, giving the curved red brick and stone block a central focus. On the corner just over the road from the station is the impressive 1932 Art Deco-inspired Ambassador Cinema, now a Virgin Active gym, and together with the buildings on the other corners of the junction, it gives Hendon an impressive focal point, even if the traffic is a little crazy.

Hendon Central to Colindale

I’d originally planned a winding route through the backstreets of Hendon towards Colindale, and we started off well enough, but I was so impressed by the huge houses along Brampton Grove that I took us left instead of right, and ended up back on The Burroughs, just off the main A41. I’m glad I got it wrong, though, because there are some fantastic buildings along here that are much more interesting that yet more suburbia. The town hall (1901) and nearby library (1929) are impressive red brick and stone buildings, but even more interesting is the fire station (1914) with its tower and three red arched doorways. A little further up the road is the Hendon campus of Middlesex University, and the main building, which was built between 1937 and 1938 as the Technical Institute before being incorporated into the university, is suitably grand.

Just north off this road is Church End, a lovely little lane that houses the attractive Greyhound pub, and St Mary’s Church, whose 50 ft tower pokes up above the roofs as if this was a quiet little village square in the middle of the countryside (which it once was, as there’s been a church here since at least 1157). Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, is buried in the church graveyard, as is Herbert Chapman, the manager of Arsenal in the 1920s and 1930s.

This, however, is when the fun stops, because a little walk down the road is the M1, and on the other side things take a turn for the worse. Up to this point, this walk is delightful; from here to the end, it’s rather less impressive, a change signalled by Hendon Police College, the Metropolitan Police’s huge training centre to the west of the motorway. There’s a new housing development opposite, but after the residential flavour of the walk up to this point, you suddenly feel as if you’ve been stranded in Nowheresville, as most of the buildings have the air of a large industrial estate, rather than anything approaching a home. There’s the Police National Computer Data Centre, hidden away behind serious security, followed by Hendon Parade Ground where cadets pass out at the end of their training, and the theme is continued by packs of policemen cycling past on training exercises as the closed-circuit TV cameras look on. This is effectively Cop-land, and it feels like it.

Colindale station was originally opened in 1924 as the first station on the line’s second extension (which took it to Edgware), but the station was destroyed by bombing in 1940 and none of the original Stanley Heaps building remains. A temporary wooden building was used until the current office block was built in 1962, and it’s a pretty bland replacement, truth be told.

Colindale to Burnt Oak

It’s not a pretty walk from Colindale to Burnt Oak, though there are a couple of worthy parks that make life more pleasant. The suburbs are rather worn around the edges and after the beauty of Hampstead it’s sometimes a bit wearing, and as if to rub it in, the area to the west of the station is dominated by a staggering ugly office tower that looms over the industrial parks next to the main road. There’s also the Health Protection Agency Centre for Infections, which is hardly the kind of place you want to live near, though on a more positive note, the British Library’s newspaper collection lives in an impressive building near the station. However this isn’t a particularly lovely part of town, and it’s best to get through the suburbs quickly and up to Montrose Park for a little respite, a theme continued a little further north by Silk Stream Park. The Silk Stream flows through both parks, though it’s a fairly typical urban stream at this point, a little choked by overgrowth and hidden away rather than celebrated.

Coming out onto Watling Avenue, take a moment to turn left to 9 Watling Avenue, the site of the first Tesco store. These days it’s a nondescript Superdrug along the busy main street of Burnt Oak, and it just goes to show how huge corporations often rise from humble beginnings. This is an interestingly ethnic area, with halal butchers and exotic fruit stalls along the road, and Burnt Oak station does indeed merge with the suburbia around it, looking more like a house than a station (probably due to the lack of stone columns out front).

Burnt Oak to Edgware

North of the station is Watling Park, which frankly could do with a bit of a clean; the stream at the entrance is clogged up with rubbish and the whole thing has a slightly unloved air about it, which is a shame as its quite an enjoyable open space once you get through the first section. But this isn’t a particularly attractive part of town, and the suburbs to the north of the park are deeply bland, with pebbledash being the norm along Langham Road. It’s in places like this that it’s great to have company while walking; good conversation is an excellent distraction from peeling paint and dilapidated terraces.

Things get a little better on the other side of Dean’s Lane, and after a short stroll across Deans Brook the suburbs pick up considerably, with larger semi-detached houses stretching along Brook Avenue. There’s a small walkway up to Station Road, and a little further on are the stone columns of Edgware station, set back from the road behind a turning circle. And so ends a delightful walk through some of London’s trendiest and most exclusive districts... oh, and Colindale, Burnt Oak and Edgware, of course. And that brings me to the end of the Northern line; next up, the Central line.

Central Line

West Ruislip to Perivale

15 July 2008

This is perhaps not the most exciting walk in the world, though it does improve considerably towards the end, mainly because it reaches the Grand Union Canal, and if there’s one thing I like, it’s canal walking. There’s also at least one lovely village green (if you can ignore the pounding traffic) and a handful of cheery parks, and some parts are pleasantly green.

But there isn’t a great deal to write home about, so I apologise if this isn’t the most uplifting account you’ve ever read of a day’s walk. On the other hand, this section brings me to within a stone’s throw of the halfway point in my tubewalk, so it’s worth celebrating for that reason alone. Hooray for the Central line, and I’m sure it will get more interesting as it heads east, just like all the other lines...

West Ruislip to Ruislip Gardens

After over 200 miles of walking through Greater London, a large portion of it through the suburbs of zones 4 to 6, I think I’m qualified to hold opinions on the different flavours of suburbia across the capital... and I have to say, I still don’t particularly enjoy walking through the backstreets of Ruislip. It’s strange, because I think I’m developing quite an affinity with the various ways in which we choose to set up home, and even the grittiest suburbs do something to me, but endless roads of semi-detached houses, all produced from slight variations on the same mould, are just not that thrilling.

It’s a bit of a long trudge from West Ruislip station, then, as it’s pretty much 100 per cent suburbia all the way to Ruislip Gardens. I first experienced the suburbs of Ruislip a month ago when walking the Metropolitan line from Harrow-on-the-Hill to Uxbridge and I wasn’t terribly impressed back then; second time round I’m still not that thrilled. The tidy houses along Chichester Avenue threatened for a micro-second to change my mind and the Mock Tudor housing on Beechwood Avenue was, at times, quite enticing, but this is a better place to live than it is to explore, and I managed to make good time through the backstreets.

Just after The Bell, a good-looking pub on West End Road, the road slips under the railway line and Ruislip Gardens station appears on the left. It’s a fairly forgettable design, lacking the flair of stations by Green, Heaps or Holden, but that’s not terribly surprising when you consider the period that this part of the line was built. The New Works Programme of 1935-1940 included a proposal for extending the Central line from North Acton to Denham, but the outbreak of the Second World War rather took the wind out of the programme’s sails, and the introduction of the Green Belt in the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act meant the western extension plans for the Central line had to be cut back from Denham to West Ruislip. Central line extension was prioritised after the war and by 1949 we had the Central line that we know today, but spending lots of money on beautifully designed stations wasn’t always top priority in austere post-war Britain, and West Ruislip and Ruislip Gardens are good examples of functional design rather than aesthetic. The stations further along this leg are more attractive, but out here in the sticks, one assumes that the budget wore a little thin.

Ruislip Gardens to South Ruislip

It isn’t far from Ruislip Gardens to South Ruislip, and I thought it would be interesting to walk past RAF Northolt, which takes up a large amount of land to the west of Ruislip. Unfortunately – and not surprisingly – absolutely nothing is visible from the road that runs along the eastern edge of the airfield, though there is a fence with a small hole in it at the eastern end of the runway through which you can presumably see what’s going on. I’d like to report that it’s a fantastic view and that watching the planes land is a highlight of this walk, but there was a man standing in front of the hole, poking his pocket telescope through, and I figured I’d better leave him alone in case he took offence at me usurping his peep-hole. Instead, I’ll rest easy knowing that not only was this the airfield where Ronnie Biggs was arrested when he flew back into Britain, but it was also where the body of Princess Diana was flown in after the fatal crash in Paris.

The housing around Northolt is not that thrilling, with rows of white terraces and a proliferation of bungalows, but South Ruislip station is a different matter. Topped by a large and very impressive brushed metal rotunda, the inside of the station features a concrete frieze by Henry Haig, and the whole building is pleasantly reminiscent of Holden’s high-ceiling design at Chiswick Park, updated in buffed metal.

South Ruislip to Northolt

There’s no particularly direct walking route from South Ruislip to Northolt, so I thought I’d head south to take in a memorial, a golf club and a park. I didn’t realise it would take me via Mars in the process, but that’s all part of the thrill of tubewalking...

Yet more pleasant but uninspiring suburbia takes you from South Ruislip towards the thundering A40, but just before the roundabout, look right to see the Polish War Memorial. This lonely memorial is dedicated to the memory of fallen Polish airmen, and I’m sure this was a much quieter location when it was unveiled on 2 November 1948 by Lord Tedder, Chief of the Air Staff. Made from Portland stone with bronze lettering and a bronze eagle on top, the memorial is inscribed with nearly 2000 names of Poles who lost their lives in war, and it has been visited by at least two Polish presidents. It’s a bit of a shame that the memorial is bang next to an incredibly busy roundabout above the white noise of the A40, but I suppose that’s 60 years of motoring progress for you.

On the other side of the A40 from the memorial, further south along West End Road, is the Dog Rose Ramble. This circular 8-mile walk comes in from the west, where it meets up with the Hillingdon Trail, and continues east to the Grand Union Canal, which suits me well as the canal slips reasonably close to the next few stations along the line. So I turned left at the sign and headed into what the map claimed was an 18-hole golf course called the C & L Golf and Country Club, but which turned out to be Armageddon; I’d wondered why all these dirt-laden trucks were pulling in to the clubhouse car park, but it turned out that not only is there no longer a golf course here, there’s utter chaos.

‘Over here!’ waved a man as I strode into the mud-bath, wondering which direction I was supposed to trudge. ‘Are you following the Dog Rose Ramble?’

‘Yeah, I am,’ I said, trying to keep the surprise out of my voice. I’d assumed I was going to have to take a large diversion after failing to explain to a hard-hatted man that yes, I did want to walk across his building site, but instead he smiled at me reassuringly and pointed into a Martian landscape of hills, mud, and noisy trucks merrily dumping yet more soil, as if it were needed.

‘Just stick to this path here,’ he said, pointing down a barely visible set of tyre tracks, ‘and go between two coppices there. You’ll come to a white sign, and then you’ll be back on the path.’

‘Thanks very much,’ I said, beaming in appreciation. ‘So what’s happening to the golf course, then?’

‘It’s being landscaped,’ he said, ‘and much improved. Mind the mud, now.’

And with that I headed off into the quagmire and got hopelessly lost, before spotting the white sign from the summit of a handy pile of earth, which took me onto a thin path between fields and an impressive wooden building. This turned out to be the West London Academy, designed by the ubiquitous Norman Foster and opened in 2005, and although it’s hard to see in its entirety from the Dog Rose Ramble, the curves of the grey wooden exterior are quite beautiful.

Crossing the A40 via a footbridge – on which someone had scrawled the rather heart-warming graffiti ‘AB, B MY GIRL, 1 DAY’ – the Ramble took me through some tidy suburbia to Islip Manor Park, a pleasant green space that didn’t quite entice me enough to serve as a lunch stop, but which was worth visiting. Northolt station is a little further on, along the A312, and it’s a massive shame that the A312 is a constant drone of traffic, because Northolt has a delightful village green, with an impressive pub, a cute little clock tower that commemorates the coronation of George VI in 1937, attractive flower beds and plenty of benches for tired hikers. The station is, in contrast, a completely forgettable affair at the northern end of the green, though it’s far enough away not to spoil the between-the-wars flavour of the centre of Northolt.

Northolt to Greenford

Just south of the village green is Belvue Park, which contains the site of a medieval manor house, as well as the parish church of St Mary; the church dates from the 15th century, but is currently smothered in scaffolding. There’s a good view over to Northala Fields, an extension to Northolt and Greenford Country Park right next to the A40 that contains four conical, man-made hills that you can climb; unfortunately I couldn’t include Northala Fields on this tubewalk, but you just can’t include everything.

To the southeast of the park, a small path takes you to the Grand Union Canal. The towpath passes the delightful minaret of Al Masjid ul Husseini, and colourful narrow boats are moored on the opposite side of the canal for a few hundred yards, an aspect of towpath walking that I always enjoy (it’s the canal equivalent of suburbia, I suppose). The walking, like all canal routes, is flat, easy and enjoyable, and I slipped happily into the zen-like trance I always enjoy when walking along towpaths. There are some huge industrial units along here, and judging by the thick fencing, they clearly don’t want anyone invading their territory, but this doesn’t detract from the walk; in fact, it probably makes it more interesting, at least to nosey buggers like me.

It’s a shame it has to end, but when it does, it does so in some style, for the Black Horse pub at the bridge over Oldfield Lane North is a corker, with a lovely beer garden right by the canal. If you weren’t on a tubewalk, you’d be mad to head south from here, as Oldfield Lane North is surrounded by industrial units and is a bit of a shock after the placid towpath, but at least there is one flag to fly. Back in 1856, on a site just to the south of the pub, Sir William Perkin discovered mauveine, the world’s first synthetic dye; he later produced alizarin on the same site, and in doing so laid the foundations for the organic chemicals industry. These days it’s all bread factories and office space, but that’s surely preferable to a chemical works...

Greenford station is on the other side of the tracks from the industrial units, tucked away on the south side of the railway bridge. The station dates from 1947, when the extension from North Acton to Greenford was opened (the further extension to West Ruislip was opened in 1948). The station building is pleasantly designed and curves nicely out of the railway arches, but the interesting thing about Greenford isn’t its attractive 1940s exterior, it’s the escalator inside. Not only is Greenford the only Tube station that has an escalator that ascends from street level to the platforms, but it’s also the last remaining wooden escalator on the whole network, as wooden escalators were removed from all below-ground stations following the 1987 fire at King’s Cross.

Greenford to Perivale

The Capital Ring passes by Greenford station on day 9, and it’s always worth following the Ring where it makes sense (which, in this case, it does). The signs soon take you past the large Westway Shopping Park and into Paradise Fields Wetlands, an enjoyable spot that has a definitely rural feeling to it, though the constant white noise and peeping horns of the Greenford Road are rather distracting; the path is extremely well made, though, and it makes for a nice little jaunt through lots of lush greenery.

At the north end of the wetlands the Ring rejoins the Grand Union Canal and heads east along the towpath. There’s not a lot to see along this stretch, but that doesn’t make the walking any less enjoyable. In the distance is Horsenden Hill, which I’ll be climbing on my Piccadilly walk from Uxbridge to Acton Town, and there’s no hint of the satanic mills of the previous section’s canal walk; there are units to the south, but they’re soon replaced by Perivale Wood as the canal approaches a bridge and a lovely little mooring by Horsenden Lane.

Perivale station is a short walk south along the lane, past a huge and very modern residential development. The station sports a very attractive 1940s frontage, with a curved bank of glass slats set above the entrance, surrounded by a curved red brick front with an Underground roundel at each end. It’s a fitting end to a walk that won’t set the world on fire, but which contains some enjoyable surprises; just don’t mention the suburbia.

Perivale and Ealing Broadway to Shepherd’s Bush

16 July 2008

Apart from one thankless section through an industrial park from hell, this is a pleasant walk through west London, and I’d do it again. Sure, the busy A40 is a recurring and not terribly welcome companion, and it’s always irritating for walkers to have to shuffle through golf courses that would make for wonderful urban parks, but I particularly enjoyed discovering parts of Ealing and Acton that I had no idea existed, and as I currently live in the former, I’m happy to say that it’s opened up my horizons.

The weather continues to be kind, too, which is good news for those of us who believed the tabloids when they said it was going to rain solidly for the rest of the summer. Of course, putting my thoughts in print is guaranteed to bring the skies down on my head, but for now, the weather gods are proving very co-operative, and I’m very grateful. The suburbs of west London would be a lot less enticing in the rain...

Perivale to Hanger Lane

Heading south from Perivale station, it’s a short walk to a pedestrian bridge over the throbbing A40, but fear not, for just off Perivale Lane is an entrance into a long, thin path that takes you through Ealing Golf Course and into Perivale Park. It’s a shame that you don’t get anything other than snatched glimpses of the golf course, but there’s still enough to entertain, including the lovely St Mary’s Perivale Church just off the path, complete with graveyard. This small 70-person church dates back to about 1135, and the current 12th-century building is a Grade I-listed structure that’s been transformed by the Friends of St Mary’s Perivale into a lively music and arts centre.

The River Brent is just south of the church, and from this point we join the Brent River Park Walk, which takes us almost all the way to Hangar Lane. Unfortunately the arrival of the river doesn’t open things up, and it’s a long, covered walk along the path to Pitshanger Park, which is open to the public. It’s a pleasant stroll east past the tennis courts, but the park is fairly small, as it’s hemmed in by another sports field to the east, and you have to leave the park at the gate into Meadvale Road.

This is good news, though, as Meadvale Road is to die for. This is Brentham Garden Suburb and the houses along here are simply wonderful. Brentham Garden Suburb was the first garden suburb in London to be built under co-operative principles, and its origins go back to the Garden City, Co-operative and Arts and Crafts movements of the late 19th century. Most of the buildings were built between 1901 and 1915, predating the larger and more famous Hampstead Garden Suburb by some years (the latter was started in 1907). Brentham is now a conservation area, and it’s easy to see why: the houses are solidly built but very attractive, and the gardens are simply amazing. Kudos to the locals for taking such pride in their community; it makes for great walking.

The Brent River Walk heads north from the eastern end of the conservation area, but Hangar Lane station is best reached along a path just to the south of some allotments, and then along Brunswick Road, which might not reach the standards of Brentham, but still contains some pretty early 20th-century houses. The station is stranded in the middle of the infamous Hanger Lane Gyratory System, one of the busiest road junctions in west London, though when you reach the station via one of the subways under the roundabout, it turns out to be a rather attractive affair, with a lofty circular rotunda with glass slats letting light down into the ticket hall.

Hanger Lane to North Acton

It’s a relief to get away from the insane traffic of the gyratory and into the housing along Twyford Abbey Road, but don’t be fooled by the pleasant-sounding road name, for this leg is pretty drab. The first section along Coronation Road and past the imposing Diageo Headquarters is OK, with a combined cycle track and walkway taking you through corporate gardens to the foot of the brewer’s glass and stone offices, but it’s downhill from here, especially as the old Guinness Brewery that used to sit next door has been razed to the ground.

From Diageo HQ it’s a very long slog through the utterly uninspiring industrial park of Park Royal. This is London’s largest industrial and business park, and is home to over 1200 businesses and 35,000 lucky employees. The figures are easy to believe as you wander past factories the size of football pitches, and on through the backstreets where countless smaller businesses line the streets. I’ll be coming back through here on my Bakerloo walk from Willesden Junction to Harrow & Wealdstone and my Piccadilly walk from Uxbridge to Acton Town; I’m already dreading it.

The only respite is Acton Cemetery, squashed into a corner just north of the ubiquitous A40, and then a couple of large residential blocks herald your arrival at North Acton station, a surprisingly pretty station that lives down a long pedestrian walkway along the back of Victoria Road. The station dates from 1923, when it was opened on the Central London Railway’s extension to Ealing Broadway (which itself had opened three years earlier in 1920); it looks like a little bungalow, an image enhanced by the hanging baskets and curved streetlights along the pathway.

Ealing Broadway to West Acton

I took the Tube from North Acton back to Ealing Broadway so I could head east without further backtracking, and stepping out of the station into the sunlight, I had to stop myself from turning left and walking home, following the commute I’ve been doing for months. Instead I turned right and brushed past Haven Green, a pleasant bit of green in the chaos of central Ealing that kindly provides a home to the local drunks.

Pleasant late-Victorian terraces and detached houses line Madeley Road all the way to the A406, and although a lot of them have been converted into apartments, and therefore have car parks out front rather than gardens, they’re still an attractive bunch. Just after crossing Hangar Lane, North Ealing station appears on the right opposite a row of shops, but this is a Piccadilly line station, and I won’t be visiting it until my walk from Uxbridge to Acton Town.

Just past the station you enter Hanger Hill Garden Estate, and I have to say it’s one of the prettiest garden suburbs I’ve walked through so far... and yet, at the same, I can’t help feeling a bit unnerved, because this entire state consists of Mock Tudor housing. Known to locals as ‘Stratford-upon-Acton’, the area was built between 1928 and 1936 to a design by architects Douglas Smith and Barley, and it’s a quiet place, with lovely gardens, formal landscaping and trees breaking up the vertical lines of the black and white timbering. I took loads of photographs, and I have to admit that in Hanger Hill Garden Estate, Mock Tudor works an awful lot better than it does in the more run-down parts of town. You never know, I might even grow to like it...

West Acton station dates from 1923, and it’s an imposing sight. A rectangular glass-fronted tower rises out of the station, looking for all the world like the front of a huge factory, with solid, red brick sides and the Underground roundel on a pole to the left. The ticket hall is extremely well lit by light coming in through the high glass slats, and the overall effect is very pleasing.

West Acton to North Acton

This is a popular area with the Japanese, as there’s a Japanese school nearby, and the evidence can be seen around the station, where you can find two Japan-friendly estate agents and at least one Japanese restaurant and a nearby Japanese school. They’ve picked well, because this is a very pleasant area, and although it’s not quite as perfect as the Hanger Hill Garden Estate, the locals clearly take pride in the houses along Noel Road.

Just round the corner is North Acton Playing Fields, which is much more like a park than the name might suggest, with a tree-lined path through the middle and plenty of benches to soak up the sun. The houses surrounding the green are particularly nice, and although some of the terraces along Park View are a little worse for wear, the surroundings are enjoyable all the way to the A40, which rather predictably spoils the fun.

From the A40 to the station, we’re back in the huge industrial complex of Park Royal, passing the massive Carphone Warehouse Headquarters on the right before dipping into the shadows of the residential blocks that greeted us at the end of the Hanger Lane to North Acton leg. North Acton station is just around the corner, hiding from all the industry down its long and tranquil ramp.

North Acton to East Acton

It isn’t far from North Acton to the A40 – nothing is very far from the A40 on this leg, it seems – and again the theme is one of large industrial units. The Carphone Warehouse Headquarters continues through to Wales Farm Road, where there’s a great-looking pub, The Castle, and a row of houses with well-tended gardens, perhaps designed as an antidote to the rush of oncoming traffic. Over the road is where the BBC used to store its costume and wig collection, though the costumes were sold to Angels and Bermans in March of this year, and the hairpiece collection went off to the Wig Store; given that the Corporation spent 50 years building up about one million outfits and 10,000 hairpieces, it must have been some collection.

Crossing the railway via the A-road, a little respite can be found by turning left into a small estate, squashed into the triangle between the Richmond branch of the London Overground and the main line into Paddington. It’s not a bad place, considering the location, and there’s a small exit in the eastern corner that takes you over the London Overground line (providing some excellent views towards the City in the process) and along a long, thin path between fences that eventually bursts out into Old Oak Common Lane.

I instantly fell in love with this area. The buildings along Old Oak Common Lane and Fitzneal Street really appeal to me, perhaps because they’re incredibly neat and tidy. This whole area was developed by the council after the First World War, and the red-brick houses look solid and dependable while managing to exude considerable period charm. The gardens are trimmed and well kept, there’s no sign of the kind of building decay you associate with more modern concrete developments, the streets are lined with attractive trees, and to top it all, East Acton station is as cute as can be, sitting at the end of a row of lovely workmen’s cottages, like a diminutive Post Office in a pretty rural village. What a delightful place.

East Acton to White City

OK, here’s a quick test. Think, if you will, of ‘Acton’. And now, think of ‘Wormwood Scrubs’. Are you full of happy, positive thoughts, or are you thinking of the darker side of urban living? I was pretty down on both places before I tackled this section, but now I’m proud to say that Acton and Wormwood Scrubs are both great places (though when I say ‘Acton’, I mean northern Acton, rather than the much grimmer South Acton Estate... and when I say ‘Wormwood Scrubs’, I mean the large green area, rather than the prison; but you catch my drift).

I’ve already raved about East Acton, and the appealing residential buildings continue along Erconwald Street, with houses attractively grouped round mini-roundabouts and a classic corner shop just up from the station, sporting the ‘A Mars a day’ tag-line as if it were still yesteryear. Eventually the housing gives way to the wide open spaces of Wormwood Scrubs, a huge area of common land (one of the biggest in London) that stretches out to the football pitches in the east, and if you look to your right before crossing into the park, you can see the prison of the same name. It’s an incongruous sight after all this delightful suburbia, but the prison was here first, being built in the 1880s using prison labour. This was where Keith Richards spent 30 hours in detention in 1967, following a one-year conviction for allowing cannabis to be smoked in his house; the sentence was overturned on appeal after widespread condemnation of the harsh sentence, including the famous editorial in The Times entitled, ‘Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?’

Next to the prison, to the south of the common, is Hammersmith Hospital, which includes the relocated Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital, and just to the north is the Linford Christie Athletic Stadium, with its brightly coloured running track hidden from view by the seating. This is a good spot for a quiet lunch on one of the benches lining the access road, with its large horizon and fresh breezes.

Back on the main road of Wood Lane, it’s a short walk south to the A40, and on the other side of the pounding flyover is BBC White City, a huge complex of offices that were built on the site of the 1908 Franco-British exhibition. The buildings at the exhibition were mainly white pavilions, which gave the area its name, and the area was also home to the White City Stadium, which hosted the 1908 Summer Olympics (the finishing line for the marathon is marked just outside the BBC Broadcast Centre). The stadium was then grassed over for greyhound racing but was demolished in 1985 to make way for the BBC.

White City station is currently smothered in scaffolding and white sheeting, as it’s being polished up ready for the opening of the huge shopping centre next door. Opened on 23 November 1947, it replaced the earlier Wood Lane station which was temporarily set up just south of the current location to serve the 1908 Franco-British exhibition, but which stayed open following the success of the exhibition. White City eventually replaced Wood Lane as the latter was just too congested, but a new Wood Lane station is being built on the Hammersmith & City line to coincide with the opening of the Westfield London shopping centre, and both should open later in the year.

White City to Shepherd’s Bush

Just opposite White City station is the iconic BBC Television Centre, home to most of the BBC’s television output. The building was officially opened in 1960, but the glass entrance is much more modern, as the original was destroyed by a car bomb on 4 March 2001 (a bomb that I heard go off in the early hours of Sunday morning while lying in my bed in Chiswick). It’s a great building, though the BBC is planning to move out of the building in 2012, so it will be interesting to see what happens to it then.

The story for the rest of this short section is redevelopment, and on a massive scale. The whole area to the south of White City station is being turned into Westfield London, a huge shopping centre that will be the largest urban mall in Europe when it opens. The centre is due to open later this year, and it is a monster; currently being clad in green, grey and light blue tiles, it completely dwarves the surrounding area, rising above the backstreets of Shepherd’s Bush like a warehouse on steroids. It looks as if it’s going to be spectacular, and hopefully it will provide the shot in the arm that the local economy needs; one also hopes it will spur on the tidying up of Shepherd’s Bush, which in comparison is starting to look a little tired.

Shepherd’s Bush station is currently closed, as it’s being rebuilt for the Westfield opening, though as there is a bus replacement service, it still forms part of the Underground, so I still have to visit it on my tubewalk. It’s currently hidden behind barriers, but peeking through the slats reveals a large rectangular building with lots of glass walls. It will be interesting to see what it looks like when it’s finished; I’ll certainly be back when all the chaos has subsided, because this looks like the beginning of a whole new chapter in the history of White City and Shepherd’s Bush. We’ll soon see.

Shepherd’s Bush to Liverpool Street

17 July 2008

Blimey, my head is spinning. I might only have walked 11 miles today, but like all the other walks I’ve done across the centre of London, it took ages and I’m absolutely knackered. Walking through the City is like high-octane sightseeing; there’s something stunning to see every few feet, and my camera is as exhausted as I am.

I’ve also had a bit of a revelation: I’m perhaps getting a little bored of places like Soho, which I’ve walked through so many times that doing it all over again for my tubewalk is proving less satisfying than the longer trudges through the suburbs (which, in the main, I love). I’m not saying that Soho is not interesting – that would be plain wrong – but familiarity does breed contempt, and it’s hard to get excited about yet another walk along Greek Street, or the shopping chaos of Oxford Street.

Luckily I’ve never properly explored the likes of Mayfair or Lincoln’s Inn before, and I doubt I’ll ever tire of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, so despite my slight apathy at times, this is a brilliant walk, even if it is perhaps a couple of miles too long for a comfortable day walk.

Shepherd’s Bush to Holland Park

There is some controversy about whether Shepherd’s Bush station should be closed, but closed it is, so I hopped on the replacement bus service from White City, before hopping off again when it became apparent that it’s quicker to walk through Shepherd’s Bush than to drive around it. It must be annoying to have to commute this way, particularly if you don’t like walking, but it must be even more annoying when the London Paper reports things like this (from today’s paper):

Hundreds of thousands of commuters have been hit by the Shepherd’s Bush station closure while the ticket office is expanded and escalators replaced. But documents uncovered under the Freedom of Information Act show that maintenance company Metronet told Tube chiefs that the station could remain open.

Whatever the truth, it’s chaos round the station, and it’s a relief to cross the busy roundabout and turn into Addison Road, which is in stark contrast to the modern construction zone of Shepherd’s Bush. The mid-19th century townhouses along the road are deeply impressive and the place palpably drips with money, and it’s easy to see why Edina from Absolutely Fabulous proudly says she lives in Holland Park and gets deeply irritated when people point out that she actually lives in Shepherd’s Bush; Holland Park is in a completely different league to Shepherd’s Bush, and it’s best summed up by the Peacock House at number eight, a highly distinctive mansion dating from 1906. Designed by Halsey Ricardo for Ernest Debenham (of Debenham’s fame), it’s smothered in green and blue tiles that reflect the sky above and the green below. Whether it is beautiful is debatable, but it is certainly striking, and striking architecture is what Holland Park does best.

Stunning mansion blocks along Oakwood Close give way to neo-Georgian terraces along Ilchester Place, and it’s hard to watch where your feet are landing with all this beauty high in the air. Gardeners tend the manicured front lawns while foreign accents fill the air, and it’s a stone’s throw to the entrance to Holland Park itself, just to the north. The southern part of the park is rather chaotic on a day like today, with push-chairs, nannies and screaming kids the order of the day, an effect that rather spoils the ornamental gardens around the ruins of Holland House (though there is a superb children’s playground here, so I suppose that’s fair enough). However, head north to the Kyoto Garden and you could be on another planet; children are banned from this peaceful oasis, and the resulting peace is amplified by the delights of this formal Japanese garden. There’s a waterfall, a low stone bridge, huge fish in the lake and lots of luscious red and green foliage, and the effect is heavenly. The peace continues into the northern half of the park, which is mostly wooded and thankfully less popular with the yummy mummies and gossiping nannies. Holland Park is a great spot to wander round... just don’t tell anyone else.

Holland Park station is back on the main road, after a short stroll through yet more imposing white stucco townhouses. The building is a typical Harry Bell Measures design, dating from 1900 when the Central London Railway opened its first line between Shepherd’s Bush and Bank. There’s a large UFO-shaped rotunda on the top of the station for housing the lift mechanism, and the outside is a strange light-brown colour that doesn’t necessarily fit in with the stucco surroundings. Still, it’s a period piece, so one shouldn’t complain.

Holland Park to Notting Hill Gate

Southeast of the station is Campden Hill, and yet again the architecture is jaw-dropping. Walking up Aubrey Road is an exercise in picturesque terraces, and at the top is Aubrey House, named after one of Kensington’s medieval Lords of the Manor, Aubrey de Vere. The house isn’t visible from the street (though you can see how grand it is from the gate at the top of the hill), and a plaque tells you that the house stands on the site of Kensington Wells, an early 18th century spa. The houses continue to be lovely all along Aubrey Walk, where St George’s Church towers over a more modern development on the southern side of the road, which was built on top of reservoirs put here in the 19th century by the Grand Junction Water Company.

The delights continue along Kensington Place, where neo-Georgian terraces face modern tower blocks, and a little further on, in Hillgate Place, the locals have painted their terraces in all sorts of pastel shades – from orange and green to blue, purple and yellow – in a similar fashion to the terraces along Portobello Road, which is not far to the north. Enticing pubs complete the scene, and this really is a special part of the world; it’s easy to see why Holland Park and Notting Hill are such expensive parts of town.

Notting Hill Gate station lives below the A40, the only signs of activity being the four stairwells leading down to the underground ticket hall.

Notting Hill Gate to Queensway

I couldn’t work out a more interesting route from Notting Hill Gate to Queensway than walking along the A40, and it’s a fairly uninspiring walk after the stunning architecture of Holland Park. Still, there are some worthy buildings along here, not least those on Kensington Palace Gardens which joins the A40 about halfway between the two stations (I visited here back on my District line walk from Wimbledon to Edgware Road). There are some notable architectural blips, too, including a grey concrete block on the corner with Palace Gardens Terrace that couldn’t be more of a contrast, but Notting Hill Gate is a busy shopping street and a popular thoroughfare, so I suppose you have to take the rough with the smooth.

There are some attractive red-brick mansion houses along the north side of the road, all the way past Orme Square (home to the London headquarters of Opus Dei) and on to Queensway station, which has recently been renovated. Another Harry Measures station from 1900, the station has been built on, and the station is therefore a lot more integrated into its surroundings than the lonely edifice of Holland Park; indeed, the Hilton Hotel above the station leads to mobs of tourists milling around outside the station, making the station look more like a hotel foyer than a part of the Underground.

Queensway to Lancaster Gate

Kensington Gardens – which together with Hyde Park to the east forms London’s very own Central Park – is just south of Queensway station, and as I stepped through the gates, the heavens opened, gearing up for a long session that would last well into Oxford Street. It’s a bit of a shame, as Hyde Park is a delight in the sun, but there is plenty of tree cover, and I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone by sheltering under a broad oak tree while wolfing down my lunch.

Back on the trail and not far from the entrance, the Elfin Oak sits just to the west of Broad Walk and behind a small café; this long-dead stump of an oak tree is peppered with charming models of elves, fairies and animals, and it’s a hoot. It was originally carved by the illustrator Ivor Innes in the late 1920s in Richmond Park, but it was moved to the current location in 1928, and it now has Grade II listed status.

The Round Pond is a little further down, though on a day like today the deck chairs are empty, the wind blowing them inside-out in a most uninviting way. There’s a bit of a problem with green algae on the lake, which collects at one end of the pond on windy days like this, and it is starting to pong a little, but the geese and swans don’t seem to mind, and it provides a pleasant backdrop to the graceful lines of Kensington Palace and the tall spire of St Mary Abbots Church to the west.

Heading west past Physical Energy by George Frederick Watts – a huge bronze sculpture of a naked man on horseback, shielding his eyes from the sun – you come to the Long Water, which separates Hyde Park from Kensington Gardens. Formed from the River Westbourne, which flows underground from the northeast, the Long Water refers to the western part of the lake in the centre of Hyde Park, while the eastern section, on the other side of the bridge, is called the Serpentine, taking its name from the snake-like shape of its curves. It makes for some enjoyable walking, though it’s somewhat more enjoyable when the weather is smiling on you.

There’s a statue of Peter Pan by the path on the way to Lancaster Gate, which was commissioned in 1912 by JM Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, who lived nearby and was a regular visitor to Kensington Gardens. Barrie, who wanted to provide a little magic in keeping with his story, commissioned the sculptor George Frampton in secret, and the statue was installed at night, so that it would appear to have arrived by the wave of a magic wand.

At the northern end of the Long Water are the Italian Gardens, where the River Westbourne feeds four fountains which in turn feed the lake (at times of low rainfall, therefore, the fountains do not operate). There’s a cute sculpture of a couple of bears having a hug near the entrance, and Lancaster Gate station sits anonymously on the other side of Bayswater Road, having had all evidence of the original Measures-designed entrance scrapped during the construction of the large hotel above the station in the mid-1960s.

Lancaster Gate to Marble Arch

The section of Hyde Park along the east bank of the Long Water is considerably more overgrown than the Kensington Gardens side, and it makes for a refreshing change. There are good views back to the palace across the water, and it’s a quiet and uncrowded wander to the Serpentine Bridge, which was built in the 1820s by Sir John Rennie. Over the bridge is the Magazine, a gunpowder store that was built in 1805 but which is now a parks office, and from there it’s a pleasant walk along straight paths to the northeast corner of the park. On the way, the paths are lined with streetlights that still use gas, and even though I walked through in the middle of the day, they were burning brightly; the sky was pretty black by this point and I was grateful for the company, especially as it lent a certain otherworldly atmosphere to proceedings.

At the northeast corner of Hyde Park lie Speaker’s Corner and Marble Arch, but if this is the first time you’ve visited, be prepared to get hopelessly lost, because this is one of the most confusing places I’ve yet visited. Underneath the Marble Arch complex is a rabbit warren of tunnels that help you avoid the chaotic traffic of this busy corner of London’s road network, but you have to know where you’re heading.

Speaker’s Corner is the paved area in the corner of the park that you can reach from this direction without going underground, and it’s here that, every Sunday, anyone can turn up and air their opinions on any subject they see fit. It’s a dull and desolate place on a rainy Thursday lunchtime, but this is where people like Lenin, Orwell and Marx have stood up and made themselves be heard, and even in the drizzle there’s an air of history in the making.

From Speaker’s Corner you can reach Marble Arch by taking staircase 4 down into the bowels of hell beneath the road, and popping up again in staircase 3, right outside the Arch, which is stranded on its own little island amid the traffic. This arch made from Carrara marble was designed by John Nash, the architect responsible for much of Regency London, and was originally erected in 1828 on the Mall as a gateway to Buckingham Palace. It was moved in 1851 to its present location when the east front of the palace was rebuilt, and it’s been here ever since. There are three rooms in the arch that were used as a police station until 1950, and during the 1855 Hyde Park riots, police hid inside the rooms and sprang out on the rioters, snatching a number of the ringleaders. Apparently you’re not supposed to walk through the central arch, as it’s reserved for the Royal family and VIPs, but nobody seems to mind.

Marble Arch station is back down staircase 3, with a subterranean entrance at exit 1. For a view of the station from above ground, take staircase 2 up to the south side of Oxford Street, and the station is on the other side of the road, through some very persistent traffic. The original 1900 station was built a bit further east, where Quebec Street meets Oxford Street, but when the station’s lifts were replaced by escalators in 1932, the station was moved to its current position; the original station frontage was destroyed in the Blitz in 1940, killing 20 people who were using it as an air-raid shelter at the time.

Marble Arch to Bond Street

Oxford Street is chaos at the best of times, but a quick right turn into Park Street avoids the shoppers and reveals a landscape of deeply impressive townhouses. This is Mayfair, the district named after the fortnight-long May fair which was held in Shepherd Market from 1686 to 1764 (I’ll be visiting Shepherd Market on my Piccadilly walk from South Kensington to King’s Cross St Pancras), Mayfair is the most expensive property on the Monopoly board, and quite rightly so. Mainly developed between the mid-17th and mid-18th centuries, the buildings here are quite staggering, and the number of blue plaques demonstrates what an influential area it has been throughout British history. I spent a lot of time looking up at the amazingly intricate mansion blocks throughout the area, and my neck is still feeling the effects; it’s worth the pain, though.

Left along Upper Brook Street is Grosvenor Square, named after the Dukes of Westminster, who own an awful lot of the land around here. Sir Richard Grosvenor obtained a licence to develop Grosvenor Square and the surrounding streets in 1710, with development starting around 1721, but today the square is best known for being the home of the US Embassy, which takes up the western side of the square. It’s an imposing building, topped with a large sculpture of an American eagle, and it doesn’t really fit in with the Georgian and neo-Georgian architecture around the rest of the square, but then again, Grosvenor Square does rather feel like Little America, with statues of Eisenhower and Roosevelt dominating the northwest corner and the middle of the square respectively.

Oxford Street can be reached via more streets of astonishing mansion blocks, past the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family in Exile on Duke Street, an imposing building by Alfred Waterhouse, the same man who designed the layer-cake of the Natural History Museum. Bond Street station is back on Oxford Street, buried deep in the bowels of the West One shopping centre. Before the shopping centre was built in the 1980s, there was the original Measures-designed 1900 building, which was replaced by a 1926 Charles Holden redesign that coincided with the switch from lifts to escalators. Neither are visible these days; instead it’s another fairly anonymous affair, hidden behind the insane shopping crowds.

Bond Street to Oxford Circus

Turning right out of the station, and right again, takes you to South Molton Street, which was built over the Tyburn River, as it flows south through Mayfair to meet the Thames near Vauxhall Bridge. It’s a pleasantly pedestrianised shopping street with plenty of cafés with outdoor seating (though they’re a bit empty when it’s raining), and it soon leads to Brook Street, a continuation of the road that runs along the northern edge of Grosvenor Square. It’s at this point that two neighbouring blue plaques stand out: the first, at number 25, is for Georg Frideric Handel, who lived here from 1723 until his death in 1759 (it is now the Handel House Museum); the second, a celebration of another musical genius, is at number 23, where Jimi Hendrix lived from 1968 to 1969.

Turning south down New Bond Street and east along Maddox Street takes you past Fenwick’s to St George’s Church, which dates from 1725; opposite the church is a building site, but it’s interesting because it demonstrates the challenges of redeveloping listed buildings. At the moment there is little more than a frontage overlooking St George Street that’s propped up by scaffolding with no building behind it; it looks just like a film set, and the new building will be built in behind, leaving the listed frontage intact.

Another John Nash creation, Regent Street, can be reached after a short wander through some winding backstreets, though most of the original buildings on the street have been rebuilt, as Nash’s designs didn’t prove resilient or suitable enough for modern retailers. The new frontages are made up of Portland stone creations that adhere to overall style guidelines, but which are all independently designed. The Apple Store just on your left is a good example of why this works in a modern world; the gracious arches make for an impressive shop front, making it a particularly expensive place to visit for technophiles like me.

Oxford Circus station is underneath the bustling road junction of Oxford Street and Regent Street, and the original entrances are to the east of the circus: the first one sports the distinctive ox-blood terracotta tiling of Leslie Green, and served the Bakerloo line when it was opened in 1906; and the second one is just over Argyll Street, with a classic Harry Bell Measures design for the Central London Railway, which opened in 1900. These days the original entrances are now exits, and you enter the station via the four stairways on each corner of the circus.

Oxford Circus to Tottenham Court Road

Turning out of the station and down Argyll Street, you pass the Palladium on your left; it’s currently showing The Sound of Music, following on the hit TV talent show, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? – the theatre is owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who was a judge on the show. At the end of the road is the distinctive Mock Tudor of Liberty, which was founded by Arthur Lasenby Liberty in 1875 to sell various ornaments, fabrics and art nouveau objects. The wood for the building, which sports Tudor design inside as well as out, came from the British naval ships the HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan.

Just down from Liberty is Carnaby Street, which became synonymous with 1960s fashion, and particularly the Mods and Mary Quant. These days it’s still a fashion street, and the area around here has 168 fashion and lifestyle retailers plying their wares. Around the corner, past the tower blocks of Marshall Street, is Broadwick Street, which was the centre of an outbreak of cholera in 1854; Dr John Snow tracked down the cause of the disease to a water pump near the back of what is now the John Snow pub, and once he’d disabled it, the disease soon lifted, this proving that cholera was water-borne, rather than air-borne as was previously thought.

Berwick Street is a little to the east, and it still hosts a fruit and veg market (though on a gloomy, overcast Wednesday, I found it a little drab). To music afficionados like me, Berwick Street is famous for being the location of the cover shoot for Oasis’s album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, though to be fair, it is a terrible cover. The street is also home to adult sex shows, including the Raymond Revue Bar, which doesn’t help lift one’s spirits.

Heading further into Soho, Wardour Street is known as the centre of the old British film industry (and still houses a lot of film production companies), but it’s as the location for the famous Marquee Club that musos like me know the street name. I never went there, but number 90 hosted the Marquee through the rock era of the 1960s, the punk era of the 1970s, and the metal years of the 1980s. It left Wardour Street in 1988, leaving behind a lot of memories and seminal performances.

Continuing the musical theme, just off Wardour Street, at 18 St Anne’s Court, the Beatles recorded ‘Hey Jude’ at Trident Studios, because the studio had an 8-track machine while Abbey Road only had 4-track machines. They also recorded the White Album tracks ‘Dear Prudence’, ‘Honey Pie’, ‘Savoy Truffle’ and ‘Martha My Dear’ at Trident, and it’s also seen action from artists such as David Bowie, Elton John, Queen, Marc Bolan, Lou Reed, Carly Simon, Genesis and Supertramp, among others. We are, indeed, not worthy.

Soho Square, home to MPL Music Publishing (Paul McCartney’s publishing company), is just around the corner, and Tottenham Court Road station, another Harry Bell Measures station from 1900, is a little walk along Oxford Street. The station that remains is the original Central line building; the Northern line station was demolished to make way for the Centrepoint tower that looms over the junction today.

Tottenham Court Road to Holborn

After the hectic bustle of Soho and Oxford Street, it’s a relief to go past the Dominion Theatre (currently home to the hit Queen musical We Will Rock You), and then turn down Great Russell Street and north into Bedford Square. Built between 1775 and 1783, this is a wonderful example of a classic Georgian square, and it was the original site of the first British higher education establishment for women, Bedford College (which merged into Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, otherwise known as Royal Holloway). The central garden is private and locked gates keep the public at arm’s length, but there’s plenty of space around the outside of the oval-shaped lawn for the three impressive sculptures that are currently on display as part of the London Architecture Festival.

Next up, past the back entrance to the British Museum on Montague Place, is Bloomsbury Square, one of the earliest London squares, dating from the early 17th century. This garden is open to the public, and it makes for a peaceful spot among all the handsome 18th and 19th century buildings. To the southwest of the square is the huge building of the British Museum, though the best aspect can be found back on Great Russell Street, where the main entrance dominates the view. The museum was originally opened in 1753 and was based on the collection amassed by Sir Hans Sloane, who gave his name to Sloane Square and, incidentally, invented milk chocolate; the modern neo-classical beast that we see today is the result of considerable extension work in the first half of the 19th century. The northern wing, which we passed on Montague Place, was built in the first few decades of the 20th century.

Holborn station is not far from the museum, back on High Holborn. Originally opened by the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway (which became the Piccadilly line) in 1906, the station wasn’t immediately connected to the Central line, even though the line passed under the new station, because the Central line already had a perfectly serviceable station, British Museum, just 250m to the west. However, Holborn proved to be a better location for a station, sitting as it does on the junction of two major roads, so eventually Holborn became a junction station of the Central and Piccadilly, and British Museum station was closed in 1933.

Holborn to Chancery Lane

Easily the most pleasant route from Holborn to Chancery Lane is via Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court (I visited two of the others, Middle Temple and Inner Temple, on my District line walk from Victoria to Bow Road, and the fourth one, Gray’s Inn, is just to the north of Chancery Lane station). I wasn’t as bowled over by the Temple inns as I thought I would have been, but Lincoln’s Inn is fantastic; there are far fewer cars here than are rammed into Middle and Inner Temple, and the combination of buildings from various periods works well.

To get to Lincoln’s Inn, you can cross Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a relaxing park where I used to eat my sandwiches when working at the BBC down in Bush House on the Strand (I never could stomach the canteen food, especially after nearly breaking a tooth on a piece of grit in their lasagne). The Royal College of Surgeons is along the southern side of the square and the Sir John Soane’s Museum is in the northwest corner, and although the central part is a little gloomy with a sad bandstand and too much concrete, the grassy parts around the edge catch the sun and make for a restful place to get away from the hassles of work.

Lincoln’s Inn itself is to the east of the square, and as with the other Inns of Court, you can walk through it pretty freely. The magnificent Victorian gothic Great Hall and library take up the east end of the park, and through the main gate you can see the late-17th century New Square to your right. Opposite the library are the Stone Buildings, designed by Sir Robert Taylor in the late-18th century, and winding through towards Chancery Lane there’s a medieval hall and gateway. It’s really quite something to behold.

On the way back to High Holborn, a private road (which is open to the public, but is not a right of way) takes you through Staples Inn, one of the old Chancery inns and a rare timber-framed survivor of the 1666 Great Fire of London. Chancery Lane station is out on the main road, hidden beneath the road, and for all you trivia fans out there, it’s home to the shortest escalator on the whole Tube network. It also has a deep-level shelter below ground, which was converted into the Kingsway telephone exchange after World War II. It was here that the first transatlantic telephone cable terminated in 1956 and the site continued to serve as a telephone exchange until the 1980s, when large quantities of blue asbestos were discovered on site and the exchange was closed.

Chancery Lane to St Paul’s

I weaved about quite a bit as I left Chancery Lane, as there’s a lot of interesting things to visit around here, but I have to say I was slightly worn out by this stage, so I did rather shoot through. Heading along High Holborn and past Holborn Circus, I turned up Charterhouse Street and into Farringdon Street to check out the old buildings of Smithfield Market. The Central Market is still going strong, and I visited it on my very first tubewalk, but the buildings at the western end of the market – the old Fish Market, the Red House and the General Market – are dilapidated and slowly mouldering away. The future of these buildings is unclear, though the Red House is now listed, as it’s the earliest existing example of a purpose-built cold store, so that seems to be safe. A public enquiry into the future of the site was held at the start of this year, but it remains to be seen what will happen. They are fascinating buildings, despite the greenery growing out of the top, and I hope they survive in one form or another.

Down Snow Hill you come to the Central Criminal Court, or the Old Bailey as it’s more popularly known, and then down to Ludgate Hill, where the line of the old Roman City wall used to run. From this point on the most dominant feature is the unmistakable dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, somewhere I haven’t been for years, and I have to say the sheer bulk of the cathedral is breathtaking. It doesn’t matter that the place is teeming with tourists, as they are dwarfed by Sir Christopher Wren’s colossus; it manages to be beautiful and brutal at the same time, at least from the perspective of one of the ants crawling around its base. It’s also worth visiting Paternoster Square on the way round the cathedral; recently redeveloped following severe bombing in the Blitz and decades of decay, it’s now home to the London Stock Exchange. The square is dominated by the 23m-tall Paternoster Square Column, and I like it, though it does tend to polarise opinion.

St Paul’s station is back on the main road, and is currently hidden beneath scaffolding. The original station entrance has now disappeared, having been moved below ground when escalators were added in the 1930s, and the modern entrance is not much to write home about.

St Paul’s to Bank

It’s a bit of a building site between St Paul’s and Bank, as the New Change Buildings have been completely demolished and are currently being developed into a massive office complex, sitting right opposite St Paul’s Cathedral. Until you reach Cheapside and St Mary-le-Bow Church, it’s all drilling and rumbling trucks, but the church has a quiet little courtyard that you can reach by turning down a small passageway from Bread Street into Bow Church Yard. St Mary-le-Bow is famous because to be a true Cockney, you need to be born within the sound of the church’s bells (Bow Bells, as they’re known); the bells also appear in the myth of Dick Whittington, as the sound of the bells persuaded him to turn back to London from Highgate, after which he became mayor. The original church was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, and the replacement was designed by Sir Christopher Wren.

Bank station is down Poultry underneath a busy road junction, just in front of the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange. The Central line came through here in 1900, joining up with the Metropolitan, Waterloo & City and Northern lines that were already here. To the east of the station, the Central line tunnels make a very sharp curve, to avoid the vaults of the Bank of England.

Bank to Liverpool Street

The final stretch from Bank to Liverpool Street is short, which is rather welcome after this long day. Heading around the back of the Bank of England and past St Margaret Lothbury Church, you pass the old location of the Stock Exchange at 125 Old Broad Street before slipping between huge skyscrapers that are so close they seem to touch. Dominating the view to the front is the huge Tower 42, the tallest skyscraper in the City of London and the fifth tallest in London. It was the first skyscraper to be built in the City, and at the time it caused considerable controversy, breaking all previous building guidelines; these days, it’s not considered that tall, though it’s still an impressive sight as you walk underneath it on Old Broad Street.

Liverpool Street station is a little further along the road, and I’m glad to report that someone has added the ‘Street’ part back to the name above the Old Broad Street entrance, so it’s no longer Liverpool station. And so ends a long trek through London, which in terms of sheer diversity of sights and sounds, is very hard to beat.

Liverpool Street to Leytonstone

21 July 2008

It seems to me that it never rains in east London; every time I’ve stepped east of Liverpool Street, the sun has come out and stayed out to the point of sunburned noses and tantalising visions of ice cold pints of beer at the end of the day. This might be one reason why I’ve enjoyed every single day walking through this lesser known part of London, but I think the real reason I’ve been enjoying east London so much is because I didn’t expect to. I’m ashamed to say that I believed the hype and thought that Tower Hamlets, Newham and Waltham Forest would be grim; meanwhile people (mainly from west London) kept advising me to hide my camera when in the east, and not to look as if I was carrying anything too valuable.

But this is my fourth day wandering around these boroughs, and the negative hype is just plain wrong. East London is great, and as far as tubewalking goes, it beats south London hands down (or it does in my book). Gor bless the East End!

Liverpool Street to Bethnal Green

It doesn’t take long to get away from Liverpool Street and the bright lights of the City; indeed, it still surprises me just how close the ultra-modern glass skyscrapers of London are to the down-to-earth backstreets of the East End, but from Bishopsgate, the edge of the City is only a short walk down Brushfield Street. On the way you pass Old Spitalfields Market, just after a pleasant plaza called Bishops Square where city shirts exchange loud laughter over coffee; this plaza used to be the western two-thirds of the original market, which was founded in 1682 by Charles II, but it’s now home to an impressive Norman Foster-designed office block. The eastern third of the market, which is housed in buildings dating from 1887, is protected with listed status and survived the developers’ plans, and it is now a burgeoning market that’s particularly popular at the weekend.

On the other side of Commercial Street looms the bulk of Christ Church, and the instant you pass the church, the offices disappear and turn into East End terraces. I love these terraces; it’s just so easy to imagine what it was like 130 years ago, back in Victorian London, when these very same houses stood overlooking a completely different street scene. Back in 1888, Jack the Ripper was doing stuff in this very area: his fifth and final victim, Mary Jane Kelly, was found mutilated in her room at 13 Miller’s Court just to the south of Brushfield Street (Miller’s Court itself no longer exists as it’s now been redeveloped as a multi-storey car park); and his second victim, Annie Chapman, was murdered just off Brick Lane, at 29 Hanbury Street, though this address is now part of the extension to the old Truman Brewery. With a little imagination, it’s easy to slip back into those times, even though the skyscrapers of 21st century London are just over your shoulder.

Brick Lane is a short stroll from Christ Church, and even though there is some Victorian architecture still in evidence, it’s a little harder to imagine the days of yore round here because Brick Lane is now the curry capital of London. Sometimes referred to as Banglatown, this is the heart of London’s Sylheti community (Sylhet is an area in the northeast of Bangladesh, and Sylheti is a very common language among the UK’s Bangladeshi community). The street is famous for its many curry houses, though they’re not open in the early morning, so everything was rather quiet as I walked through. The street is also famous for its graffiti, though it seems that for every Banksy you get entire streets of people’s practice doodles, which aren’t worth putting on display; it could do with a clean canvas, if you ask me. Still, it doesn’t stop it being an atmospheric street, particularly around the old Truman Brewery building, which has been redeveloped as a shopping and cultural area, with over 250 shops, restaurants, art galleries and offices; Dray Walk, just off Brick Lane, is particularly popular with cappuccino critics.

Just before the end of Brick Lane, check out the remains of the Braithwaite Viaduct on the left. This viaduct, which was recently awarded Grade II listed status, is the second oldest railway structure in London and was built between 1839 and 1842. It was designed by John Braithwaite, chief engineer of the Eastern Counties Railway, and Prince Charles described it as ‘an astonishing hidden treasure’, which might have helped save it from the developers’ axe. From the road the viaduct is fairly well hidden, as all the historical parts are inside the Bishopsgate Goods Yard, but this might change as the area is redeveloped (without knocking down the viaduct, of course).

From Brick Lane, it’s worth taking a detour up Club Row to Arnold Circus. This is part of the Boundary Estate and the architecture is intriguing. Dating from the end of the 19th century, the buildings round this tranquil circus have a distinctive stripey brick effect that lends the square a sense of decorum that the terraces don’t have. The Boundary Estate was the world’s first council estate and was one of the earliest social housing schemes, starting in 1890 with the clearance of the Friars Mount slum (also known as the Old Nichol Street Rookery) where the death rate was four times that of London, with one child in four dying before their first birthday. The mound in the middle of Arnold Circus was made out of rubble from the clearance, and the flats are Grade II listed, a status that is richly deserved.

After this peaceful detour, Bethnal Green Road is a lot busier, though it’s a wide road with generous pavements, so it’s not in the same league as the busy streets back in the centre of town. Shops line the sides, sitting under terraces that vary all the way along the road: some terraces are spotless, complete with new grouting, new windows and a future; some, on the other hand, have peeling paint, rotting window frames and a distinct lack of appeal. There are also plenty of gaps in the period terraces where the bombs of World War II hit; sometimes these are plugged with modern blocks that work, and sometimes they’re plugged with architectural stop-gaps that will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. It makes for an entertaining walk.

However, main roads rarely sum up an area – even main roads in posh areas are grotty compared to the backstreets where most people spend their lives – so I thought I’d take a short detour through the backstreets of Bethnal Green, and I’m glad I did. Turning off the main road into Squares Street, I stumbled on a square dominated at the northern end by Queen Adelaide’s Dispensary, an imposing brick and stone building dating from 1866. This building replaced a smaller clinic in Warner Place, which itself was opened as a response to the 1849 cholera outbreak, which proved lethal as nobody yet knew how cholera was spread.

Just opposite the dispensary is the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, which sports a piece of Banksy street art on its wall, depicting a man sitting down in front of a huge yellow cartoon flower, holding a paint roller with yellow paint dripping off it. As is often the case with street art, someone has made their own, less impressive contribution to the original, and the man now has a crudely painted speech bubble coming out of his mouth saying, ‘I can’t wait 4 racewalk Ross Kemp.’

No, I can’t work it out, either, but that’s what happens to street art, and its new composition neatly sums up this part of London: you have classic Victorian buildings rubbing shoulders with great modern architecture, but splattered all over the place are offensive carbuncles from the architectural equivalent of the Dark Ages, and it’s a shame. Further into the backstreets I came across an estate where the all-white prefab buildings looked uncannily like the inside of a Victorian prison, with rows of doors leading out to long balconies, facing a similar row of cells on the building opposite. All that was missing was the suicide net...

Back on Cambridge Heath Road, it’s a short walk to the station past the Museum of Childhood. I can highly recommend the Museum of Childhood as a fun way to while away a few happy hours of nostalgia; devoted to all things childhood, there are games, dolls, teddy bears and all sorts of things that bring back memories of being small. You don’t have to be old to enjoy the nostalgia; there are objects in there from my childhood, and I’m not even halfway through my life yet. It’s a great way to celebrate your inner child, particularly if, like me, your inner child and your outer child are still the same person.

On the other side of Old Ford Road from the museum is York Hall, one of Britain’s best-known boxing venues, and the spiritual home of East End boxing. Following years of decline and rumours of demolition, the hall was redeveloped with a three-year, £4.5 million programme, and it’s now open again with a new gym, a 33m swimming pool and an extensive spa. It’s an imposing building and very distinctive; even judging it purely from the outside, it looks worth saving.

Bethnal Green station is underneath the junction of Bethnal Green Road and Cambridge Heath Road, the only signs of the station being the four stairwells down into the subterranean ticket hall. These stairwells might not look significant, but back in the Blitz there was a disaster that would forever change the way we built staircases on the Underground. It was 3 March 1943, and although the Central line tunnels had been dug, they weren’t yet open (and wouldn’t open until 1946); instead, they were used as air-raid shelters, and at 8.17pm on that March evening, the air-raid sirens sounded and a crowd started making their way down the steps to the shelter. At 8.27pm a new type of anti-aircraft weapon started firing in nearby Victoria Park, and the unfamiliar sound started a panic; as the crowd surged towards the Tube station, a woman carrying a baby tripped on the stairs, and the crowds continued to pile in, crushing those in front and cramming 300 people into the small stairwell. 173 died at the scene, with one more dying later in hospital; 62 of those killed were children, but miraculously the woman and her baby survived.

The details of the accident weren’t published for two years to avoid denting morale, but the effect on station design was immediate. Stairwells gained better lighting and handrails as a consequence, and this incident is the reason you won’t find any long staircases on the Underground without breaks, in case crowd surge strikes again.

Bethnal Green to Mile End

The same story continues along Roman Road: delightful Victorian architecture rubs shoulders with drab and faded 20th century social housing, until quality modern architecture takes over as the location changes from urban to desirable. One of the most notable buildings along this stretch of road is the London Buddhist Centre, housed in a large red brick mansion house on the corner with Globe Road. Behind it are some pretty terraces and for a while the road is a string of interesting shops with attractively plain two-storey terraces perched above, but the massive Greenlands Estate to the south of the road is not a pretty place (though, to be fair, not all of the blocks have been equally beaten with the ugly stick, and as estates go, I’ve seen worse).

As the canal approaches, a clutch of particularly drab tower blocks come into view on the northern side of the road, and then, wham! You seem to pass through some kind of looking glass, because all of a sudden the developments are extremely desirable and the location is a delight. The reason? It’s the Regent’s Canal, which flows from north to south under the main road, providing a waterside building site that the developers have leapt on in the race to make east London a desirable residence for people with money. Judging by the lush apartment blocks springing up along the western banks of the canal, the developers are winning, and it isn’t hard to see why; the apartments overlooking the canal have west-facing balconies, so they must catch the sunset as well as having good views of Canary Wharf to the south. I’d like it, anyway.

No doubt apartment blocks would be springing up on both sides of the canal if it wasn’t for the stretch of parkland along the eastern fringes of the canal. To the north of the main road, the western edge of Victoria Park runs along the canal, but to the south of the road the canal flows alongside Mile End Park, and a great park it is too. Taking up a thin strip of greenery between the canal and the A1205, Mile End Park stretches from Roman Road all the way to St Paul’s Way in Limehouse, and the northern half is a delight (I didn’t visit the southern half). There’s a lily-covered pond just off the main road, and after that is a huge man-made lake with a walkway over the back of it, giving great views of the canal and the ultra-modern apartments on the other side. Like most of London’s ponds in this hot summer, the lake in Mile End Park is currently fighting a losing battle with green algae, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable to walk round. Just after the lake is a mound that is worth walking up for the views to Canary Wharf, and the end of this part of the park is marked by a pretty little lock. This is not a bad place to stop for a breather, especially as there are some large millstones to sit on right by the mechanism, so if anything does come past (an unlikely event, as this is a very quiet canal), you can sit back and enjoy it. And if all is quiet, you can still sit back and have a good chuckle, as someone has kindly stencilled the following message on the first set of blocks:

BEWARE

GEORGE GALLOWAY IS THE NEXT HITLER

Although the park is cut in two by the busy Mile End Road, that doesn’t mean the park has to end, because the designers have built the ingenious Green Bridge across to the other side, making Mile End Park one long, continuous strip of green all the way from tip to tail. The Green Bridge is planted with grass all the way over (apart from the wide walking lanes), which is how it got its name; it was originally lined with birch trees, but they appear to have died and the grass is all that remains. The structure of the Green Bridge itself is, surprisingly, bright yellow (which is why the locals know it as the Banana Bridge) and in this hot, dry summer the grass is more yellow than green, but even if its name doesn’t make a lot of sense at the moment, it sure beats having to cross the chaos of Mile End Road.

Mile End station is over the bridge and a few steps along Mile End Road. I came this way back on my District line walk from Victoria to Bow Road, and I remember wishing for good weather for when I came back to cross the Green Bridge. That wish most definitely came true...

Mile End to Stratford

It’s a bit of a boring road hike from the station up Grove Road, though there are some good buildings along the way, interspersed as always with modern high-rise estates that only help to accentuate the good architecture. The modern developments and less attractive high rises on the other side of the canal are clearly visible as Mile End Park doesn’t obscure the view, and there’s even a canal view of our own towards the top of the road. This is the Hertford Union Canal, which merges into the Regent’s Canal just to the west of here, linking it up with the Lee Navigation on the other end of Victoria Park, near Hackney Wick.

However, the big story for this section is Victoria Park. This huge park was created following an 1839 report by the Registrar General, which noted the extremely high mortality rate in the East End and recommended the creation of a public park to make people’s lives a little healthier and therefore a little longer. A year later, 30,000 locals signed a petition and presented it to Queen Victoria, asking for a Royal Park to be opened in Tower Hamlets, and in 1842 work started on Victoria Park. Building work was finished in 1850, and the oldest public park in Britain is still going strong.

It’s a pleasant stroll through the eastern half of the park, and from a visit earlier this summer, I can also vouch for the western half (indeed, the western half is arguably prettier, with its fountain, large lake and slightly less open aspect). The central part of the park is mainly open space, but to the eastern end there’s a lovely little fishing pond, a pretty formal garden, a huge playground and a collection of tennis courts, before it opens up into more open space. One thing the park appears not to have anywhere are toilets, so don’t bank on this if you’re walking through: the maps don’t show them (though I know there are some in the western half near the lake) and I couldn’t find any as I wandered towards the eastern entrance, though there must be some round here, as a children’s playground without toilets is like a pub without beer...

From the eastern corner of the park, it’s time to hop onto the Greenway, the wonderfully long, straight cycle and walking path that I last used on my District line walk from Bow Road to Becontree, and which the Capital Ring follows on day 14. This is where the Greenway starts, and in weather like this, it’s a delightful jaunt, even though this western section cuts through the industrial madness that will become the Olympic village for the 2012 games. When I did the Ring last summer, this part of the Greenway was closed for repairs and I had to make up an alternative route, but it’s open again and it’s an education. Lining the Greenway on either side are satanic mills sifting rocks and billowing out dust clouds that mix with the heady stench of the sewer under your feet, and although this probably doesn’t sound like much fun, it is, because the Greenway is high up enough to feel completely safe. It’s fun to peer over the organised chaos of the Olympic construction zone from this lofty walkway, and the scale of the enterprise is breathtaking.

Soon after joining the Greenway, look left to see a junction of two waterways (the left one is the Lee Navigation and the right one is the River Lea). There’s a large warehouse on the left bank, but hidden away in the greenery on the triangle of land between the two waterways is a small cottage; this is the Lockkeeper’s Cottage that hosted Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast back in the days when it was a seminal feast of cultural must-sees. This is the cottage where Paula Yates frolicked on the bed with Michael Hutchence in front of the whole nation, and where Chris Evans and Gaby Roslin redefined what breakfast TV should be. Hell, this is where Zig and Zag started out – surely there should be a blue plaque here?

The Greenway pauses for a short section so we can pass under the railway line at Pudding Mill Lane (a DLR stop, so I won’t be visiting this on my tubewalk), and before it gets going again it’s time to leave it for the considerably less delightful A11 into Stratford. The A11 is a fiercely busy road and is dual carriageway at this point, with a bus lane for good measure, so it’s a bit like walking along a motorway. On the other side of the road are some interesting developments and some boarded-up old places that will no doubt disappear in the near future, but as you approach Stratford itself, things open up at the Railway Tree sculpture into a modern and airy town centre.

However, Stratford station is at the western edge of town, so I’ll have to leave my exploration of central Stratford until my very last tubewalk from North Greenwich to Stratford on the Jubilee line. If the station is anything to go by, it should be an impressive place; the arrival of the Jubilee line in 1999 totally transformed things round here, and nowhere is that more evident in the large transport junction just below the Olympic park. There’s a huge bus station here, and it was from this point in 1832 that Walter Hancock operated the first fee-charging London to Brighton bus service (a first for Britain) in his steam-powered ten-seater bus The Infant. The train station next door is even bigger, and looks more like an aircraft hangar than a train station, though it’s an architectural aircraft hangar if ever there was one; the roof curves elegantly away from the entrance, and it’s well worth poking your head inside to look at the gleaming ceiling. Even though Stratford station was built well before we started bidding for the Olympics, you get the feeling that this is what this station has been waiting for; it’s huge, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and now it’s time to flex its muscles.

Oh, and just next to the station is a digital display showing a countdown to the Olympics. It’s 1465 days, 22 hours, 12 minutes and 3 seconds away, though it might have gone down a bit by the time you read this.

Stratford to Leyton

I perhaps should have picked a more interesting route from Stratford to Leyton, but the east-west side streets of northern Stratford and southern Leyton don’t lend themselves terribly well to north-south walking, and I thought it might be interesting instead to walk along the edge of the Olympic park, in case I got a sneaky peak of what’s going on inside. I shouldn’t have bothered, because the whole stretch from Stratford to High Road Leyton is one big industrial estate, and not a very interesting one at that. Looking down the side streets, Leyton appears to be made up of row upon row of terraces, but all I got was the odd glance here and there, so don’t quote me on that. I’m sure it’s a lot prettier and a darn sight more interesting than Angel Lane and Leyton Road, whatever the reality.

Indeed, the only interesting thing I could find about this area was the possible site of radioactive waste just over the fence in the Olympic Park. There’s a certain amount of speculation about this – especially as contractors are banned by the Olympic Delivery Authority from talking to the press about what they’ve found in the ground under the future Olympic site – but documents have been seen by The Guardian newspaper that claim waste contaminated with an isotope of thorium (a carcinogenic nuclear fuel) was dumped near to Temple Mill Lane in the northeast corner of the site back in 1959, and that levels of radioactivity on this site are three times the normal background level. The Radioactive Substance Act of 1960 controls dumping of nuclear materials, but before the act came into force, radioactive waste could be dumped without being properly recorded; it’s scary stuff, digging up the underbelly of the capital.

Things improve as you come to southern Leyton: the road is lined with flats above colourful shops, and the terraces off to the sides are pleasant enough, though there’s quite a bit of flaking paint and a slight air of faded Victoriana that will no doubt change as the Olympic investment pours in. This is an ethnically diverse area – 2001 census figures show the local population is 46 per cent White, 28 per cent Black and 20 per cent Asian – and the shops reflect that: Plaistow and Upton Park aren’t a million miles away, and there’s a definite similarity between the areas. Leyton station is a little further on, perched on a bridge over the thundering A12; the original station was opened in 1856 by the Eastern Counties Railway, though Central line trains didn’t stop here until 1947. The station building dates from an 1879 refurbishment, and is a modest affair, hidden from the road by a white and blue tiled wall along the roadside.

Leyton to Leytonstone

On the way from Leyton to Leytonstone, I thought I’d walk through St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cemetery, and I’m glad I did, as it’s incredible. Originally opened in 1868, the western half of the cemetery is completely crammed with graves and monuments, so much so that at times the graves seem to be pushing against each other like commuters at rush hour. It’s a bit less crowded to the east, but it’s also less interesting, as that’s where the more modern graves live, and these days you don’t get many grand statues or mausolea. I’d originally planned to walk straight through the cemetery, taking the eastern exit into Hollydown Way, but the gate was locked so I had to walk all the way back again... not that I minded, as this is a particularly fine graveyard for nosing about.

The housing is again a mixture of old and new on the way to Leytonstone, though the new housing is consistently good; you get the feeling that you’re walking into a more affluent area that Leyton, and the 2001 census figures confirm this. In Leytonstone 62 per cent of residents were in employment compared to 51 per cent in Leyton, while the latter ward’s ethnic breakdown was 60 per cent White, 21 per cent Asian and 13 per cent Black; this change in ethnicity and income is visible as you walk from one ward to the other. There’s a bridge on the way into Leytonstone that carries the London Overground over the High Road, and it’s painted with bright suns, happy people and the greeting ‘Welcome to Leytonstone’, reflecting the improving picture.

The shops and houses are interesting all the way to the Leytonstone station, which lies at the end of a particularly attractive terrace along Harrington Road. The station itself is nicely done out in mosaics of Alfred Hitchcock’s films (Hitchcock was born and raised in Leytonstone) though architecturally there’s not a lot to see as it’s mainly subterranean; however, it does have a good café right next door, and on a hot day like this, that’s the kind of beauty you need, and I spent a pleasant afternoon exploring Leytonstone’s village-flavoured centre. I rounded the day off by meeting my friend David, who lives in Leytonstone, for a curry in the Star of India; this is one of London’s best curry houses, if you believe the sales pitch, which I’m quite willing to after sampling their excellent chicken jalfrezi. You’ve just got to love the east of London...

Leytonstone to Debden

23 July 2008

This is a very enjoyable part of the world to walk through. It helps that Epping Forest cuts a huge swathe through the suburbs to the west of the main Central line to Epping, and it also helps that, for the most part, the locals have money to spend on their houses, making the suburbs tidy, attractive and, in some neighbourhoods, impressive.

Having good weather is important out here, too, as this would be quite a trudge in the rain; forests might provide you with shelter, but in continuous rain, they simply concentrate the downpour into large drops that have an uncanny knack of finding the gap between your neck and your collar. Luckily it’s been a good day, with some decent sunny intervals poking through the clouds, but it’s getting hot and it’s getting humid, and it could break out into thunderstorms with a little persuasion. Fingers crossed that it holds off until I get to Epping tomorrow: I’ve been looking forward to exploring this end of the Central line, and so far it hasn’t disappointed.

Leytonstone to Snaresbrook

Leytonstone is effectively chopped in half by the thundering A12, and the western half, accessible from the Tube station via an underpass, is somewhat quieter than its vibrant neighbour to the east: this is quiet suburbia rather than a village high street, and the houses are lovely. A large number of the buildings date from the late Victorian era, and there are some delightful terraces and semi-detached houses along the likes of Hainault Road and Forest Glade. The latter road is particularly notable because it runs alongside a small wood; this is one of the southernmost reaches of Epping Forest, which will keep us company on and off all the way to the end of the line.

The highlight of this leg is without doubt the large park to the north of Whipps Cross Road. Also part of Epping Forest, the southern end of the park is mainly scrubland, though the northern half is forest; there’s also a large lake, the Hollow Pond, just across the road from Forest Glade. This is delightful walking country, and it’s hard to imagine that you’re only just in zone 4. Any planes are way up in the sky, there’s no discernible traffic noise, and the only criticism is the large amount of litter tangled up in the long grass to the west of the Hollow Pond... but that’s just nit-picking, and this little walk sets the scene for the day well.

Popping out of the northern end of the park onto Snaresbrook Road, there’s the large Eagle Pond to the south of the road with a great view across to Snaresbrook Crown Court. The court building is stunning, especially when all you’ve got is a tantalising glimpse across Eagle Pond to what looks like a château tucked away in its own private gardens, but this is a working building: two days ago in this very court, Blake Fielder-Civil, the husband of Amy Winehouse, was sentenced to 27 months in prison for assault and perverting the course of justice. Handing out sentences is just the latest phase of this building’s long history; designed by Gilbert Scott and William Moffat, it was originally opened in 1843 as an orphanage by King Leopold of Belgium, before being turned into the Royal Wanstead School in 1938.

Snaresbrook station is a short walk from the pond. The station itself is high above the main street, perched at the southern end of the bridge carrying the Central line over the High Street. Originally opened by the Eastern Counties Railway in 1856, the station was partially reconstructed in 1893, but that aside this is a good example of a Victorian train station that has survived largely untouched. The best view of the station is from the footbridge over the high street, which you can access without needing a ticket; it’s well worth the detour, and gives you a sense of just how high above Snaresbrook the railway is.

Snaresbrook to South Woodford

The suburbs of west Leytonstone might be pleasant, but things go up a notch north of Snaresbrook. When planning this route, I tried to avoid walking down too many main roads, as they’re normally pretty grim compared to their quieter neighbours, but even along the A113, or Hermon Hill as it’s known round here, the houses are great. Whether it’s Victorian neo-Georgian terraces that have been converted into flats, semi-detached Mock Tudor or early 20th century detached manor houses, the quality is high. On the eastern side of the road there’s an impressive building that looks at first like a church, but it is in fact the Sukkat Shalom Reform Synagogue. Built between 1861 and 1863 by George Somers Clarke, it was originally an orphanage for the children of merchant seamen who died at sea, before becoming part of the Wanstead Hospital complex. It’s now listed, and quite right too.

The enjoyable suburbs continue off the main road along Pultenay Road, where Victorian villas rub shoulders with Victorian terracing, though it’s all so polished and clean you’d never know it was over a century old. South Woodford station is just round the corner, on a bend in George Lane. When the station opened in 1856 as part of the Eastern Counties Railway branch to Loughton, it was called South Woodford (George Lane), and although the part in brackets was dropped in 1947 when the station was transferred to the Central line, the station signs on the platform inside still say ‘South Woodford (George Lane)’. Old habits die hard, I guess.

South Woodford to Woodford

In most of the places where I’ve crossed the North Circular Road – and that’s quite a few – the houses slowly get more and more grotty as they get closer to the constant white noise of the traffic, but this doesn’t happen along Mulberry Way. The terraces are lovely at the southern end, and the houses at the northern end, in the shadow of the ramp that takes the North Circular up to Junction 4 of the M11, are just as pleasant. It’s unusual, but I’m not complaining; it means that South Woodford really is a quality place.

Things aren’t quite as tidy on the other side of the underpass, but the flaking paint of the houses right next to the North Circular is at least consistent with housing along the orbital road in the rest of the capital. Luckily there’s an easy escape from the traffic in the form of Elmhurst Gardens, a small green space that’s not bad for a quick stop to fill up on muesli bars and water (after all, you’ve got to keep an eye on fuel levels in heat this oppressive). On the other side of the park, along Gordon Road, the suburbs close in again, but this time there’s a lot more modern architecture to be seen, mixed in with the Mock Tudor palaces that are obviously popular round here. The modern blocks aren’t ugly as such, but they are uninspiring, looking more like boxes with windows than architecture.

This mix continues on the other side of the Tube track, which you can cross via a hemmed-in bridge (all bridges over Tube lines are meshed off from the outside world, presumably to stop people throwing things at the trains as they shoot past). The variety makes for an interesting walk, even though this is just plain old suburbia; some roads are full of picturesque terraced cottages, some are Mock Tudor heaven, and every now and then you get a modern block that’s presumably been put up by someone with a grudge against the locals. Overall, though, I like this part of the world; it’s comfortable, it’s safe, and it makes for stress-free walking.

Woodford station sits next to The Broadway, the high street through Woodford. Originally opened in 1856, the station became part of the Tube network in 1947 when the eastern Central line extension opened. When it opened, Woodford was the terminus, as electrification of the line only made it this far; passengers had to change here to catch a steam train to get to Epping, until the line was electrified as far as Loughton in 1948, and then Epping in 1949.

Woodford to Buckhurst Hill

Up to this point, the housing has been steadily improving all the way from Leytonstone (where the housing is pretty lovely already)... and, much to my surprise, it just keeps on getting better. Indeed, this section from Woodford to Buckhurst Hill, through a part of town called Woodford Green, contains some of the most flamboyant housing so far, particularly along the early stretches of Monkham’s Avenue, a stone’s throw from the station. In the 1920s and 1930s, Clement Atlee lived in Monkham’s Avenue, and there’s a blue plaque on the classic semi-detached suburban home where he spent his years before becoming Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951. But this is about the only hint of Labour round here, because the local MP is Iain Duncan Smith, leader of the Conservative Party from 2001 to 2003, and Winston Churchill (who lost to Atlee in the 1945 general election) was also MP here, from 1945 to his retirement from politics in 1964.

This conservative approach to life is evident in the architecture, which is particularly decadent along Monkham’s Drive, where the houses are large, detached and protected from the road by security gates and pretty gardens. As you move into Princes Avenue, it remains expensive but the houses are a little closer together, and there’s quite a bit more Mock Tudor about. This is suburbia at the top of its game, and it’s interesting... if you like that kind of thing.

If you don’t like that kind of thing, don’t panic, because just around the corner sees the return of Epping Forest, and in style. This is Lord’s Bushes, and if you enter the forest as Farm Way bends to the right and take the first major junction to the right once you’re under the canopy, then you’ll find yourself on a forest path that traverses this whole section of Epping Forest, taking you almost to the next Tube station without a break. The walking is delightful and you can’t get lost, as there are hardly any other paths in this part of the forest. The trees are thick and you’d be a bit mad to head off-road, but there are a few small open spaces where you can crash out and catch the sun, while the voices of the woodland chirp happily around you. If this is a taste of Epping Forest, I can’t wait for the real thing, up towards Epping.

Buckhurst Hill station is along Victoria Road, and it’s a pleasant part of the world, feeling more like a small town than part of London. This is, perhaps, because I’m no longer in London; back in Lord’s Bushes, when I turned right to head deeper into the woods, I entered Essex. Buckhurst Hill is famous as the residence of Liz Smith, the octogenarian actress who played Nana in The Royle Family and the mad cook Letitia Cropley in The Vicar of Dibley; it’s also home to David Waboso, the Director of Engineering at London Underground, but I think fewer people will care about that...

Buckhurst Hill to Loughton

The walk east along Roding Lane is pleasant enough and provides some tantalising views of open countryside ahead, and it isn’t long before the houses stop and you turn left into a small park, and then more open countryside. The open sports fields to the east of Loughton form the flood plain of the River Roding, which flows from north to south along the back of the large lake in front of you as you head northeast across the wide expanse. This is a place for Canada geese, swans and copious droppings in the penalty area, and if you didn’t have to turn back into Loughton to visit the Tube station, you could continue along the river, pretty much all the way to Debden. The London Loop comes through here on day 13, on the way to Chigwell, just on the other side of the M11, and it’s easy to see why.

However, this is a tubewalk, and the next station is back through more suburbia. This time it’s Loughton, and although the standard of the houses is clearly a step down from Woodford Green, this is still a nice little area; indeed, Loughton is part of the Golden Triangle, the nickname given to Chigwell, Buckhurst Hill and Loughton in the TV series Essex Wives on account of the affluence and ostentatious manner of some of the locals. The housing nearer to the station, to the west of the large playing fields of Brook County Secondary School, is all pretty cul-de-sacs and modern red brick semis, and there’s a public right of way that cuts through the houses all the way to the station, though you have to duck off the path if you want to nosey round the houses.

Loughton station is an architectural tour de force, which I wasn’t expecting after the pleasant but hardly outstanding station buildings along this part of the Central line. A Grade II-listed building, the current building dates from 1940, though the original Eastern Counties Railway station was opened in 1856. The new station was built in anticipation of the track joining the Central line, and was designed by John Murray Easton for the London and North Eastern Railway, who operated the line before it came under London Underground’s control. The main part of the building is a large, square block with a very high ceiling and a huge arched window on the front face, letting light into the ticket hall in the traditional Tube manner. It’s all rather attractive, and easily rates as the best station I’ve yet seen on the eastern Central line.

Loughton to Debden

It’s a forgettable trudge along Roding Road to the junction with South View Road, where a pleasant little Mock Tudor set of shops gives the busy road junction a slight air of village green, just without the green part. It’s much quieter along South View Road, and then it’s back into the playing fields I walked through before taking a detour to Loughton station. This time I headed straight for the River Roding, as there’s no lake in the way; the river is an absolute delight, and if you’ve got time to kill, it’s worth popping over the small footbridge and having a quick rummage around the nature reserve on the other side.

Following the river is easy, as there’s a metalled path all the way along the southern bank, and I suggest you stick to that and enjoy the river views, as the apartment blocks to the north of here are pretty dismal, despite being so close to such lovely countryside; indeed, apart from one high-rise block in Woodford, these were the first unpleasant dwellings I saw all day, and that’s pretty good going for Greater London.

Turning back towards the housing estate, there’s a pleasant wooded path that you can take east to Chigwell Lane, with London Loop signs showing you the way (though the London Loop doesn’t actually go through here, so I can only assume this is a link section to Debden that isn’t shown on my maps). It might sound small, but Chigwell Lane is actually a monster dual carriageway, lined with large, gleaming office blocks that no doubt find it useful to be a stone’s throw from the motorway junction just to the south.

Debden station is a short walk away from the motorway, on the right just past the railway bridge (you can take the path just before the bridge and cross the line on a pedestrian bridge if you want to, but that’s the long way round). The main station building isn’t much to write home about, as it was rebuilt in 1974 and looks like it, but if you look hard you can see some remaining parts of the original 1865 Chigwell Lane station; in particular, the pedestrian bridge over the track to the left of the main entrance is original – a fact that’s more obvious from the platforms – and some of the outer buildings are older than they look. Still, it’s a station, and it’s a long but easy journey back to central London, at the end of this very enjoyable walk through some really lovely landscapes.

Debden to Epping

24 July 2008

Wow, what a day! This is easily a contender for my favourite tubewalk, as from start to finish it’s a classic countryside walk through rolling farmland, pretty villages and ancient woodland... and all of this in zone 6, too. That’s the same zone as Upminster, Heathrow, West Ruislip, Northwood and Uxbridge, none of which come close to being this rural; it’s much more like the countryside walking out on the Metropolitan line at Chesham, but that’s in zone 9; you get a lot of bang for your Oyster buck on the eastern Central line.

Indeed, my A-Z doesn’t even come out this far, so instead of following road maps today, I switched to Ordnance Survey Explorer map number 174 (Epping Forest and Lee Valley) and took along my compass. I also used my GPS for more than just recording my route, just to make sure I followed the right paths through Epping Forest; I’m more used to using road names to work out my position, but there aren’t many roads on this walk. It’s a delight, particularly in wall-to-wall sunshine, and I can see myself coming back here again, just for pleasure... and I don’t say that about every tubewalk.

Debden to Theydon Bois

From Debden station, I took the pedestrian bridge over the track to catch a hemmed-in path along the side of the railway, with thick fencing separating me from the huge industrial estate to the right. The right of way passes a massive Clinton Cards factory and some anonymous but highly secure units before turning right into the industrial estate, and a couple of turns took me onto Langston Road, home of the biggest units of all.

King of these is the Bank of England Printing Works, which sits by the side of the road behind two sets of security fencing, a large array of security cameras, rolls of razor wire and rows of mirrored windows. The security makes sense, as this place literally has a licence to print money, and to say it must be a potential target for criminals is to understate somewhat. The building behind the fencing is imposing, with two long wings and a large rectangular tower in the centre, and I felt rather paranoid taking photos (though it didn’t stop me, seeing as the road in front is a public right of way).

At the end of the road by the far corner of the printing works, a small path leads into fields and suddenly you’re in the countryside proper. Ignore the constant pounding of the nearby M11, and instead marvel at the golden colour of the fields, some stripped of their crops, some still swaying with the breeze like lush yellow oceans in a cool coastal breeze. The path heads towards the motorway, flanking the western side for a short time, before crossing a small bridge to the other side, from where the views of the pounding traffic and the surrounding countryside are impressive.

From the motorway, things get much quieter (or they do if the wind is blowing from the east, as the sound of the motorway gets blown away from you as soon as you cross; it might be a different story in westerly breeze). A dirt road leads past yet more golden fields of wheat to Piggotts Farm, and a right turn on the B172 takes you to a bridge over the River Roding (which I followed on yesterday’s walk between Buckhurst Hill and Debden) with a small village on the other side. This is the imaginatively titled Abridge, and Roding Hall sits on the edge of the bridge, its black-and-white Tudor exterior peering straight towards the fields to the north, which is where I headed next.

From here to Theydon Bois it’s all field walking, and very enjoyable field walking it is too. Instead of being just one field after another, it seemed as if each field had been differently prepared, just to keep my interest levels up. The first field, just by Abridge, was full of knee-high wheat, and although the right of way cuts diagonally across the field, I skirted the edges in the wake of a tractor trail, thus making life easier for me and for the farmer. After a stile, the second field reverted to grass and skirted the northern flank of the River Roding; the river is quite overgrown at this point and is rarely visible from the fields, but when it does pop into view, it’s a lovely sight, with water lilies floating beneath drooping trees in a most picturesque way.

Before I crossed into Epping Lane I wandered through a freshly ploughed field, and on the other side of the road I skirted the right flank of a fallow field. Passing through the welcome shade of the old trees lining the edge, I noticed the sound of planes, but these weren’t Heathrow-bound jets thundering through the skies; instead they were propellor planes, presumably from the airfield northeast of Epping, and it struck me that even the planes round here are atmospheric. If I closed my eyes and stood in the hot breeze, I could kid myself that I was near an airfield in Africa or South America, the local planes stuffed with drug barons and heading off to do business over the border, or perhaps carrying the guests, presents and live chickens for a wedding in a neighbouring tribal district. Maybe it was the effect of the heat, but I did feel as if I was abroad today, perhaps on holiday in southern Europe or walking in the bone-dry Greek islands; it certainly didn’t feel like zone 6.

The next field was full of younger and greener wheat, and on the other side of another stile I came across a herd of cows, chewing the cud on the far side of the field (the only other place I’ve seen cows on this walk was on the way to Chesham, out in zone 9). Then I stumbled on a fantastic field that had been left to turn into a wild meadow, with white butterflies flitting in and out of a deep velvet and purple carpet of lush undergrowth. It was simply beautiful.

Unfortunately, the fun had to end for a brief spell as I reached the M11 once again, but this time I went underneath the motorway via Abridge Road and leapt back into the countryside almost immediately, soon coming out into a section of land owned by the Woodland Trust. The plan is to plant this whole area with trees, joining it up to other Woodland Trust properties in the area, but at the moment it’s all just fields with an easy path following the right-hand perimeter; this leads past Theydon Bois Cemetery, which you can’t see from the path, but can poke your nose through a couple of gaps in the hedge for a quick glance of the graves. The Woodland Trust land soon gives way to more farmers’ fields, and as if I hadn’t had enough variety on the other side of the motorway, the final field was full of sheep, standing there and eyeing me up with complete indifference as they baked under the scorching sun.

All too sudden, the countryside ends at a bridge over the Tube line, and on the other side are the suburbs of Theydon Bois. There’s a pleasant enough housing estate to pass through, and then the centre of the village opens up in front of you, with a lovely green, an attractive pond complete with ducks and weeping willows, and even a thatched cottage or two. The village centre is attractive, with two great-looking pubs, The Bull and the Queen Victoria, both of which serve an excellent pint (I can vouch for this as I stopped at Theydon Bois on the way back home from Epping, and enjoyed a pint in each pub followed by an afternoon of writing in the sun; life is hard).

Theydon Bois station is just past the attractive shop fronts of the high street, tucked away along a small driveway. As I took a photo of the station, the station master popped his head out of the front door and danced a merry jig in front of me, which I was unfortunately too slow to catch on camera; when he’d finished, we had a little chat and he asked me why I was taking photos of his Tube station, and when I explained, he looked at me as if I was mad. And this from a man who was, just a couple of minutes before, grooving away in front of a complete stranger, simply because I’d pointed a camera at his station. Touché, Mr Station Master, and don’t stop dancing...

Theydon Bois to Epping

From the station I wandered along the northern edge of Theydon Green, which is lined with quite modest houses with wonderful views across the green. There’s an old schoolhouse and a lovely little church just beyond the western tip of the green, and just after the latter there’s a path leading off the road into the forest, and from here to the outskirts of Epping, it is again a delightful rural walk. However this time it’s almost all undercover, because this is Epping Forest, and a big swathe of it, too. I wouldn’t want to do this walk in the rain, but in the hot sun it is perfect: the fields leading to Theydon Bois are lovely in the sun but would be awful in wet weather, and the same is true of Epping Forest, where the shade proved very welcome on this, one of the hottest days of the year so far.

It’s easy to navigate through Epping Forest, as long as you have a map and compass. The paths are marked on the Ordnance Survey maps and on most GPS maps, and they’re really obvious – they’re dirt roads, really. When planning this part of the route, I’d wondered whether I was asking for trouble by plotting a course through the middle of such a large tract of ancient woodland, but I needn’t have worried, because although I used my GPS every now and then, I only consulted it to confirm my decisions, and not once did it have to correct me.

So I headed into the forest just past the church, and after wandering west for a while, past two car parks on the southern edge of this part of the forest, I turned north along the Green Ride, a walking and cycle path that took me all the way to the northern tip of the forest. The walking is easy and enjoyable, and although there are no views to speak of, that’s not the point of forest walking. I’m a happy member of the Woodland Trust, and it’s to conserve experiences like this that I shell out my annual subscription, and although Epping Forest is managed by the Corporation of London (at no expense to the tax payer, I should add), the point stands: I love woods, and I’m happy to pay to keep it that way.

One interesting side-show on the way north through the forest is Ambresbury Banks, which is signposted off the Green Ride about halfway through this section of the woods. Dating from around 500 BC, Ambresbury Banks is one of two earthworks in Epping Forest (the other, Loughton Camp, is to the south), and it consists of a large oval of earthen banks, enclosing over four hectares of land. The fort would probably have been used to store animals during times of attack, and might have been used as a look-out post or boundary marker between the neighbouring tribes of the Trinovantes and the Catevellauni. Local legend says that this is where Queen Boudicca was defeated by the Romans in 61 AD, but this has since been disproved; whatever, the remains of the fortifications are atmospheric, and it’s a great place for a rest and a bit of historical daydreaming.

After a very enjoyable yomp through the woods, the Green Ride arrives at a cricket ground at the northern end of the forest, and it’s time to turn right and join civilisation again. In the distance is the rumbling of the M25, but although it sounds quite far away, it’s actually directly under your feet, because the M25 burrows through the Bell Common Tunnel right beneath this part of the forest. The tunnel was built between 1982 and 1984, and used the same cut-and-cover method of construction as used on the early sub-surface lines, like the Metropolitan, District and Hammersmith & City lines. The tunnel is 470m long and was designed to minimise disturbance of this northern end of Epping Forest, which is protected under the Epping Forest Act of 1878.

There’s another good-looking pub out on Theydon Road and some attractive houses along Bell Common, but the suburbs of Epping aren’t far away, and a short walk through the wooded Western Road brings you out on Centre Drive, where pleasant but slightly unimaginative houses enjoy some very attractive views to the east. Epping station is a short walk along a path joining Centre Drive to the car park, and so ends a fantastic day’s walk through some lovely countryside that I can heartily recommend. And if you want more, there’s a sign on the station that says the Essex Way starts there, heading out east for 81 miles through the heart of the county to Harwich. If I wasn’t already a little occupied with this tubewalk, I’d be tempted...

Leytonstone to Barkingside

28 July 2008

Wow, this is easily the hottest it’s been so far this summer. The weathermen are getting all excited about incoming thunderstorms, the station announcers have started warning people to take water with them on the Tube, and summer’s cauldron is belching out air as thick as molasses that clogs up your skin, drips down your neck and evaporates in the hot breeze to form dry, sticky patches around your eyes, like a salt flat in miniature.

I hate this kind of weather and find it hard to get out of bed when it’s this oppressive; typically, my girlfriend is the opposite, and only starts to perk up once the temperature reaches 30°C. She spends the winter hiding from the world, which is what I tend to do in the summers when I’m not doing stupid things like tubewalking, but this time there’s no escaping the heat, as I’ve got a schedule to keep. Luckily zone 4 isn’t as formidable in the baking sun as the centre of town would be, but I still found the going tough today. I’m just not built for this part of the British climate, and it’s only going to get worse as climate change sinks its teeth in.

Still, it’s nearly August, and then it’s September, which is when I will have my revenge, ha, ha...

Leytonstone to Wanstead

Things nearly started out on the wrong foot today. After a long and very hot journey on the Central line from one side of the city to the other, I was looking forward to shaking the numbness out of my buttocks with some light breezes and a bit of respite from the heat, but it wasn’t to be. On the way along Church Lane, just before St John the Baptist Church, I passed a bench, where a young Asian man was sitting next to a huge, bald, white man, the pair of them sharing purple cans of super-strength lager and some Monday morning cackles. I didn’t catch their eye as I walked past, but that didn’t seem to make any difference.

‘Oy, you!’ the white bloke yelled at me as I reached the bench. ‘50p!’ he said, and put his podgy hand out.

‘What?’ I said, unable to hide the amazement from my voice.

‘Give me 50p,’ he said with a snarl. ‘Now.’

Normally I’d just smile a sympathetic smile and walk on, but drunks demanding money is a bit much, especially those whose waistlines indicate a decent-enough income, and in this heat, ‘a bit much’ is effectively a declaration of war. So I stopped walking, stood in front of the bench and looked him in the eye.

‘Piss,’ I said, slowly extending my middle digit. ‘Off,’ I continued, concentrating all my overheated frustrations into a look that I hoped summed up the deep irritation I felt at this pasty, gluttonous slacker. Luckily for me, it seemed to shut him up; I don’t think he was expecting to see someone quite as frazzled as him this early on a Monday morning, but there I was, hair flailing wildly as I stomped off towards the high street, safe in the knowledge that if this guy had a knife, he’d have a coronary before he managed to catch up... and he’d bloody well deserve one, the idiot.

Thankfully this isn’t my first visit to Leytonstone, and I know rude drunks are not remotely representative of the area; indeed, having unloaded my angst, I started smiling at people, and they smiled back. This is a pleasant part of town, out here in east Leytonstone – I was impressed by the suburbs of west Leytonstone on my way to Debden, on the other side of the A12, and the suburbs east of the A-road are just as pretty. Basically, Leytonstone is a lovely place with lots of Victorian and Edwardian architecture, and the terraces along Harvey Road and Leybourne Road are very pleasant to stroll past.

Even more enjoyable is the small but sweet Bush Wood, an area of woodland and long grass that makes a pleasant alternative to the surrounding roads. The only sign of life is the tower of Belgrave Heights poking above the tree-line, and while the busy traffic of Blake Hall Road isn’t far away, in the woods it’s easy to drift off.

Unfortunately the greenery to the east of Blake Hall Road is off-limits to the public, as it’s part of Wanstead Golf Course, so instead you have to skirt around the north of the course, past the pleasant suburban homes along Overton Drive. At the cupola-shaped spire of St Mary the Virgin Church, a left turn into St Mary’s Avenue takes you past an entire road of expensive houses that eventually gives way to the grassy expanse of George Green. Keep your eyes out for the husk of an old chestnut tree on the grass to the left, for this tree is famous. Back in the early 1990s this 250-year-old tree was happily minding its own business, but in 1993 the tree became a centre of the ongoing protests against the M11 link road through Leytonstone and Wanstead. The green itself was due to be saved, as the A11 link road would go underground at this point, but as the cut-and-cover method was to be used for this tunnel, it would still have meant the destruction of this ancient tree. Protesters set up camp at the tree and encouraged supporters to send letters to them there, and for a time this enabled the campaign’s lawyers to argue that it was a legal residence, thus staying its execution. However on 7 December 1993 the police evicted everyone from the tree and it was torn down and smashed up; the fragment on the green is left as a memorial to the conflict.

Wanstead station is on the corner of the green, opposite the rather grand pub The George. A fair chunk of the station is currently hidden behind a bunch of blue hoardings, which is a shame because this is another Charles Holden creation, and pictures of the station at its opening in 1947 show clean lines and a lack of clutter that is a bit hard to appreciate with all the... well, clutter around the station at the moment. When the Hainault loop was incorporated into the Central line in 1947, it needed three new stations along the new stretch of tunnel that joined Leytonstone to Newbury Park, and these stations were among Holden’s last designs for London Underground; along with Wanstead, he also designed the stations at Redbridge and Gants Hill, which we’re coming to next.

Wanstead to Redbridge

Heading south from the station, there’s plenty more tidy and enjoyable suburbia, particularly down Warren Road, which runs alongside the greens of the northern part of Wanstead Golf Course. This is a friendly spot, and as if to make up for the shouty drunk back in Leytonstone, I was approached not by one but by two kindly souls who wondered if I was lost (a common side effect of looking at maps in suburban streets). I wasn’t, but the second man gave me lots of tips on visiting Wanstead Park, and he was so pleasant I couldn’t help smiling at the sky as I turned off the road and down the path he’d pointed out.

Wanstead Park is a gem of a place. The park is Grade II listed and forms part of Epping Forest, and it is a delight to wander through. This was originally the grounds of Wanstead House, but the house is no more, as it was broken up in 1822 and sold to pay off the debts of the Fourth Earl of Mornington, whose wife had inherited the estate. There are some buildings still around, but the joy of wandering through the park is surely down to the lovely lakes that flank the east and south sides of the estate. Currently choked by the blue-green algae that seems to have taken over this part of the world, they’re a haven for ducks and swans, and the shady paths that line the lakes are a relief in this evil heat. I only had time to explore the eastern half of the park, but there’s plenty more to see in the southern section, and I’ll clearly have to come back again one day to finish the job.

There’s a bridge over the North Circular Road in the southeast corner of the park, which is notable because it’s one of the few places I’ve come across with French graffiti. «Je t’aime mon amour Louise» chants the spray-paint along the bridge floor, and the first time you see it, it makes your heart sing; however, it soon repeats itself, and it’s not quite as effective. And it repeats itself again. And again. So by the time you reach Wanstead Park Road, you figure that even the most romantic Francophile would agree that once is good, twice is sad, but this many times is a sign of deep insecurity. Run, Louise, run!

The North Circular Road denotes a change in the quality of housing, and on the eastern side the houses start to get a little less interesting as a result. There’s a lot more pebbledash and less variety of design, and it makes for a long walk along Wanstead Park Road to the A12, where an underpass takes you to Redbridge station. This is another strong Holden design, with a tall tower sporting the London Underground roundel, and a round ticket hall with upper-level windows that let the light flood in. Things are a little more hectic round here than in Holden’s day, as the station is right next to a huge, modern roundabout-and-flyover complex where the North Circular Road meets the A12, but it’s still a lovely building.

Redbridge to Gants Hill

The most direct route from Redbridge to Gants Hill is along the A12, but that’s a route for masochists and petrol heads only. Unfortunately the quieter route along the backstreets of Redbridge is not that much more interesting. The houses aren’t horrible, but they are rather samey, and Wanstead Lane could be considerably livened up by a few more trees, as there’s not a lot of shelter, and in the heat of an English summer, the whole road seems to shimmer in a slightly disquieting manner. You’d think there would be some respite when the road passes the Port of London Authority Recreation Ground, but as this is separated from the road by a fence that means business, it doesn’t actually help (and even if the fence wasn’t there, the sports ground doesn’t contain any trees, so there’d still be nowhere to run). It’s a relief to come out the other end and into Gants Hill.

Before reaching the station, keep an eye out for Beehive Court on the left. This was the home of Paul Neil Milne Johnstone, a poet and schoolmate of Douglas Adams, who wrote in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that the worst poetry in the universe was written by Johnstone. The first version of the script referred to Johnstone by name and gave his address as Beehive Court, Redbridge, Essex, but after Johnstone asked that his real address not be used, his name was changed in the book to Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings, and the address to Wasp Villas, Greenbridge, Essex.

Gants Hill station lives under a busy roundabout on the A12, and the only visible signs of the Tube come from the stairwells dotted around the perimeter (though the top of the station is visible in the middle of the roundabout, if you squint hard enough). Beneath ground, though, Gants Hill station is a thing of beauty, particularly down in the station proper; the lower parts of the station were modelled by Holden on the Moscow Underground, and the barrel-vaulted panelled ceiling of the concourse between the eastbound and westbound platforms is well worth checking out.

Gants Hill to Newbury Park

Just south of Gants Hill station is the entrance to Valentines Park, the largest green space in the London Borough of Redbridge. Unfortunately most of the northwest corner is currently cordoned off for redevelopment, which is a shame as this is where you can find Valentines Mansion and the formal gardens, but even with this part closed, there’s still plenty of park to enjoy. The Pageant Field just south of the ornamental pond is dotted with lovely trees that are perfect for picnicking under, and to the south of the park is the Cran Brook, which feeds a boating lake and provides the backdrop to a promenade where kids come to scream at the tops of their lungs. It’s an enjoyable place, temper tantrums notwithstanding.

Unfortunately the only way to the next station is through yet more suburbia, and it’s again fairly bland and slightly worn at the edges. There are no trees to speak of along Quebec Road and Cranley Road, and there are also precious few gardens out front, leaving you with hot, crackling concrete that does as good an impression of the inside of a tandoori oven as I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness. Finally you reach the omnipresent A12, and there, across the road, is Newbury Park station.

There’s been a station at Newbury Park since 1903, when it was part of the Great Eastern Railway branch line from Woodford to Ilford via Hainault. This line was supposed to stimulate suburban growth in the same way as the Metropolitan line, but it never really took off and was eventually merged with the Central line as part of the New Works Programme. The new section of Tube tunnel that was built from Leytonstone via Gants Hill surfaced at Newbury Park, where it was joined to the existing Ilford-Woodford branch. The station itself lives in a cutting alongside the line, and the entrance to the Tube is a modest little doorway that takes you through to a small ticket office, but towering over this doorway is the stunning Newbury Park bus station, and it’s this that makes Newbury Park such a great station to behold. Built in 1949 and designed by Oliver Hill, it’s a huge barrel-vaulted concrete structure with a green copper-covered roof that manages to look both sturdy and lightweight at the same time. It won an architectural award at the 1951 Festival of Britain, and there’s a small plaque to commemorate this on the left-hand side as you walk in; the award was well deserved, I must say.

Newbury Park to Barkingside

When I initially planned this leg, I thought I’d head northwest of the station and cut across the Tube line via a right of way, but both the A-Z and Google Maps are misleading at this point, as you can’t actually take the road alongside the Tube line and then turn right over the bridge, whatever they say. After 15 minutes of getting lost and trying not to get killed by the breakneck traffic that spits out of the Sainsbury’s access road at speeds that must curdle the milk in the boot, I gave up and headed northeast from the station instead.

The reason for all this shenanigans was the wide open space to the east of the Tube line, which I thought looked well worth a visit. To the north of here was once RAF Fairlop, a minor airfield from the two world wars that was closed in 1946, but that’s now the Fairlop Waters Golf Course, and the only area open to ramblers is the bridleway past Aldborough House Farm (which is also private property). It’s short, not terribly thrilling and ends abruptly at the golf course, where it turns left and becomes a litter-strewn car park of a road that’s presumably used as overspill by all the commuters who use Barkingside.

Happily, Barkingside station is a high note to finish on. It’s Grade II listed and deservedly so, sporting a fine cupola on the top of a sturdy red brick ticket hall, with a tiled roof that’s staggered in a way that’s slightly reminiscent of an oriental pagoda, but in a way that sits well within the suburbs of zone 4. Like the other stations along the original branch line, there’s been a station here since 1903, and it was probably designed by WN Ashbee, the designer for the Great Eastern Railway. It hasn’t changed much since joining the Underground, and it marks a shift away from the more modern Tube designers like Charles Holden, back to the Edwardian era. It’s a theme that continues all the way to the end of the Hainault Loop, but that’s for next time...

Barkingside to Woodford

30 July 2008

I was a little nervous about how today’s walk was going to pan out, particularly as I was joined by my mate Charlie, who’s a veteran of long-distance walks the world over. The first half of the Hainault loop from Leytonstone to Barkingside, which I walked a couple of days ago, had started off well but got a little ragged and slightly uninteresting towards the end, and I was a bit worried that Charlie would have to endure yet more endless backstreets of boring suburban housing, the sun cooking us in the treeless wasteland of zone 4... but in the event, this leg turned out to be a corker.

Indeed, zone 4 on the Hainault loop is surprisingly rural, particularly when compared with zone 4 on the rest of the network, and on a hot, sunny day like today, it’s a dreamy walk through farmers’ fields and posh housing that only switches back to suburbia when you rejoin the main Central line at Woodford. The eastern Central line has been a delight to walk, and this leg is no exception. I’ll miss it when I’m back in the heat of the city...

Barkingside to Fairlop

Before all the rural scenery kicks in, though, there’s a short stretch through the suburbs of Barkingside, though it’s possible to avoid the backstreets by taking the public footpath north along the side of the playing fields of King Solomon’s High School. This looks good on paper, but the reality is a bit more earthy, as this is clearly where the locals come to dump their rubbish. It’s a thin path, wedged between serious fencing on the right and the back gardens of the inhabitants of Heybridge Drive on the left, but that hasn’t stopped someone dumping a shopping trolley on the side of the path, where it’s fatally tangled up in the deep grass. How on earth did it get here? And what were they thinking? It makes you appreciate just how much effort goes into dumping shopping trolleys sometimes...

The neighbourhood of Fullwell Cross sits at the end of the path, and it’s worth taking a short detour to the Fullwell Cross roundabout to see the Fullwell Cross public library. This distinctive round building has a really interesting green roof, making it look like an ultra-modern church; I liked it, anyway.

Fairlop station is a little walk east along Forest Road, and is tucked away from the road by the side of the Tube line. Along with its neighbouring stations, it was opened in 1903 as part of the Great Eastern Railway’s Woodford to Ilford branch line, and the station hasn’t changed much since then. From the outside it looks a little like a suburban house, and it’s in very good condition for such a typical Edwardian station.

Fairlop to Hainault

Further along Forest Road, past a farmhouse that dates from 1855, is Fairlop Waters, the largest country park and leisure facility in the London Borough of Redbridge. The complex consists of two golf courses, a driving range, a large boating lake, a conference centre and a restaurant, and while this might sound like the kind of place you’d bump into the photocopier sales conference from hell, it’s actually a rather delightful place. The conference centre is pretty attractive and sits at the western edge of the lake, which is surrounded by bushy undergrowth and trees and makes for an enjoyable walk in the sun. The paths are wheelchair-friendly, so it’s easy going, and on a hot day like today, the breeze coming across the lake is like manna from heaven.

It’s a bit of a shame to have to leave the country park and head back to the main road, but the station is on the other side of a small industrial estate and a huge expanse of sports fields. This is Fairlop Oaks playing fields, which hosts Powerleague five-a-side games and has an impressive collection of all-weather pitches alongside a larger grassy expanse to the north. On the other side of the footpath is the home of Ilford Wanderers Rugby Football Club – where large, yellow graffiti on the path helpfully points out that ‘Liam is a cunt’ – and then it’s into the pebbledash suburbs of Hainault for a short walk to the station.

Hainault station is a fairly functional building, sitting at the base of the bridge carrying the line over New North Road. Just to the north of the station is the main Underground depot for the eastern Central line, and quite a few trains terminate here (when catching the Tube from Ealing Broadway, you either tend to catch an Epping train, or the Hainault via Newbury Park service, but they rarely go all the way through to Woodford). From here to Woodford, the Tube is a lot quieter, which is fitting because the real countryside isn’t far off...

Hainault to Grange Hill

But before the rural edge of London kicks in, there’s a short section through the Limes Farm Estate. Googling the estate name brings up a fairly sad picture, with residents feeling that the estate is out of control, one woman saying she received death threats when she caught youths in her garden, and the chairman of the Limes Farm Community Association saying, ‘There is a great amount of bad feeling towards the police. They’re appalling. They come over here frequently but it doesn’t help. There’s no way of stopping these kids from coming here. What can people do other than take the law into their own hands? I don’t advise it, but I can see it happening.’ It’s scary stuff, made only scarier by the death of a 14-year-old schoolboy in December 2007 after being stabbed in the back and head outside an unmanned police station; two boys, aged 13 and 14, were arrested on suspicion of his murder.

The amazing thing is that the estate is far from the nastiest I’ve seen, at least as far as the buildings are concerned. According to the council’s website, the estate ‘benefited from a major regeneration scheme in the early 1990s that improved the housing and removed many of the design issues associated with Council estates built in the 1960s. Alleyways and dark corridors were removed. New gardens and courtyards were built. Lighting was improved.’ However, it seems the problem is down to youths from outside the area coming to the estate to cause trouble, and the result is a community in shock, with the police failing to sort it out. It’s a shame, because both Charlie and I thought it was a nice place to live. There’s a large grassy area with good views out to the centre of London (you can see Canary Wharf from the bench on the top of the hill), and the more modern blocks on either side of the green are really quite attractive. There isn’t much litter, the grounds are well kept, and it keeps on improving as you head up the hill; indeed, the terraced houses to the side of the summit are lovely, sitting right next to the park on their own little side roads. Sometimes you look at an estate and it doesn’t surprise you that it’s anarchy inside; on the Limes Farm Estate, though, it’s a bit baffling.

Out on Manor Road, to the north of the estate, it’s a completely different story, and the houses are huge and generally rather pleasant. It’s impossible to reconcile this part of town with the news headlines from the estate just a short walk downhill, because from this point onwards, this walk is a complete delight. There’s a cute row of Mock Tudor houses opposite a small village green, and just past the shops is Grange Hill station, which isn’t the original Edwardian station, but it’s still far from ugly. The 1903 station was destroyed in 1944 by a German V1 flying bomb, but it was rebuilt in 1948 after the line was reopened as part of the Central line. Interestingly, in February 2006, this station became one of the first on the Tube network to open without a staffed ticket office; perhaps it took its cue from the police station down the hill...

Grange Hill to Chigwell

Just after the station there’s a turning off the main road down to Chigwell Cemetery, but this isn’t the path you want. We discovered this the hard way, wandering down to the cemetery and its handy toilet block, only to find that the right of way we thought we’d been following was on the other side of a fence. On attempt two, we managed to catch the right path through a small wooded area and out into some lovely farmers’ fields that stretch all the way to the houses of Chigwell in the distance. This is cause for celebration, because this is now Essex, and rural Essex, too. We plonked ourselves on the edge of a field, in the shade of a tree, and enjoyed a leisurely lunch under the peaceful blue skies of the countryside, marvelling at the fact that this is still zone 4.

The walking continues in this vein, east through a cluster of houses on Vicarage Lane, and north along Green Lane, where we joined day 14 of the London Loop on its route towards Chigwell. When I walked this part of the Loop back in 2003, I noted that this was an area of ‘wide-open spaces and large skies’, and it’s still the case, all the way back to Vicarage Lane and the northern fringes of Chigwell.

Chigwell is a very nice place, and after wandering through a field full of friendly horses, we came out on the High Road just north of St Mary’s Church. There is a wonderful pub here, the Kings Head, which dates from 1547 and sports a real Tudor frontage, both on the roadside and in the lovely little beer garden out back. It sets the scene for an interesting walk down into Chigwell, though the real Tudor architecture soon morphs into Mock Tudor, which is where Chigwell starts to show its true colours. This is where the TV series Birds of a Feather was set, and that’s just what it feels like. There is money here and the houses are clearly expensive, but lots of the houses sport the architectural equivalent of bling. White Doric columns are definitely in, though it’s relatively sober this side of the Tube station; the best is yet to come, in the next section.

To celebrate our arrival in Essex proper, we stopped off for an ice cream and sat on the green in the middle of the village, watching the people go by. There’s an interesting theme to the clothes round here: the men wear clothes that are at least one size too big, with baggy shorts and large T-shirts, while the women wear clothes that are at least one size too small, with tight tank tops struggling to keep their assets trapped inside, and shorts that ride up at the back in a severe colour clash between the pastel greens of the material and the day-glo orange of the spray-on sun tan that thrives round these parts.

As we sucked on our lollies, a group of four teenage girls arrived in the park to exercise their lungs, screeching unintelligible schoolgirl-speak at a group of kids on the other side of the park, though quite what they were screaming was a bit of a mystery. They were still yelling away when I wandered over to the bin to drop off our ice cream wrappers, but when the most boisterous girl spotted me wandering over, she dropped the volume and put on her best Lolita voice, rolling her eyes and fluttering her lashes.

‘Welcome to Chigwell,’ she said in her best faux tour-guide voice. ‘We hope you enjoy your stay.’

I laughed and said, ‘Thank you very much,’ smiling at them as they collapsed in teenage laughter, half of which was laughing with me, and half of which was laughing at me. It was quite charming, in a piss-taking kind of way, and I warmed to the place even more.

‘Blimey,’ said Charlie, as I returned to the fold. ‘She’ll do that to some poor bloke one day and he’ll wake up a dad, the poor bastard.’

‘Too right,’ I said, and we headed for Chigwell station, which is a great little building. Like all the original stations between here and Newbury Park, it was designed by WN Ashbee for the Great Eastern Railway and opened in 1903, and it has a similar design to the original stations at Newbury Park and Grange Hill, neither of which are with us any more (Newbury Park was demolished to make way for the A12, and Grange Hill was, as already mentioned, bombed in the war). Oh, and the station brickwork has recently been repointed, and is now sun-tan orange. I kid you not.

Chigwell to Roding Valley

Past the station, the houses along the High Road get even larger and even crazier. Some push the boundaries of taste into a whole new area, while some are so bland (yet so obviously expensive) that you wonder how anyone could spend that much money but get so little imagination in return... but whatever the architecture, it’s endlessly fascinating. Behind the houses on the left-hand side of the road is Chigwell Golf Course, which can only add to the sense of rural idyll that these large houses enjoy, and it’s easy to see why Chigwell was lumped in with Loughton and Buckhurst Hill as the ‘golden triangle’ from the TV series Essex Wives, on account of the locals’ hefty bank balances and ostentatious lifestyles.

It’s no surprise to find that Chigwell is a popular residence for footballers, and turning off the High Road down Luxborough Lane takes you over the M11 and past Spurs Lodge, the club training ground of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. This is a leafy part of the world, and it’s strange to wander down a quiet lane with tasty blackberries hanging off the bushes, only to come to a huge inflated tent the size of a football pitch, followed by a set of gates with a cameraman and team of journalists standing outside, waiting to catch footage of the stars of the premiership leaving the training ground in their limos.

Luckily this nonsense doesn’t carry through to the next section, where the Tube line crosses the River Roding on an impressive Edwardian viaduct and the path takes you into Loughton Rugby Ground and on through the suburbs on the border of Essex and the London Borough of Redbridge. Roding Valley station is a modest affair that was rebuilt in 1949; the original station had opened in 1936 with a small set of basic buildings, with the Woodford-bound side being nothing more than an all-wooden shelter. These days there’s a bit more substance, and you can enter the station and cross the line without needing a ticket; as the station is unmanned, this is very convenient. Interestingly, Roding Valley is the least-used station on the entire London Underground network, though when you look at how the Hainault loop works, it’s not that surprising, as to get here you either have to change at Woodford, or you have to follow the entire loop round through Hainault, and it’s probably quicker just to hop on the bus.

Roding Valley to Woodford

I’d originally planned to wander through Ray Park on the way to Woodford, but even though my A-Z showed a friendly looking path crossing the park, the chained fence and the ‘Private Property’ signs at the end of Durham Avenue rather stopped that plan in its tracks, so instead we took the direct route through the suburbs of northern Woodford instead. Near to Roding Valley station the suburbs are Mock Tudor heaven – good examples of the genre, too – but as you approach Woodford the Mock Tudor morphs into bungalows for a stretch, before turning into lovely Victorian and Edwardian terraces, though quite a few of these terraces have been sprayed with pebbledash, which is a shame. Still, it makes the bare-brick houses look even more beautiful, and happily they’re in the majority.

Woodford station is past a small shopping area, and there’s an entrance here, as well as a subway under the track to the entrance I visited on my walk from Leytonstone to Debden. And that brings me to the end of the Central line, and what a great line it is, too. It’s urban, it’s rural and it’s delightful; I can’t recommend it enough.

Bakerloo Line

Elephant & Castle to Willesden Junction

31 July 2008

Dang. The weather has finally gone mental, and today’s sweltering 30°C heat and high humidity did not go down well with me. I’m a grumpy bugger at the best of times, but when I can’t move without dripping with sweat, I’m terrible. Luckily for me (but not so luckily for him) I was joined again today by my walking buddy Charlie, who put up with my personal storm cloud with the same tolerance he showed when we got stuck on Ko Samui in Thailand for two long weeks. Well done, Charlie; this walk would have really sucked if I’d been on my own.

The silver lining is that the overcast skies hid the sun, which would have pushed the temperatures up to unmanageable levels, and when the rain did come, it was light but with large drops, which is the best rain for walking. Fine mist is the worst, as it blows under your umbrella and into your camera lens, but heavy drops are cooling and not too intrusive. I guess I should be grateful, as London has been having a pretty good summer, at least when compared to the rest of the country; this is, at the moment, as good as it gets.

Elephant & Castle to Lambeth North

The Bakerloo line station at Elephant & Castle is a classic Leslie Green station, with the ox-blood red terracotta tiling I so enjoyed along the Northern line. However, the station exit has a glass lobby attached to the side of the building, sitting directly below three of the arched windows, which now have metal grilles instead of glass. It’s an interesting mix of classic 1906 architecture with modern glass and steel construction, and it works well.

As I discovered on my Northern line walk from Kennington to Euston, Elephant and Castle is not the most beautiful part of London, but even those buildings that initially look uninviting can turn out to be hidden gems. Take Perronet House, which doesn’t look its best in the grey of a Thursday morning; however, it won a commendation in the 1971 Good Design In Housing awards and has a number of fans, though it’s difficult to appreciate the building’s qualities from the outside. Looming on the other side of the road is the far less attractive London College of Communication, which is a hard building to love, and it’s a relief to head away from the roundabout and turn left into Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, even though when we arrived it was clearly chucking out time for the local drunks, and we had to walk through a storm of slurred swearing, purple cans and security guards gently steering their charges onto the street with a palpable air of resignation.

The park is pleasant enough, but the real treat is the Imperial War Museum, which dominates the centre of the green. The museum moved to this location in 1936 after its original building in Crystal Palace burned down; the impressive building that now houses the museum was originally built in Southwark and housed the Bethlem Royal Hospital (also known as ‘Bedlam’) between 1815 and 1930, before being moved to the current location to house the war collection. It’s fitting, in a strange way, that a museum about war should be housed in an old lunatic asylum...

Lambeth North station is a short walk along the pretty terraces of King Edward Walk and past the huge tower of The Perspective. This block of luxury flats incorporates Century House, which was the headquarters of MI6 from 1966 to 1995, after which the secret intelligence service moved to the current SIS Building at Vauxhall Cross. The station is another classic Leslie Green design, though it’s looking a little more worn than some examples of his work. Then again, in 1941 a large bomb hit a hostel nearby and the shock wave damaged one of the southbound tunnels, killing 28 people who were sheltering there, so we should be grateful that Green’s 1906 station is still here at all, scarred or not.

Lambeth North to Waterloo

It’s a fairly short walk along Baylis Road towards Waterloo, past some fairly sorry-looking social housing and the 1924 Duke of Sussex pub. However, things perk up at the junction with Spur Road, where a huge painting of a Cuban dancer lights up the wall above the Cubana bar, and cute shops and restaurants line Lower Marsh.

However, the most interesting thing round here – from a tubewalking perspective, anyway – is the blue crane just along Spur Road. This is the entrance to the Waterloo & City Line Depot, and here trains are winched in and out of the line, which has no direct rail connection to the outside world. Before the construction of Waterloo International terminal, an Armstrong lift to the north of the station was used to winch trains in and out of the line, but this lift was demolished in 1992 to make way for the Eurostar terminal and the crane to the south of the station is now the only way to get trains in and out of the Drain.

Waterloo station is just around the corner, and although there’s a side entrance to the Tube station along Waterloo Road, it’s worth continuing round the corner to see the Victory Arch. This is the main pedestrian entrance to the station, and it also serves as a memorial to train company staff who were killed in both world wars. The entrance to the Tube can be found just inside the arch, to the left.

For details of the walk between Waterloo and Charing Cross, see the story of my Northern line walk from Kennington to Euston to Kennington.

Charing Cross to Piccadilly Circus

It’s a short hop from Charing Cross station, past the scaffolding surrounding Eleanor’s Cross, to Trafalgar Square, which hardly needs an introduction. The pedestrianisation of the road along the north of the square has completely changed the ambience, and it’s a truly world-class attraction, with the National Gallery facing off with Nelson’s Column while tourists snap away at the lions, the pigeons and the current incumbent of the fourth plinth (Thomas Schütte’s multi-coloured glass construction, ‘Model for a Hotel 2007’).

Before heading up Haymarket to Piccadilly Circus, it’s worth heading west along Pall Mall East, crossing the lights at the bottom of Haymarket, and turning right into the small but perfectly formed Royal Opera Arcade, which houses art galleries, book shops and, of course, the ubiquitous Chinese herbal remedy shop. Designed by John Nash and opened in 1818, this is Britain’s original covered shopping mall, and it’s a peaceful stroll amongst the chaos of central London.

Back on Haymarket, you can’t miss the six-column pedimented portico on the front of the Theatre Royal, and the impressive buildings continue all the way to Piccadilly Circus, which was built in 1819 to connect Regent Street to Piccadilly. There’s the famous statue of Eros and the iconic video screens and neon signs on the north side, and more tourists than you can shake a red umbrella at. Piccadilly Circus is underneath all this, and the Bakerloo station was the first line to be brought through here, opening back in 1906 when the original Baker Street to Lambeth North section was opened. The original Leslie Green station was closed in 1929, once the station had been redeveloped below ground level in an amazing design by Charles Holden, and it was finally demolished in the 1980s, so there’s nothing to see above ground apart from the subway entrances.

Piccadilly Circus to Oxford Circus

The main route from Piccadilly Circus to Oxford Circus is via Regent Street, but for a quieter alternative, it’s worth taking Glasshouse Street and turning up Lower John Street into Golden Square... though, in a fit of confusion brought on by trying to eat a doughnut while map reading, we ended up walking along Warwick Street and missing the square entirely, which was a shame. Still, if you do manage to visit it, this historic part of London dates from the 1670s and was probably laid out by Sir Christopher Wren, and it’s now home to a pleasant open area, some statues, and at number one, the headquarters of Virgin Radio.

Heading on past Golden Square, it’s worth popping into Kingly Court at the top. This three-storey courtyard conversion is a delight if you’re into fashion and shopping, and it’s home to a cute square with a café, restaurant and a deeply trendy ambience. This isn’t too surprising, considering that next door is Carnaby Street, arguably the most famous fashion street in London, but if clothes shopping makes you feel faint (which it does me), you can turn down Ganton Street and along Kingly Street to get to Regent Street, just past the Mock Tudor of Liberty, from where it’s a short walk to Oxford Circus.

Oxford Circus station lives beneath the road junction, but unlike Piccadilly Circus, the original station buildings are still with us, on either side of Argyll Street. The ox-blood red terracotta building is Leslie Green’s 1906 Bakerloo line building, and opposite it is Harry Bell Measures’ 1900 Central line building. They’re both used as exits these days; you have to shuffle your way down the stairwells on the circus to get into the station.

Oxford Circus to Regent’s Park

Heading north away from the crowds along Regent Street, things soon start to calm down. The pavements here are wide and there are far fewer people, and by the time you reach the distinctive spire of All Souls Church, Oxford Street is a distant memory. Next to the church is the famous 1930s Broadcasting House, the rear of which is currently being redeveloped into BBC offices for the 21st century. Check out the sculpture on the front of the building, of Prospero and Ariel from Shakespeare’s The Tempest; this is by Eric Gill, who also produced three reliefs for Charles Holden’s building at 55 Broadway, the home of London Underground (which I visited on my District line walk from Victoria to Bow Road). Meanwhile, the Langham Hotel opposite completes a trio of great buildings, all clustered around Langham Place.

The impressive architecture continues up Portland Place, all the way to the most imposing of all, the delightful façades of Park Crescent. Dating from 1812, these Regency townhouses are on one of the earliest crescents designed by John Nash, and they have now been converted to offices, though the façades have been retained.

Regent’s Park station is completely subterranean, the only signs of life being a couple of roundels on the south side of Marylebone Road, just north of the private garden in the middle of the crescent.

Regent’s Park to Baker Street

Not surprisingly, the biggest attraction near the station is Regent’s Park, where we stopped for a bite to eat. Regent’s Park has to be one of my favourite parks in London, and the section through Queen Mary Gardens in the centre, through to the bandstand opposite the boating lake, is one of my top lunchtime walks (I used to work just round the corner, and it’s a great place for clearing your head after a morning staring into the cathode rays).

Of particular note is the view as you pass the ice cream shop on the western edge of the Inner Circle, as you come around the corner towards the bandstand; the view over the boating lake is beautifully offset by the minaret of the London Central Mosque, which might not be the most attractive tower on the planet, but its position on the opposite side of the lake gives the view from the path a wonderful balance, augmenting the original landscaping brilliantly. I just love it.

Back out in the traffic to the west of the park, Baker Street station is a short stroll along Baker Street, where there’s a side entrance into the station, saving you a walk through the busy crowds of tourists on the corner with Marylebone Street.

Baker Street to Marylebone

It’s a very short walk from Baker Street to Marylebone, the highlight being the impressive architecture surrounding Dorset Square. This is a classical Georgian square surrounded by terraces of four-storey town houses, and it originally formed part of the early 19th-century Portman Estate development; the buildings are pretty much unchanged from those days, with the brown of the London stock bricks mixing beautifully with the white stucco highlights.

Marylebone station is not far down Melcombe Place. It has to be one of the most attractive mainline stations, possibly because it’s small enough to take in easily. It was one of the last of the mainline stations to open, dating from 1899, and its warm brick and cream stone give it an almost residential air, a far cry from the monumental stations of St Pancras and Paddington. The Underground station is beneath the mainline station, accessed by an entrance in the middle of the concourse, and it opened in 1907 as part of the extension west from Baker Street. The mainline station opened some years after the Metropolitan line had been built a short distance to the south, so Marylebone is pretty badly connected to the Tube network, having just the Bakerloo line to serve it. Still, it means it’s not as insanely busy as stations like King’s Cross, so there is an upside.

Marylebone to Edgware Road (Bakerloo)

Continuing west, this time along Harewood Row and Bell Street, there’s an interesting collection of buildings to wander past, from large churches to streets of neo-Georgian terraces. Florence Nightingale Hospital on Lisson Grove is an impressive building, and there are two architecturally interesting period pubs along here, the Constitution and the Brazen Head. Towards the eastern end of the road the shops start to appear, and there’s a definite Arabian flavour to the shops, this being at the northern edge of the part of Edgware Road that’s known as Little Cairo, Little Beirut and various other nicknames along the same theme.

Edgware Road (Bakerloo) station is just around the corner, almost beneath the monstrous flyover carrying the A40 out of London. This isn’t the same Edgware Road station that serves the Metropolitan, Circle and District lines, which is a short walk away on the other side of the flyover; instead, this station is another Leslie Green design, dating from the 1907 extension west from Marylebone, when it became the terminus until the line was extended on to Paddington in 1913.

Edgware Road (Bakerloo) to Paddington

Opposite the station is the large tower of Paddington Green Police Station, the most important high security facility in the whole country. The above-ground station is normal enough, but there are 16 high-security cells beneath ground where serious terrorists are often brought. There are plans afoot to replace Paddington Green with a more secure and larger anti-terror jail, but for now this is anti-terrorism central.

Under the flyover and around the corner from the huge Hilton London Metropole is Praed Street (pronounced ‘Prayed Street’). Lined with shops and pubs, and some rather worn but interesting Victorian architecture, Praed Street is also home to St Mary’s Hospital, and in particular the second-storey laboratory where Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin on 28 September 1928. There’s a blue plaque directly beneath the window where the discovery was made, just opposite Norfolk Place.

Paddington station is a little further along Praed Street. There’s a small entrance to the Tube on the northern side of the street, just after the junction with London Street, but the main station entrance is on the south side of Praed Street, opposite the Hilton London Paddington Hotel, which was originally built between 1851 and 1854 as the Great Western Hotel. The Bakerloo line was opened through here on 1 December 1913, beneath the main railway station; it’s joined to the original Metropolitan line station via a corridor underneath Praed Street.

Paddington to Warwick Avenue

Passing the small entrance to the Tube and heading up London Street takes you along a sloping pathway to the back of Paddington station, which I first visited when trying to track down the Hammersmith & City station when walking from Hammersmith to Barking. Just past the back of the station is Paddington Basin, the small section of canal just south of Little Venice, which we’ll come to in a minute. It’s quite a surprise to find this little piece of canal heaven in the middle of a busy part of the city, but despite the peaceful canal location, Paddington Basin is a hive of redevelopment activity. To the west of the basin is Paddington Central, with two large office buildings and two residential blocks with over 200 apartments, all surrounding the pleasant Sheldon Square; there are lots of office developments along the basin to the south, which I visited when I walked through here on the Hammersmith & City line.

Just after Paddington Central, the canal creeps slowly under the huge double-decker A40 flyover before coming out in Little Venice, the name given to the residential area surrounding the junction of the Regent’s Canal and the Grand Junction Canal. The poet Robert Browning lived round here from 1862 to 1887 and it is he who is believed to have coined the name, and the wide open expanse of water at the junction of the canals is known as Browning’s Pool, after the poet.

Little Venice is a lovely area, as is the larger area of Maida Vale, of which Little Venice forms just a small part. Warwick Place is a great example of a backstreet in this largely Edwardian area, the row of white stucco terraces housing a great pub (the Warwick Castle), some exclusive shops and apartments you’d kill for. Out on the main street of Warwick Avenue, the impressive Edwardian mansion houses continue all the way to Warwick Avenue station, the only sign of which is the large brick ventilation shaft in the traffic island in the middle of the road. The whole station is below ground, and it was one of the first Tube stations to be built specifically with escalators in mind instead of lifts.

Warwick Avenue to Maida Vale

It’s a short walk from Warwick Avenue to Maida Vale along Warrington Crescent and Randolph Avenue, but it’s sweet. At the Colonnade Hotel on Warrington Crescent there’s a blue plaque for Alan Turing – the father of modern computer science – who was born here on 23 June 1912, when the hotel was a nursing home called Warrington Lodge. The white Edwardian townhouses along the crescent are delightful, and there’s even a small block of five Mock Tudor houses halfway along the eastern side, just to make sure things aren’t too monotonous.

Maida Vale station is another ox-blood red terracotta affair, but this time it’s not Leslie Green, it’s Stanley Heaps, who took over from Green after his early death in 1908. As his first independent commission, Heaps designed the Bakerloo stations at Paddington, Warwick Avenue, Maida Vale and Kilburn Park, but Maida Vale is the first above-ground example of this work, and it’s great. The windows on the corner of Randolph Avenue are particularly fun, with signs saying ‘Cigars’ and ‘Tobacco’ in a throwback to times when we weren’t quite so anti-smoking; meanwhile, the northern face of the building is a little hidden by scaffolding, but that doesn’t detract from the distinctive design one little bit. The main difference between Heaps’ stations and Green’s designs is the number of storeys; Green had to build a second storey to house the lift mechanisms, but because Heaps was designing for escalators, he only needed one storey, but he incorporated the curved window designs into the single-story windows, echoing his predecessor’s designs but bringing them bang up to date.

Maida Vale to Kilburn Park

The main event between Maida Vale and Kilburn Park is Paddington Recreation Ground, a large park that’s mainly given over to sports. There are tennis courts, cricket nets, five-a-side football pitches, all-weather football pitches, a cricket pitch, a bowling green and even a normal bit of parkland in the centre. At this time of year it’s a bit crazy with kids running around, blowing all the energy that would normally be soaked up by school, but it’s a pleasant enough spot, even if my visit to the park toilets was somewhat spoilt by the sound of the attendant bollocking a group of ne’er-do-well boys whom he’d caught red handed doing something untoward in the urinals.

At the top end of the recreation ground, there’s the first taste of a change in fortunes as the neighbourhood morphs from Maida Vale into southwest Kilburn. There’s a hugely depressing council estate across Kilburn Park Road whose concrete high rises are probably best forgotten, and it’s a similar story along Rudolph Road to Kilburn Park station. This is another single-storey Heaps station, and it’s a particularly satisfying example of his early terracotta stations, with intricately laced windows and the station name clearly inscribed under the station eaves. There’s a rather unsympathetic bright blue pharmacy under the middle arch which clashes horribly with the ox-blood red tiling, but that aside, this is a great station in a rather shabby part of town.

Kilburn Park to Queen’s Park

If the last leg started to brush up against the realities of life in north London, this leg gets well and truly stuck in. The terraces along Chichester Road aren’t too bad, but turning into Canterbury Terrace and Albert Road takes you into a housing estate that stretches all the way to Salusbury Road, the main road through Queen’s Park. The estate isn’t the worst I’ve seen, but it’s a pretty depressing place, with no imagination in the architecture and a greyness that’s only amplified by the overcast weather for which this country is famous. It’s not a long walk to the main road, but it feels as if it is; this isn’t a great part of town, to be honest.

Queen’s Park station doesn’t help much, as it’s just plain ugly. The station was originally opened by the London and North Western Railway in 1879 on its line from London to Birmingham, and the Bakerloo line came through here in 1915. The modern station building completely fails to reflect any of this history, and has absolutely no character; the entrances are lined with steel that makes it look like you’re entering a metal detector, and it’s not a great place to dawdle.

Queen’s Park to Kensal Green

Happily, Queen’s Park is schizophrenic, because the second you pass the station, things pick up immediately, and the main drag of Salusbury Road is a pretty pleasant place. Clearly this is an example of being on the other side of the tracks, because it’s the railway line that separates the nice part of Queen’s Park from the not so nice, and from here to Kensal Green it’s an absolute delight.

The main reason for the improvement is Queen’s Park itself, a large 30-acre park in the middle of the suburbs that has obviously managed to spread its good vibes to the surrounding houses. Rows of well-kept and attractive terraced houses line the streets to the east of the park, and the park itself is a wide open space with trees surrounding the green, which proved handy as the heavens opened just as we arrived. There’s a wood carving of Noah, a bandstand and a lovely little park café, and after the estates on the other side of the tracks, it’s a considerable relief.

The pretty terraces continue to the west of the park, all the way along Keslake Road and Mortimer Road. This is a popular area with young professional couples and families with young children, and as we wandered along Mortimer Road, we came across Iggle Piggle, standing there on the side of the road. Clearly this was a photo opportunity not to be missed, so first Charlie and then I posed with the star of In the Night Garden, and as I smiled into the sun with Iggle Piggle standing proudly beside me, a mum and her toddler smiled out of the bay window, no doubt amused to see who was the latest person to be enticed into the Iggle Piggle trap outside. Being in touch with my inner child, I just said, ‘Iggle Piggle!’ and pointed gleefully at Mr Piggle, smiling my happy Night Garden smile while mum and child waved back, all of us caught up in the fun. There’s nothing quite like a bit of regression, particularly after a long day’s walk.

Kensal Green station is a combined Tube and railway station, and it’s a bizarre building (though quite pleasant). It’s a rectangular brick building with a black wooden roof and eaves, and it looks more like a modern public library or a school building than a railway station. Still, it’s distinctive, so at least it scores heavily over Queen’s Park.

Kensal Green to Willesden Junction

Just along the main road from Kensal Green station is Kensal Green Cemetery, which is well worth a quick visit. This was the first of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ cemeteries to be incorporated, back in 1832, and there are plenty of old graves to explore, as well as a large number of more modern ones. There are approximately 250,000 people buried here in 65,000 graves, including Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his father, Marc Isambard Brunel, who built the Thames Tunnel through which the East London line passes.

From the cemetery, things get a lot bleaker along Harrow Road, which isn’t the most delightful place in the capital. There are some mid-Victorian terraces along the roadside that are pleasant enough, and off the main road you can peek along some quieter streets that show a bit of promise, but the main road is not a great place to hang out, and it’s a relief to find a set of steps on the other side of the London Underground tracks that take you down to the back entrance to Willesden Junction station, and to the end of this long walk right through the centre of the capital.

Oh, and I’m now two-thirds of the way through my tubewalk, which has got to be worth celebrating. Not long now...

Willesden Junction to Harrow & Wealdstone

4 August 2008

Oh dear, this is such a dreary walk. I do try to look on the positive side when tubewalking, and there’s almost always something good to say about each section... but the Bakerloo line just hasn’t turned out to be a good walking line, and there’s not a lot I can say to make it seem more attractive than it already isn’t.

The first half of the Bakerloo line started on a low note, perked up a bit through the centre of the city, raised its game in Maida Vale, and then went downhill all the way to Willesden Junction (with a brief blip in Queen’s Park, half of which was very pleasant). Today’s walk unfortunately continues this theme, and I’m really struggling to think of any highlights. Even the scattered showers that kicked in towards the end failed to dampen my spirits, because they’d already been dampened by the walking.

In short, and alone among all the lines I’ve walked so far, I can’t recommend the Bakerloo line for walking. It might be fine for living alongside, and there are probably isolated pockets of beauty that are hidden well away from the Tube, but I won’t be bothering to come this way again once my tubewalk is over, which is a shame. Still, you win some, and you most definitely lose some...

Willesden Junction to Harlesden

Things didn’t start off well today, but then they didn’t end particularly well last time. Willesden Junction is exactly that – a huge railway junction – and unless you’re a dyed-in-the-wool train enthusiast, the sight of all the industry to the south is a bit down-heartening. To the southeast is Park Royal, the massive industrial park that I first came across when walking from Hanger Lane to North Acton on the Central line, and this side of the tracks isn’t much better, as Station Road and Acton Lane are pretty uninteresting roads to walk along. There are some large churches and plenty of tired-looking terraced houses, but that’s about it.

Luckily it isn’t far to Harlesden station, and I spent the last couple of minutes before the station trapped in the slipstream of two particularly fragrant east Europeans, who were heading off into the distance clutching a plastic bag full of cans of Carlsberg Special Brew. Their faces were swollen like inflated balloons in the sun, and when they stopped at the lights and looked at each other, I could see they were brothers, clearly sharing the same alcoholic genes. What a way to go...

Harlesden to Stonebridge Park

Neither Harlesden nor Stonebridge Park has a terribly good image; the former is known as the ‘UK murder capital’ and is notorious for Yardie gang culture and high levels of crime, and the latter is home to the Stonebridge Estate, which has some of the highest recorded crime levels in the country (though the regeneration of the estate is helping to bring those figures down). However, I didn’t experience any of this, as I chose to head south into Park Royal, to catch some canal walking.

The short section of the Grand Union Canal from Acton Lane to Abbey Road is the highlight of this entire day’s walk, and that’s really saying something, because this isn’t the canal at its most beautiful. The towpath is also a bit of a minefield, as this is a popular area for Indians on bicycles, and none of them seem to bother with bells; I was merrily walking along the towpath, minding my own business, when suddenly I heard the swoosh of a bicycle behind me, tried to step out of the way and nearly ended up being pushed into the drink along with the bike, only to be swerved into the undergrowth by a second bike that was going just as fast. I don’t mind bikers on towpaths, but sometimes I wish I carried a trip wire, just to weed out those who have a deathwish.

Turning off the canal into Abbey Road takes you to the mad rush of the North Circular Road, and there’s a footbridge just around the corner from the huge D-Link headquarters that takes you to the other side. This is a large junction of rail and road, and the footpath takes you under the arches of at least five large railway bridges (though I lost count, so it could be more). Stonebridge Park station is up a small road on the other side of the bridges, and it’s a modest affair; the original station buildings, which were a little further to the east, were destroyed in the Blitz, and the current station was built by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway as a replacement. The station has suffered two major fires since then, but has been renovated and the resulting building is a modest, rectangular stone affair that offends no one.

Stonebridge Park to Wembley Central

The canal is the last interesting thing on this walk, because from here it’s unremitting suburbia, and not terribly exciting suburbia at that. Tokyngton Avenue is a good example; it sets off from beneath the shadow of a large and worryingly black office block, and passes through a smorgasbord of dull housing from between the wars, when the whole area around Harlesden, Stonebridge Park and Wembley exploded with low-cost housing. The stalwart of this housing is your typical two-up-two-down suburban home, with two bay windows on one side of the house, one on each floor and separated by a red skirt of tiles; and the front door and a smaller upstairs window on the other side, the door topped with a red tiled porch roof. This style of house can be found throughout the country, but when it takes over entire neighbourhoods, it gets a bit tiresome. The suburbs along the Metropolitan line to Uxbridge and the Ruislip end of the Central line all suffer from this monotony, and so does this part of Stonebridge Park.

Judging by the map, the playing fields at the end of the road would appear to offer a break in the endless suburbs, but they’re off-limits to the general public, and instead a footpath takes you around three sides of a rectangle to deposit you on the High Road without once touching grass. There is one good thing about this path, though; it provides you with good views of Wembley Stadium, which is a deeply impressive sight, even from this distance. That aside, the most interesting thing I found on my circumnavigation of the playing fields was a quarter-bottle of Jack Daniel’s placed on a ledge by the side of the path, empty except for a white cigarette butt. It looked... well, it looked like a study for a still life in Stonebridge Park, so I took its photograph and wished it well.

Wembley Central station is along the High Road, past a busy junction and rows of shops that can be found on any high street in the land. The station entrance, which dates from 1936 and has a vague hint of Art Deco about it, leads through a 1940s shopping arcade to the station itself, though the high street frontage is currently surrounded by development work (indeed, the building to the left is no more than a shell behind blue hoardings, leaving the station to stand almost alone). It’ll be interesting to see what’s left once all the brick dust has settled.

Wembley Central to North Wembley

Turning off the high street and up Park Lane, things suddenly take a turn for the better in King Edward VII Park. Opened back in 1914, just three years before Bakerloo line trains started serving Wembley Central, the idea was that this new council-run park would make up for the loss of Wembley Park, which had been bought by the Metropolitan Railway for development; Wembley Park would go on to host the British Empire Exhibition of 1924-5 and is now home to Wembley Stadium and its environs, but King Edward VII Park is a relatively modest affair, with some landscaping to the eastern end and flat playing fields to the west.

Yet more dreary suburbs lie on the other side of the park, with pebbledash and Mock Tudor rubbing shoulders in an attempt to out-grim each other. The streets are faded and the architecture is standard between-the-wars fodder, and when you come across something different – even if it’s an unattractive 1960s block or a failed experiment in post-modern social housing – it breaks the monotony to the point where you find yourself thanking the architect who decided to fill that particular gap with that particular eyesore, even though if you met that sort of building in a more upwardly mobile suburb, you’d deny you ever knew each other.

North Wembley station sits on a bridge over the railway line, and consists of a small house-like ticket office above the line below. Interestingly, there’s no Tube roundel anywhere to be seen, or even a London Overground logo, even though it serves both of them.

North Wembley to South Kenton

When planning this section, I couldn’t find anything of merit to the west of the railway line, but to the east is Preston Park, which I thought might be worth visiting, so I plotted a route through Wembley Commercial Centre to the park, and thought that would be that. Unfortunately Wembley Commercial Centre turns out to be private property, a point made by the kind of sign that you just know is backed up by rottweilers, so I had to change my plans. I spent ten minutes vainly trying a route along the eastern flank of the Tube line and briefly considered heading further east to skirt round the industrial park, but the skies were starting to turn ominously dark and I bottled it and headed back to the station.

The direct route, then, is along Peel Road and Nathans Road, which are joined by a small footpath. Peel Road is not terribly attractive and continues the area’s love affair with red-skirted pebbledash semi-detached two-up-two-down houses, and Nathans Road threatens to continue the same old theme... but suddenly things smarten up, and Mock Tudor takes over. Interestingly this is pleasant Mock Tudor, and the front gardens smarten themselves up pleasantly all the way to the station. It’s a bit of a surprise after miles of drab pebbledash, but just to the north is Northwick Park, which I enjoyed walking through on the Metropolitan line, so perhaps this is a slightly more affluent area than down the road.

South Kenton station is a more modern station than its neighbours, dating from 1933, some 16 years after the line started carrying Bakerloo trains through here. The station is well hidden from passers-by, as it’s up on an embankment and can only be reached by a pedestrian tunnel below the station (through which you can pass without a ticket). Indeed, the station has no ticket barriers at all, one of very few stations on the Underground that doesn’t, and there are no plans to install them as space on the platform is too restricted.

South Kenton to Kenton

Windermere Avenue, which leads from South Kenton to the Metropolitan line to the north, is astounding. It’s not astounding because of its beautiful architecture or its great taste, but because it’s home to something I’ve never seen before: the bastard love child of pebbledash and Mock Tudor. As I saw in West Acton, Mock Tudor can be beautiful, but only if it’s stylishly designed and well looked after (peeling black timber and unpainted grey splodges of plaster on the white parts can rather spoil the effect). However, I’ve never come across an attractive use of pebbledash, and combining the two is surely asking for trouble; walk along Windermere Avenue and you’ll see what I mean (or, possibly, you’ll discover a style of housing like no other, and it will change your life forever).

A footbridge over the Bakerloo line takes you to Churchill Avenue, where suburban reinvention is celebrated by Kenton Spiritualist Church. This church is actually a completely standard, detached Mock Tudor suburban house, with a sign out the front listing service times, and I have to say it works really well. The house is tidy, the patio surrounding the church is spotless, and there’s more pride in this church than many; good for them.

Kenton station is practically identical to North Wembley station, sitting on the same side of the bridge with the same ‘is it a suburban house or a railway station?’ ambience. Indeed, the similarity in design extends to the platforms, and apparently it’s well known for catching out passengers who don’t read the signs too closely and hop off, only to find that they’re two stops away from the station they really want.

Kenton to Harrow & Wealdstone

The pebbledash Mock Tudor housing continues along the backstreets after Kenton station, all the way to Kenton Recreation Ground, which at least provides some respite. It isn’t a terribly interesting place to visit, as it’s mainly made up of wide open and slightly bleak sports grounds... though, to be fair, it’s quite hard to have a sports ground that isn’t bleak, as trees tend to get in the way of the football, so don’t think I’m complaining. It’s just not a very exciting place to walk through.

It’s a fairly lengthy and fairly uninspiring walk through the backstreets of Wealdstone to the station, with the usual mixture of two-up-two-down, Mock Tudor and pebbledash providing the soundtrack. By far the most exciting thing about this leg is Harrow & Wealdstone station itself, which sports an impressive clock tower above a pleasing red brick and stone building, the letters LNWR (London and North Western Railway) still visible in the stonework above the entrance. This hasn’t always been the terminus of the Bakerloo line; back in 1917, Bakerloo services were extended from Willesden Junction all the way to Watford Junction, but in 1982 Bakerloo services north of Stonebridge Park were dropped, though they were reintroduced to Harrow & Wealdstone two years later. It’s been the end of the line ever since, though London Overground services continue north along the line to Watford Junction.

I should also point out that Harrow & Wealdstone is a long way from Harrow – it should really be called plain old Wealdstone – so if (like me) you live in west London and want to get home, an option that avoids going back into town is to walk south to Harrow-on-the-Hill, and to hop on the Metropolitan line. It’s not a particularly attractive walk, but if you’ve just walked the Bakerloo line, you’ll be pretty used to that kind of thing...

Piccadilly Line

Heathrow Airport

5 August 2008

Now this really is a tubewalk with a difference... the difference being that all three Heathrow Tube stations are on private property, so you can’t actually walk to them unless you get permission from the airport owners, BAA. Luckily, they were very kind when I contacted them about my plans, and they issued me with a permit that would let me take photographs of all the terminal buildings and Tube stations, as well as letting me walk around the Perimeter Road, which is on private land and isn’t a normal right of way. They understandably couldn’t give me permission to walk through the road tunnel under the northern runway, so I had to get a public bus to complete the last few yards to Terminals 1, 2 and 3, but that aside, I’ve managed to tubewalk Heathrow, and I never thought that would be possible. A big thank you to Lisa at the BAA press office for sorting out the relevant permits; this wouldn’t have been possible without her help.

So I was more than a little annoyed to see the weather forecast for today, which showed a huge band of rain approaching London from the southwest that sat over the capital for the entire day. ‘Heavy showers and humid,’ said the man, and my heart sank, because Lisa had arranged for the local press to meet me at Terminal 5 halfway through the day, and I could hardly reschedule all of them just because of a little rain. So I packed my umbrella and hoped for the best, while the rain lashed down outside, gearing up for what looked like a seriously wet day.

Heathrow Terminal 5 to Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3

It’s hard to tell from the maps, but it is perfectly possible to walk out of the new Terminal 5 building without having to play with any traffic; there’s lots of space alongside the access roads in and out of the building, and even though pedestrians aren’t allowed to walk along the access roads, there is at least plenty of pavement for them not to walk along. I decided to head for Terminals 1, 2 and 3 first, because that’s the way the Tube line goes, so I left Terminal 5 at the Arrivals level (which is on ground level) and turned right, heading in what I thought was the best direction; I obviously didn’t do anything too wrong, as nobody seemed to worry about me plodding along the roadside, even the security guard on the traffic barriers. Indeed, I asked a couple of guards in day-glo yellow tops which was the best way to the Perimeter Road, and they told me without once asking to see my permit, which was a shame after all the effort I’d gone to to get one. ‘Never mind,’ I thought, ‘I’m sure it will come in handy later,’ and wandered off into the rain.

The Perimeter Road is a strange beast. There are four of them – the Western, Northern, Eastern and Southern Perimeter Roads – and although you are allowed to drive on them and cycle along them, you are only allowed to do so on airport business, so driving along them to spot planes is against the rules; obviously, walking around Heathrow is hardly classed as airport business, so even though there are pavements around the perimeter, you can’t just walk on them without getting permission (though there is no physical barrier if you choose to do so). I took the Western Perimeter Road from Terminal 5 to the northwest corner of the airport, skirting the outside of the heavy duty razor-wire fence that protects the airport proper, and following the route of a large raised road that looked for all the world like an under-construction roller-coaster. This turned out to be the driver-less light rail system that will eventually carry passengers between Terminal 5 and Terminals 1, 2 and 3, and the views of the airport will be spectacular, as it’s really quite high off the ground. I can’t wait to have a go when it’s open.

I was so mesmerised by the curves of the roller-coaster that I completely forgot to turn left off the Perimeter Road and up to the roundabout with the A3044 (which is outside the airport and therefore fair game for anyone); trudging back in the rain was not a highlight, but what followed most definitely was. Tucked away at the northwest corner of the airport is the small village of Longford, and it’s a delightful little place. I’d been expecting a small hamlet of run-down modern houses, living sullenly in the shadow of the aviation beast just on the other side of the Perimeter Road, but that couldn’t be further from the truth, as Longford is a charming place with a genuine village character, some lovely houses and at least one great-looking pub, the White Horse. There has been a village here since at least 1337, which was the first record of its existence, but the excavations for Terminal 5 may have uncovered evidence of settlement as far back as the fifth century AD. There are quite a few rivers in this area – hence ‘Long Ford’ – and one of them, the Duke of Northumberland’s River, flows from north to south through the heart of the village. This man-made tributary of the River Colne, which itself flows to the west of the village, was owned for many years by the eponymous duke, and its creation probably dates from the reign of Henry VIII. There’s also a small park on the south side of the high street through which the river flows, and there’s a good view of Terminal 5 from here (though not in the rain, I should point out).

Not far after the river is a right of way that cuts north to the A4, though I missed it and ended up walking all the way to the A4 and doubling back on myself (I can confirm that the right of way does exist, though, as I spotted it when I walked back along the A-road). The A4 is devilishly busy at this point, but there’s a wide central reservation, so crossing simply requires patience, and it’s worth the effort as across the road is a small slither of Harmondsworth Moor Country Park, a large nature reserve that stretches northwest, all the way to the junction of the M25 and the M4. The small section along the Duke of Northumberland’s River flanks a collection of grand offices called Waterside, which is home to the headquarters of British Airways, and the grounds are pleasantly landscaped. This far away from the airport the noise pollution is surprisingly low, probably because the planes don’t fly overhead at this point, and there’s a large lake with a noticeable amount of bird life; as headquarters go, it’s a pleasant spot, which you might not expect this close to Heathrow.

At the top end of the British Airways corporate landscape is Moor Lane, which leads east to the village of Harmondsworth. If the third runway that the operators of Heathrow want gets the go-ahead – and there’s certainly a lot of opposition to the plans, so it’s not a foregone conclusion – Harmondsworth will be all but surrounded by the new development, though the developers have promised that they will preserve the Grade I-listed church and tithe barn in the village centre. The village is another pretty one, and while I think Longford has more attractive buildings, Harmondsworth has a much more enjoyable village green, with the Five Bells pub sitting pretty next to the aforementioned church, and a pleasant row of shops opposite. If it wasn’t for the constant grumbling of the airport in the distance, this would be a prime spot; presumably though, with airport expansion plans surging ahead, this isn’t quite the desirable residence it looks like to the casual visitor.

Leading east from Harmondsworth is Harmondsworth Lane, a quiet country road lined with pleasant cottages to the north and surrounded by golden wheat fields on both sides. If the third runway is built, it will run parallel to Harmondsworth Lane, but just to the north, and clearly this whole area will disappear under the concrete. It’s a strange feeling, walking where one day there may be a busy runway, and it’s easy to see why the locals are so angry about the proposals; currently they live in a rural idyll, if you ignore the noise pollution, and that will all disappear if the proposals get the go ahead. The government says it will compensate those who have to move, but I suppose home is where the heart is, and that’s why there’s such opposition to the uprooting.

At the eastern end of Harmondsworth Lane is the village of Sipson, the village that will be hardest hit by the third runway, as it will effectively be wiped off the map. There are, not surprisingly, ‘No Third Runway’ signs everywhere, and some houses have campaign literature pinned all over their gardens; the locals, united under the slightly cumbersome NOTRAG moniker (‘No Third Runway Action Group’), are putting up a strong fight. To be honest, though, Sipson is aesthetically not a patch on Longford or Harmondsworth, and although it’s easy to be sympathetic to the plight of the locals, it’s difficult to get too worked up as a non-resident when the streets are lined with pretty shabby semi-detached pebbledash housing, a couple of interesting but unexceptional pubs, and a church that’s impressive but relatively modern. If Longford and Harmondsworth were to be demolished, then that would indeed be a pity, but Sipson... well, I hate to say it, but having walked right through the heart of the village, I don’t see what it’s got that can’t be found somewhere else in the suburbs of London, and fairly easily, at that.

The link road to the M4 motorway runs right past the eastern flanks of Sipson, meeting the A4 at Tunnel Road. This is where the motorway dives into a tunnel underneath the north runway, popping up in the middle of the airport at Terminals 1, 2 and 3. You can get a good view of the tunnel entrance from the raised A4, and in particular the model Airbus that sits in the middle of the Tunnel Road roundabout. There used to be a model of Concorde here, but a few weeks ago it was replaced by an Airbus done out in the livery of the Emirates airline. It isn’t possible to walk down to the model, for two reasons: not only is the roundabout within the confines of Heathrow and therefore private property, but the roundabout is also classed as part of the motorway, so motorway rules apply, and that means pedestrians aren’t allowed. I know this because after I visited Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 station, I wandered down to the roundabout to take some photos and got pulled over by the police. My magic permit did its stuff and they relaxed once they saw I was allowed to take photos within the confines of the airport, but even though they thought my tubewalk was a great idea, they politely pointed out that even with my permit, I still wasn’t allowed here, so perhaps I’d like to make my way back up to the A4. With the traffic zipping round me at breakneck speed, I was happy to comply, but it does mean that the closest you can get to the middle of the airport – and therefore to Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 station – is the A4 overlooking the Tunnel Road roundabout.

However, if you want to get even closer, there are public buses that run from here through the tunnel, so I wandered a little further along the A4 to bus stop BL, from where any of buses 105, 111, 140 and 245 will take you to the terminals for a small fare. Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 station is on the other side of the bus terminal from the bus stops, and is so buried in the terminal building that it’s a bit pointless commenting on its architectural merit. It was opened as Heathrow Central in 1977 and immediately became the new terminus of the Piccadilly line; the station was renamed Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 when the station at Terminal 4 started serving trains on 12 April 1986, and it hasn’t looked back since.

An Interlude

Instead of hopping back on the bus to continue my route around Heathrow, I nipped back to Terminal 5 to meet Lisa from BAA, who had arranged for some members of the local press to come and take my picture and ask me the odd question about my tubewalk. I’d like to report that it was a hoot and I had a great time chatting to the journalists, but in the event nobody turned up. One photographer had to stay at home as something had broken in his house and he needed to stay there while it was fixed, and another rang at 12.45 to say he would be late as he was on another assignment, and then he rang back at 1.30 to say he wouldn’t be able to make it after all.

So Lisa and I chatted over a coffee and she took some photographs of me posing in front of the Tube station in case the papers still wanted a picture, and I ended up back at the Terminals 1, 2 and 3 bus stop, a good hour-and-a-half after I’d first arrived, and with precious little to show for it. I felt a bit sorry for Lisa, as it wasn’t her fault and she ended up having to entertain a horribly damp and slightly whiffy tubewalker during her lunch break, but I guess that’s life. Never trust the press, I say... and I say that as an ex-journalist.

Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 to Hatton Cross

It’s an easy bus ride out of Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 station back to the A4, and I took the opportunity to hop off early to explore the Tunnel Road roundabout (which, as I noted above, is off-limits to all pedestrians, even those with permits, and the police soon moved me on). Walking east along the A4 is an exercise in huge hotels, large office blocks and even a McDonald’s restaurant that has laid out the McDonald’s logo on its forecourt, presumably to entice hungry holidaymakers in the skies above to grab a Big Mac once they land (which is, of course, the first thing you hanker for after eating aeroplane food, I don’t think). The traffic is busy and there’s not a lot of respite, but the A-road does have lots of pavement space and plenty of traffic lights along its length, so it’s easy walking.

To complete my tour of the villages that might be affected by the third runway, I thought I’d turn north up the A437 to the village of Harlington. This village isn’t inside the development area for the runway, but it would be right under the flight path. On the other hand, Harlington isn’t a terribly attractive place, and the streets are lined with faded pebbledash terraces while the high street shops are well past their sell-by date; there’s a clear hierarchy of beauty as you head east, from the delightful houses of Longford and attractive green of Harmondsworth, through the fairly standard suburbia of Sipson to the pebbledash of Harlington. Even the lane heading east from Harlington, Cranford Lane, is dead straight and dead boring, with diggers chewing up the land to the south and flat fields to the north hiding behind thick hedges.

Things pick up slightly at the far end, with the greenery of Cranford Park to the north. The London Loop heads this way on day 8, heading for Uxbridge, and as this leg of the Loop starts at Hatton Cross, it’s a perfect route to follow all the way to the next station. From Cranford Lane the Loop heads across a small recreation ground to the A4, where it turns east past shops and some pretty uninspiring roadside buildings to Waye Avenue, where pebbledash is king and the sound of the jets pounding above is truly impressive. There’s no point in trying to pretend that this is a nice part of the world; it simply isn’t, and it’s quite a relief to come out by the River Crane at the southern end of the road.

From here to the A30, which runs along the southern side of the airport, it’s a fairly green wander along the river, which is all but hidden behind thick undergrowth. There are quite a few picnic tables along the way, though someone has used quite a few of them as fireplaces, so they don’t make quite as pleasant a rest stop as you’d hope... and soon enough you come out onto the Eastern Perimeter Road, from where it’s a short way onto the A30. Interestingly, the Loop appears to pass through private Heathrow land along the Perimeter Road and the signs tell you that you shouldn’t be going this way, but as the Loop isn’t way-marked at all round here, it’s hard to know exactly what you’re supposed to do, and the guidebook certainly tells you to go this way, officer.

Hatton Cross station is an easy walk along the A30, along the London Loop link route. On your left as you feed from the Eastern Perimeter Road onto the A30 is a concrete cutting that carries the Piccadilly line east to Hounslow West, and the planes get quite a bit lower and noisier at this point, as the southern runway is just past the Tube station. The station itself is fairly perfunctory, housed in a concrete bus station that looks like it was built in the 1970s (probably because it was – 1975, to be exact).

Hatton Cross to Heathrow Terminal 4

You can walk most of the way to Terminal 4 along the side of the A30, which is outside the airport boundary. This might explain why this is plane-spotting central, particularly on the section due east of the southern runway. Planes coming in to land are almost close enough to touch at this point, and the noise is truly terrifying. The street lights on the A-road are squat as if cowering from the cacophony above, and it’s quite a relief to pass under the flight path and get on with the walk to Terminal 4; I’m clearly not made of stern enough stuff to be a plane-spotter.

It’s about a mile of dead-straight walking to Aviation House, where there’s a gap in the fence onto the Southern Perimeter Road. As per usual, this is private property and you shouldn’t walk here without a permit, but nobody seemed remotely interested in checking my permit as I walked past the back of the Hilton, with its strange covered walkway into the heart of the terminal, and along Swindon Road to the bus terminals at the front of the terminal. In order to take photos of the terminal I had to get my permit signed by the man at the control centre, though again nobody asked me why I was snapping away in the first place. Heathrow Terminal 4 station is down an escalator and along a brightly coloured corridor, through the doors marked ‘Heathrow Terminal 4’ (as opposed to the plain-old ‘Underground’ sign that’s used for Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3 and Heathrow Terminal 5 stations).

Heathrow Terminal 4 to Heathrow Terminal 5

In order to complete a tubewalk of Heathrow, it isn’t strictly necessary to walk from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5, as there’s no direct tube link between them, but as there’s a loop in the line at Terminal 4, it seems appropriate to finish the whole round-trip. The walk to Terminal 5 is mostly along the Southern Perimeter Road, so again you need a permit to walk here, though there seems to be a newly constructed cycle path along the southern side of the road, to the west of the Sealand Road roundabout, and the signs clearly show that this cycle path is for use by both pedestrians and cyclists, so perhaps change is afoot.

The Perimeter Road has quite a different feeling to it along the southern reaches, particularly as you get towards the southwest corner of the airport. The man-made Longford River flows right next to the road for most of its distance, and although you’d never spot it, this is quite an ancient waterway, although its course was changed when the airport was built. The original Longford River was dug on the orders of Charles I back in 1638, who commissioned an inquiry into ‘how the waters of the Colne could be brought over Hounslow Heath into the Park’ in order to improve the water supply to Hampton Court. These days it’s more like a canal than an irrigation channel, and ducks and moorhens play on its waters while an impressive collection of massive airport buildings loom on either side of the river.

Eventually the huge cargo buildings on the southern side give way to suburban houses, and there’s even a pub, the Rising Sun, overlooking a small bridge that you can cross if you’re feeling thirsty. This is Stanwell, a suburban village that has been here since at least Norman times (it appears in the 1086 Domesday Book as Stanwelle). It’s mainly full of housing for airport workers and isn’t terribly visible from the Perimeter Road, but it stretches quite a way south, all the way to the A30; it’s considerably bigger than the villages to the north, and borders three huge reservoirs to the west.

The walking continues in the same vein until the Southern Perimeter Road joins up with the Western Perimeter Road, and Terminal 5 looms into view in the near distance. It’s an impressive building – not surprisingly, as it is currently the largest free-standing building in the country – and you can see why it cost £4 billion and took 19 years to design and build. The main terminal building is actually called T5A; T5B and T5C are satellite buildings that are yet to be built. T5A has just one roof covering the whole building, which is the size of five football fields, and as you approach it along the Perimeter Road, the 40m-high bulk of this massive glass and steel structure is apparent.

It’s easy pavement walking all the way to the terminal, and as you approach from the south, you get to enjoy a view of the road ramp that feeds traffic to the Departures area on the top floor; it’s like a huge Brio wooden train set, and you can’t help but stare as you walk underneath. This is also where you can find the VIP entrance to the terminal, and I couldn’t resist taking out my camera and taking a shot, in the hope that this would at least get me questioned, and sure enough the man in the security booth ran out shouting, ‘No photos here!’ I waved back and fished out my permit, and he looked me up and down before examining my permit in minute detail, until even he had to accept that I could take photographs of his VIP entrance if I wanted... and so I took another one, just to celebrate my last happy moments as keeper of the Power of the Permit.

And so ended a fascinating walk around Heathrow, only spoiled slightly by the rain that dogged me on and off all day. This is an interesting place to walk, simply because it is completely different to anywhere else on the Tube network, and knowing that I could walk around the perimeter and take photos without worrying about the legalities was the icing on the cake. It’s not every day you get permission to walk round an entire airport, and I’ll remember it fondly as I tell my grandchildren, ‘You see that runway? Well, I remember when all this were fields...’

Or, if the people of NOTRAG win the day, perhaps not.

Hatton Cross to Boston Manor

6 August 2008

Today’s walk seemed to go on a lot longer than I thought it would, but it was only when I got home that I realised why. Last night, after writing up my Heathrow walk, I sleepily looked at the mileage for today’s walk, and figured it would be an easy day at just 7.6 miles and that I’d probably be home around lunchtime, as I live just two stops from Boston Manor along the pretty nippy Piccadilly line.

Of course, in my sleepy state I’d looked at the wrong day, because this walk isn’t 7.6 miles long – that’s the next leg – so by the time I got to Osterley, I couldn’t work out why my legs were aching more than they should, and why on earth I wasn’t at Boston Manor yet, downing an ice-cold bottle of Lucozade while waiting for the Tube home. I thought perhaps the high humidity was affecting me more than usual, or that I’d stayed up a little too late to finish off the account of my Heathrow walk, but it never dawned on me that today’s walk was three miles longer than my head thought it should be. It’s not a mistake I recommend... but at least the next walk will be a nice short hop, and that’s always welcome.

Hatton Cross to Hounslow West

Day 7 of the London Loop ends at Hatton Cross, having come from Kingston, so I thought I’d follow it south for a while, as the Loop is a pretty good arbiter of taste. It’s a fairly long walk from the Tube station to the River Crane, past a farm just to the side of the A30, complete with horses and some extremely fragrant piles of hay, but soon enough the Loop turns right off the road to follow the river. After yesterday’s rain, the woods lining the Crane were humid, slippery and full of biting mosquitoes, and the overgrown theme set by the section of the Loop I followed round the eastern edge of Heathrow yesterday continued with a vengeance, with the river hardly visible for most of the way. There is one difference between yesterday’s walk along the Crane and this section, though: here in the south there is way more rubbish, and whenever you come across a hole in the bushes and peer through at the river, it’s like a modern version of a beaver dam, with the detritus of 21st century life spread out in a big arc across the river, snagged on branches and tree roots. I remember being unimpressed with the amount of litter when I walked this part of the Loop back in 2003; in over five years nothing has changed, which is a pity.

The Loop continues along the banks of the Crane, crossing over the A312 and on to the northwest corner of Hampstead Heath. On the way the path passes the site of an old 16th century gunpowder works, which today looks more like a mountain bike training course; the huge mounds of earth by the river were built to shield the rest of the world from the inevitable explosions that would rock the gunpowder works from time to time. There are the remains of other gunpowder works along the Crane on the other side of Hounslow Heath, but they’re a bit far away for the Piccadilly line, so you’ll have to walk the Loop to discover them.

On the other side of the A315, the Crane flows into Hounslow Heath, though any signs of heath are well hidden for quite a while, as the path continues to follow the river south through thick woods that cut out any signs of daylight. Every now and then you catch glimpses of tees and fairways to the east, until eventually you reach a bridge over the Crane and the Loop turns east into Hounslow Heath Golf Course. Luckily there’s a path that follows a cutting, protecting you from stray golf balls, and then the Loop pops out into the heath proper and the fun really begins. Hounslow Heath is a fairly wild place, with scrubland stretching as far as the eye can see, which is not very far in some of the more overgrown parts. The heath is criss-crossed by plenty of wide walking paths, though luckily the Loop is well signposted and it’s easy to follow it into the centre of the heath. This part of the world was famous for its highwaymen in the 17th and 18th century, and it’s easy to see why they found it such a good place to hang out; even today, as you wander along the paths in the company of dog walkers and park wardens, it’s easy to imagine a highwayman charging down a London-bound stagecoach, or jumping out of the bushes with a shout of ‘Stand and deliver!’

The Loop heads southeast to the other side of the heath, but the Piccadilly line is some way north of here, so when you come across a crossroads with a major walking route (signed with yellow boot-prints), turn north and follow the path all the way to the northern entrance to the heath, coming out opposite the Hussar pub. From here to the station it’s a fairly long and not terribly thrilling exercise in pebbledash suburbs, past the Duke of York pub and Hounslow Heath School to Bath Road, while the planes fly lower and lower the closer to Hounslow you get.

Left along the main road is Hounslow West station, a Charles Holden creation from the early 1930s that is very similar to his station at Ealing Common, with a tall heptagonal ticket hall fronted by slatted windows carrying the Underground logo on the sides. The first station on this part of the line was opened way back in 1884 by the Metropolitan District Railway, under the name Hounslow Central, and District line services ran along this branch until 1964, when they were withdrawn in favour of the Piccadilly line (which only started running here in 1933).

Hounslow West to Hounslow Central

Walking east along Bath Road is not one of life’s great pleasures, as the traffic is busy and the architecture is fairly standard for a busy A-road through zones 4 and 5. There is a large stone church on the north side of the road which is worth a look, but it’s fairly average walking to the junction with the A3063, a theme that continues left along Sutton Lane. The planes are even lower here, and it’s just not a great place to explore on foot.

On the other side of the Tube tracks, which you have to cross via a pedestrian bridge on the western side of the road, is New Brentford Cemetery, which is worth popping into. Dating from 1902, it’s quite small and has a quaint little chapel in the centre, and some of the graves are worth a look. Just past the cemetery is Harte Road, and at the end is an entrance into Lampton Park, the largest park in Hounslow. It’s not a terrible place, but even though it has a pleasant enough circular flower bed in the centre and plenty of space for football to the west, it’s a slightly tired-looking place, and the constant thrum of low-flying planes, one every minute or so, is enough to dampen even the most relaxed spirit. The park is also home to Hounslow Civic Centre, and Lampton Road is just the other side of the centre, where a right turn takes you to the station.

Hounslow Central station, like the other stations on this part of the line, was originally opened as part of the District line; it first served trains way back in 1886, when it was known as Heston & Hounslow. The current station buildings date from 1912, and look more like a small Edwardian suburban house rather than a train station, which is no bad thing, really.

Hounslow Central to Hounslow East

It isn’t far from Hounslow Central to Hounslow East, particularly if you take the direct route. There’s quite a bit to see, though, not least the houses along Lansdowne Road, where finally the pebbledash gets pushed aside and some decent Edwardian terraces shine out. Enjoy it while it lasts, though, because just round the corner is the Blenheim Centre, a massive and very modern development that dwarfs everything around it. The complex consists of a huge Asda superstore, a health and fitness centre, five retail units, a Post Office, 336 apartments and a car park for over 400 cars in the basement, and there’s apparently going to be a second phase of development that will add 38 shops, a ten-screen cinema, a restaurant, 150 apartments and office space. It’s an impressive place, but lining the eastern edge of the car park out front is a row of terraced houses, half of them with their windows covered with metal grilles, a reminder perhaps that development has its price.

Round the back of the centre are the terraced houses of Myrtle Road, which leads to Kingsley Road and Hounslow East station. Although the original station was opened in 1909, replacing the nearby Hounslow Town station, the current station is ultra-modern and an absolute delight to behold. It has a sloping green roof curving off a round ticket hall with cream glass walls, and inside the roof is made of wood and the feeling of space is impressive; after walking through the less-than-thrilling suburbs of Hounslow, the Blenheim Centre was enough of a shock, but to follow it up with such a beautiful Tube station is a double-whammy that indicates Hounslow is on the up. If this is the future of the area, I’ll watch future developments with interest; if only they could shut the bloody planes up, things would be perfectly placed.

Hounslow East to Osterley

Almost the entire walk from Hounslow East to Osterley is along a right of way that slips past Hounslow Bus Garage and continues between scraggly trees and fencing. The initial section is clearly where people come to dump their Stella and Tyskie cans, and it’s a sorry little walk north to Spring Grove Road, where things start to improve a little. The path crosses the Tube line over an enclosed bridge and comes out in Spencer Road, where the houses are pleasant enough but nothing special, and a little further on is the rumbling A4, with the Tube station on the other side of a subway under the dual carriageway.

Osterley station is an interesting Charles Holden building from 1934, when this new station was opened to replace the old Osterley & Spring Grove station a few hundred yards to the east. It is dominated by a huge brick tower topped with an obelisk made from concrete, which itself is crowned by a spike (though I think this might be a radio antenna, as it doesn’t seem to appear in period photographs of the station opening). The station building is fairly low key and without the tower it would be pretty hard to identify as a Tube station, but the tower and obelisk, complete with the Underground roundel, are really distinctive and instantly cry out ‘Tube station’... which, I guess, is the point.

Osterley to Boston Manor

You don’t have to weave around quite as much as I did when walking from Osterley to Boston Manor, but I’ve got a soft spot for canals, and day 8 of the Capital Ring starts at Boston Manor and follows the Grand Union Canal to the locks at Hanwell Flight, so I thought I’d include this section in my tubewalk. Besides, when I walked this part of the Ring back in 2006, I remember spotting a footpath that headed west from Hanwell Flight, and I wondered at the time where it went to, so here was my chance to find out.

Before all this canal excitement, though, it’s a short walk from Osterley station to Osterley Park, a huge green space that surrounds a National Trust property of the same name. The park itself is still mainly off-limits to Joe Public, as it is farmed and is home to horses, cows and fields of wheat, but there’s a handy right of way that cuts across the park from west to east, and although it’s a fairly thin path at times, it’s an enjoyable stroll. It doesn’t go near the house, but if you’re interested in taking a detour to visit the property, the right of way cuts across the main driveway, or the Avenue as it’s known, and the house is a short stroll north along the tree-lined drive.

Boston Manor station isn’t that far from here, but there’s a golf course, a motorway, a railway line and a canal in the way, so I chose to head north from the eastern edge of Osterley Park, along Windmill Lane. There’s a nice-looking Fuller’s pub here, the Hare and Hounds, that’s a good place to stock up on calories, because it’s a bit of a slog to the canal. The road goes under the M4, and a footpath turns off to the right just after Long Wood, heading along the thinnest path I’ve ever seen, stuck between a fence on the left and bushes to the right. After a long slog along the edge of playing fields, the path turns to the left, while just ahead is a crossing across the train tracks. This used to be a stop on the Brentford line called Trumpers Crossing Halt, but now it’s just a pedestrian crossing into the industrial estate beyond.

The footpath squeezes between yet more fencing and yet more undergrowth, and at this time of year it’s a bit of a struggle to avoid the brambles and nettles that grow across the path at head height. It’s a long and pretty boring walk along the railway, but eventually it crosses the tracks and pops out at Hanwell Flight, a set of six locks on the canal that were built in 1794, raising the canal by 53 feet in 600 yards. This is the Grand Union Canal, which starts in Brentford, not that far to the south. The Capital Ring and the Brent River Walk share the towpath at this point, and the walking is easy, as canal walking always is. On the left, just after a bridge to the industrial estate on the west bank, is Elthorne Waterside, a nature conservation area that is actually a grassed-over refuse tip, and after a large weir where the River Brent splits from the canal, a noisy bridge carrying the M4 comes into view and the Ring link path turns left towards the Tube station.

Boston Manor station is a short walk through the suburbs and along the main road. The original station was opened here in 1883 as part of the Metropolitan District Railway, but the current station is another 1930s Charles Holden building, and as with Osterley station, it has a large brick tower sticking out of the top, carrying the Underground logo into the sky. However, Boston Manor has a trick up its sleeve, because instead of a concrete obelisk, its tower is lined with a glass fin that lights up at night; given that the station is on top of a bridge, this means the Underground symbol is visible for miles around. The ticket hall is slightly spoiled by some ungainly handrails that weren’t in the original design, but again this is a great-looking Holden design, and it makes for a fitting end to this long but enjoyable romp through the suburbs of southwest London.

Boston Manor to Hammersmith

13 August 2008

The weather can make or break a walk, and in this case it completely beat the crap out of it. The photographs don’t do it justice, as they don’t show the fierce gusts that blew rain into my eyes in Gunnersbury Park, and took my umbrella and smashed it into little pieces along the river in Hammersmith. On a nice day, this would be a very enjoyable walk, but August is proving to be a pathetic month for weather, and I’m afraid this section joins a small but growing list of tubewalks that the weather has rather spoiled.

It wasn’t helped by me completely forgetting to bring an umbrella or waterproof jacket with me. I’ve been away from the tubewalking scene for six days, four of which Peta and I spent in the Lake District, and I clearly left half my brain in Elterwater, because heading off into forecast rain without any kind of protection is idiotic. I only discovered my mistake when the heavens opened in Gunnersbury Park and I reached for my trusty umbrella, only to find that I’d left it up in the Lakes (where, incidentally, it rained continuously throughout our entire visit). I picked up a new umbrella in Turnham Green, by which time I was nicely soaked, but the wind was so strong and so gusty along the river in Hammersmith that my new purchase died an early death and had completely fallen apart by the time I reached Hammersmith Bridge. Thankfully I’ve been to this part of the world many times before so I already know how beautiful it can be, but on a day like today, tubewalking is not just a bad idea, it’s bordering on the insane.

Oh, and I’m currently having to put antibiotic eye drops in both eyes every two hours, following a visit yesterday to the eye hospital. Have you ever tried putting in eye drops in the lashing rain? Talk about challenging...

Boston Manor to Northfields

It’s hardly any distance from Boston Manor to Northfields, and I took the most direct route along the northern edge of the Tube line. There is probably a more interesting route available, and the park to the south of the line is one option that might be more worthy, but I chose to stick to the backstreets as I wanted to know what kind of houses people live in round here. The answer is that the suburbs are rather charming; OK, there are plenty of standard two-up-two-down terraces from between the wars, and there is occasional evidence of pebbledash, but as you approach Northfields the housing is really rather lovely, and the resulting terraced cottages are very pleasant indeed.

A short distance right along Northfield Avenue, Northfields station is a striking 1932 Charles Holden building in the by-now familiar style he applied to his 1930s Tube stations. There’s a tall brick block rising above the ticket hall, with slatted windows on the sides of the tower emblazoned with the London Underground roundel, all capped off with a flat concrete roof. The station building below the tower is a fairly flat affair that’s not dissimilar to the station in Osterley, and the globular streetlights out the front provide the final touches, offsetting the rectangular station building nicely. Take a moment to stick your head into the ticket hall; you won’t be disappointed.

Northfields to South Ealing

It’s an even shorter walk to South Ealing – indeed, Northfields and South Ealing are the closest open-air stations on the whole network, with just a quarter of a mile between them – but this time there’s an obvious detour that’s worth taking, namely through Lammas Park. In the sun this is a pleasant park with some enjoyable landscaping in the northeastern half, but it started clouding over as I reached the southern, more open section of the park, and I didn’t hang around in case things kicked off; this is my local park, after all, and I know it all too well.

The suburbs on the way to the station are charming, with plenty of Edwardian terraces and semi-detached houses along leafy backstreets. South Ealing station – my local Tube station and one of only two stations whose names contain all five vowels (the other being Mansion House) – is out on South Ealing Road, and although the original Metropolitan District station opened in 1883, the current station building is a more modern affair, dating (as far as I can find out) from 1988, when the temporary wooden ticket hall was replaced by a modest building in the light yellow-brown of London stock brick. There’s a small brick chimney on the left-hand end, which gives the station the air of a suburban house, but it’s a modest affair compared to Holden’s creations further down the line.

South Ealing to Acton Town

The big event between South Ealing and Acton Town is Gunnersbury Park, which lies on the other side of some pleasant suburbia, a little way along Pope’s Lane. The western half of the park is a wide open grassy space, big enough to accommodate 36 football pitches in the winter, and as I walked through they were still clearing up the remains of the London Mela, the annual celebration of Indian and Asian culture that was celebrated here last Sunday. The clouds were building up into a serious threat as I crossed the exposed grassland, the wind whipping my hair into my eyes, but the eastern half of the park is much more sheltered, with a small boating lake (complete with a folly dating from 1760), a pitch-and-putt golf course, tennis courts, and the grand buildings of two 19th-century mansions, the Large Mansion (now the Gunnersbury Park Museum) and the adjacent Small Mansion. The gardens are lovely to walk through in the sunshine, and we should be grateful that the original owners, the Rothschilds, sold the park to the local council on the condition that it be used only for leisure and not for building yet more suburban housing.

What a shame that the worst of the weather hit me as I strolled through the park, soaking me to the skin and completely ruining that part of the walk. I’ve explored Gunnersbury Park a couple of times before, so it’s not the end of the world, and I wasn’t the only walker caught without waterproofs; the number of dog-walkers huddling under the yew trees was impressive. As a nation I don’t think we’re allowing ourselves to believe that yet again, August is proving to be a complete let-down; I guess the price to pay for this non-belief is a good drubbing at the hands of the rain clouds.

I didn’t waste much time getting to Acton Town station, stopping only to inquire in the local corner shop whether they sold umbrellas (they didn’t). I first visited Acton Town back on the District line when walking from Richmond to Ealing Broadway, and although it’s a Charles Holden station, its large rectangular tower is perhaps a little too wide for my taste, making it look a little more like a factory than a Tube station. Still, it’s distinctive, and that’s what matters.

Acton Town to Turnham Green

The walk to Turnham Green is a tale of two cities, separated from each other by the London Overground railway line. Just to the east of Acton Town station is the South Acton Estate, which is West London’s biggest housing estate with over 2000 homes. I’m aware that judging a housing estate when it’s raining is a little risky, as even the loveliest part of town can look pretty drab when the wind is howling and the rain is pouring down, but the tower blocks of the South Action Estate would still look pretty depressing in the sunshine, with their flaking paint, dreary 1960s colour schemes and complete lack of warmth. It’s no surprise that crime is rife in this area, with drug problems, gun and knife crime, burglaries and anti-social behaviour all on the menu.

There is some good news, however, as there is a £130 million regeneration programme in the pipeline that should change things for the better, with the addition of mixed (private and public) housing, non-residential commercial development and community facilities. Existing tower blocks are being refurbished and the police are trying to crack down on the crack dens, and given the handy location next to a major District and Piccadilly line Tube station, one can only hope it changes into a more desirable residence, one more in keeping with the delights of west, north and east Acton.

Talking of which, cross over the London Overground line, and suddenly you’re in a different world. The backstreets are lined with late Victorian and Edwardian terraces, and you’re hard pushed to find anything modern at all. To the south of Fielding Road is the Bedford Park Garden Suburb, the earliest garden suburb in London, which stretches east to Abinger Road and south to the Tube line. The area was developed from 1875, when the developer Jonathan Carr bought 24 acres of land to the north of Turnham Green station, which had opened just six years earlier. In 1877, Carr hired the leading architect of the day, Richard Norman Shaw, and Shaw’s house designs in the Queen Anne style proved popular and successful. Bedford Park was terribly fashionable in the 1880s, but it fell on harder times in the 20th century and the twitchy finger of Acton Council hovering over the button marked ‘demolition’ led to the formation of the Bedford Park Society, and now Bedford Park is a conservation area and has become quite the desirable residence. It’s certainly a lovely place to walk through, in stark contrast to the South Acton Estate, which feels half a world away.

Turnham Green station is south along The Avenue, which is lined with sumptuous houses and ends in what is effectively a small village square, complete with pub, Mock Tudor shops and a park. The station is not that thrilling, as it’s tucked under the eaves of the bridge carrying the District and Piccadilly lines, but as trains only stop here on the Piccadilly line in the early morning and late evening, I won’t be too critical...

Turnham Green to Hammersmith

The most direct route from Turnham Green to Hammersmith is along the A315, but there’s not a lot of pleasure to be found along the busy main road into Hammersmith, so I thought I’d head south and join the Thames for a while. It turned out to be an excellent idea, as this stretch has to be one of the most attractive river walks in the whole of London, even on a day when the wind drove the rain sideways under my umbrella and up my nose. I’d been looking for an umbrella since Gunnersbury without success, but I finally tracked down a shop selling them on Turnham Green Terrace, and fully armed once again, I set off towards the river.

Crossing Chiswick High Road, wandering past the statue of William Hogarth, and turning into Devonshire Road, you come across some lovely Victorian and Edwardian terraces, and even the modern housing that pops up every now and then is sympathetic to the surrounding architecture, being built of brick rather than concrete. The pleasant suburbia continues along Fraser Street and all the way to the A4, where an underpass takes you under the constant traffic of the Great West Road. Check out the graffiti in the underpass, which is signed ‘Banksy’ but is probably by someone else; it’s also signed by the ‘Corrupt Government Crew’, and shows prisoners with balls and chains, with CCTV cameras instead of balls. There’s another section where a man with a bow and arrow is fighting off a flock of pterodactyls whose heads are more CCTV cameras, and above the sign to Hogarth’s House near the southern exit is a Tyrannosaurus rex with a CCTV instead of a head, lumbering towards a man mowing his lawn. It isn’t as classy as a real Banksy would be, but I liked it anyway.

The underpass leads to the northern entrance to the grounds of Chiswick House, and Hogarth’s House, the country residence of the satirical 18th-century artist, is just on the right as you enter the grounds. Unfortunately, when I visited the whole area was closed off for landscaping, so all I got to see was the long drive along the eastern edge of the park, but if you get a chance to visit the area when it’s open, then it’s well worth a bit of exploration; the grounds of Chiswick House are open to the public free of charge, and although there’s a charge to visit Chiswick House, entrance to Hogarth’s House is free.

On the other side of the park is the busy A316, but you can safely cross at the lights just to the left. There is a path that turns off the road and takes you on a more direct route to the river, but it’s worth continuing along the road towards the roundabout, because just to the right is a contender for London’s smallest square, Chiswick Square, with the fine Boston House behind it, dating from the 1680s. Boston House was extended in the 18th century and in the early 19th century it was a school for girls, before becoming a home for inebriate women at the turn of the 20th century. It’s now split into four private residences, and rather lovely it is too, though its location right next to the Hogarth Flyover is a little unfortunate.

Straight ahead you can see the Griffin Brewery, where Fuller’s brews its famous ales (London Pride, Discovery, ESB and Chiswick are favourites round this part of London), and the George and Devonshire pub is a good place to sample the brewery’s wares. Turn right after the pub, though, and things just get better and better, as Church Street has to be one of the prettiest streets around, quite a surprise after the pounding of the A-road. There’s an attractive black-and-white Tudor house on the left called Old Burlington, which dates from the 16th century and is the oldest building in Chiswick, and further on, past beautiful ivy-clad townhouses, is St Nicholas’s Church, the parish church of Chiswick, and home to Hogarth’s grave. Church Street used to be the main street of the original Chiswick village, but the name ‘Chiswick’ was later applied to an amalgamation of the villages of Chiswick, Turnham Green, Strand-on-the-Green and Little Sutton, leaving the original Chiswick rather out on a limb.

At the end of Church Street is Fisherman’s Place, a modern housing development on the site of a row of fisherman’s cottages that used to be known as Sluts’ Hole, and heading east along the river towards Hammersmith is Chiswick Mall, a row of wonderful 17th- and 18th-century houses that is constantly delightful. The riverside gardens for these houses are on the other side of the road from the houses themselves, so you get a real feeling for the architecture as you wander between the two, avoiding cyclists and joggers and trying not to slip in the mud from the high tide, which reaches the road when it’s particularly high. The river is just beyond the gardens, but you can’t walk alongside it quite yet (that comes later). The finest house on the Mall is Walpole House, which dates from the 16th and 17th centuries and is named after its former occupant, Thomas Walpole, the nephew of Sir Robert Walpole, England’s first Prime Minister. In 1817, Walpole House was a school for young gentlemen, one of whose pupils was William Makepeace Thackeray; it is thought that Thackeray used Walpole House as the setting for Miss Pinkerton’s Seminary for Young Ladies in his novel Vanity Fair.

The amazing architecture continues all the way to the Black Lion pub, when the path opens out into a small park and you can finally walk alongside the river. On the other side of the park is the ultra-trendy Old Ship pub, followed by some modern flats that lead through to Linden House, an 18th-century merchant’s house that is now home to the London Corinthian Sailing Club and the Sons of the Thames Rowing Club. A little further along the road is Kelmscott House, where Sir Francis Ronalds created the first telegraph in 1816; he ran eight miles of cable, encased in a glass tube, around a wooden lattice in his back garden, and managed to transmit a signal along the length of the wire, but the Admiralty weren’t interested in such technology at the time. Even so, Ronalds was later knighted for his contributions to the invention of the telegraph, and he did live to see the technology spread across the globe. The house was also the London home of William Morris from 1879 to 1896, and he gave it its current name, after the Oxford village of Kelmscott where Morris had lived since 1871.

The impressive terraces continue all the way to one of the most delightful pubs on the river, the Dove, which claims to have the smallest bar in England, and which has a lovely balcony overlooking the river where I’ve supped far too many pints to be proud of myself. It was at this point that the weather turned from nasty to utterly unbelievable, the winds gusting first this way then that, driving the heavy rain sideways and completely destroying the cheap umbrella I’d bought in Turnham Green. There are more pubs along here (though they’re pretty uninspiring compared to those mentioned above) and Hammersmith Bridge spans the Thames in all its green-painted glory, but I didn’t waste any time in heading towards Hammersmith proper, only stopping to take the odd photograph, each one followed by a frantic cleaning of the lens and a long sigh.

Hammersmith station is buried deep in the shopping centre in the middle of the Hammersmith roundabout, on the other side of the road from the Hammersmith Apollo (which I first visited when walking the District line from Turnham Green to Victoria). And so ends a great little walk that takes in both the old and the new, and even though I came home clutching a wreck of an umbrella and stood there feeling very sorry for myself, a puddle of water forming around my feet, I can still recommend this part of the world as a great place to walk... though perhaps not in the hurricane season.

Hammersmith to King’s Cross St Pancras

14 August 2008

I wasn’t expecting much from today, as last night the BBC weather site was showing a dark cloud and two rain drops, with the sun vainly trying to poke out from behind. In the event it was a gloriously sunny day, and the rain only kicked in as I reached St George’s Gardens, just a few minutes from King’s Cross... for which the technical term is, I believe, a result.

And what a difference the sun made. I’ve walked across the centre of London quite a few times in the last two-and-a-half months, and each time it has grown slightly less thrilling, purely because the novelty is slowly wearing off. But I really enjoyed today’s walk, even though I’ve already walked through the likes of Piccadilly Circus and Earl’s Court, because the weather made it such a pleasure. London in the sun is a beautiful city, and it will take more than familiarity to breed contempt if the summer continues like this.

For details of my walk between Hammersmith and Barons Court, see the story of my District line walk from Turnham Green to Victoria.

Barons Court to Earl’s Court

I started the day with the short hop between Barons Court and Earl’s Court, as I’ve already walked from Hammersmith to Barons Court and Earl’s Court to South Kensington on the District line. I remember being impressed with the architecture of Barons Court when I last visited, and with the sun shining brightly in a pure blue sky, I fell in love with the area all over again.

This time I headed south from the Tube station in the direction of Normand Park, and I enjoyed every minute of it. All along Vereker Road, side streets shoot off to the left and right, lined with Victorian neo-Georgian terraces, stuccoed townhouses and, every now and then, a modern block of flats, plugging what I can only assume were bomb holes from the Blitz. The modern blocks aren’t too bad, hiding from the street behind bushy trees, and down towards Normand Park is a reminder of how much worse things could be, as the view across the park is dominated by large tower blocks. They’re not particularly ugly, but they’re not Victorian townhouses either, and I know which I prefer.

It’s worth popping into Normand Park itself, as it is a pleasantly landscaped area with a café and some intriguingly curved street lights. Past the park, back into the traffic on Lillie Road, things get a little busier, and the atmosphere switches from residential to commercial, a change heralded by the huge tower of the Empress State Building. This is the land of exhibitions, with the large Earl’s Court Two building on the left, just past the entrance to London Underground’s Lillie Bridge Depot (the main civil engineering workshop for the Underground). West Brompton station is on the opposite side of the road – though as it’s a District line station, it doesn’t form part of this tubewalk – and it’s a relief to turn into the quiet crescent of white stucco terraces of Eardley Crescent. The street is lined with hotels, and Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre is just round the corner, opposite the Warwick Road entrance to Earl’s Court station, which I last visited back on my District line walk from Wimbledon to Edgware Road.

For details of my walk between Earl’s Court and South Kensington, see the story of my District line walk from Turnham Green to Victoria.

South Kensington to Knightsbridge

I have a soft spot for South Kensington, as I spent three happy years working at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is a short stroll up Exhibition Road from the Tube station (or you can take the tunnel under Exhibition Road, which also connects the station to the Natural History Museum and Science Museum). The V&A is the largest museum of decorative arts and design in the world, and although the museum was founded in 1852 and moved to the current location in 1857, the impressive façade along Cromwell Road is actually Edwardian, and was built in red brick and Portland stone between 1899 and 1909. The original Victorian building, which now forms the museum’s Henry Cole wing, is a little further north along Exhibition Road.

The delights of the V&A are but a taster for this exclusive part of Kensington, and wandering around the backstreets to the east of the museum is an exercise in pretty mews, lovely townhouses, impressive churches and hidden pubs. Before diving into the backstreets, check out the disused Tube station just on the left after the imposing Brompton Oratory; the ox-blood red terracotta building at the junction of Brompton Road and Cottage Place used to be Brompton Road station, which was opened in 1906 as part of the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway (now the Piccadilly line). Brompton Road was between South Kensington and Knightsbridge, but passenger numbers were always low, and when Knightsbridge station was modernised in 1934, Brompton Road was closed, and the building is now used as the town headquarters of the University of London Air Squadron and the University of London Royal Naval Unit.

Behind Brompton Oratory is the more modest Holy Trinity Church, which has a small park out the back that is nice and quiet, though in the summer it fills up with museum staff soaking up the rays on their lunch break (and I was one of them – a group of us used to come here every lunchtime, even in the middle of winter, and sit on the same bench every day; routine can be comforting sometimes). The houses along Ennismore Street are to die for, and the pretty residences continue all the way to Cheval Place, which has one of my favourite street views as you look east back to the Oratory. Finally, after turning back down Montpelier Street, you reach the Brompton Road, and there to your left, in the distance, is Harrods, though we’ll get a much better and less traffic-strewn view in a moment.

Turning off the main road again, the boutique shops of Beauchamp Place take you away from the traffic and along the backstreets of Walton Place, and there, on the corner with Hans Road, is the back entrance to Harrods, and for the first time it’s possible to see just how huge this massive store really is. Harrods is the biggest department store in the world, with over one million square feet of floor space spread over more than 330 departments. It’s amazing to think that Harrods actually started in Stepney in east London, where Charles Henry Harrod set up a wholesale grocery in 1834; he moved to the current site in Knightsbridge in 1849, to get away from the unhygienic inner city and to make the most of the 1851 Great Exhibition, which was held in nearby Hyde Park. The current building was built between 1894 and 1905, after a fire destroyed the original building in 1883, and it’s a staggering sight.

Knightsbridge station – the only Tube station to have six consecutive consonants in its name – is past the back of Harrods, out on the corner of Brompton Road and Sloane Street. The traffic here is intense and there’s currently a lot of building work in the area, so it’s difficult to get a good view of the station, particularly as it’s a fairly modest affair, with two small entrances opening onto stairs to the station below. This entrance dates from 1934, when escalators were installed and the station was redesigned to cope with the large number of visitors to Harrods; the original 1906 entrance was designed by Leslie Green and was a little further to the west along Brompton Road, though it has since been demolished.

Knightsbridge to Hyde Park Corner

Turning south from the station into Seville Street is a bit of a shock, because standing there like an oversized hair roller is the bizarre tower of the Sheraton Park Tower Hotel. Designed by Richard Seifert, who also designed the Centrepoint tower and Tower 42, it was opened in 1973 and looks like it. I rather like groovy 1970s architecture, and even though the hotel comes as a bit of a surprise after the more traditional architecture of the museums and Harrods, I like surprises, and I think it holds up well after a quarter of a century.

However, the Sheraton doesn’t set the theme for the rest of this leg, as this is Belgravia, and Belgravia is anything but modern. There are a couple of curved modern blocks at the bottom of Lowndes Square, but for the most part the square is surrounded by 1840s Victorian neo-Georgian terraces, and there’s a delightful (but private) garden in the middle. The square is part of the Cadogan Estate, which stretches from Sloane Square in the south to Lowndes Square in the north, following the line of Sloane Street, and the simple terraced houses built in this area proved very popular.

Another big estate in the area was the Grosvenor Estate, which was begun in the 1820s. The Grosvenor family (who later became the Dukes of Westminster), acquired the land in 1677, when it was still marshy farmland and a hang-out for robbers and villains. However, by 1820, the Grosvenors saw the potential for development, and the marshes were drained ready for frenetic development between 1820 and 1835. Belgrave Square, the grand centrepiece of the estate, was established in 1825, and it’s a deeply impressive place, with huge stuccoed residential blocks along the sides and a huge private garden in the middle; it’s easy to see why this is such a popular spot for embassies, as it has an appropriate air of grandeur while being well out of the price range of mere mortals.

Just off the southeast corner of Belgrave Square is Chapel Street, and number 24 is famous for being the London residence of Brian Epstein, the manager of the Beatles. This is where Epstein lived from January 1965, it’s where the launch party for Sgt Pepper was held, and it was also where Epstein was found dead on 27 August 1967, having taken an accidental overdose of barbiturates.

Hyde Park Corner station is left along Grosvenor Place, on the southeast corner of Hyde Park. The station is fully underground, though the original Leslie Green building still stands on the south side of the road (and it still has its distinctive ox-blood red tiling, despite being a pizza restaurant).

Hyde Park Corner to Green Park

In the middle of the busy traffic of Hyde Park Corner is a small park that’s home to Constitution Arch and a statue of the Duke of Wellington, among other attractions, but the best thing about it is the great view you get of the Lanesborough (which lives in the old St George’s Hospital building, built between 1827 and 1844; the hospital is now down in Tooting, and the building is now a five-star hotel) and Apsley House (which is also known as Number One, London, as it was the first house passed by travellers once they’d passed the toll gates of Knightsbridge; it was also the former home of the Duke of Wellington).

Heading under the busy A4 via an underpass, there’s just time to take in a quick tour of southern Mayfair. Turning past the Hard Rock Café – the world’s first, incidentally – the skyline is dominated by the 1963 colossus of the London Hilton on Park Lane Hotel, which stretches 28 storeys into the air. This is where the Beatles first met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi before heading off to India, and it was bombed in 1975 by the Provisional IRA, when two people died and 63 were injured.

East of the hotel is the somewhat more historic Shepherd Market, a lovely area of shops, squares, restaurants and pubs. The area used to be notorious for prostitution; most famously, Jeffrey Archer met the prostitute Monica Coghlan here in 1986, and in the resulting libel case against the Daily Star, who broke the story, Archer lied in order to win, finally getting his comeuppance in 2001 when he was imprisoned for perjury. These days it’s more brasserie than brassiere, and even though it’s next to the busy tourist area of Green Park, it’s surprisingly undiscovered and has a definite village atmosphere to it. The centre of the area is Shepherd Market itself, a square with a number of pubs that get ridiculously full after work on sunny evenings.

Green Park station is back out on Piccadilly (as the A4 is known round here). The station was originally opened in 1906 under the name Dover Street, as the station buildings were some way to the east, on the corner with Dover Street; in 1933 the station was rebuilt to use escalators, and the current entrances were built on the corner with Stratton Street. The name changed to Green Park at the same time.

Green Park to Piccadilly Circus

From Green Park to Piccadilly Circus, I followed an excellent walking route through St James’s by the doyen of London walking, Andrew Duncan. His route, which can be found in his book Secret London, winds through the tiny passages and backstreets of St James’s, and without his help I would never have discovered all the nooks and crannies that make this part of London so fascinating. The route is convoluted and turns back on itself a number of times, but it kicks off in fine style with the lovely Blue Ball Yard, a small cul-de-sac off St James’s Street that’s home to some stunning 1741 coach houses that are now part of the Stafford Hotel, and whose stables would have housed the horses of the most important people in the country. Apparently one of the cellars below the annexe is a restaurant, and another contains the hotel’s 20,000 bottles of wine; perhaps some things don’t change, after all.

Other highlights along the route include Spencer House (the former townhouse of Princess Diana’s family), Bridgewater House (a vast townhouse, built in the mid-19th century for Lord Ellesmere), Russell Court (a small cul-de-sac where you can admire the stained glass windows of the Masonic hall that backs onto it), St James’s Palace (the formal base of the Royal Court and the London residence of the Princess Royal and Princess Alexandra), Pickering Place (a cute little courtyard that dates from the 1730s), Crown Passage (a paper-thin passage that’s crammed with restaurants, sandwich bars and a pub), and Mason’s Yard (a small square that was home to the Indica Bookshop, a focus for the 1960s counter-culture and the place where the underground newspaper International Times was first put together, at number six). The only part of Mr Duncan’s excellent route that I didn’t think was worth the detour was Babmaes Road, which isn’t that thrilling, but that’s just splitting hairs; overall I really enjoyed the route, and I refer any interested readers to the detailed descriptions in Secret London, if you want further information.

Piccadilly Circus is not far from Babmaes Road, and Piccadilly Circus station, which I first visited on my Bakerloo line walk from Elephant & Castle to Willesden Junction, lives underneath the road junction, beneath the famous statue of Eros and the pulsating neon and video signs on the northern side of the square. To say that there are lots of tourists here would be an incredible understatement; after the relatively quiet backstreets of St James’s, the gloves are well and truly off.

Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square

Leicester Square is a short walk from Piccadilly Circus, past the impressive Baroque façade of the London Trocadero. If you thought the circus was busy, then you’re in for a shock, as Leicester Square is tourism central... but despite the crowds, I thought it was particularly pleasant. I used to think Leicester Square was rather dingy and full of criminals, but either my memory is a bit hazy, or they’ve put a lot of effort into clearing things up in the 15 years since I last walked through here and actually bothered to look around me. The central square is smothered with bodies on a sunny day like this, and the cinemas and night-clubs aren’t necessarily as attractive in the day as they are at night, but it feels like an entertainment centre, and that’s the important thing.

Leicester Square station has a number of entrances. The one on the western side of Charing Cross Road is currently smothered in scaffolding, but there’s a Charles Holden-designed Portland stone entrance opposite, and there’s even an original Leslie Green station building on Cranbourn Street, with an Angus Steak House occupying the space under the ox-blood red arches.

Leicester Square to Covent Garden

The shortest distance between any two Tube stations is the paltry 0.161 miles between Leicester Square and Covent Garden, but this doesn’t stop it being one of the most popular tourist hops on the network. The most direct route is along Long Acre, and it’s worth heading this way to take in Stanfords, the best travel and map shop in London (in my humble opinion, anyway; it certainly beats Daunt Books, in which I can never find anything, despite that shop’s lovely Edwardian surroundings). Stanfords started in 1852 as the only map seller in London, and the current building was custom built and opened in 1900; it’s been modernised since, but it’s still the only place to go for travel-related books, and I always pop in here before hitting the road.

The station is a short hop from Stanfords, but it’s worth turning left down Mercer Street to the roundabout at Seven Dials, from where it’s a short walk down Shorts Gardens to Neal’s Yard, a cute and tourist-packed little square that’s worth a quick detour. The eclectic shops continue along Neal Street, which pops out on Long Acre opposite Covent Garden station, which was opened on 11 April 1907 (the line opened some four months earlier on 15 December 1906, but Covent Garden station didn’t come online immediately). The original Leslie Green terracotta building is still with us, though the arches are topped with a much more modern, red brick affair.

Covent Garden to Holborn

Although it’s in the opposite direction to Holborn, it’s well worth having a wander round Covent Garden. Home to masses of tourists, street entertainers, shops and the old market, Covent Garden is effectively a tourist-friendly shopping precinct, but it manages to retain the atmosphere of old and doesn’t feel remotely tacky. It’s easy to see why people flock here, and even on a sunny day like this, with people absolutely everywhere, it’s an entertaining place, and the market building in particular is a delight.

On the southeast corner of the square is the London Transport Museum, which is a must-see for anyone interested in the Tube. To the east of the square there are theatres galore, and on Drury Lane is the eccentric Sarastro Restaurant, which has to be seen to be believed: the inside of the restaurant is decorated like the inside of a particularly garish chocolate box, with the dining area split up into ten opera boxes that are based on differing styles.

Turning right along Great Queen Street takes you past the imposing Art Deco building of the Freemasons’ Hall, the headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England and a general meeting place for Masons in the London area. The Masons have been meeting here since 1775, but the current building was built between 1927 and 1933 and is deeply impressive.

A little further on, Holborn station can be found north along Kingsway, tucked away on the corner with High Holborn. This station was opened as part of the original Piccadilly line in 1906, and it was built on this spot because this is where the line runs above the Central line, which had opened as the Central London Railway back in 1900. However, no connections were initially made between the two lines, not least because the Central London Railway had their own station just 250m away, called British Museum. This was rectified in 1933, when Holborn station was modernised and British Museum station was closed. Interestingly, even though Holborn station was opened as part of the original Piccadilly line, it didn’t have red terracotta tiles, as planning regulations imposed by the London County Council forced the designers to use stone for the façade. The front was modernised in 1933 by Charles Holden, when the traditional Leslie Green arches were replaced by large glass windows with the London Underground roundel in the middle, and that’s what you can still see today.

Holborn to Russell Square

Just north of Holborn is a small pedestrianised shopping street called Sicilian Avenue, which was designed by RJ Worley and opened in 1910. It’s still got an Italian feel to it, with its restaurant tables and stone balustrades at each end, and it leads into Bloomsbury Square, which I first brushed against on my Central line walk from Shepherd’s Bush to Liverpool Street. The pleasant garden in the middle of the square is open to the public and plenty of people were lounging away as I wandered through, though just as I arrived, the skies started to bruise and suddenly sunbathing didn’t look like such a good option after all; that’s probably why people started packing while glancing nervously at the sky, rather than it having anything to do with me...

Heading north past the Georgian terraces of Bedford Place takes you to Russell Square, a delightful square with a central garden that’s also open to the public. The square was originally laid out by the Duke of Bedford on the site of the gardens of Bedford House, his family home, and the gardens have recently been landscaped to echo the original 19th-century garden that was designed by Humphry Repton. On the eastern edge of the square is the hugely impressive Hotel Russell, built in 1898, though the effect is spoiled somewhat by the dreadful 1960s carbuncle of the Imperial Hotel in the southeast corner of the square. Really, what were they thinking?

Russell Square station is to the northeast of the square, along Bernard Street. It’s a very well-preserved example of Leslie Green at his peak, and as it hasn’t been built on, it’s satisfyingly self-contained. The shops under the arches blend in nicely with the rest of the building, being fronted with windows in dark frames, which makes a nice change from seeing Green’s designs spoiled by yet another garish newsagent flogging modern brand names.

Russell Square to King’s Cross St Pancras

Opposite Russell Square station is an astounding piece of modern development that completely took me by surprise. The Brunswick Centre was designed by Patrick Hodgkinson in the mid-1960s, and was built between 1967 and 1972. The style is defiantly modernist, and like much of the architecture of the late 1960s, it was widely disliked and soon became a bit faded round the edges (the original building was never painted, as the Council, who had taken over the residential lease in order to use it for social housing, didn’t have enough money to paint it). However, in 2002 a much-needed £22 million revamp was kicked off, including painting the blocks in the cream colour that the designers had originally intended, and it’s now home to 560 flats, lots of shops and cafés, a Waitrose and the Renoir cinema.

I loved the Brunswick, as it’s now known. I’m a great fan of modernist architecture, when it’s done properly and looked after well, and I just couldn’t stop clicking my camera. I actually thought it might be a completely modern development, it’s so clean and shiny, and I fell in love with its clean lines and modernist ethos. It’s a shame that at this point the sky started to spit, turning a deeper grey than the concrete of the Brunswick, and I rather hurried my way through the cemetery of St George’s Gardens, stopping only to snap some shots of the coffin-shaped tombs that litter the garden.

There is possibly a better route north from St George’s Gardens than to follow Grey’s Inn Road, but that’s where I ended up, and there’s not a lot to say about it. Turning back into the backstreets, the Georgian terraces near Argyle Square rub shoulders with some pretty uninspiring tower blocks, and it’s a relief to get out onto the main road, opposite the hulking King’s Cross St Pancras station. These last few minutes aside, this is a great walk across the centre of London – easily one of the best central-London tubewalks I’ve done – and the good weather has managed to blow away the bad mood that yesterday’s blustering rain brought in. What a relief...

King’s Cross St Pancras to Bounds Green

15 August 2008

If today’s walk had a theme, it was the invasion of privacy. As the sun shone down on a beautiful summer’s day, I was stopped by the police and issued my second stop and search form, I was accosted by a grumpy local in Wood Green who wanted to know why I was photographing the suburbs, and to end the day with a dose of irony, I spotted the Google Street View car in Bounds Green and fired off a few photographs of him, just to redress the balance.

As for the walk itself, this is an interesting part of the world, going from the slightly run-down King’s Cross and Caledonian Road areas, past the sparkling decadence of Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, around the lovely landscaping of Finsbury Park, through the pleasant terraces of Harringay and Wood Green, and right to the top of the world at Alexandra Palace. Throughout, the rich and the poor rub shoulders in typical London fashion, and on a sunny day like today, it’s a great walk with some spectacular Tube stations to punctuate the miles.

King’s Cross St Pancras to Caledonian Road

The area round King’s Cross is being tidied up big time, and the evidence is all along Caledonian Road. Close to the station the road is lined with glossy Tesco Metro stores and modern Premier Lodges, but as you wander away from the station, the original Victorian architecture starts to shine through, and now that the area is relatively clean, it’s pleasant stuff (terraces blackened by decades of pollution are rather less attractive than the cleaned-up versions, and it’s the latter that line the roads round here).

Caledonian Road is a fairly busy road, so I thought I’d explore a few of the backstreets to the east, to get a more realistic feeling of who lives here and how, and the story is a mixed one. My first steps off the main road took me through the Barnsbury Estate, which sits on the Regent’s Canal as it pops out of the Islington Tunnel (I visited the eastern entrance to the tunnel on my Northern line walk from Kennington to Euston and back). It’s a fairly uninspiring place, full of dreary blocks of flats and endless concrete, and as I crossed the canal, a local drunk kindly suggested I explore further down the canal, though when I asked him what was down there, he looked a bit flustered and had to admit he had absolutely no idea.

North beyond the estate is Thornhill Square, a very different proposition. This pleasant park is surrounded by Victorian and Edwardian terraces, lined in neat neo-Georgian rows among the leafy streets, and the children’s playground in the middle of the park is full of young mothers and bawling kids who are obviously doing quite well, thank you very much. There’s the imposing St Andrew’s Church at the northern end of the park, and the delights continue along Hermington Road, all the way to the London Overground tracks.

Things take a slight downturn as Pentonville Prison looms into view on the left, but you can’t see a lot from this end of the prison, and there’s more interesting architecture to the east as the red-brick Westbourne Estate takes over. I quite liked the architecture in this part of town, and even though Paradise Park isn’t that big or remotely landscaped, it’s a pleasant enough break on the way to the station.

Caledonian Road station is yet another ox-blood red terracotta Leslie Green station, standing alone on the side of the road in the same way it has done since opening in 1906, when the Piccadilly line first opened. It hasn’t been built on yet, and on a day like this, the contrast of the red with the blue sky above is a wonder to behold.

Caledonian Road to Holloway Road

I designed my walking routes throughout last winter, and when I came to do this section of the line, I must have been having a bad day. It isn’t possible to plan a completely reliable route using just the A-Z and Google Maps, as you simply can’t tell where you’ll find paths and where you’ll find locked gates, but I’ve generally got it right, by luck more than by design. However, I must have been feeling particularly unsure of myself when I mapped out this part, as my planned route had me weaving all over the place, sticking to main roads and missing out some pretty obvious short-cuts. I originally had this leg going straight up Caledonian Road to the junction with Holloway Road, and turning back on itself to get to Holloway Road station, but I took one glance at the map on the way here and figured I’d try a more direct route through Stock Orchard Crescent.

It worked, though only just. I passed round the back of the Stock Orchard Estate and into Quemerford Road, hoping to pop out onto Holloway Road just north of the railway bridge, but it took quite a bit of poking around before I found a way through the estate on Pollard Close. The path to the road isn’t marked on any map, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles; I simply marked it on my printed map as needing correction on my return home, so the route you see here is the shorter route, with all the dog-legging removed.

Holloway Road station is another Leslie Green station, but the traffic is even crazier on Holloway Road than Caledonian Road, and it’s rather hidden behind all the bendy buses and white vans that chug through this part of the world. There were plans to modernise the station to cope with the huge numbers of visitors to the nearby Emirates Stadium, but the cost of replacing the lifts with escalators came to a whopping £60 million, and the plans are now on hold; instead, the station closes or becomes exit-only on match days.

Talking of escalators, one of the two lift shafts in the station was used for an experiment by the inventor of the escalator, Jesse W Reno. He built a spiral escalator in 1906 that fitted in the lift shaft – which would have made adding escalators to existing stations much easier than adding the kind of escalator we know today – but the experiment failed and spiral escalators never made it to the Underground.

Holloway Road to Arsenal

Yet again, I got hit by the stupid stick when planning this part of my walk. If I had my time again, I’d head straight to the Emirates Stadium by going down Hornsey Road just opposite the station, but when I planned this route, I decided to head south down Holloway Road to take in the campus buildings of London Metropolitan University, and in particular Daniel Libeskind’s 2004 structure for the Graduate Centre. It’s best appreciated from the west side of Holloway road, which I’m afraid I didn’t find myself on, and it’s not the kind of road you just pop over, so I had to make do with straining my neck to get a good look. It’s worth the effort, though, as it is made from three intersecting rectangular blocks clad in stainless steel and looks completely unlike any other building I’ve seen on my tubewalks. Pictures of the interior of the building look fascinating – everything is irregular and at strange angles – though it isn’t open to the public, so you can only guess from the outside what’s going on behind the steel frame. The fact that it sits at the feet of one of the university’s drab concrete tower blocks only highlights how exciting the architecture is.

I probably should have doubled back to the stadium at this point, but instead I headed down to Drayton Park and past the train station, from where Clock End Bridge takes you to the Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal Football Club. It’s an amazing sight, crossing the bridge towards the massive hulk of the stadium, and it’s easy to imagine the bridge heaving with chanting fans, squashing themselves towards the afternoon game. You can walk around the outside of the whole stadium, and it’s interesting to peer through the large glass windows at the restaurants and hospitality suites inside, evidence (as if it were needed) that the premiership is dripping with money. The houses in this area might be mainly Victorian, but the stadium is most definitely a 21st century creation.

Arsenal station is just along the road from the North Bank Bridge. When it opened in 1906, the station was called Gillespie Road, but after the nearby Highbury Stadium was built in 1913, the manager of Arsenal, Herbert Chapman, successfully led a campaign to get the station renamed, and in 1932 it became Arsenal (Highbury Hill), dropping the part in brackets in the 1960s. It’s an interesting station frontage, squeezed into the middle of a terraced street, taking up the width of about three houses (though it was even smaller before being rebuilt in the 1930s). There’s no doubt it’s an Underground station, though, as the roundel above the entrance is absolutely huge, no doubt to attract the crowds of football fans fleeing the nearby stadium.

Arsenal to Finsbury Park

It’s a short but pleasant walk from Arsenal to Finsbury Park, brushing past the northern end of Highbury Stadium, Arsenal’s old stadium, which is being knocked down and developed into apartments (I’ll be walking past the stadium on my Victoria line walk from King’s Cross St Pancras to Walthamstow Central). The terraces along St Thomas’s Road are attractively kept, starting at the southern end with a block of modern social housing in the yellow-brown colour of London stock brick, and then moving on to an entire street of Edwardian terraces that slowly grow from petite two-storey terraces to four-storey tenements further up the road. There’s a church at the southern end and the spire of the North London Central Mosque Trust at the northern end, and when the road spills out into Seven Sisters Road, it does so opposite a huge Arsenal shop, on the other side of the road from the impressive station complex.

Finsbury Park station is just one part of the busy interchange at Finsbury Park. There’s a national rail station, the Piccadilly and Victoria lines, and two bus stations, all huddled under a large steel and glass shelter that juts out from the roof at a jaunty angle, like the peak on a cheeky schoolboy’s cap. It originally opened in 1961 as part of the Great Northern Railway, when it was called Seven Sisters Road (Holloway), but the station didn’t join the Tube network until 1906, when the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway (now the Piccadilly line) arrived. Finsbury Park was the northern terminus until the line was extended to Arnos Grove in 1932, and then on to Cockfosters in 1933.

Finsbury Park to Manor House

Between Finsbury Park to Manor House stations lies Finsbury Park, and what a lovely park it is, too. I first came across Finsbury Park when I walked day 12 of the Capital Ring from Highgate to Stoke Newington, and on a sunny day like today, it’s a delightful place. Covering 112 acres, it was one of the first large London parks to be laid out in the Victorian era, following an 1841 petition from the people of Finsbury to the government to create a public open space. Plans for the park were first drawn up in 1850, and the government ratified the creation of the park in 1857, leading to the opening of the park in 1869. A recent cash injection of £5 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund has significantly improved the park, and the tennis courts are newly surfaced, there’s a new children’s play area and café near the lake, and the landscaping is immaculate. It makes for an excellent lunch stop, if you can manage to avoid falling asleep under the luscious trees that pepper the soft lawns.

Manor House station hides its light under the bushel of the road junction to the east of Finsbury Park. The Piccadilly line extension from Finsbury Park to Arnos Grove (1932) and on to Cockfosters (1933) provided Charles Holden with an opportunity to shine, and the stations along this part of the line are among the best on the whole network. Manor House, however, is subterranean, the only evidence of the station being a number of stairwells around the road junction and a small entrance building on the northwest corner. Luckily, more impressive station buildings are not far to the north...

Manor House to Turnpike Lane

From the station I wandered randomly back into Finsbury Park, discovering in the process that there isn’t an exit from the park in the northwest corner. So, after a bit of a diversion to the western edge of the park, I headed north up Wightman Road and to the top end of Duckett Road, from where you get a commanding view east down the hill towards Seven Sisters (which I’ll be visiting on the Victoria line).

This part of the world is known as the Harringay Ladder, as that’s what the street layout looks like on the map. Roads run downhill from west to east like rungs, all the way from Umfreville Road in the south to Turnpike Lane in the north, and they’re hemmed in by the sides of the ladder in the form of Wightman Road and Green Lanes. Running south to north through the middle of this set of horizontal streets is a small footpath called either Haringey Passage or Harringay Passage, depending on who you talk to (the maps show it as Haringey Passage, but the council has recently replaced all the road signs to say Harringay Passage, except for one notable exception on Hewitt Road, where the path is still called Haringey Passage). The path lies on top of an old Victorian sewer, the Hornsey Outfall Sewer, which couldn’t be built over when the area was developed on the former grounds of Harringay House; the path therefore survived when the area was covered in houses between 1880 and 1900, resulting in the Harringay Park Estate (to the south) and the Hornsey Station Estate (to the north).

The passage has a bit of a grim reputation – the council’s own website talks about cleaning up the passage as one of the improvements in an area that has ‘in recent years experienced economic decline and some violent crime related to the drugs trade’ – and parts of it are fairly urinal while dog turds pile up just a few feet from the bins that they’re supposed to be in, but I still found the passage utterly charming. The housing along the streets is of a high quality, with red-coloured Victorian terraces pouring down the hill to the east. There are some large Victorian school buildings along Mattison Road and some excellent views downhill to the east, and even though the difference between each road is subtle, it’s constantly exciting to pop out of the narrow passage into another row of houses. You can follow the passage all the way through both estates, and if I had my time again I’d probably take it all the way up from Umfreville Road at the southern end (I only joined it at Duckett Road because I wanted to see the view from the top of the hill, but I think the passage is more interesting, and if you want views, it’s worth waiting for Alexandra Palace later on in the day).

You could take the passage all the way north to Turnpike Lane and turn right for the station, but I chose to turn down Frobisher Road to Ducketts Common, and I’m glad I did, not because the common is particularly beautiful (though it’s pleasant enough), but because you get a much better view of the station complex if you approach it from the south. To the south of the station itself are two curved, two-storey rows of shops, behind which you can find the bus station, but it’s Turnpike Lane station that dominates proceedings. It sums up the modernist approach of Charles Holden nicely, with a red-brick tower complete with the London Underground roundel on the side and a white flag pole on top, and the station building itself is rectangular with a flat concrete roof and blue-framed glass panels in the sides to let the light in. The corner entrance is under a low-ceilinged curved roof, and the overall result is very pleasing.

Interestingly, I was stopped by the police as I snapped away at the station, the first time the police have bothered with me since my walk along the District line from Wimbledon to Edgware Road back at the start of July. Three PCSOs stopped me on the traffic island in the middle of Turnpike Lane and asked me why I was taking photographs of the Tube station, though once I explained about my tubewalk, they were politeness personified. However, as the group was made up of a more senior officer and two juniors who were learning their trade, they decided to follow the letter of the law and fill in a stop and search form, which of course they did in delightful police vernacular:

Subject was seen taking pictures at the entrance of Turnpike Lane Tube station. Stopped under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act.

It’s not as poetic as the one I received at Wimbledon station and it fails to point out that no further action was taken, but I now have two stop and search forms, which might technically constitute a collection. I’m impressed, anyway...

Turnpike Lane to Wood Green

The area to the east of Wood Green High Road, which runs from Turnpike Lane station to Wood Green station, forms the Noel Park Estate, a conservation area that contains some of the best late Victorian and Edwardian suburban housing you are ever likely to see. The 100-acre Dovecote Farm was bought by the Artizans’, Labourers’ and General Dwellings Company in 1882 for £56,345, and by 1907 most of the building work was complete (though there was a second spurt of development in the 1920s).

When the estate was completed there were more than 2000 homes, along with a shopping centre and a theatre, but as the housing was aimed at higher-paid workers and was run to a strict set of codes, there were no pubs built within the boundaries. The same Company was responsible for a number of other park estates throughout London, in particular Shaftesbury Park in Battersea, Queen’s Park in Westminster (which I visited on the Bakerloo line) and Leigham Court in Streatham, though they soon fell into financial trouble when their prices proved too high for the working class people they hoped to attract.

To explore the estate from Turnpike Lane station, it’s best to turn down Whymark Avenue and then along the back of the modern and rather pleasant Sandlings Estate to get to St Mark’s Church, which marks the western edge of the estate proper. Even here, on the edge of the estate along Gladstone Avenue, the beautiful terraces are hugely photogenic, though I’m not sure all the locals are quite as enamoured by the intricate terracing as I was. There I was, enraptured by the ornate porches, gables and corner turrets of the beautiful houses along Ashley Crescent, when I heard a voice shout, ‘Hey! Oy!’ in my general direction. Looking up, I saw a small group of men gathered round the back of a flat-bed lorry, with a Middle Eastern man in a dirty white vest and grey trousers walking towards me, waving his hands and pointing at my camera.

‘Hello,’ I said in as friendly a tone as I could muster.

‘Can I ask you why you’re taking pictures?’ he said, getting straight to the point.

‘Of course,’ I said, and explained that I was walking the Tube for charity and taking loads of pictures as I went, just to record the event. He didn’t look terribly convinced, so I started explaining why I was taking pictures of these particular streets. ‘I mean, look at these houses. They’re beautiful! They don’t build them like this any more, you know; it’s brilliant Edwardian architecture, and I love it. Don’t you think so?’

He looked at me as if I was insane, so I asked him if he lived around here, hoping to point out that if he did, he was lucky to be living in such a delightful conservation area, but although he muttered a quiet ‘Yes,’ he said it in the same way that a man under police interrogation might say it, and I realised I’d crossed a line. I clearly wasn’t supposed to be the one asking the questions, especially as I was the one with the camera.

‘You’re not from Google, are you?’ he asked, presumably referring to the Google Street View project, whose cars are driving round London taking photographs for inclusion on the Google Maps website.

‘Oh no, I’m nothing to do with Google,’ I said, and told him I was just taking the photos to record my walk. He looked at me with barely concealed irritation that I was invading his patch, though he seemed to be content to leave it at that, and walked off shaking his head.

It reminded me of the grief I’d got from the grumpy black men of Tooting Broadway when I tried to take a picture of the Broadway Market, and although I can see why in some areas the locals might be a bit suspicious of people wielding cameras, what surprises me the most is that they still get the arse once I’ve explained what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I mean, come on, I’m doing a charity walk here and taking photographs as I go: I’m not being invasive, I intentionally try to avoid taking pictures with people in them, I don’t work for the police (hell, they stop me too, you know!), and in both cases I’ve been in an area with particular interest to visitors (historic ethnic markets and Edwardian housing estates are interesting, even if they aren’t to the local ethnic population). It’s a shame, because this kind of interaction colours one’s opinions of an area; hell, even the police lighten up once they know what I’m doing, so why can’t these guys?

The wonderful architecture continues all the way to the huge Hollywood Cinema on the High Road, where Wood Green station dominates the northwest corner of the junction with Lordship Lane. The station curves outwards towards the road junction, with three panels of windows above the station name, and a large roundel above that. There’s a tall brick tower on the left-hand side of the building, but although it looks like a trademark part of the Charles Holden design, the tower was actually added later.

Wood Green to Bounds Green

Although it’s a little out of the way, I just had to take a detour from Wood Green to visit Alexandra Palace. Station Road links the Tube station with Alexandra Palace railway station, passing a couple of pleasant parks on the way, and the entrance to Alexandra Park is on the other side of the track, across the station footbridge (which you can cross without a ticket).

Alexandra Palace dominates the park, so I thought it would be fun to skirt the bottom of the hill on which the palace stands, before climbing up to explore the palace itself. The idea was good, but I did end up getting a bit lost on my way to the road that runs along the southern base of the hill, accidentally coming out at a cricket pavilion and football fields. Still, it’s hard to get disorientated with the huge transmitter tower of Ally Pally sitting on top of the hill, and when I finally came out at the bottom of a path leading up to the western end of the palace, the effort was worth it, as it is a simply stunning building.

Originally opened in May 1873, the palace (which was named after Alexandra of Denmark, who had married Edward, Prince of Wales, earlier in the year) burned down just 16 days later, killing three members of staff. Undeterred, the palace was rebuilt and was once again open by May 1875, just two years later. Conceived as the People’s Palace, it contained a concert hall, a museum, a lecture hall, art galleries, a banqueting room, a library and a theatre, and there was even an open-air swimming pool at the base of the hill. The park contained a racecourse complete with grandstand, a boating lake and a nine-hole golf course, but most famously of all, part of the palace was leased to the BBC, who used it as the centre for their new television service. The world’s first high-definition television broadcasts were made from this site in 1936, using both the Marconi and Baird systems on alternating weeks until the Marconi system won out in 1937. The huge mast was the main television transmitter for London until 1956, with a short break in World War II when the transmitter was used to jam the navigation systems on German bomber planes. The main transmitter for London is now at Crystal Palace in south London, but the Alexandra Palace transmitter is still used for analogue television signals and radio.

The view from the top of the hill is quite staggering, with the city laid out right in front of you, but I found myself torn between staring at the city and staring at the palace, with its curved glass roofs and impressive stained-glass rose window. The transmitter is huge and it’s hard to tear your eyes away from it, and on a day like today it’s a dreamy place to sit and watch the world go by.

The suburbs from the park to the station are predictably pleasant, with road after road of neat Edwardian terraces giving way to the large houses along the northern side of Durnsford Road. As I approached the lights at the junction with Bounds Green Road, I spotted a car pulling up at the lights with a tall camera sticking out of the roof, and sure enough, there it was, Google’s Street View car, merrily taking pictures of the surroundings. While a tramp clutched his can of strong cider and barked at the camera, I ran up to the lights[1] and fired off a volley of photographs, glad to be able to turn the tables on the Google boys and their plans for world domination. Perhaps the man back in Noel Park had known the Google car was in the area and was therefore on high alert; whatever, it seemed an amazing coincidence that I’d been talking about this very car an hour earlier, and here it was, checking up on me. Now that is spooky...

Bounds Green station has all the hallmarks of a Charles Holden station, but it was actually designed by his colleague CH James. It’s clearly based on the great man’s template though, as it sports an octagonal ticket hall with a large roundel on the front, huge clerestory windows letting light flood into the hall, a flat concrete roof, and a ventilation tower at the back (sporting another roundel, of course). The entrance to the station is neatly tucked away under a low concrete skirt along the two sides of the building that face the road, with the station name modestly spelled out in white letters just above the door. Apparently the stations get even more impressive as you head further out towards Cockfosters, which is really saying something, as I’m already in awe of the modernist designs along this part of the line.

[1] Interestingly, you can see me quite clearly in Google Street View. I’m crossing at the lights, wearing a black T-shirt with blue jeans and clutching a map in my right hand. Proof!

Bounds Green to Cockfosters

17 August 2008

I love reaching the end of the line: it’s such a satisfying feeling taking the Tube back through all those stations you’ve walked through, flying through days of walking in a matter of minutes. But the end of the line is often worth celebrating for the quality of the walking too, as some of the most enjoyable rambling can be found out in zones 5 and 6.

Today not only did I reach the eastern end of the main Piccadilly line, but I walked through some lovely parks, explored some incredibly leafy suburbs, and discovered what must surely be the most coherent collection of Tube station buildings on the entire network. This part of the line is where Charles Holden perfected his 1930s modernist take on station design, and all the stations (with the possible exception of Cockfosters itself) blew me away; I snapped more photos of the stations than the countryside, and quite right too.

I finish off the Piccadilly line tomorrow with the Uxbridge to Acton Town branch, but even if that turns out to be a damp squib, I’ve already fallen for the Piccadilly’s charms. It’s great walking all the way from Heathrow to Cockfosters, and I’ll be sad when it’s all over. Good for you, Piccadilly line.

Bounds Green to Arnos Grove

I took a suburban route from Bounds Green to Arnos Grove, and very pleasant it was too. The houses round here generally date from the first half of the 20th century, ranging from Edwardian terraces through to between-the-wars suburban homes, though there is the odd modern block tucked away unobtrusively every now and then. The resulting suburbs feel clean and cared for, and on a Sunday morning the peace is truly impressive. This is the first (and only) tubewalk I’ve scheduled at the weekend, and the difference is noticeable; I’ve tried to fit all my tubewalking and writing into normal office hours, to reduce the impact on my real life, but Peta is away this week so I’m cramming as much in as I can, and with weather like this, walking on a Sunday is not only logistically sensible, it’s a delight.

It’s only out on the North Circular Road that you spot signs of activity, though the amount of traffic today was pretty small compared with most of my run-ins with the A406. Arnos Grove station is a little walk off the orbital, on the right of the road at the top of a small hill, and boy, is it a beautiful sight! It’s similar in design to Chiswick Park, which I visited on my walk from Richmond to Ealing Broadway, though it doesn’t have a tower like Chiswick Park and is less hemmed in by the roads. The station sports a huge brick and glass drum that’s capped by a concrete roof, while the station building proper is a low-rise one-storey structure with yet more glass windows. Of course, it was designed in 1932 by Charles Holden, who created most of the stations on this part of the line, and it’s possible that Arnos Grove represents the cleanest and most attractive implementation of his modernist ethos; lots of his stations have tall structures towering above the station, with large windows to let the light into the ticket hall, but sometimes the results are more attractive than at other times, and at Arnos Grove, the balance of clean lines, airy ticket halls and geometric precision is pretty hard to beat. If you like modernism, it’s well worth the pilgrimage, but don’t take my word for it: a recent article in The Guardian called it the ‘king, queen and all princes of a metro station’, and it was named as one of our great modern buildings. It’s easy to see why.

Arnos Grove to Southgate

A short walk north of the station, at the end of Arnos Road, is Arnos Park, a sweet little open space through which the Pymmes Brook flows on its way southwest to join the River Lea. The river is pretty well hidden behind the undergrowth, which is probably for the best as the park is a popular spot on Sundays with footballers, and you wouldn’t want to keep having to fish your ball out of a river. The Pymmes Brook Trail follows the route of the river for about 10 miles, starting at Monken Hadley Common in Barnet and passing this way as it heads for the Lea; if this stretch is anything to go by, it looks like a pleasant trail.

However, the highlight (for me, at least) is the massive railway viaduct along the western edge of the park, which carries the Piccadilly line north towards Southgate. This monstrous brick structure dates from 1933, when the line was extended from Arnos Grove to Oakwood, and it’s a solid piece of engineering from between the wars. The trail continues on the other side of the A1003, passing behind houses through some very lush greenery, but you have to turn away from the Pymmes Brook to get to the next station, through yet more pleasant inter-war suburbia that happily has enough variety in its housing to prevent it from getting boring.

Southgate station is in the middle of the appropriately named Southgate Circus, and a circus it is, because Southgate station is absolutely magnificent. As I noted above, architects tend to regard Arnos Grove as the epitome of Charles Holden’s modernist designs, but for my own, personal taste, Southgate is the best. It’s not so much modernist as futurist Art Deco (which I believe designers call Streamline Moderne, though don’t quote me on that), and looks more like a flying saucer from The Jetsons than a Tube station. It’s completely circular, with a white concrete roof jutting out above the shops like the brim of a hat, and on top of this hat is a small circular raised section that’s lined with windows and topped off with a model of a Tesla coil (which is apparently one of those things that produces lightning in the science lab, but as far as Southgate is concerned, it looks like a stack of four miniature Southgate stations with a big black ball on top). This unwieldy description hardly does the building justice, as the whole thing hangs together in perfect balance, the roof seemingly hovering over the station itself (it is actually supported by a column in the middle of the ticket hall, like a huge concrete umbrella).

Not only is the station itself quite amazing, but it has a couple of truly futuristic bus shelters, one on each side of the station. Each shelter consists of a circular seat under a round roof, with a large Underground roundel on top, followed by a huge pole that shoots straight up into the sky, exploding into five lamps on a steel hoop like a firework display on a clear November night. There’s a similar shelter up the line at Oakwood, but the design complements Southgate’s main building perfectly, and I just couldn’t stop taking photographs.

As with all the Holden stations on this part of the line, Southgate is Grade II listed, and quite right too. I now have a new contender for my favourite Tube station of all, and it’s going to be a hard one to beat.

Southgate to Oakwood

Although it took me a long way off the most direct route, I decided to swing east from Southgate to take in two interesting-looking parks, and I’m glad I made the effort, because the parks round here are very enjoyable, particularly on a sunny weekend when the world and his wife are out for a stroll. The first park, Grovelands Park, is a short walk east from the station, and it’s large and pleasantly landscaped, with a boating lake, a pitch-and-putt golf course, good views of Grovelands House and lots of trees. Grovelands House, which was built in 1798, is now the Priory Hospital North London and takes up the northwest corner of the park, though it is understandably off-limits to the public (the Priory Group is best known for its drug-dependency services, which celebrities seem to find as addictive as the substances they’re trying to wean themselves off, if the tabloids are anything to go by). The mansion’s grounds were landscaped by Humphry Repton, which could explain why it’s such an attractive part of the world.

The houses north of the park are, not surprisingly, very pleasant indeed, and it’s amazing just how much greenery there is round here; every street is lined with some kind of plant, whether it’s hedges, trees, manicured gardens or a combination of all three. I don’t know who’s responsible for the gardening round here, but whoever it is deserves a big pat on the back, because this has to be one of the most beautiful inter-war suburbs I’ve ever seen. Walking along The Vale and Oakwood Park Road is like walking through a homes and gardens show, and that takes some effort.

Oakwood Park is north of the lovely suburbs, along a small path between the houses, and again it’s a corker. The southern half is fairly wild, with long grass just asking to be lain in, but the northern half is a small golf course, so you’re best off walking around the edges, lest you get hit by a stray ball. And you might well get hit, because this is a public golf course, and the players are... well, not that experienced. There are seats on the path round the perimeter, and it’s fun watching grandma and granddad taking the grandchildren out for a spot of divot digging; any pretensions you get in expensive golf clubs are missing here, and there’s a real feeling that this is a public course and everyone can have a go. Along the northern edge of the course is an avenue of huge poplar trees that were planted over 70 years ago to commemorate the coronation of George VI; they’re an impressive sight and make a good spot for a lunch stop.

The large suburban houses continue along Prince George Avenue all the way to Oakwood station, another impressive Holden creation. This time the large ticket hall is rectangular, with five vertical sets of windows on the front and back of the block, and roundels on the sides. The design is very similar to that of Acton Town, which I visited on my walk from Richmond to Ealing Broadway, though because there is more space around Oakwood, it’s much easier to take in (I found it hard to appreciate the design of Acton Town from the road, but here in Oakwood it really works). Perhaps it’s because the width of the rectangular block is about twice its height, giving the structure a pleasing symmetry; or perhaps it’s the futuristic shelter out front, which is similar to those at Southgate but with four lights instead of five; but whatever the reason, Oakwood is again a great station, and easily deserves its listed status.

Oakwood to Cockfosters

If you’re feeling tired, then it’s only a short walk along Westpole Avenue to Cockfosters, but then you’d miss out on the London Loop as it winds through Trent Park, and when the sun is shining, that would be criminal. There’s a long and straight road from Oakwood to Trent Park called Snakes Lane, which is a private road belonging to Middlesex University, though as it has a pavement all the way and nobody seems to stop pedestrians from wandering along it, it doesn’t appear to be off-limits to the public (though if you had a car, that would be a different story, as the signs are keen to point out).

At the top of the road you can wander through a traffic barrier and straight on towards a large tree trunk lying in the middle of a small green. Don’t turn right here, as that will take you towards the main buildings of the university; instead, go straight ahead into the trees, and slightly to your left is a gate that takes you to a cycle track through the woods. This is Trent Park and I first visited this part of the world back in 2003, when I walked day 12 of the London Loop from Cockfosters to Enfield Lock. The park was formed from the grounds of the nearby mansion (which is now part of the university) and its rolling hills and enjoyable lakes are typical English countryside (not surprisingly, parts of it were landscaped by Humphry Repton). The Loop winds its way west through Oak Wood and pops out at a large café, after which it dithers around a bit to get south of the car park before taking you southeast through more woodland and past some fields with great views over the valley. Finally it passes to the south of a cemetery and pops you out right next to the station.

The biggest surprise is that there’s a station here at all; Cockfosters station suddenly jumps out at you after all this country walking, and you really don’t think you’re going to bump into a Tube station in the midst of all this greenery. The suburbia of Cockfosters is mainly to the south and west of here, so this approach from the northeast is particularly rural and it brought back happy memories of the far reaches of the Metropolitan line (though this is only zone 5, believe it or not). The station buildings on the road are pretty modest, with just a single-storey brick building and a couple of small towers sporting roundels, and after the brilliance of Arnos Grove, Southgate and Oakwood, it’s a bit of a let-down. However, as with all Holden-designed stations, the inside is at least as interesting as the outside, and the ticket hall and platforms sit pretty under an impressive concrete and glass roof, with Holden’s trademark slatted windows letting the light flood in. It’s a fitting end to another great section of the Tube, and I can highly recommend this part of the world to anyone who’s interested in Tube architecture, countryside, suburbia and gentle, sunny afternoons... which most definitely includes me.

Uxbridge to Acton Town

18 August 2008

So, do you want the good news or the bad new first? What, the good news? OK, here goes...

The good news is that I’ve finished the Piccadilly line, the second longest line after the Central line, and I’ve only got two more to go, the relatively short Victoria line and the rather longer Jubilee line.

The bad news is that I woke up this morning in a terrible mood, and the last thing I wanted to do was go walking. I snoozed the alarm twice before finally swinging myself out of bed, and after grumping my way through breakfast and getting myself sorted for ten miles of tubewalking through west London, my phone bleeped to tell me that my girlfriend had lost her credit card while on holiday in Turkey, so I waited for her to text me the details and fought my way through the bank’s voicemail system to cancel both our cards. This hardly helped put a bounce in my step, and I started out at Rayners Lane with the sun and the wind in my eyes and a face like a bulldog’s arse. If there had been any cans on the pavement, I’d have kicked them noisily into the gutter, I was that miserable.

Normally a good walk pulls me out of a dark mood like this, but even though I must be careful not to let my grumpiness cloud my judgement, this isn’t a terribly good walk; it’s a terribly average one. I already did the stretch between Uxbridge and Rayners Lane when I walked the Metropolitan line, and I remember being totally nonplussed by the experience; I’m afraid the same fairly uninspiring tone continues all the way down this branch of the Piccadilly line. It’s not that this is a terrible part of the world – the suburbs are generally pretty pleasant and there are far worse places you could end up living – but in terms of walking, it’s a bit monotonous, and that’s the last thing you need when you’re already walking under a black cloud. Ah well, you can’t win ’em all.

For details of my walk between Uxbridge and Rayners Lane, see the story of my Metropolitan line walk from Harrow-on-the-Hill to Uxbridge.

Rayners Lane to South Harrow

Rayners Lane is not a great place to start a walk. The A4090 is a busy road, the shops lining it are fairly dreadful (unless you like junk food, that is), and apart from the Tube station – which is a large, rectangular Charles Holden design dating from the early 1930s – the only interesting building is the old Art Deco cinema, which is now the European Centre for Zoroastrianism. Its curved white front and tall bay windows are quite delightful, and totally lost among the shops and traffic.

I headed south down the A-road and turned left into Clitheroe Avenue, a randomly picked side street that would take me into Rayner’s Lane and on towards the next station (as with Earl’s Court and Barons Court, the Tube station has a different approach to apostrophes than those in charge of the road names, so Rayners Lane station is not far from Rayner’s Lane – go figure). However, I should have continued along the A-road for a while longer, because not far to the south is Newton Farm Ecology Park, through which you can cut from the main road into Rayner’s Lane. I can’t tell you what the ecology park is like, as I didn’t take this much greener route, but I can tell you that Clitheroe Avenue was littered with wheelie-bins – it is a Monday, after all, and that’s collection day in the wheelie-bin mad London Borough of Harrow, as I discovered last time – and the far end of the road is a construction site, so my guess would be that the park is a better bet.

The walk along Rayner’s Lane and Eastcote Lane is not one of the most exciting in the world. This is the land of pebbledash, and pebbledash brings me down, so let’s fast-forward to South Harrow station, another Charles Holden design, this time dating from 1935, when a new station was opened to replace the original 1903 Metropolitan District Railway building a little way to the south of the current site. I’m a great fan of Holden’s architecture, but this one does nothing for me; it feels a bit crammed into the sides of the railway bridge, and although the flat concrete roofs are supposed to lead up to the platform level like a series of steps, the addition of safety railings all over the station (which didn’t appear in the original design) rather clutters the effect. Sorry, it’s not my cup of tea this one; let’s move along, please...

South Harrow to Sudbury Hill

It’s more suburbia all the way to Sudbury Hill, but this time there’s a difference. The Edwardian terraces along South Hill Road are fairly pleasant and some of the houses along here are quite charming, but the best is yet to come. South Hill Estate is contained in its own conservation area and takes up a number of private roads behind resolutely locked gates (though pedestrian access is allowed, or at least tolerated, though there’s no right of way). The estate is home to some very well preserved late Victorian and Edwardian houses along South Hill Avenue, as well as some properties dating from 1910 to 1930 along Orley Farm Road and Hill Close, which were inspired by the garden suburb ideal of the early 20th century. There’s no doubting that the architecture is striking, and some of the houses are quite magnificent, but on a wet and rather dull day, the dark brickwork and large number of trees does give the place a slightly dark and dank feel to it, which is a shame as it’s clearly a special place. I’ll just have to come back when the weather is more summery... in January, perhaps.

At the end of Orley Farm Road you come across day 9 of the Capital Ring which goes from Greenford to South Kenton, and as it runs past Sudbury Hill, I thought I’d join it for a while. I walked this bit of the Ring back in 2007 and have been back at least once since then, but the short section from the edge of South Hill Estate to Sudbury Hill is fairly forgettable; the most interesting thing is a tall green tower along South Vale, which is actually a flue from an underground sewer, ensuring that the stink is carried far up into the sky.

Sudbury Hill station is not far after the national rail station of the same name, and this time Holden’s characteristic design is much more in keeping with his work further up the line. It’s a block-like structure with a large rectangular ticket hall, fronted by a single panel of windows sporting the London Underground roundel, and the station building below consists of a flat concrete roof held up by two thick columns of brick. The station was opened in 1932, just before the stations on the eastern end of the line, and the big difference with the other stations is the station name, which is picked out in dark letters on the light concrete roof, rather than the white lettering on a blue background that the other stations use. It still does the job, though.

Sudbury Hill to Sudbury Town

From Sudbury Hill, the Capital Ring heads east and south along Ridding Lane, passing the large tower block of Allen Court – it isn’t a thing of beauty, especially under grey skies, which only serves to highlight the dull colour of the concrete, but that’s late 20th-century tower blocks for you. Pebbledash housing then takes over, sometimes covering entire rows of anonymous terraces in its dreadful mediocrity, and it’s a long and tedious walk along Melville Avenue to a left turn off the main road, where suddenly things perk up considerably.

After a straight wander along a tarmac path, the Ring turns right into Horsenden Wood, a lovely 10-acre strand of ancient woodland that’s mainly made up of English oak, with hornbeam and hazel underneath. Back in the early 1800s the wood used to be eight times its current size, but some 54 acres were chopped down in the 1860s to make way for crops and hay, and the rest was lost to housing as the suburbs engulfed the area. The remaining wood is being managed back to life, and its gnarled trees and intricate branches are very atmospheric, particularly in the damp.

Even more entertaining is the top of Horsenden Hill, which is just on the other side of the wood. The views from here towards Harrow in the north and Uxbridge in the west are excellent, though the wind was so strong when I climbed to the top that I simply took a few shots and headed down again; so much for relaxing in the sunshine with the world laid at your feet. Indeed, I was so shocked by the force of the wind that I headed down the hill in completely the wrong direction, and it was only when I reached the bottom of the hill and bumped into a Capital Ring sign that I realised my mistake (I wanted to head east, leaving the Ring behind). So I climbed up again, got my hair blown in the opposite direction, and eventually found the path I was looking for, forking off the route I’d used to get to the top in the first place.

The suburbs to the east of Horsenden Hill are pleasant enough, though the architecture is not that thrilling (endless rows of red brick inter-war semi-detached housing don’t light my fire in the same way that the Victorians and Edwardians do, but there you go). Sudbury Town station is a short walk along Whitton Avenue East and off a side road, though from this angle it doesn’t look like much at all; that’s because this is the back entrance, and there’s a sloping walkway on the right that takes you over the tracks to the front of the station, where the hallmarks of Charles Holden are somewhat more obvious. The ticket hall is a large rectangular block with four panels of windows, grouped in two groups of two with a large roundel between them. However, unlike most of Holden’s other block-based stations, the block doesn’t sit on top of a single-storey building, but instead the block is the building, with an entrance knocked through beneath each window panel, and the station name emblazoned along the top of the block, just below the concrete roof. If I’m honest, it looks a bit more like a factory than a Tube station, and doesn’t quite have the balance and grace of his more successful block buildings.

Sudbury Town to Alperton

It’s yet more suburbia for the first half of the leg from Sudbury Town to Alperton, and in case you haven’t spotted it yet, I’m a bit bored of the suburbia in this neck of the woods, so I’ll move along quickly, especially as it’s all modern pebbledash housing peppered with the odd stretch of between-the-wars red-skirted two-up-two-down yawn-inducing standard-issue semi-detached terracing...

Luckily the monotony is broken by One Tree Hill Recreation Ground, a strip of greenery along the eastern flank of the Tube line that’s dominated by One Tree Hill at the southern end of the park, just past a row of poplar trees. One Tree Hill doesn’t have a tree on top, and in this wind it’s probably a good thing, as I nearly lost my map when I sat down on the lonely bench at the summit to take in the view towards Wembley Stadium. The view is quite excellent, though, and I battled through the breeze to my ham sandwich and crisps, and stubbornly enjoyed lunch while sitting on anything that might get caught in the blast. I’m clearly not the only person to enjoy this spot, too; there’s a huge pile of cigarette butts on the ground in front of the bench, and the bench itself is smothered in graffiti, most of it pretty crap, though this one made me laugh:

Mind the gap between your arse and this bench

Tube humour: you’ve got to love it.

Talking of the Tube, Alperton station is not far from One Tree Hill, through some suburbs and along Ealing Road. As I approached the station, the sound of pneumatic drilling blended with the noise of stationary traffic, while a bald Asian man and a young Asian youth argued in the bus stop, each of them eyeballing the other with just millimetres between their noses, their eyes widened to the point where there was white round all four pupils. I looked away as I walked past – this is exactly the kind of altercation that these days spills over into the knife-crime statistics – and instead headed straight for the station, which is another hulking block-like affair. Similar in design to Sudbury Town, but pushed up against the railway bridge over Ealing Road and with just two panels of clerestory windows, Alperton station is less about finesse and more about dominating the street, though even Holden at his most imposing can’t beat the hellish chaos of Alperton when the road is being dug up. The safety rails attached to the station roof don’t help matters either, but then most of Holden’s creations in west London have been ruined by safety rails; tellingly, you don’t find safety rails out on the eastern branch to Cockfosters, though that’s probably because the stations are much more beautiful out that way, and most of them have listed status too. It’s almost as if Holden used the Uxbridge branch to practise his art before creating perfection out there in Arnos Lane and Southgate. I wonder if that’s how it went...

Alperton to Park Royal

I can’t resist the Grand Union Canal, so I didn’t even try, hopping onto its quiet banks just south of the station with great relief after the chaos of Alperton. The canal isn’t at its most beautiful at this point, passing as it does through the satanic mills of the Abbey Industrial Estate and over our old friend the North Circular Road via a two-lane aqueduct. It also stinks to high heaven round here, as the industrial estates surrounding the canal house a number of factories that produce food (though judging by the stench, it’s not the kind of food you’d associate with a long and healthy life). On one bench a group of four Asian men stood arguing in an unfamiliar language but with a familiar lilt; when I spotted the half-empty bottle of vodka on the bench and noted the tell-tale bulges in the carrier bags stashed away below, I realised that they were simply speaking an Asian dialect of Drunken Bollocks, the language of park-bench alcoholics the world over. This not a well-loved stretch of the Grand Union, I’m afraid.

The canal takes you to Twyford Abbey Road, which takes its name from Twyford Abbey, just to the north of the road. Unfortunately the Abbey, which was built in 1807 as the manor house of a country estate, is in disrepair and isn’t open to the public, and the only hint of it along Twyford Abbey Road is a locked gate with a sign saying ‘Twyford Abbey Properties Ltd’. It’s a pity, but never mind, because opposite the gate is an amazing development of wood-clad apartment blocks that manages to look like apartments, office space and retail park all at the same time. This is quite appropriate, as this is the northern edge of Park Royal, the largest industrial park in London, though luckily this route only brushes past the edges of this huge complex (I explored the industrial estate in more detail on my Central line walk from Hanger Lane to North Acton, and it wasn’t much fun).

Luckily Park Royal station is just past the Diageo Headquarters in the north of the industrial park, on the other side of the Central line tracks, and a very impressive building it is too. Perched precariously on the edge of the thundering A40, the station building we see today was opened in 1936, and although it looks like it might be a Charles Holden design, it was actually designed by Welch and Lander, though it was heavily influenced by Holden’s modernist ethos. A tall rectangular tower rises above a circular ticket hall, with windows around the top of the hall letting the light in, and in this case, the light out, because as I arrived at the station, the heavens opened and I had to run into the station for cover after snapping just one rather wet photograph. The skies were so dark that the station staff turned the lights on inside the ticket hall, and when the storm had passed after a few minutes, I popped out to snap the station again in the slightly better light, to be greeted with the much more attractive sight of a fully lit station. That’s one of the delights of 1930s Tube station design; when the lights go on, they ooze the same comforting vibe as a real fire on a winter’s day or the happy chatter of a country pub after a long slog through the mud. It makes you want to go inside; that’s clever design, is that.

Park Royal to North Ealing

Between Park Royal and North Ealing is the Hangar Hill (Haymills) Estate, and a very interesting area it is too. Over half of the houses along the semi-circular roads that make up the estate were built between 1928 and 1930, and although you might expect the result to be uniform houses with similar designs, you’d be wrong, because the estate is a mix of all sorts of different designs. I spotted Mock Tudor (of course), neo-Georgian (complete with columned porches and Georgian-style door canopies), flat-roofed modernist houses, and more standard modern houses with metal-framed windows, bay windows, tiled roofs and a hint of Art Deco. There’s a completely bizarre house at 54 Audley Road with a stepped gable above the main windows, and overall the houses have large, well-tended gardens, there’s lots of leafy space along the streets, and it all fits in well with the modernist shops around Park Royal station.

North Ealing station comes as a huge disappointment after the delights of Haymills, and my jaw dropped to the floor when I turned the corner into Station Road to find – wait for it – a pebbledash house where the station should have been. Um, hang on, that’s a pebbledash house with the words ‘North Ealing Station’ written across the porch. Damn! It’s not a house but a pebbledash Tube station – surely that’s blasphemy? After feeding on glorious Charles Holden and Leslie Green creations along most of the Piccadilly line, this left a rather sour taste in my mouth, and I didn’t hang around.

North Ealing to Ealing Common

It isn’t far from North Ealing to Ealing Common, and it’s not a terribly thrilling ride. The North Circular Road (or Hangar Lane as it’s known at this point) is constantly busy as it feeds traffic into the huge Hangar Lane gyratory to the north, and the houses along the edges of this busy thoroughfare are tired and worn, as are most of the motorists pooping their horns in the slow crawl north.

Things improve slightly along Inglis Road, which has some pretty houses nudging against more modern blocks of flats, and after a few minutes you pop out into Uxbridge Road, with Ealing Common station to your left. Designed by Charles Holden with an attractive heptagonal ticket hall, this is where I ended for the day, just a short walk from where I live in Ealing.

I first came through here when I walked the District line from Richmond to Ealing Broadway, which seems like a very long time ago now. Time flies by when you’re having fun, but today did drag rather; I guess it’s safe to say I’m not a great fan of the northwest stretches of the Piccadilly and Central lines, but life would be boring if we liked everything equally. Bring on the Victoria line, I say, and when I think of the Piccadilly line, I’ll think of Heathrow to Cockfosters, and the smile will spread across my face, obliterating all thought of pebbledash stations and standard-issue suburbia. Ah, that’s better...

Victoria Line

Brixton to King’s Cross St Pancras

19 August 2008

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.

But does it rain? Well, no, not really. Yesterday’s forecast was for scattered heavy showers, and it rained for precisely five minutes, most of which I spent cowering inside the nice warm ticket hall at Park Royal. Today’s forecast was for scattered showers, particularly in the afternoon, but it didn’t rain once, and the afternoon turned out to be, well, sunny. I guess this is the kind of weather that you just can’t predict, and they might be erring on the side of caution given the recent floods in Northern Ireland, but I think I might give up watching the forecast and head out in blissful ignorance; that way I might even come out the other end of this thinking that we had quite a good summer, rather than the dismal apocalypse we seem to be having in the world of TV news.

Brixton to Stockwell

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.

Just round the corner from the Tube station is Electric Avenue, where the colourful Brixton Market stretches all the way round the back of the station, throbbing to the sound of reggae and lively conversation. Electric Avenue got its name by being the first shopping street in London to have electric street lighting, way back in 1888, though the Victorian iron and glass canopies that covered the pavements were removed in the 1980s; it was also the inspiration for Eddy Grant’s 1983 number two hit of the same name, the one that’s currently on rotation as the soundtrack to a Currys advert, though they mercifully weren’t playing that as I wandered through.

Heading up Brixton Road, past the Brixton Academy – currently hosting the inimitable Kings of Leon – and up the Stockwell Road, you notice quite a bit of interesting architecture. Brixton is a real mixture of solid Victorian and Edwardian terracing and more modern (and far less attractive) social housing, and the side streets can be quite delightful. One typical example of a terraced Brixton road is Stansfield Road, where David Bowie was born and spent his first six years in the unassuming house at number 40. One day it will no doubt get a blue plaque, but Bowie is still alive, so it will just have to wait.

Turning right down Sidney Road takes you into Stockwell Park Conservation Area, which I first went through on my Northern line walk from Euston to Kennington, and it’s just as beautiful second time round. The houses along Stockwell Park Crescent are particularly attractive, with neo-Georgian terraces and stucco houses hiding behind lush trees. Hemmed in on all sides by rather less attractive housing estates, this is an oasis of old London among the new, and it’s easy to see why it’s been made a conservation area; coming out into Stockwell Road opposite the depressingly 20th-century Stockwell Garden Estate only makes the point clearer.

Stockwell station is just up the Stockwell Road, and I’m afraid it isn’t a particularly attractive piece of architecture. It’s also hard to look at it without thinking of the police shooting of poor old Jean Charles de Menezes back in 2005; it’s going to take a while for that particular association to fade away, and the fact that there was a man filming a piece to camera in Portuguese outside the station shows that this story isn’t going away any day soon.

Stockwell to Vauxhall

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.

Lansdowne Gardens is just off the main road, and it’s another hidden gem. The circus in the middle of the block is surrounded by lovely terraced houses, and out on Guildford Road a large church dominates the skyline. On the corner of Guildford Road and St Barnabas Villas, opposite the church, was a mass of floral tributes to a young black guy, though I couldn’t work out what his name was or what had happened to him (though, in the current climate, the chances are he was the victim of a knife attack). There’s another modern estate on the corner here, though I don’t know if that had anything to do with it.

On the other side of the South Lambeth Road (which is known as Little Portugal at this point, due to the large number of Portuguese who moved here during the 1960s and 1970s to flee the dictatorship in their home country), the housing again slips into Victorian excellence, passing the extremely modern St Stephen’s Church before morphing into the huge mansion blocks of yet another estate. The amount of social housing in this part of the capital is truly impressive, as is the range of designs; some are old, with huge brick chimneys and a distinctly Edwardian air, and some are modern, with a depressing sense of the 1960s and 1970s about them. It’s an interesting exercise to compare them, though to me there’s only ever one winner, at least on the aesthetic front.

Vauxhall Park is on the other side of Fentiman Road, with the entrance to the right of the junction with Rita Road, though when you enter you might be forgiven for thinking that the park is out of bounds to mere humans. The attractive lavender beds and formal garden are locked away behind steel fences, but there are gates to be found, and it turns out that the fences are there to keep dogs out, not people. The lavender is heavenly at this time of year, and there’s an intriguing set of miniature houses at the far end, just as the park opens out into a more traditional green space.

Vauxhall station is on the other side of the train tracks, through a spooky underpass. The original railway station is on the right as you come under the bridge, but straight ahead there’s an impressive new bus station and Tube entrance that’s shaped like a huge steel sea serpent, with massive steel tusks pointing into the air above the junction with Vauxhall Bridge Road. The Tube station is hidden underground, perhaps sensibly, given the amount of traffic hurtling over Vauxhall Bridge.

Vauxhall to Pimlico

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.

I nearly got blown off Vauxhall Bridge and had to hurry across, though as the tide was out, the view across to Battersea Power Station wasn’t at its best. It was a relief to get to the shelter of Grosvenor Road, where modern blocks rub shoulders with old pubs and stranded period homes. The Peabody Trust’s Tachbrook Estate dominates the north side of the road, and it’s an attractive companion as you walk along Aylesford Street towards Pimlico.

Pimlico station is hidden below ground, with an anonymous entrance in the base of an office block. Interestingly, Pimlico is the only station on the whole Victoria line that doesn’t have an interchange with either a Tube line or a national railway line, and it was also a last-minute addition to the line, opening in 1972, more than a year after the rest of the line had opened.

Pimlico to Victoria

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.

There’s a street market further along Tachbrook Street, though when I walked past it was fairly empty apart from a cheap clothes stall, a burger van and a fishmonger. To avoid the chaos of Vauxhall Bridge Road, I thought I’d take King’s Scholars’ Passage up to Carlisle Place, and what a strange road it is, too. Surrounded on all sides by the backs of the huge buildings that line the streets on either side, this is the urban equivalent of gorge walking; the white drainpipes on the right-hand side of the road seem to reach for the heavens, and it’s quite dizzying walking between the monoliths.

Victoria station is out on Victoria Street, and it’s always an impressive sight, even if the crowds are chaotic. The Victoria line reached here in 1969, and Victoria acted as the line’s terminus until the line was opened all the way to Brixton in 1971. It’s now the Underground’s busiest station, as anyone who has been locked out during rush hour will attest; I used to walk from here to work at the Victoria and Albert Museum rather than join the crush, but that’s claustrophobia for you.

Victoria to Green Park

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!

Popping back out onto Buckingham Palace Road was a bit of a shock, as the crowds were literally that – I had to queue to go round the corner to the front of Buckingham Palace, elbowing my way through the tourists as politely as I could. I’ve seen the Queen’s residence more times than I can remember, so I didn’t dawdle, especially as the northern half of the roundabout was cordoned off for the construction of a large stage, squashing the crowd into a smaller space than normal. Still, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the Victoria Monument without anyone climbing over it, and it looks good when it’s tourist-free.

Green Park station is on the other side of Green Park, and it was here that I met my parents, who had popped down to London to join me for a short walk. We wandered over to Shepherd Market for a lovely lunch in the Little Square restaurant, and dawdled back to the station to finish the push to Warren Street, wondering whether the forecast afternoon showers were going to turn up and spoil everything. We shouldn’t have worried...

Green Park to Oxford Circus

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.

The theme for this area of London is shopping, and shopping with style. Albemarle Street is known for its art galleries, and the Royal Arcade, which dates from 1879, joins Albemarle Street to Old Bond Street, tempting you with silver shops, art galleries, shoemakers and chocolatiers under a tastefully garish orange and white stucco roof. Out on Old Bond Street is the famous jeweller Tiffany & Co., and a little way along Burlington Gardens is the Burlington Arcade, an even older and larger arcade that was opened in 1819 and is still patrolled by the Burlington Arcade Beadles, who wear traditional uniforms, including top hats and tails. Next up is Savile Row, which is famous for suits and – I now know – judicial robes and wigs, and the shopping paradise of Regent Street is only a block away, though there are more important things in life than shopping, so we stuck to the backstreets instead.

One of those more important things happened at the southern end of Savile Row, because number three was where the Beatles set up the headquarters of Apple Corps, the media company they created back in 1968. These days it’s a fairly unpretentious Georgian terrace, but it was on the roof, back on 30 January 1969, that the Beatles made their last ever live performance; the results can be seen in the film Let It Be, and one can only assume the cameras saw more than the punters below, as the roof is all but invisible from the stalls.

Heading north, there are fewer shops as you approach Maddox Street and turn into Hanover Square, which has a pretty little garden in the middle that’s open to the public. Most of the square is home to exclusive offices, such as the London office of Vogue publisher Condé Nast Publications, which makes the little cabbie stop in the north of the square even more cherished. There are just 13 of these green shelters in the capital, all that remains of the 61 shelters that were built between 1875 and 1914 after the Earl of Shaftesbury set up the Cabman’s Shelter Fund to provide cabbies with somewhere to park and get a hot meal while at work. The shelters are no bigger than a horse and cart, as they are all on public roads and the authorities didn’t want them taking up too much space, but despite their diminutive size, they pack an historic punch – back in 2004, Prince Charles stopped off at this very shelter to share a cuppa with nine other taxi drivers, as a way of saying thanks for all their hard work, which was a nice gesture.

Oxford Circus station is northeast of Hanover Square, and it was just as busy as the last two visits I made on my Central and Bakerloo walks. This was my last visit here, and I shan’t miss trying to battle through the crowds on the dreaded southeast corner, where half the planet exits the station and simply stands there, wondering where to go next...

Oxford Circus to Warren 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.

More interesting buildings line Ogle Street and New Cavendish Street, where huge Roman Catholic churches rub shoulders with the modern buildings of the University of Westminster, but for me, the excitement of catching your first glance of the BT Tower puts everything else in the shade. It’s a close call between the BT Tower and the Gherkin for the top slot in my list of favourite London buildings, but I think the BT Tower probably wins out, because I’ve loved it all my life. I really don’t know why: it’s such a dated 1960s design and you haven’t been able to go up it since 1981, well before I started travelling independently (though the closure isn’t because of the bomb that the Provisional IRA set off in the men’s toilets at the top, as that was back in 1971). But there’s something about its symmetry and simple structure that appeals to me on a primitive level, and I’ve never lost that sense of wonder. I highly recommend you walk along Cleveland Mews, just to the east of the tower, as you can then see the whole thing in one go, and can appreciate the way that the tower is constructed, bolted onto a central concrete core that’s surprisingly small. It was designed not to move more than 25cm at the top in wind speeds of up to 95 mph, which is pretty impressive for a 189m-high structure, and these days it even lights up at night like a psychedelic candle. What’s not to love about the BT Tower?

Just north of the tower is Fitzroy Square, which has been in a state of roadwork chaos for months now, though they’ve now started layering on the tarmac, so perhaps they will have finished soon... and just along Warren Street is, you guessed it, Warren Street station, out in the crowds of Tottenham Court Road. And that’s where we ended for the day, as I’ve already walked between Warren Street and King’s Cross St Pancras on my Northern line walk; I’ll pick the Victoria line up from the latter tomorrow, and polish off the rest of the line to Walthamstow.

King’s Cross St Pancras to Walthamstow Central

20 August 2008

Wow, the relief is palpable. Last night I was on tenterhooks, poring over the free papers and checking the news on the red button, because yet again Bob Crow and his pals at the RMT were threatening a strike, probably over the number of biscuits they get on their tea break, the colour of the socks that station janitors have to wear, or one of the other rent-a-reason justifications they keep coming up with. This was going to be a 72-hour strike, staring at midday today and lasting into the weekend, which would have completely screwed up my plans to start the Jubilee line tomorrow. Apparently only 25 per cent of the union actually voted for a strike, just to rub salt into the wound.

Thankfully the strike was called off late last night, and services ran as normal today. But I’d just like to say that, for all the stress the union has caused me in the last couple of days, worrying about whether I was going to have to delay my finishing date due to their industrial action, I’ve joined the Facebook group ‘Bob Crow (and the RMT) are wankers’. Apparently there are 1930 other members, and that number is growing all the time; there’s also a group called ‘Bob Crow (and the RMT) are NOT wankers’, but it’s trailing slightly at just 16 members. Looks like Bob will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes, which has a certain satisfying irony to it, I think...

King’s Cross St Pancras to Highbury & Islington

I feel as if I’ve walked this section already, it’s so close to my Piccadilly line walk from King’s Cross to Finsbury Park, so forgive me if this sounds familiar. It’s a bit of an urban walk along Pentonville Road past King’s Cross Thameslink, with buses thundering past and construction work overhead, but there are a couple of things to note. Veolia, the people who empty your bins in the morning, have their headquarters in a converted church along here, which makes them one of the more attractive buildings in the vicinity, and there’s a modern block for students called Nido that looks a lot more impressive than you’d expect from student accommodation.

It gets quieter up Penton Street, and on the right after a short while is Chapel Street, which has a street market if you fancy a quick shop on the way north. I didn’t particularly, so instead I strode onwards, past some huge Edwardian blocks of apartments and the Young Actors Theatre, passing Barnard Park on the way. I popped my head into the park, but it isn’t that exciting, with most of the park taken up with all-weather football pitches. It’s much more pleasant back on the street, where Victorian terraces disappear into the distance (which is clearly the theme for this part of town).

Off to the east is Lonsdale Square, where suddenly things take off; the southern Victoria line was all about beautiful squares tucked away between social housing and Victorian terraces, and it seems the northern section is the same. The brick townhouses around Lonsdale Square are absolutely exquisite, dating from between 1838 and 1842, and apparently they were designed by an architect who mainly designed almshouses, which explains the slightly gothic atmosphere of the square. You can smell the money, and for the first time since leaving the station, it feels more like Islington than King’s Cross.

The Victorian and Edwardian housing takes over again once you’re out of the square, passing schools with separate entrances for Boys and Girls (which presumably aren’t enforced any more) and a couple of modern estates that blend in reasonably well. Highbury & Islington station is pretty disappointing considering the amount of money in this part of London, though there’s a good excuse as the original station on this site, which served the North London Railway from 1872, was destroyed by a V1 flying bomb in the Second World War, and the current station was built in the 1960s to serve the existing lines and the new Victoria line, and the 1960s was not a great decade for train station design. On the other side of Holloway Road is an old station frontage from 1904 for the Northern City Line, which links Moorgate and Finsbury Park; this used to be part of London Underground, though it’s now part of the national rail network and is served by the 1960s station building, and the old station is now defunct.

Highbury & Islington to Finsbury Park

Just north of Highbury & Islington station is the greenery of Highbury Fields, the largest open space in the Borough of Islington. The park is a fairly uninteresting open piece of grassland, but the Georgian and Victorian terraces lining the Fields are superb, and not surprisingly they are highly desirable residences. Highbury Place, the straight road that flanks the eastern side of the Fields, was completed in 1777, while Highbury Crescent, on the western side of the Fields, dates from 1844. At the northern end of the Fields is the tall spire of Christ Church, but even more impressive is Highbury Clock, a large red Victorian clock tower that stands proudly in the middle of the junction of Highbury Hill and Highbury Barn, just by the church. It was unveiled in 1897 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria coming to the throne, and the old queen herself is picked out in golden profile on the sides of the clock.

The streets to the north of the Fields are also lined with lovely townhouses, though Leigh Road turns into the more modern estate, with a collection of dark brick houses that’s a bit of a contrast with the opulence to the south. It heralds a new, more working-class aesthetic, because along Avenell Road is the old home of Arsenal Football Club, Highbury Stadium. Arsenal are now happily ensconced in the nearby Emirates Stadium, which I visited on my Piccadilly line walk from King’s Cross to Bounds Green, and the old stadium is currently being converted into an exclusive apartment complex called Highbury Square. The Art Deco East and West Stands are being preserved and incorporated into the new development, and from the outside the project looks very interesting (though the new apartments on either side of the stadium look terribly bland from the road, so I hope this doesn’t happen on the inside, as the stadium is an atmospheric old place).

Finsbury Park station is just up the road from the stadium, along pleasant roads of Victorian terraces, and there I met my friend David, whom I last met when I reached Leytonstone on the Central line, and who works just round the corner from Finsbury Park. And so, 15 minutes later and fortified with coffee and conversation, I set off east in the direction of Seven Sisters...

Finsbury Park to Seven Sisters

It’s more Victorian terraces mixed with more modern housing blocks, all the way to Green Lanes (which forms the eastern side of the Harringay Ladder, further north). Just a little to the south is a strange castle-shaped building that turns out to be an old Victorian pumping station; these days it’s a climbing centre called – wait for it – the Castle Climbing Centre, and at its feet runs the Capital Ring on day 12 from Highgate to Stoke Newington, which I thought I’d join for the next section.

From here the Ring follows the New River, which was built in 1613 to bring fresh water to London from Ware in Hertfordshire, 40 miles away. The river was built to follow the contours all the way, dropping an average of two inches every mile, so the water flows without the need for pumps. At this point the river meanders around in an elongated ‘S’ shape, passing along the northern shores of two reservoirs, the imaginatively named West and East Reservoirs, and it makes for enjoyable walking.

The West Reservoir is home to a sailing club, and the boats were out in force today, making an interesting sight with the spire of St Mary’s Church in Stoke Newington in the background. Indeed, the only negative aspect of the New River is the amount of rubbish, not in the river but on the banks. The biggest culprits are beer cans, which lie in large piles along the banks, their Stella and Tyskie logos fading in the sunlight. It’s not pleasant, though at least there weren’t any drunks... today, at least.

The Ring soon disappears to the west to head for Finsbury Park, and then it’s a very long and utterly tedious slog along the busy Seven Sisters Road to Seven Sisters station. There’s a fairly bland entrance to the station on Seven Sisters Road and some subways out on the High Road, but there’s not a lot else to see, as all the station buildings are underground (the original national rail station here was closed by British Rail in 1968 and all the surface buildings were removed). Oh, and for all you trivia fans, the section between Seven Sisters and Finsbury Park is the longest unbroken section of deep-level tube line on the whole Underground... so now you know why it takes so long.

Seven Sisters to Tottenham Hale

Seven Sisters is not the loveliest part of the world, and there’s a faded feeling to the walk between Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale, though the backstreets are considerably more pleasant than being out on Seven Sisters Road. There are some lovely snippets of Victorian housing along the way, and some modern developments that manage to blend in pretty well, but this is pretty standard suburbia, and it probably makes for better living than walking.

Coming out onto Broad Lane, you can’t help but be impressed by the size of Tottenham Hale Retail Park, even if it’s not terribly attractive. It’s all Currys, Argos, B&Q, Halfords and Office World, finished off with the usual range of big-brand junk food outlets, and it’s a world best left to people in cars, rather than on foot.

Tottenham Hale station – which was known as plain old Tottenham until the Victoria line came this way in 1968 – is a strange sight. It’s a mainly steel building with a slightly undulating roof, and on top of the roof is a dark brick rectangular tower, topped with what looks like a stack of blue glass bricks. It works surprisingly well, and I rather hope it lights up at night, because if it does, it’s almost a modern echo of Charles Holden’s design for Boston Manor on the Piccadilly line (though Holden’s effort is somewhat more stylish, needless to say).

Tottenham Hale to Blackhorse Road

The main road east from Tottenham Hale to Blackhorse Road passes between two huge banks of reservoirs, and looking at the map I assumed it would be a rather enjoyable walk... but I was wrong. The A530 is fiercely busy, the reservoirs to the north are cordoned off behind some serious Thames Water security fences, and you can’t even see the reservoirs to the south, as there’s a big brick wall all along the side of the road, with a railway line just beyond it. There are some pretty views as you cross the Pymmes Brook (which I first met in Arnos Grove), there’s an intriguing brick tower on the north side of the road that turns out to be a ventilation shaft for the Victoria line below, and there’s a pleasant-looking pub by the side of the road, but it’s a long slog along the side of the traffic to get to the edges of Walthamstow.

Blackhorse Road station is a pretty uninspiring and squat 1960s station building, and its only redeeming feature is the mosaic of a black horse by the entrance. However, even this is contentious, as the name Blackhorse Road comes from a corruption of ‘black house’, rather than ‘black horse’, though perhaps the dingy aspect of the Tube station is supposed to reflect the true etymology.

Blackhorse Road to Walthamstow Central

My initial route from Blackhorse Road to Walthamstow Central had me meandering through the backstreets to Walthamstow Village, and then doubling back towards the Tube station, but I received two excellent suggestions in two days, and I thought I’d act on both of them. David suggested I visit the William Morris Gallery on Forest Road, and my brother said I just had to check out the Town Hall, so I added half a mile to my route, and I’m so glad I did.

I still had to walk through the backstreets of west Walthamstow to get there, and I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the housing in Walthamstow is a lot more attractive than I’d have guessed. Most of the houses are Edwardian or from the 1920s and 1930s, and the rows of terraces are enjoyable to walk along, though there is perhaps not as much variety as I’d hoped for. It’s certainly more pleasant than the main Forest Road, where the traffic is continuous and dominated by huge, thundering trucks.

Just off the main road, the William Morris Gallery is well worth a visit, if only for the pleasant park behind the house where Morris lived from 1848 to 1856. The house itself is a Georgian building from the middle of the 18th century, and in the back garden is an aviary, a small stream and a good view of the house. I didn’t have the energy to visit the museum – having worked at the V&A, I’ve seen enough William Morris designs to last me a lifetime – but it makes a good spot for a rest, ready for the final push.

The main road continues in its busy, shop-lined fashion to the corner with Farnan Avenue, when boom! The vista suddenly opens up to the left, and there is one of the most impressive buildings I’ve seen in the whole of outer London. This is the magnificent Waltham Forest Town Hall, and it’s the centrepiece of the Civic Centre, which consists of the Technical College (built in 1938), the Town Hall (1941), the Assembly Hall (1943), and the relatively disappointing modern Court House (1971). The Town Hall, though, is exactly as my brother described it. ‘It’s just like a building from Stalinist Russia, plonked there in the middle of Walthamstow,’ he said, and he’s absolutely right; it’s a monster of a building, built of white stone in a modernist style, crowned by a huge green spire sporting a gold-numbered clock halfway up. In front of the hall is a round pool with a fountain spouting away in the middle, and the well-manicured gardens slope down to this huge edifice, giving a real sense of space that you don’t see in London very often. I absolutely loved it, and it made the walk to the end of the Victoria line well worth the effort.

After the incredible beauty of the Town Hall, Walthamstow Village was always going to a bit of a let-down, though it’s still worth a visit. Centred round St Mary’s Church, which was founded in the 12th century, there are two sets of almshouses, one from the 16th century and the other from the 18th century; the timber-framed Ancient House, which dates from the 15th century; the Vestry House, which is now a museum; and a handful of other buildings, such as the old fire station and a spiritualist church. The churchyard is full of old graves, and it’s a pleasant place to explore, with at least one good pub to refresh you after a long walk.

Walthamstow Central station is a short walk from the village, and although it sports a flashy new bus terminal and a huge glass and steel sign on the road proclaiming that this is indeed Walthamstow Central, there isn’t a station building as such, just stairs down into the hot depths of the Victoria line. And that’s the end of the line; it’s short, the Victoria line, but it’s an interesting walk, even if it doesn’t quite shine as one of the all-time greats. Still, if I remember anything about this line, it will be Waltham Forest Town Hall, which made the whole journey worthwhile, all by itself.

Jubilee Line

Stanmore to Dollis Hill

21 August 2008

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.

I’m sure things will get better further down the line, because central London is always entertaining, and I’ve been looking forward to exploring the Isle of Dogs and Greenwich for some time, but I guess today was the price I had to pay. When I walked this part of the Tube on the Metropolitan line, I chose to head east in a big loop, because although the Metropolitan and Jubilee lines share tracks between Finchley Road and Wembley Park, I knew I’d have to stick close to the line on this walk, and I didn’t want to repeat myself. What a good decision that was; I can’t imagine doing this part of the world twice. Once was bad enough...

Stanmore to Canons Park

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.

The suburban theme continues to the western side of the tracks, all the way along Merrion Avenue. It’s probably best to get used to seeing entire streets of Identi-Kit inter-war suburban houses, because the same blight that affects the northwest reaches of the Piccadilly and Central lines affects the northern Jubilee line – their suburbs just aren’t that interesting to walk through, though I’m sure they’re perfectly pleasant for living in.

Luckily the suburbia doesn’t go on forever, and at the bottom of the road is the lovely Canons Park, which was recently restored with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. My first introduction to the park was this rather worrying notice on the entrance gate:

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.

Despite this, the beneficial 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 station is at the southwest corner of the park, past some houses and a flag-fluttering car-wash. There is practically nothing to see from the outside, just two entrances on either side of the railway bridge that carries the line over Whitchurch Lane, and it’s no surprise to find that this is the least-used station on the whole line. It was originally called Canons Park (Edgware), and indeed, the Northern line’s Edgware station is not far to the east, on the other side of the A5, though the suffix was dropped the following year when the line was merged into the rest of the Underground.

Canons Park to Queensbury

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.

Still, any greenery is better than yet more suburbia, and although there are some nice houses in this part of town, for the most part it’s just business as usual, and it felt like a long walk along Haverford Way and Cotman Gardens towards Queensbury. There’s a huge roundabout on Mollison Way with a monstrous pub, the Flying Eagle, lurking on the corner, and Mollison Road itself sports a long row of shops, but from there to the station it’s back into the suburbia. There are two imposing brick churches along the way and the houses are clearly from the 1930s, and this theme continues all the way to Queensbury Parade, a small grassy area to the east of the station. The council is planning to redevelop this area to make it more pedestrian-friendly, though it’s already an attractive little spot.

Queensbury station was opened in 1934, two years after the neighbouring stations of Kingsbury and Canons Park, and the name is a complete invention; it was chosen to go with Kingsbury, plain and simple. The name Queensbury has since been adopted to refer to the area northwest of the station, a demonstration of the influence of the Tube out here in Metro-land, but the station itself is a fairly dull affair, with a simple entrance built into the huge 1930s block that houses the station and its neighbouring shops.

Queensbury to Kingsbury

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 Kingsbury 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 station is how Stanmore station might look if it was shoehorned into a row of terraced houses, though the shops on the ground floor rather scupper the house metaphor. Still, it doesn’t look much like a train station, which is no bad thing when you’re located in the middle of a bustling shopping street, so hats off to the designers for a clever piece of space management.

Kingsbury to Wembley 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.

The houses along The Paddocks are a step up from the suburbia north of the park, with some attractive and very large brick townhouses lining the road. Just around the corner is the monstrous Grade II-listed Brent Town Hall, and on the other side of the traffic jam that is Forty Lane is an equally monstrous 24-hour Asda superstore. The views of Wembley Stadium are good from here, and the excellent Wembley Park station, which I’ve already eulogised, is just down Bridge Road.

Wembley Park to Neasden

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 best way to appreciate the stadium up close is to walk up the ramps to the main entrance, and once inside, turn left and go up the stairs to the very top level, where the views towards Harrow and Neasden are impressive; you’re up pretty high here. There’s a statue of Bobby Moore, the captain of the England team that won the World Cup here in 1966, but probably most impressive is the chance to see the stadium’s huge hoop up close, for this is where it’s anchored to the rest of the structure. You can wander around the outside of the stadium to your heart’s content (though you have to pay for a tour to go inside), and it’s a shame to have to leave the clean steel and glass structure for the grittier reality of South Way.

Wembley Stadium is surrounded by the industrial units of Wembley Park, and it’s not a terribly pleasant place to walk through. Indeed, I was getting pretty bored walking past the faceless factories when I spotted a massive pile of car tyres off to the side of the road, and figuring that I might as well take a photo of anything vaguely interesting, I fished out my camera and started lining up the shot.

Suddenly I heard a cry of ‘No, no, no!’ and a rather large man ran out of a nearby security hut, waving his finger at me, so I put my camera down and gave him my best smile.

‘Can I take a picture of those tyres?’ I asked as politely as I could. ‘I’m doing a charity walk and taking photos of interesting things along the way, and this is pretty cool. No problem if I can’t, but it looks good. Would that be OK?’

I think he must have been from eastern Europe or Russia, as his accent was pretty thick, but he shrugged and said, ‘Yes, sure, OK,’ and went back to his hut while I turned back to the tyres.

I was just lining up the shot and getting ready to push the button, when suddenly, wham! He came at me from the right, yelling and screaming and trying to grab my camera, like Amy Winehouse on a bad day. I jumped out of my skin and threw my hands up, saying, ‘Woah, woah, hang on, I’m not taking anything, relax!’

He looked at me with a vicious frown and waved me away, saying, ‘No, no, you go,’ while I stood there, checking that he hadn’t managed to break anything. And then the blood ran to my head, and I started getting huffy.

‘Hang on a minute,’ I said, ‘you can’t just go attacking people like that. I asked you if I could take the photo, you said yes, and then you go and have a go at me? What’s all that about? You said it was OK! What’s wrong with you?’

He wasn’t interested and kept waving me away, but even though I was starting to sound like Austin Powers saying, ‘Who throws a shoe? Honestly!’, my feelings were hurt and I felt violated, so I kept repeating ‘But you said yes!’ until he threw his hands up in the air and said, ‘I go get boss.’

His boss was very friendly and said yes, of course I could take pictures of his tyres, and I could come inside if I wanted, so I snapped a couple of shots and thanked him warmly, while his KGB minder lurked inside his security hut in a huff. On reflection, I suppose I must have been having a different conversation with the security guard to the one the security guard was having with me, and he’d probably been trying to tell me I couldn’t take a photo but didn’t have good enough English, but I still find it hard to see how, exactly, he was saying no while appearing to say yes. I guess this is how wars start, and carrying a knife starts to look like a really bad idea; it’s all a bit scary, really.

Things soon went from bad to worse, as this part of the world is really not pedestrian-friendly. The pavement ran out on the Great Central Way and I had to wait ages for a break in the constant stream of trucks, and I then had to walk for what seemed like miles to get to the other side of the North Circular Road, winding underneath the orbital road and walking in a large arc to join the pavement on the other side. I just wanted to leave this strange world of violent security guards and endless industry, but eventually I managed to cross the railway lines and head down Landsdowne Grove towards the station.

Neasden station was originally opened in 1880 as part of the Metropolitan Railway’s extension from Willesden Green to Harrow-on-the-Hill, with the name Kingsbury and Neasden. This was changed to – wait for it – Neaden and Kingsbury in 1910, and the Kingsbury part was dropped in 1932 when Kingsbury station opened. This exciting history of name changes is more interesting than the station buildings, which sit fairly anonymously on busy Neasden Lane, though there is a good view down to the tracks from the road, with the ubiquitous bulk of Wembley Stadium as a backdrop.

Neasden to Dollis Hill

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 is at the southern end of Hamilton Road, which can be reached by a footbridge over the London Overground tracks. The entrance to the station is completely uninspiring, being little more than a dark passage leading underneath the tracks. When I arrived at the entrance, a staggering and rather fragrant black man lurched out into the passage, looking around with a slight air of panic as I stood there packing my daypack for the journey home. He completely ignored me, and with a sigh he unzipped his trousers, pressed himself against the wire fencing to the right of the entrance and jiggled around a bit; as I wrinkled my nose and quickly strode past him into the station, I could hear him sprinkling on the concrete floor while letting out a huge sigh of relief. At least we shared that sentiment, as I shot through the ticket barriers at the end of this rather disappointing day.

Dollis Hill to Green Park

22 August 2008

It’s a bit of a happy coincidence that most of the Beatles-related locations I’ve managed to track down for my tubewalk appear on the same day’s walk – this one. I’ve been a fan of the Beatles ever since my parents introduced me to the ‘Red’ album (their 1962-1966 hits) when I was a kid; however, they never played anything later than Revolver, so imagine my excitement when I discovered the ‘Blue’ album (their 1967-1970 hits) as a teenager, which soon led to a fascination with the psychedelia of Sgt Pepper and the brooding menace of the White Album.

Since those early days of discovery, sometimes I’ve played the Beatles non-stop and sometimes I haven’t played them for months, but I’ve never stopped being utterly fascinated by the story of how the Beatles changed the world. They split up just before I was born – as my girlfriend, who was around for their entire career, never ceases to remind me – and that only serves to make the myth stronger. So it’s a thrill to walk past such seminal places as the houses where Paul wrote ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Hey Jude’, the zebra crossing from the cover of Abbey Road, and the old Decca office where they failed their first audition... and it’s even better to visit so many in one day.

I was also lucky to share today’s walk with my sister Julie, particularly given the name of the street we managed to visit on our way from Baker Street to Bond Street. I suppose you might call it a pilgrimage; it was certainly a thrill. God bless Moxon Street and all who tubewalk through her!

Dollis Hill to Willesden Green

Before all the excitement further south, today’s walk starts off in slightly more subdued surroundings, in the quiet streets of Dollis Hill. I’ve a friend who used to live in Dollis Hill, and when I was having difficulties finding anything interesting to walk past on the first two stretches of this walk, he told me that that’s because there isn’t anything interesting in between Dollis Hill and Kilburn. Having walked through the area, I think he’s right; it’s perfectly pleasant round here, but it isn’t exactly throbbing with attractions for the casual walker.

However, in suburbia, still waters run deep, and they run very deep indeed in the backstreets of Dollis Hill. At 195 Melrose Avenue, near the southeast corner of Gladstone Park (which I visited yesterday), lived a certain Dennis Nilsen. He killed at least 15 men between 1978 and 1983, and he killed the first 12 of those in Melrose Avenue. He would leave the bodies around the house, sometimes for several months, before dismembering them and disposing of them in various ways, either by burning them in the back garden or by dumping their entrails over the fence for wildlife to eat.

Nilsen moved to Muswell Hill in 1981 (close to where I walked on the Northern line) and killed three more victims there, but was finally caught when he tried to dispose of the bodies down the drain, which got blocked and attracted the attention of the police. Melrose Avenue is an anonymous street and number 195 is a typical and rather well kept suburban house, which makes Nilsen’s story all the more amazing.

Willesden Green station is a short walk through more suburbia, and it’s a cracking building. The original Metropolitan Railway station was opened in 1879, but the current building dates from the station reconstruction of 1925, when the company’s architect, CW Clark, designed a magnificent marble-white building with ‘Metropolitan Railway Willesden Green Station’ emblazoned round the eaves that’s as grand today as when it was unveiled. It’s deservedly a Grade II-listed building.

Willesden Green to Kilburn

I couldn’t find anything worth detouring for between Willesden Green and Kilburn, so we simply walked along Chatsworth Road, past a variety of fairly typical suburban homes, some pretty, some less so. It’s on stretches like this that company really helps, especially after yesterday’s lonely wander through more of the same, and I was glad to have Julie to talk to.

Kilburn station is at the junction of Christchurch Avenue and the A5, and the entrances sit under the northernmost of three large railway bridges that cross Kilburn High Road (one carrying the Metropolitan line straight past Kilburn station, and the other two carrying the Jubilee line up to Stanmore). There’s an impressive mural on one of the walls supporting the Metropolitan line bridge, which brightens things up considerably. Apparently it was commissioned by the council to deter graffiti, and it seems to have worked as it was completed in October 2004 and is still tag-free; it’s also the largest mural of its kind in London and has won accolades from the likes of Time Out. You can find out more about the characters in the mural – which was expertly drawn by a group of street artists called Busk, Dane, Bleach and Tizer – on the project’s website.

Kilburn to West Hampstead

Kilburn High Road, which passes Kilburn station, is dead straight. This isn’t surprising, as this is the old Roman road Watling Street, which starts in Dover and goes through London all the way to Wroxeter in Shropshire. The buildings along the road are in an interesting variety of styles, but we had to turn off before reaching the heart of Kilburn to the south, as the Jubilee line heads east at this point while the Roman road heads southeast, heading for Dover.

Kilburn Grange Park is a small green space to the east of the main road, with a wide open area for kicking a football about and a small flower display in the far end, but it’s over quickly and then it’s back into the suburbs for the walk to West Hampstead. The standard of housing slowly improves as you approach West End Lane, and the terraces along Sherriff Road are very pleasant indeed, which is perhaps not surprising as we’re getting closer to Hampstead, one of the most affluent areas of London.

West Hampstead station is to the left along West End Lane, its curved gables lending the red-brick building the air of a school. There are, in fact, three stations in the area called West Hampstead: there’s the Tube station serving the Jubilee line; there’s a London Overground station about 100m north along the main road; and then there’s a Thameslink station even further to the north, down a side street. It’s clearly a popular name...

West Hampstead to Finchley Road

A few yards from the Tube station is Broadhurst Gardens, and on the right at number 165 is an office belonging to the English National Opera. However, back in the 1960s, this was Decca Records, and this is where the Beatles came on 1 January 1962 to audition for the label. They performed 15 songs in just under an hour, including some Lennon-McCartney originals, and Mike Smith, the producer of the sessions, told them he would let the group know of his decisions in a few weeks. But eventually Dick Rowe, the A&R man at Decca, rejected the group, saying, ‘We don’t like their sound, and “guitar music” is on the way out.’ It’s one of the most well-known miscalculations in pop history, and by the end of the year the Beatles would be at the top of the charts, but on EMI’s label Parlophone.

From the dizzying heights of the pop world, the trail continues through the dizzying heights at the top of the property ladder, and the housing along Canfield Gardens is particularly lovely. The gardens are lusher and better tended than in the suburbs so far on this line, the mansion blocks are grander, and the cars are shinier and more expensive. There are even signs built into the pavement to remind you that you’re not allowed to let your dog leave presents for unsuspecting passers-by, though the message is so tastefully illustrated that it appears to say you shouldn’t let your dog turn its back on any fires in the vicinity; still, the pavements are very clean, so they obviously work.

The station building at Finchley Road station, where I ended my first ever tubewalk back on 2 June, dates from 1914, though the original station was opened way back in 1879 by the Metropolitan Railway. It’s a busy part of the world, this, and it’s not a place to linger for too long.

Finchley Road to Swiss Cottage

Although Swiss Cottage station is a short walk south along Finchley Road, it’s worth exploring the backstreets to the east of the main road, as the number of blue plaques along the likes of Netherhall Road and Maresfield Gardens is truly impressive. As per usual, most of the names on the plaques are of politicians from long ago, and I’m afraid my knowledge of political history is shaky enough to make most of them complete strangers to me, but there are two houses along Maresfield Gardens where even I’ve heard of the erstwhile occupants.

At number 20 is the Freud Museum, where Sigmund Freud and his family lived after fleeing the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938. Freud himself died just one year later, in 1939, though the house remained the family home, and his daughter Anna lived there for 44 years, where she developed her own pioneering psychoanalytical work, particularly with children. On her wishes the house became a museum, and there are two blue plaques on the outside, one for Sigmund and one for Anna.

Meanwhile, at number 4, there’s a plaque to Cecil Sharp, the collector of English folk songs and dances. Now I love English folk music, particularly the 1960s revival when the likes of Fairport Convention merged folk and rock to produce a whole new art-form, but it’s arguable that none of this would have happened without Cecil Sharp. In 1903 Sharp cycled around England collecting ballads and tunes, and in 1911 he formed the English Folk Dance Society, now the English Folk Song and Dance Society, which is based at Cecil Sharp House on the other side of Regent’s Park. It was by leafing through the archives at Cecil Sharp House that Ashley Hutchings discovered the ancient folk songs that would make up all but two songs on Fairport Convention’s seminal Liege and Lief album, including the stunning ‘Matty Groves’, which is a personal favourite. Without Cecil Sharp, there would be no Liege and Lief, and that’s enough to deserve a blue plaque all by itself.

Swiss Cottage station is not far south along yet more backstreets of enjoyable housing, though the station itself is all but hidden underground. There’s a staircase on Eton Avenue and another on Avenue Road, but there’s not a lot to see of the 1939 station, which was added to the Stanmore branch of the Metropolitan line when it switched to being part of the Bakerloo line.

Swiss Cottage to St John’s Wood

Just over the road from the station entrance on Avenue Road is Ye Olde Swiss Cottage pub, from which the area gets its name. The pub you see today dates from 1965, though there has been a pub on this site since 1803, when it was called the Swiss Tavern. It’s on a busy triangle of land between Finchley Road and Avenue Road, and it’s a good idea to duck off down St John’s Wood Park for a bit of peace, passing a ventilation shaft for the Jubilee line just before the turn.

The housing along St John’s Wood Park is impressive, though there are quite a few tower blocks in the area that dominate the skyline, dwarfing the neo-Georgian terraces and stucco townhouses along the road. The residences along Acacia Road are even more exquisite, and this signals the move into St John’s Wood, another rather exclusive part of London.

St John’s Wood station is hidden away on the corner of Finchley Road and Acacia Road, and as with Swiss Cottage, it was opened in 1939 when the Stanmore extension switched to the Bakerloo line. It’s a pleasantly curved building in the corner of a large block of apartments, and it’s home to the Beatles coffee shop, an indication that we’re in Beatles territory once again.

St John’s Wood to Baker Street

Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour, because this is the section where the Beatles start to take over this tubewalk (at least, as far as I’m concerned). It’s a short walk through some sumptuous suburbs to Abbey Road, where a double-whammy awaits Beatles fans just north of the junction with Grove End Road. First up is Abbey Road Studios, arguably the most famous recording studios in the world; the studios were created in 1931 in a century-old Georgian townhouse by the Gramophone Company, which later merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI, the label whose subsidiary Parlophone eventually signed the Beatles. The biggest group in the history of popular music recorded almost all of their music here, at what was then known as EMI Studios (they were renamed Abbey Road Studios after the last Beatles album in 1969). Pink Floyd recorded all their albums from Piper at the Gates of Dawn through to Wish You Were Here at Abbey Road (which includes The Dark Side of the Moon), and other notable clients include Oasis, Radiohead, U2, Green Day, Cliff Richard, the Shadows, Elliot Smith and Madness.

Not surprisingly, the studios are a Mecca for Beatles fans, and the walls outside the studio are smothered with graffiti, most of them quoting Beatles lyrics (a favourite is, of course, ‘And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make’). However, the real draw-card is the zebra crossing from the cover of Abbey Road, and small crowds of tourists gather around the edges, trying to set up photos of their fellow travellers walking across the road in Beatles fashion. They tend to wait for the traffic to settle down before setting off, though that might be because zebra crossings are treated differently abroad; when we strode across in true London style, forcing a car to stop, there was an audible gasp from one family, who probably thought we were going to be mown down on this most hallowed of turfs. Luckily, we survived, though the temptation for the drivers to keep on going through yet another line of bloody Beatles fans blocking the road must be pretty tempting...

Another Beatles location is not far along Circus Road. Paul McCartney bought 7 Cavendish Avenue in April 1965 for £40,000 and spent a further £20,000 doing it up, and in March 1966 he moved into the house with his girlfriend, Jane Asher. In the music den on the top floor he wrote songs such as ‘Penny Lane’, ‘Getting Better’ and ‘Hey Jude’, on a piano painted in psychedelic colours. This was where McCartney reportedly offered Mick Jagger his first ever joint, and it was where Paul brought John Lennon after John had accidentally taken acid during a Sgt Pepper recording session in March 1967 (Paul also took LSD that night to keep John company; it was his second acid trip, and he later said about his experience, ‘I could feel every inch of the house, and John seemed like some sort of emperor in control of it all. It was quite strange.’). It was also in Cavendish Avenue where Jane Asher caught McCartney in bed with another woman in 1968, leading to the break-up of their engagement. There’s a tiny bit of graffiti on the walls outside the house, but the large wooden gate is firmly locked up; McCartney still owns the house, and it’s definitely off-limits to fans.

At the end of Cavendish Avenue is Lord’s Cricket Ground, though there’s not a lot to see of the home of English cricket from the road; however, there is a rather attractive cricket-themed fresco around the corner where Wellington Road meets St John’s Wood Road, opposite the impressive St John’s Wood Church. The walk down Park Road is enjoyable, and you pass some very impressive mansion blocks and a row of Georgian town houses that is home to the London Business School. There’s a florist in an old petrol station (called, amusingly, the Flower Station), and then Baker Street takes over, with the Sherlock Holmes museum at 221b, the London Underground Lost Property Office at 200, and finally Baker Street station on the corner with Marylebone Road. Also of interest is Chiltern Court, which is where both Arnold Bennett and HG Wells lived and worked, and in the case of the former, died.

Baker Street to Bond Street

The Beatles sights keep on rolling, and the next one is south of the station at 94 Baker Street, where the band opened the Apple Boutique in 1968. The store, which was on the corner with Paddington Street, was famous for having a massive, psychedelic mural painted on the walls, to which the local businesses objected, resulting in its removal. The boutique was a disaster and lost money from the start, mainly because people kept shoplifting goods. The business opened on 3 December 1967 and shut on 30 July 1968; it was one of the first business ventures by the Beatles’ Apple Corps, and it foreshadowed just how sour the hippie dream would become over the next couple of years.

On the other side of a small park – the Garden on Paddington Street, which was formed from consecrated ground in 1885 – is Moxon Street. Clearly, Moxon Street is of little interest to people whose surnames aren’t Moxon, but for me and my sister (if you consider her maiden name) it’s a special place. How many other places can we have our photo taken while pointing gormlessly at a street sign with our name on it? And what about the fantastic Moxon House on Moxon Street, which, by rights, should be ours? And the fact that on this tiny street there are no fewer than six signs sporting ‘Moxon Street W1’? What a street!

And it’s in good company too, because on the other side of Marylebone High Street is Wimpole Street, and it was at 57 Wimpole Street that Paul McCartney lived with Jane Asher and her parents from 1963 to 1966, before he moved to Cavendish Avenue. This is where Lennon and McCartney wrote their first US number one, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, and Paul bashed out ‘Yesterday’ in the music room in the basement.

The final Beatles location on this tubewalk is back on the other side of Marylebone High Street, past some amazing mansion blocks and a huge Roman Catholic church. Manchester Square is not only home to the Wallace Collection, one of the world’s best collections of fine and decorative arts, but 20 Manchester Square was the headquarters of EMI when the Beatles were on their roster, and it was in this building that the cover shot for Please Please Me was taken, with the Beatles looking down the stairwell into the camera. A similar photo was taken in 1969 for the unreleased Get Back album, though this picture later saw the light of day as the cover of the ‘Blue’ greatest hits album (and they reused the Please Please Me shot for the cover of the ‘Red’ album). The building has been completely renovated since, and the stairwell is, alas, no more.

With all the Beatles memories out of the way, what better way to relax than with a quick bit of shopping? Actually, I couldn’t give a monkeys about shopping, but even I liked St Christopher’s Place, a tiny backstreet that leads from Wigmore Street to Oxford Street, and which is peppered with all sorts of shops, cafés and restaurants. It’s amazing to think that this enjoyable place is so close to the tourist chaos of Oxford Street, and the southern end of St Christopher’s Place is practically opposite Bond Street station, where the crowds are just as fierce as the last time I came this way on my Central line walk from Shepherd’s Bush to Liverpool Street.

Bond Street to Green Park

The backstreet shopping experience continues down Avery Row, which is a short walk southeast of the Tube station, though the shops here aren’t a patch on St Christopher’s Place (though there is a nice pub halfway down called the Iron Duke, so it isn’t all bad). Crossing the road at the end of Avery Row, you enter Bourdon Street, where there are some delightful little houses that used to be stables and coach-houses; the basements are now garages, and they’re extremely cute. Around the corner is Berkeley Square, which was laid out in the 18th century, and it’s home to some of the most exclusive residences in London, though one wonders who lives at number 50, which is said to be the most haunted house in London.

I thought we should check out some more backstreets on the way to Green Park, and while Bruton Place is a pleasant diversion, with an attractive pub and a lovely looking restaurant, Bruton Lane is home to little else except for the backs of buildings, so we didn’t waste any time heading along Berkeley Street to Piccadilly, where Green Park station hides under the carriageway.

So that’s the end of an unapologetically Beatles-themed walk through some lovely parts of London, and I’m now set up to finish off my last line with some walking south of the river, a rarity in the world of tubewalking. I can’t wait: with less than 30 miles of walking to go and nearly 410 miles under my belt, the finishing line is so close I can almost touch it. As Paul McCartney sang on Let It Be, it’s a long and winding road...

Green Park to Canada Water

26 August 2008

Today might be one of the shortest sections in my entire tubewalk, but it’s packed with things to see, and it excels at showing how London is made up of both rich and poor, rubbing shoulders with only the thin veneer of the class system to separate them. It takes in two Royal Parks, the earthy world of the southern railway termini, the Southwark end of the South Bank, and the changing-by-the-minute world of Bermondsey.

I’ve walked most of this route over the past few years, which is probably a good thing as I wasn’t terribly awake for the first few sections. We’ve just had a bank holiday weekend in England and my head is still enjoying some time off, but as per usual, a short jaunt through the capital has helped clear the cobwebs, even if the weather is still disappointingly grey for this time of year. Just don’t expect too much flowing prose, as my creative writing circuits have yet to come back online...

Green Park to Westminster

Most of the walk between Green Park and Westminster passes through two Royal Parks, and like all the Royal Parks, they are wonderful. Green Park is the least embroidered of all the parks, and apart from the low-lying Canada Memorial in the southwest of the park, there are no lakes or fountains and precious little flamboyance; the atmosphere is one of gently rolling grassland punctuated with trees, while the grand buildings of St James’s line up along the eastern fringe of the park. On a sunny day, Green Park is full of deckchairs and people picnicking; on a gloomy day like today – the first day back at work after the bank holiday and psychologically the end of summer and the start of autumn – even the deckchairs can’t be bothered, and they simply sit in piles by the side of the grass.

St James’s Park is on the other side of the Mall from Green Park, and is much more manicured than its neighbour. There’s a long lake, St James’s Park Lake, that runs the length of the park, and a footbridge halfway along the lake has lovely views of Buckingham Palace to the west and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the east, each of them framed by the luscious greenery along the lake shore. St James’s Park is the oldest of the Royal Parks, which are all owned by the Crown; the swampy marsh that is now St James’s Park was bought from Eton College by Henry VIII in 1532, though it wasn’t drained until 1603, when James I had it landscaped. It was opened to the public by Charles II after he ascended to the throne in 1660, and though it’s been through a few redesigns since – most notably, John Nash designed the current lake, which had previously been a canal – it has been a part of London life ever since.

The view east from the park towards Horseguards Parade is a constant delight, and at times it looks positively continental, with all the spires and towers peppering the skyline behind the Parade. The buildings at the southeastern end of the park are no less impressive, with Downing Street and King Charles Street leading off down towards the river. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Treasury are deeply impressive buildings, as one would expect, and turning the corner into Parliament Square is quite an event. The Houses of Parliament, and in particular Big Ben, are dead ahead, and even though they seem to be digging up the entire northwest part of the square, it’s just as seminal a place as when I walked through here on the District line.

Westminster station cowers beneath the shadows of Big Ben, but even though you can’t see much of the station from above ground, the rebuilding of the station to accommodate the Jubilee line extension of 1999 was easily the most complex on the entire extension. Engineers had to excavate a huge volume of earth to house the escalators and lifts to the deep-level Jubilee line, and at 39m from top to bottom, this became the deepest ever excavation under central London. The station lies under Portcullis House, which was built at the same time as the station, and the station deservedly won a number of awards when it opened on 22 December 1999. Oh, and Westminster is the first Jubilee line station to have glass barriers between the platform and the track, a theme which carries all the way through the extension.

Westminster to Waterloo

The view from Westminster Bridge is a classic, and with the Houses of Parliament to the southwest and the London Eye to the northeast, it’s hard to know which way to turn. Luckily, the council has smothered the northern side of the bridge in hoardings so the choice is a lot simpler, but it does make crossing the bridge a lot less interesting.

It isn’t far to the station, and even though it’s a busy part of the river, it’s hard not to be impressed by the short walk past the old City Hall to the London Eye, even if you’ve already done it a million times (I’ve already done it twice on this tubewalk, once on the Waterloo & City line and again on the Northern line). I still love the way the white stone of the Shell Centre dominates the park, with its clean and straight lines complementing the futuristic curves of the London Eye; even under grey skies, Jubilee Park is a lovely place to be.

Waterloo station is on the opposite side of the road to the Shell Centre, and there are entrances to the Tube on the western side of York Road, inside the main station building, and on the other side of the station in Waterloo Road. I already explored the glorious main entrance back on the Northern line, so today I cut through the station itself to get to Waterloo Road. The Jubilee line is on the opposite side of the station to the Northern and Bakerloo lines, though they are joined by a 140m-long moving walkway; the closest entrance to the Jubilee line is the one on Waterloo Road, and when the Jubilee line extension to Stratford was opened on 24 September 1999, this entrance was temporarily the western terminus of the extension, as it wasn’t linked to Westminster and the rest of the line until 20 November 1999 (and even then, Westminster station wasn’t opened for another month).

Waterloo to Southwark

It isn’t very far from Waterloo to Southwark station, which is just inside the boundary of the London Borough of Southwark. It might seem odd to create a new station so close to an existing one, but this is a part of the world that could benefit from some regeneration, and the signs are good. It can get a bit gritty around the mainline stations – they somehow seem to retain a slightly industrial Victorian atmosphere, probably because nobody wants to live that close to a train station, leaving industry to fill the gaps – but there are some rather lush modern conversions along Wootton Street that manage to blend in nicely with the surroundings, and along Cons Street are the Peabody Trust’s Ipsden Flats, which still look fantastic and demonstrate just how good social housing can look.

Out on The Cut, the main road that joins Lambeth in the west to Southwark in the east, there are plenty of shops and a community vibe that’s completely missing from the tourist areas of central London. The Cut is home to two theatres, the Old Vic (at the western end of the road) and the Young Vic (halfway along the road), and at the eastern end of the road is The Ring pub, so named because opposite the pub was the Blackfriars Ring, one of the most popular boxing venues in the 1910s and 1920s (though it was destroyed in the Blitz in 1942, so there’s nothing left these days).

Southwark station is on the junction of The Cut and Blackfriars Road, and we get our first glimpse of above-ground modern station architecture. The entrance is all curved glass and open spaces, and even though it’s fairly small, it’s perfectly formed. Like Leslie Green’s ox-blood red stations, Southwark station has been designed to be built on, and once you know this, it perhaps looks a little lonely, stranded there on the corner with nothing to keep it company. Still, the station’s beauty is again underground, this time in the intermediate concourse on the way down to the platforms, which is lined with a blue glass wall that’s 40m long and made up of 660 individually cut pieces of glass. Designed by the artist Alexander Beleschenko, it’s well worth seeking out.

Southwark to London Bridge

Just north of Southwark station are the remains of a much older station, the original Blackfriars station on the Charing Cross Railway. There was a station here from January 1864 to January 1869 on the line from London Bridge to Charing Cross, but the station was closed when the nearby Waterloo East station was opened instead. There’s evidence of bomb damage in the glazed tiling from the same bombing raid that destroyed the Blackfriars Ring, and the outside of the station, which houses a small café, has recently been refurbished.

It’s a short walk through the backstreets towards the river, and on the way you pass yet more evidence that this part of London is busily being regenerated. There are still some small housing estates and the odd pub hiding away, but the cranes are all around, creating what the marketing departments euphemistically call ‘the future of city living.’ Perhaps the most impressive of these new developments is the huge Blue Fin Building on the corner of Southwark Street and Sumner Street, which is the new headquarters of the publisher IPC Media and a couple of other Time Warner-owned businesses. The building is covered in metallic blue fins that stick out of the more traditional glass and steel construction, changing its appearance as you walk around it, though it probably looks more impressive in the sun than on a grey day like today.

There are plenty of shops on the ground floor – lots of coffee shops and lunch stops, naturally – and there’s a statue to the west of the building that’s unusual in that it has loose clothes that blow in the wind (though if there’s no wind, you can’t tell that the clothing is anything other than part of the statue – it’s very cleverly done). The Latin inscription on the base of the statue says Non plaudite, modo pecuniam jacite, which means ‘Don’t applaud, just throw money’; it does look rather like one of the human statues you see loafing around Covent Garden and the London Eye, so perhaps that’s what the inscription is getting at, though I’m not sure putting it in Latin is going to win too many wry smiles from passers-by.

Tate Modern is just past the Blue Fin Building, back on the Thames, and the view across the Millennium Bridge to St Paul’s Cathedral is as spectacular as it was when I walked this way from Waterloo to Bank on the Waterloo & City line. Back then I walked over the bridge to head for the City, so today I continued where I left off... and this part of the South Bank is a joy to explore. Gone are the wide pavements of the South Bank around Waterloo Bridge, as history is much more squashed in round here, and it makes for a fascinating walk. Just after the Tate is Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, the modern reconstruction of the theatre by the river; the actual site of the Globe is on Park Street, which can be reached via Bear Street (which was the home of Southwark’s last bear-baiting ring, a sport that was hugely popular in Tudor times). The site of the original Globe is now private property and sits under the 19th-century buildings of Anchor Terrace, which itself is listed, though there are signs to explain to passing tourists exactly which part of the fenced off area used to echo to the sounds of Shakespeare’s plays.

Along Park Street, past a pleasant set of houses built on the site of the old Anchor Brewery, is the historic riverside pub The Anchor. It was from here in 1666 that Samuel Pepys witnessed the Great Fire of London, though the pub itself burned down in 1676 and was rebuilt; the current structure is the result of hundreds of years of additions. Despite this, it isn’t the best pub in the world, and is saved only by the riverside terrace that makes for a pleasant stop in the sun; meanwhile, the surrounding buildings are filling up with modern brand names, and Nando’s and Wagamama have moved in since I was last here, summing up this part of Bankside quite succinctly.

Along Clink Street you can find the entertaining Clink Museum, the remains of Winchester House (which is currently smothered in scaffolding), and at the end, the Golden Hinde, a scale model of Sir Francis Drake’s ship that has itself circumnavigated the globe. Around the corner is the imposing Southwark Cathedral, and the road leads past Borough Market and the Globe pub; the flat above the latter was used as Bridget Jones’s apartment in the eponymous movies, though in the book she actually lives in Holland Park.

There are many ways to get to London Bridge station, and I thought I’d take the route along Duke Street Hill and cut through the station from Tooley Street. This turned out to be a popular move, as half of London’s tourists seemed to be queueing along the road, presumably to get into the London Dungeon (at least I hope that’s what it was for, as there were lots of actors lurking around, dressed up as mental patients and assorted murderers, going up to people in the queue and scaring the living daylights out of them; that must be a satisfying job). The Tube station is buried beneath the arches under the main station, and while there are entrances as far away as Borough High Street, the main entrance is here, on Tooley Street.

London Bridge to Bermondsey

The tourists evaporate as soon as you slip out the other side of the station, past the entrance to Guy’s Hospital (which, interestingly, has a McDonald’s right by the entrance, like a modern-day money-lender outside the temple). It’s a short walk along the edge of the railway embankment to Bermondsey Street, and it’s here that the change from tourist central to residential south London is complete, for Bermondsey Street is a lovely place with ne’er a tourist in sight.

The road is lined with all sorts of trendy cafés, restaurants, shops and offices, and there’s the old St Mary Magdalen’s Church towards the end of the road; there has been a church here since at least 1293, though the current church building dates from 1690, with further work done over the centuries until 1883, when the last changes were made. There’s a lovely old rectory next door, and next door to that is a Time and Talents building dating from 1907 (Time and Talents is a local charity that has been working in the areas of community work, social action, education and recreation since 1887).

At the bottom of the street is Bermondsey Square, which is currently shut off by developers finishing off a number of large and rather modern residential blocks in the vicinity; this is the theme for the rest of this walk, with modern blocks rising above existing social housing, both old and new. The Victorian terraces along the first section of Grange Walk are delightful, but on the opposite side of the road, on the site of the old Bermondsey Abbey, the war has been won by relatively uninspiring modern tower blocks, and this is the story all the way along Grange Walk. Some blocks are better than others, but this is not a particularly beautiful part of the world, and it’s a relief to burst out onto Spa Road, where there are pubs and shops to break up the housing.

Except, when you look more closely, Spa Road turns out to be a pretty grim place, and the social housing here is absolutely terrible; one block in particular caught my eye, as I thought it was derelict until I spotted the new intercoms on the door and noticed that people were indeed living there. I assumed it must be a squat, but no, this is the Vauban Estate, and from the outside it looks like a Victorian slum. There is currently a one-bedroom apartment for sale in this block for £190,000, though I can’t quite believe that anyone would be willing to pay even that. Perhaps it’s beautiful on the inside...

The contrast is even more marked when you consider the modern developments popping up along Spa Road like mushrooms after a downpour. This area is called Bermondsey Spa, and you can see the developers’ marketing droids lapping this up, as it sounds so much more impressive to be selling a flat in Bermondsey Spa than plain old Bermondsey. The construction of the Jubilee line has breathed new life into this part of town, which was having a pretty tough time of it; but don’t take my word for it, for this is what the local council’s website has to say:

By the early 1990s, Bermondsey Spa was neglected and run down. The area was badly bombed during the war and despite some house building after 1945, the area was left as something of a forgotten backwater. Apart from a few listed properties, the condition of the buildings was mostly poor, with many vacant or even derelict.

But since the arrival of the Jubilee line, the council has adopted a plan for the so-called Bermondsey Spa Regeneration Area, which involves building over 2000 new homes, 40 per cent of which will be affordable, along with two new health centres, a dentist and pharmacy, new parks, cycle parks, new offices and new shops. It’ll be interesting to see how things change over the next few years.

Perhaps echoing this history of being neglected, the site of the old Spa Road railway station lies just to the south, off Dockley Road. This was London’s first railway terminus, and was part of the London and Greenwich Railway, which ran from Spa Road to Deptford when it was first opened in February 1836; the line was extended from Spa Road to London Bridge in December 1836 and from Deptford to Greenwich in 1840, but Spa Road didn’t turn out to be a particularly popular stop. The station was moved slightly to the southeast in 1872 and finally closed in 1915, though the line is still in use, and links London Bridge to New Cross and Greenwich.

Bermondsey station is out on Jamaica Road, on the other side of the imposing 1829 St James’s Church (which, of course, is surrounded by new developments). Another modern station built specially for the Jubilee line extension, it’s actually rather disappointing when you consider the potential there was for giving Bermondsey a modern beacon of excellence along its main street. Instead the outside of the building is almost completely bland, with a standard blue-and-white name strip above the entrance but little else to entice passers-by. Inside things are more impressive, with natural light flooding down into the station, but one feels that it might have been kinder to the locals to spend a bit more effort on the exterior, rather than leave them the poor cousins of neighbouring London Bridge and Canada Water.

Bermondsey to Canada Water

Between Bermondsey and Canada Water, just south of the shops and housing blocks of Jamaica Road, is the large expanse of Southwark Park, which makes for an enjoyable stroll after so much urban development. It was opened in 1869 by the Metropolitan Board of Works (who, among other things, built the Thames Embankment) and it was refurbished in 1998 with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund. There’s an impressive bandstand in the north of the park that dates from 1884, a velvety bowling green tucked away under the plane trees, and a lake in the south of the park, though I’d turned east by this point to reach Gomm Road. This boasts a lovely row of terraced houses, one of which carries a blue plaque to Richard Carr-Gomm, founder of the Abbeyfield Society, which provides housing and support for older people.

Across the busy Lower Road is Surrey Quays Road, which leads to the deeply impressive Canada Water station. This station is exactly the kind of modern architectural statement that Bermondsey isn’t, and its huge steel and glass drum is like a modern take on Charles Holden’s Arnos Grove, with even more intriguing design work below ground. There’s a glass-roofed bus terminal next to the glass drum, and the only strange part of the whole affair is the clash with the rather ugly tower blocks behind the station, a reminder that this is an ultra-modern station in an area that has yet to catch up. It’s yet another analogy with Holden’s classic Piccadilly line stations, which were built in the middle of the countryside so they could generate suburbia around them; Canada Water and its ilk will hopefully regenerate suburbia around them, and nine years on from their appearance, the results are starting to show. It’ll be interesting to see whether this theme continues along the rest of the extension to Stratford...

Canada Water to North Greenwich

27 August 2008

What a fantastic walk! I’d readily do this walk all over again, just for the pleasure, and even the sullen grey skies of this pathetic excuse for a summer failed to ruin it. This section is fairly unique among tubewalks – the closest is perhaps the section of the East London line along the Thames – and even though it’s the second longest tubewalk in my entire route – the Northern line loop from Kennington to Euston and back is half a mile longer – the scenery is so breathtaking that the miles just fly by.

The only problem with this walk is that it’s hard to break into smaller chunks, as it only visits one station en route. The way I’ve mapped it out – with a lot of meandering, in other words – it’s a walk of 6.8 miles from Canada Water to Canary Wharf and 6.3 miles from Canary Wharf to North Greenwich, though if you were a crow flying, it would be just 1.4 and 1.0 miles respectively. The reason for all this extra distance is, of course, the Thames getting in the way, and the only sensible place to cross the river is at the Greenwich Foot Tunnel at the southern end of the Isle of Dogs (I briefly considered taking the ferry from the Hilton Docklands pier, but this is a tubewalk, and I thought that would be cheating). But it’s this extra distance that makes this walk such a thrill; you spend the entire day looping round the huge skyscrapers on the Isle of Dogs, heading slowly for the Dome, and it’s such a thrill to climb up to the top of Greenwich and look down on your entire walk before completing the final stretch.

So we’ve got a walk that covers modern suburbia, luxury riverside developments, massive skyscrapers, historical parks, great views, heavy industry, and to cap it all, we finish at the crazy spires of the Dome (or the O_2, as it’s now known). What’s not to like about that?

Canada Water to Canary Wharf

The approach to Canada Water from the west is a fairly gritty affair, with a long walk through the housing estates of Bermondsey, but from the moment you reach Canada Water, things improve considerably, and the positive effects of regeneration are plain to see. Just south of the station is Canada Water itself, a lake that is all that remains of Canada Dock. It’s pleasant enough, even though there’s a massive sports mega-store lurking on the other side, but the Albion Canal that links Canada Water and Surrey Water is an absolute delight. This canal used to be Albion Dock, but like so much of the Docklands area, it’s been filled in and converted into quality housing. It was incredibly quiet as I wandered along the canal, the pleasant apartment blocks on either side eerily silent, but even though the canal is currently smothered in pondweed and there’s nobody about during the day, I liked the place. It’s clean, it’s well laid out, it’s peaceful and the buildings are rather pleasant.

Away from the canal the suburbs continue to be completely silent, with endless cul-de-sacs winding around each other, until you suddenly pop out of the end of St Elmos Road and there, standing in front of you like an ecological pyramid, is Stave Hill, a 30 ft-high grassy mound created in 1985 from waste material and rubble. The views from the top of this eye-pleasing hillock are impressive, and to the east, almost close enough to touch, is the first glimpse of the Isle of Dogs; the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf are a constant companion on today’s walk, and this is the first view of many.

Stave Hill isn’t just a hill, it’s also an ecological park that stretches for 5.2 acres across what used to be Stave Dock (there’s a map of the old docks on top of Stave Hill, which shows just how much of this area used to be taken up with water). The Waterman’s Walk weaves through this ecological park, taking you past ponds and through enjoyable woodland to a tunnel under Salter Road, where signs proclaim that this is Nelson Walk, and that there used to be a pumping station nearby. The path reaches Rotherhithe Road, where some original dock buildings make a welcome appearance, and by turning right and then left you can reach the river, which is going to be our companion for most of the rest of this walk.

The Thames Path passes this way, and I can’t think of a better companion to take us all the way to Greenwich Foot Tunnel. The signposts are clear, it’s hard to get lost when you’re following such a large river, and even though the route is subtly different to the one in the rather old guidebook I have (I’ve got the 2001 trail guide, while the latest dates from 2007), it’s a breeze to follow. The views over the river to Canary Wharf are breathtaking and constantly engaging, and the residential developments along the shoreline are impressive, to say the least, even if there’s hardly anyone around.

Not far south along the banks of the river, the Thames Path takes you to Surrey Docks Farm, through which you can wander when it’s open (the signs for the Thames Path take you round the outside, just in case it’s closed). This thriving little farm covers 2.2 acres and has goats, sheep, cattle, pigs, poultry, bees and donkeys, and out on the riverside are rows of vegetable plots, just past a working blacksmith’s shed. It’s such a strange place to find a farm, opposite the colossal skyscrapers of the Isle of Dogs, and it’s utterly charming. Sculptures of animals line the river bank, including an intriguing model of a crane standing on water that’s made entirely out of rubbish, and although it’s small, the farm is perfectly formed.

Just after the farm the Thames Path turns away from the river to circumnavigate New Caledonian Wharf, one of the many prestigious residential blocks along this part of the river. It’s private land, so you can’t walk along the river at this point, and instead you have to go round the back, where there’s a surprise in store, namely a pig-ugly tower block standing right next to the luxury gated community that was built in 1989. This is Custom House, and it’s bizarre to find two totally different standards of living, literally side-by-side; I should think each one annoys the other equally.

After New Caledonian Wharf there are two docks that are still in use, namely Greenland Dock and South Dock. It’s fun to explore these huge expanses of water, and South Dock has a busy marina and a lock system that’s operated by a team of staff who only let you cross when it’s safe. The lock staff were all smiles, but the people in the marina looked at me as if I shouldn’t be there, which is odd, considering this is the Thames Path and they must get walkers through here all the time. I tried smiling at the men in the boatyard, but they didn’t seem to care; perhaps they were having a bad day. Still, it doesn’t stop both these docks being quite beautiful, and the redevelopment around the edges is sympathetic and impressive.

The housing to the south of the docks is a lot grittier than the posh developments to the north, coinciding with the switch from Rotherhithe to Deptford. Outside the Pepys Estate along Deptford Wharf, I witnessed a young boy of about ten trying to throw a bicycle into the Thames, only to be shouted back from the brink by a voice from the tower block above. So the kid chucked the bike on the ground and ran off, clearly not phased one little bit, but this does introduce the next section of the walk quite well, as it’s quite a contrast with what we’ve seen so far. The faded tower blocks round here are completely at odds with the luxurious apartments alongside the river, and here the Thames Path turns inland to go round the back of Convoy’s Wharf, a huge site that was originally developed in 1513 by Henry VIII to build ships for the Royal Navy; it’s now owned by News International, but it may be developed into residential blocks if the planning application goes through. The Thames Path wanders through the shadow of a monstrous tower block and across Pepys Park to Grove Street, where the apartment blocks have peeling paint and there’s little to suggest that this is a prime riverside location.

The Thames Path does get back to the river eventually, and not surprisingly, the expensive developments return. There’s even room for a statue of Peter the Great outside the luxury apartment block on the northwest corner of Deptford Creek; as a young man in 1697 and 1698, the future Russian Tsar travelled to Europe to study shipbuilding, and for much of his four-month stay in England he lived near the Royal Dockyard in Deptford at the home of the writer John Evelyn. Typically, the scene he overlooks at the moment is one of heavy construction, as Deptford Creek – the mouth of the River Ravensbourne, a different Ravensbourne to the stream I came across in Elm Park on the District line – is soon to be home to Millennium Quay, another modern housing development.

It’s a short walk from Deptford Creek to north Greenwich, where we leave the Thames Path for the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, which runs under the river, joining Greenwich to the Isle of Dogs. It was opened in 1902 and has a domed entrance at each end, both of which contain lifts and stairs (I took the stairs, as taking the lift would be cheating on a tubewalk). It’s a slightly eerie walk across the river, with plenty of tourists yelling down the echoing corridor.

On the other side of the river are the pretty Island Gardens, which date from 1895. They have great views across to Greenwich, and from here it’s yet more shoreline walking, all the way round the eastern side of the Isle of Dogs towards Canary Wharf. The Riverside Walk is your constant companion, and apart from a few short inland sections, which are clearly signposted, all the walking is along the riverbank, and the views across to the likes of the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich Power Station and the Dome are excellent (and indeed, the second half of this walk is along the opposite shore, so it’s a chance to scout out what’s in store). This part of the world is known as Cubitt Town, after William Cubitt, the Mayor of London from 1860 to 1861, who was responsible for developing this area. He built housing here in the 1840s and 1850s, mainly to house the growing population of local dock workers, and these days the area is an interesting mix of the old east London working class and the new influx of city workers.

The shoreline alongside Cubitt Town is almost exclusively residential, though there aren’t as many huge, modern developments as there are on the banks of Rotherhithe and Deptford; instead, the developments are smaller and more modest, and the result is a very enjoyable walking environment. There’s even a beach at London Yard, overlooked by the pleasant houses of Vermeer Court, Van Gogh Court and Frans Hal Court. OK, so there’s a deeply ugly tower block to the north of the beach and I came across my only drunks of the day sucking on cans of Fosters in its shadow, but this tower block aside, the housing along the eastern shores of the Isle of Dogs is excellent, and after the tower it’s straight back into the modern blocks of New Union Wharf, with modern developments taking you all the way to Preston’s Road.

Here the main road crosses the entrance to West India Docks, and it’s time to turn west into the massive skyscraper city of Canary Wharf. It’s quite an event, walking into the city, with all its anti-terrorist concrete barriers, police checks and security guards. One kindly couple of guards outside the Barclays building told me I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of their building ‘because of terrorists’, and they went on to explain that ‘all of Canary Wharf is privately owned, and you aren’t allowed to take any pictures without a permit.’ Then again, they were only bothered about their building and were just warning me in case I got stopped by anyone else, and although I didn’t have any problems snapping away, it didn’t exactly make me feel welcome (though walking through Canary Wharf in jeans and T-shirt makes you stick out like a sore thumb, so I’m not sure I felt that welcome anyway). Having done some research on my return, it’s only professional photography that requires a permit and amateur photography is allowed, though you may get questioned if you’re outside the normal tourist spots around the Tube station, just for security reasons. There have also been reports of over-eager security guards clamping down on tourists, so watch out for them, though the two I spoke to were genuinely pleasant and helpful.

The spiritual heart of Canary Wharf is Canada Square, around which the largest skyscrapers loom. The most recognisable is One Canada Square at the western end of the square, currently the tallest building in the UK with its distinctive pyramid-shaped roof, while the HSBC and Citigroup towers flank the north and south sides respectively. The eastern side is taken up by a monstrous Waitrose, deep within a huge steel and glass cage. To say that the architecture is imposing is to miss a trick – it’s staggering, and practically impossible to photograph from the ant’s view you have as you wander along the immaculate streets, weaving through businessmen making terribly important-sounding mobile phone calls.

The much-lauded Canary Wharf station is to the south of Canada Square, down a set of steps that gives a grand view of the open space in front of the station. The busiest Tube station outside of central London, and the busiest single-line station on the whole network, Canary Wharf is absolutely massive, though most of that bulk is below ground. Above ground, the Norman Foster-designed entrance is little more than a lovely steel-and-glass arch at the western edge of a wide open square, but you have to go inside to appreciate the splendour of this staggering building. You don’t need a ticket to go down into the main entrance hall, so the detour is well worth the effort (and there are toilets down here, too, which might be useful after all that walking). Canary Wharf is regarded as the centrepiece of the Jubilee line extension, and it’s been a source of national pride since it opened in 1999; the praise is well deserved, I have to say.

Canary Wharf to North Greenwich

From Canary Wharf, my plan was to head south through the middle of the Isle of Dogs, cross under the river again, explore Greenwich, and finally head up the riverbank to the Dome, where North Greenwich station signals the end of this long day’s walk. It is again an enjoyable walk, and is surprisingly different to the hike from Canada Water to Canary Wharf.

The first task is to negotiate your way out of the skyscrapers, and the quickest way is through the glass shopping centre to the south of the square, beyond which is the West India Quay footbridge, a small suspension bridge that has great views along West India Docks. To the west is a bridge carrying the Docklands Light Railway north to Heron Quays station, and after a short walk along Admiral’s Way, you rejoin the railway as it runs above your head. The DLR’s South Quay station is just along the road, and it’s fun to watch the little red trains scooting around the corner, like a snippet from a futuristic 1930s movie.

I thought I’d head south along Millharbour to get a feeling for the southern Isle of Dogs, but almost all the road is surrounded by rabid construction work, and exclusive residential blocks are springing up left, right and centre. It perhaps might be more pleasant instead to walk along the western edge of Millwall Inner Dock, which I joined sometime later along Pepper Street, after the developments had calmed down a little. Again, the views along the dock towards Canary Wharf are stunning, and crossing over the dock takes you to a walkway that hugs the eastern edge of Millwall Outer Dock and takes you through the lovely houses along Clippers Quay, where you have to stick to the dockside as this is private property. There’s a huge piece of red machinery at the entrance to the quay, which turns out to be part of the machine that used to raise the gates across the river at Surrey Docks, and there are moorings all along Clippers Quay, though they’re all empty; presumably the idea of having a private mooring is more attractive than actually owning a boat.

The modern housing ends at Spindrift Avenue and switches to pleasant Victorian terraces, which are a lovely surprise after such a long stretch of modern architecture. Heading across the road into Millwall Park again provides good views of the skyscrapers across the grass, and there’s an old viaduct you can walk alongside, all the way to the Island Gardens DLR station. This brick viaduct was originally part of the Millwall Extension Railway, which opened in 1872 to join the West India Docks to North Greenwich, and when the DLR was originally built, this viaduct was used to take the railway from Mudchute to the then terminus at Island Gardens. The DLR was later extended south to Lewisham via a tunnel under the Thames, and Island Gardens station was moved 100m to the south to access the tunnel directly, leaving the viaduct unused. Island Gardens itself is a short walk south of the DLR station, and then it’s back into the Greenwich Foot Tunnel for the short walk under the river to Greenwich.

Arriving back in Greenwich, the white pavilions on the left hide the Cutty Sark, the 1869 clipper that has been on public display in Greenwich since 1954. On 21 May 2007 a fire ripped through the ship, which was in the process of being conserved, and it burned for several hours before being brought under control. The Heritage Lottery Fund has pledged a further £10 million to restore the ship, though until she reopens in early 2010, there’s not a lot to see from the quayside.

From the Cutty Sark, I thought I’d follow another of Andrew Duncan’s excellent walks from his London Walks Map, as I’d enjoyed his route through St James’s so much. First up on his route is Greenwich Market, which dates from 1831; during the week there are a few quiet food stalls and some pleasant shops, but at the weekend it’s much busier. Back out on the main road is the imposing St Alfege’s Church, which towers over the traffic junction; the current church dates from 1718, though there’s been a church on this site since 1012, the year when Alfege, Archbishop of Canterbury, was killed by Viking raiders on this very spot.

From the church it’s a long and uphill walk along Croom’s Hill, and I have to say it’s delightful. There are beautiful Georgian houses all the way up the hill, as well as the world’s only Fan Museum near the bottom, the sharp spire of the 1793 Our Lady Star of the Sea Church halfway up, and a lovely little green space near Wellington Grove at the top. From here the short Park Walk leads into the Greenwich Park, where there’s a lovely rose garden, more impressive buildings (such as the Ranger’s House), a pretty lake and some delightful flower gardens; and finally, in the centre of the park, you can find the pièce de résistance, the Royal Observatory.

The view from beneath the statue of General Wolfe towards London is truly breathtaking, and it’s especially satisfying to look towards the Isle of Dogs having just walked round it. This is one of the great views in London, and with the Old Royal Naval College in the foreground and the towering skyscrapers behind, it’s one of those views where you could sit and stare all day, even on a grey day like today. The Observatory is also well worth a visit (especially as it’s free), but that might be best saved for a dedicated visit, as there’s still some way to go before the end of this particular walk. At this point, Andrew Duncan’s route (which I followed) heads east to the edge of the park and then down Maze Hill to the northeast corner of the park, but if I had my time again, I’d probably head straight down the face of the hill, following the Greenwich Meridian towards the Old Royal Naval College, and head right along Park Vista... but they all end up at the same spot, and on the other side of Trafalgar Road we leave Mr Duncan’s excellent route and rejoin the Thames Path, which goes all the way to the Dome.

There’s an old Georgian pub here, the Cutty Sark, which has been serving ale since 1795, and more attractive Georgian houses line the streets right up to the old harbour master’s office, which backs onto a huge housing development. The Thames Path gets diverted round the development, which takes quite a while to circumnavigate, and from this point on, the theme is industry and lots of it. Between here and the Dome there’s not a hint of residential development, and it’s all dark, satanic mills with amazing views across to the Isle of Dogs. You walk past shores strewn with rusting machinery and idle boats, under huge concrete silos, past a pier that you can walk on for great views along the river, through a large area that’s sitting there doing nothing, past large piles of aggregate, along a massive quay that drops straight down into the churning Thames below without a hint of a safety barrier, and finally you turn into a wide open area of flat concrete, with great views of the Dome ahead. All the while the views across the river are stunning, and it’s easy to trace the route we took through Cubitt Town and along the eastern edge of the Isle of Dogs.

North Greenwich station is not far off the Thames Path, and signs point you down Tunnel Avenue, where you flank the southeast edge of the Dome before turning into Ordnance Crescent and crossing the road to the station. The Dome is hidden behind ugly blue hoardings at this point and it’s hard to appreciate its grace, but there’s no denying the size of the thing, and the nearby station is equally grand. As one of the largest stations on the whole network, North Greenwich was designed to cope with 20,000 passengers an hour, and it is a huge beast, all steel, glass and concrete, with a very high roof and lots of space to cope with all the crowds that have failed to rally to the Dome since it was opened in 1999. Perhaps the Dome’s re-christening as the O_2 will pull the crowds in, but unless you’re here when there’s a concert next door, it does feel a bit like a white elephant. The area to the southwest of the Dome is an industrial quagmire, and while you can easily see the regenerative effect around stations like Canada Water and Southwark, it’s not at all obvious around North Greenwich. It’ll be interesting to see if things are quite as desolate to the southeast.

So that brings us to the end of a brilliant walk along the Thames, and definitely one of my favourite tubewalks. I wonder if the final day of my tubewalk, along the furthest reaches of the Jubilee line, will be as memorable...

North Greenwich to Stratford

29 August 2008

Ah well, just because today was my very last tubewalk, that doesn’t mean it necessarily has to be a great walk... and I’m afraid it isn’t, really. This feels like an unloved and rather disconnected part of London, and combined with the continuing grey skies of summer 2008, it got to me a bit. Despite being joined by my partner Peta for the first half of the walk, I couldn’t see the bright side, and stomped through the industrial estates and social housing that line this entire route, counting the miles off to the end. It’s not a great way to end three months of walking, that’s for sure.

So when I think of the last stages of my tubewalk, I’ll think of Wednesday’s brilliant walk through the Isle of Dogs and Greenwich instead, and I’ll consign this walk to the bottom of my pile of memories. Apart, that is, from the last few steps, which was when I completed my walk of the entire Tube network. That was special, if only because it means I won’t have to get up early and go walking in the rain any more...

North Greenwich to Canning Town

The Jubilee line crosses the Thames three times in quick succession, and it makes life rather challenging for the tubewalker. On my penultimate Jubilee tubewalk, it crossed the Thames between Canada Water and Canary Wharf, and again between Canary Wharf and North Greenwich, and today’s walk starts in the same vein. It’s just under a mile as the crow flies from North Greenwich to Canning Town, but the most sensible walking route heads southeast from the Dome, along the south bank of the Thames, all the way to the Woolwich Foot Tunnel, from where it’s another hike back along the north bank to Canning Town. That’s over 7 miles for just one Tube stop, and it’s all thanks to the Thames.

Still, it’s also thanks to the Thames that things start off in a nice, easy fashion, as the Thames Path continues along the banks of the river, not far from the station. There’s a fierce amount of development going on around the Dome and it took us a while to find the riverside path, after a long detour round the large buildings along the shoreline; I’m pretty sure you can join the Thames Path nearer the Dome, which might give you some good views of Canary Wharf and a chance to check out Antony Gormley’s Quantum Cloud sculpture in the Thames, but we finally hit the river some way to the south, by which time all the skyscrapers have disappeared and the scene is one of industry on the opposite side of the river and regeneration on this side.

The style of the regeneration is rather strange, though. Not far from the Dome is Greenwich Millennium Village, a large block of apartments that appears to be in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and in a sense this is true. The Millennium Village project was started when the Dome was still going to be a rip-roaring success, but of course, the millennium celebrations fizzled and spat, leaving the Dome unoccupied for years, and the regeneration of this part of the capital has slowed down somewhat from the optimistic projections of the late 1990s. The result is a community of ultra-modern apartments, stuck out on a limb in a quiet and rather dilapidated part of the Thames, and I have to say, to me they look plain weird. Designed to be ecological and futuristic, the Millennium Village’s apartment blocks look like multicoloured Lego buildings, and I guess you either love this garish take on the future, or you don’t. They don’t appeal to me, certainly, though it can’t help to be stranded alongside the grey Thames, a long way from the action. There is a park next door – the Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park, no less, where they were holding mud-painting events when we walked past – but this only seems to heighten the feeling of solitude. Over time the Millennium Village will no doubt grow into its surroundings (and vice versa), but at the moment it feels like the residential equivalent of the Dome, just without the good looks.

The Thames Path continues past the Millennium Village and weaves through a more industrial landscape, with conveyor belts carrying sand and gravel overhead. There’s a lonely pub, the Anchor and Hope, just past the aggregate works, but then the industry kicks in again, taking you all the way to the Thames Barrier. Opened in 1984, the silver domes of the city’s flood barrier are a familiar sight, and the Thames Path comes to an end after a tunnel through the barrier, which is lined with a diagram showing the height above sea level of the Thames from the source to the barrier; it must be satisfying to come across this map of the Thames as you finish the 180-mile Thames Path at this very spot. There’s a small park on the other side of the barrier, with a large visitor centre, and it makes a good place for a rest in the shadows of the barrier’s domes.

At this point, the riverside path disappears for a while, as the Thames Barrier Industrial Estate takes over for a while, but the route round the outside of the estate is well signposted, as we’re now on the Thames Path Extension, which joins the Thames Path to the start of the Capital Ring (at Woolwich) and on to the start of the London Loop (at Erith). I didn’t realise this, though, and from the visitor centre we tried to bash our way through the estate but to no avail, eventually stumbling on signs for the extension that took us to the Woolwich Road, where I recognised a park entrance on the other side of the road as being from day 1 of the Capital Ring. This is where the Ring heads south to join the Green Chain Walk, so we traced the route of the Ring back towards the Thames, eventually joining the river after weaving through a red brick housing estate; luckily I remembered the route, because as with so many sections of the Ring and the Loop, the locals really enjoy twisting the signposts through 90° round here, and you’ll get hopelessly lost if you rely solely on them.

The Ring continues towards Woolwich, past some pleasant enough riverside housing – pleasant, that is, except for the noticeable number of drunks, sucking on their high-octane cans on the benches lining the river – with the huge Tate and Lyle factory dominating the view on the other side of the river. Further on is the Woolwich Dockyard, a naval dockyard that was founded in 1512 by Henry VIII to build his flagship Henri Grâce à Dieu, at the time the largest ship in the world; the docks closed back in 1869, and are now used by local anglers, who were lining the sides as we ambled by. Just past the docks is a large, modern development that is surrounded by scrubland and has a similar air of loneliness to the Greenwich Millennium Village; there’s nothing wrong with the apartments, I’m sure, it’s just that they look like they’ve been built in the wrong place, which I guess is the price to pay for being in the vanguard of urban regeneration.

Woolwich Foot Tunnel joins Woolwich to North Woolwich on the other side of the river, and is pretty similar in design to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. Opened in 1912, the tunnel is a long, round tube, lined with white tiles and accessible both by stairs and by lift (there’s a different entrance for each in the domed entrance buildings on either side of the river). It’s less popular than the Greenwich tunnel, as tourists don’t tend to make it this far, and as such it’s rather more eerie walking underneath the river here than further upstream.

At the end of the tunnel is the busy terminal for the Woolwich ferry, which plies its way between the two banks, but it’s time to say goodbye to the Thames and head inland, as the riverbanks on this side of the river aren’t open to the public. Instead this is the start of a long trudge through a mix of industry, airports, exhibition centres and housing estates, all demonstrating just how the old and the new live right next door to each other in this intriguing part of the capital. Not far from the foot tunnel is North Woolwich, though it’s only a short walk west to the edges of Silvertown, where the huge Tate and Lyle factory dominates proceedings. To the north is London City Airport, with the airstrip sandwiched between the Royal Albert Dock and King George V Dock, and the backstreets to the south of the docks are squashed between the roar of the planes and the rumbling of the factories. This is a hard place to love, and although the terraced streets aren’t too bad, there’s a fairly grim housing estate to the west with some pretty imposing tower blocks, and even the futuristic sweep of the Docklands Light Railway, which serves this whole area on raised viaducts, can’t shake the feeling that this is a lonely corner of the world.

Things get a bit more interesting under Connaught Bridge, where the A1020 crosses the docks on a large flyover, while pedestrians creep underneath, cowed by the sheer scale of things. To the east is the Royal Albert Dock, with the runway of City Airport to the south and the distinctive buildings of the University of East London’s new Docklands campus at the far end, and to the west is an amazing view along the Royal Victoria Dock towards Canary Wharf, with the monstrous building of the Spillers Millennium Mills to the far left. It was to the left of the mills, on the other side of North Woolwich Road, that one of the biggest explosions in the history of this country occurred at a munitions factory that was producing explosives for use in the ongoing Great War. On 17 January 1917, about 50 tons of TNT exploded, killing 73 people and injuring over 400, while destroying 900 nearby properties and damaging up to 70,000 other buildings in the area. The explosion could be heard up to 100 miles away; it was clearly quite a bang.

The area to the south of the dock still looks as desolate as a bomb site, though it is now going to be redeveloped as Silvertown Quays, a £1.5 billion development that will be one of Europe’s largest regeneration projects, providing new homes, offices, shops, and leisure and entertainment facilities, over the next 10-15 years. It will be interesting to see how this changes things, as the area to the northeast of the dock already has a slightly corporate feeling, probably due to the nearby ExCeL London exhibition centre and the resulting crop of Premier Inns and businessman-friendly pubs.

Along Victoria Dock Road are two DLR stations, Prince Regent and Custom House, and they sum up the appeal of the DLR very nicely. I love the way that DLR stations are almost entirely visible, rather than being locked away underground; you can see the station platforms, raised high above the ground, and the lifts and staircases that take you to the trains are laid out for all to see, like a cut-away diagram in a children’s book on engineering. The contrast with the Tube is obvious, and the DLR stations are a highlight of walking through this part of town; the fact that they often tower over much older and shabbier buildings is a metaphor for the regeneration of this whole area.

The quickest way to get to Canning Town station is to continue walking along Victoria Dock Road, but I thought I’d explore a bit of Canning Town instead, and turned down Freemasons Road into the heart of the suburbs. On a grey day, this is not a particularly attractive part of town, and rows of box-like terraced houses sit in the shadows of the huge Novotels and Ibis Hotels over towards the exhibition centre. Things improve as you head west towards the station, and apart from the odd tower block, the terraces over here are relatively pleasant inter-war affairs, no doubt the result of the slum clearances that the council instigated round here back in the 1930s.

Returning to the main road, it’s back to big hotels and large-scale development, but it’s worth popping over the road to George Street, at the end of which is what looks like a stranded silver pier from the Thames Barrier. This is actually the mouth of the Jubilee line tunnel from North Greenwich station, which is just on the other side of the river (and nowhere near North Greenwich itself, confusingly). On the other side of the tunnel mouth is the old site of the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, where HMS Warrior, the world’s first all-iron warship, was built between 1859 and 1860. The yard’s last ship was launched in 1911, and there’s no trace of the yards left today, unless you count the football club that was set up for employees of the shipyard; originally called Thames Ironworks Football Club, they reformed in 1900 and renamed themselves West Ham United Football Club... and the rest is history.

Canning Town station is north along Silvertown Way, and it’s a fun station to approach by foot. To the left are the raised DLR station platforms, and straight ahead is a brand new bus terminal that contains escalators down to the Jubilee line. The three stations here – DLR, Jubilee line and national rail – all date from the 1990s, though the first station on this site served trains from 1846 to 1888, as part of the Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway.

Canning Town to West Ham

After the seemingly constant industry of the last section, it’s a relief to duck into the suburbs for the stretch to West Ham, though to be honest, this is not a terribly desirable place to live. There’s a monstrous roundabout just north of the station, followed by some fairly forgettable modern terraces, and then a small park gives you a bit of breathing space before the suburbs start up again. The theme in this part of the world is council estate after council estate, a legacy of the 1930s slum clearances and the Blitz, which destroyed about 85 per cent of the area’s housing (as the docks were a prime target for the Luftwaffe). There’s no use pretending that this makes Canning Town a lovely place to explore on foot, as it doesn’t; I didn’t hang around for long, as there didn’t appear to be anything to hang around for, particularly as Peta had hopped on the DLR at Prince Regent and headed for the comfort of a café at Stratford, leaving me to finish this last stretch on my own.

The housing estates start to give way to older housing at Bethell Road, just south of the pitches and parkland of Hermit Road Recreation Park, where drunks nurse their cans on lonely park benches. However, not much further north there’s a real treat in the form of the East London Cemetery. Dating from 1871, this cemetery is a fascinating mix of the old and the new, with some of the more modern memorials including an old lady with a handbag, a darts board, and a child with his foot resting on a football. Near the entrance to the 33-acre site is a wonderful section that’s lined with trees in neat rows, and on closer inspection each tree turns out to be a tiny grave, presumably for those who have been cremated. It’s a charming place, and will eat up plenty of time for those looking for interesting graves (incidentally, Jack the Ripper’s third victim, Elizabeth Stride, is buried here, though I didn’t have time to track down the grave).

To the west of the cemetery, past yet more drab social housing, are the Memorial Grounds, a large green area made up of football pitches and parkland. This was the home stadium of Thames Ironworks Football Club from 1897 to 1900, and West Ham United from 1900 to 1904, when they moved to their current home at Boleyn Ground. The park is a pleasant place, with an intriguing grass-covered bridge in the north of the grounds, and if you look north and squint, you can just make out the Greenway, which I walked along on my District line walk from Bow Road to Becontree.

West Ham station wasn’t a particularly interesting place when I visited it back in June, and it still isn’t. The road to the station is lined with relatively modern apartment blocks, as befits an area next to a major Tube interchange, but the shops outside the station are unremarkable, and to the west is the spot where the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic movement is proposing to build the London Markaz, a mega-mosque for some 12,000 worshippers. Currently, though, it’s wasteland, and rather limits the appeal of West Ham station.

West Ham to Stratford

More housing estates kick in to the north of the station, after Manor Road passes under the Greenway. The skyline is dominated by two interesting examples of the art of the tower block, in the form of Brassett Point and David Lee Point, just off Abbey Road. These two blocks have recently been refurbished and don’t look too bad, and if you can ignore the nearby blocks of pebbledash and dark brick, there are some pleasant terraces and new-build houses to be found in the mix. Just north of the blocks is New Plaistow Road, and on the other side is the lovely parish church of West Ham, All Saint’s Church, which is well worth the detour. The church was once part of Stratford Langthorne Abbey, which was dissolved during the Reformation, and the current church tower dates from the early 15th century, while two chapels were added in the following century, since which time the church has remained broadly unchanged.

The pleasant greenery of Stratford Park is just to the north of the church, and it has a bizarre and very orange sculpture in the middle of the park that seems to be popular with large groups of black youths. Along West Ham Road there are some impressive modern buildings rising above the older architecture, and as you reach the Broadway, the bulk of the old court house leads to the Town Hall, which is currently hidden behind scaffolding and green plastic netting. This is the centre of Stratford, and it’s a busy place, with the large spire of St John’s Church, the obelisk-like Gurney Monument, and crowds of shoppers crowding into the shopping centre.

Stratford station is not far round the corner, past the impressive iron sculpture of the Railway Tree. As you approach, you get a really good feeling for the white tent-like roof over the new bus station, and then the bulk of the station looms into view, looking exactly as you’d hope the main station for the 2012 Olympic Games would look: modern and impressive. As I wandered into the vast courtyard in front of the station, Peta jumped up and waved from the other side, and that’s when it hit me that I’ve finally finished this mad idea of walking the entire Tube network. After 45 days of walking along 12 lines, past 275 stations, and nearly 440 miles of putting one foot in front of the other, I’m off for a rest. Mind the doors!

Tubewalk Highlights

My Favourite Tubewalks

With very few exceptions I enjoyed every tubewalk I did. London is such a varied place that even the much-maligned suburbs make for an enjoyable jaunt, but the following ten walks really stuck in my mind as great walks in their own right.

- Debden to Epping – Central Line

An easy contender for my favourite tubewalk of all, as from start to finish it’s a classic countryside walk through rolling farmland, pretty villages and ancient woodland... and all of this in zone 6, too.

- Wimbledon to Edgware Road – District Line

There were two themes to this walk when I did it: the first was money, and lots of it; and the second was sun, and lots of it. Both of them are quite exhausting when stretched out along an entire 12.5-mile walk, but wow, the photographs really came out well.

- Hammersmith to Baker Street – Hammersmith & City Line

The architecture throughout the whole walk is stunning, the history is palpable, and it’s a great example of the rich and the not-so-rich rubbing shoulders in the characteristic way that defines London’s suburbs.

- Canada Water to North Greenwich – Jubilee Line

As it follows the Thames so closely, this section is fairly unique among tubewalks, and even though it’s the second longest tubewalk in my entire route, the scenery is so breathtaking that the miles just fly by.

- Chorleywood to Chesham – Metropolitan Line

It’s bizarre to think that this idyllic part of the home counties is served by the London Underground, but there you go: it is. And even in the driving rain, it’s a charming place to explore, a whole world away from the other end of the line, back in the heart of London.

- Heathrow Airport – Piccadilly Line

Now this really is a tubewalk with a difference... the difference being that all three Heathrow Tube stations are on private property, so you can’t actually walk to them unless you get permission from the airport owners, BAA. It’s worth all the paperwork, though.

- Bounds Green to Cockfosters – Piccadilly Line

This part of the line is where Charles Holden perfected his 1930s modernist take on station design, and all the stations (with the possible exception of Cockfosters itself) blew me away; I snapped more photos of the stations than the countryside, and quite right too.

- Waterloo to Bank – Waterloo & City Line

The journey by Tube might be short and sweet, but it’s quite a lot slower by foot, as there’s so much to see. Locally known as ‘the Drain’, the Waterloo & City line is a lot more pleasurable to walk along than its nickname might imply...

- Hammersmith to King’s Cross – Piccadilly Line

I really enjoyed this walk, even though a number of lines cross the city in similar fashion, because the weather made it such a pleasure. London in the sun is a beautiful city, it really is.

- Becontree to Upminster – District Line

This is a great part of the world to explore on foot, especially when the sun is out, because this is zone 5 and 6, and it feels like it. The Metropolitan line equivalent is the stretch from Harrow to Moor Park, and for walking, the two ends of the capital compare favourably... but this one wins because it was my first visit, and the sense of discovery was deeply satisfying.

My Favourite Tube Stations

When I set out on my tubewalk, I didn’t realise just how much I would grow to love the architecture of the Tube stations I’d be visiting en route. I knew about the architectural achievements along the Jubilee line extension, such as Canary Wharf and Canada Water, but I had no idea I’d fall for the buildings of Charles Holden, Leslie Green, Harry Bell Measures et al in such a big way. Here are my 20 favourite Tube stations, in a vague order of preference; I hope you enjoy them too.

Southgate

Tucked away in the northeastern corner of the Piccadilly line, Southgate station is my favourite Tube station. Architects tend to regard Arnos Grove as the epitome of Charles Holden’s modernist designs, but for my own, personal taste, Southgate is the best. It’s not so much modernist as futurist Art Deco (which I believe designers call Streamline Moderne, though don’t quote me on that), and looks more like a flying saucer from The Jetsons than a Tube station. It’s completely circular, with a white concrete roof jutting out above the shops like the brim of a hat, and on top of this hat is a small circular raised section that’s lined with windows and topped off with a model of a Tesla coil (which is apparently one of those things that produces lightning in the science lab, but as far as Southgate is concerned, it looks like a stack of four miniature Southgate stations with a big black ball on top). This unwieldy description hardly does the building justice, as the whole thing hangs together in perfect balance, the roof seemingly hovering over the station itself (it is actually supported by a column in the middle of the ticket hall, like a huge concrete umbrella).

Not only is the station itself quite amazing, but it has a couple of truly futuristic bus shelters, one on each side of the station. Each shelter consists of a circular seat under a round roof, with a large Underground roundel on top, followed by a huge pole that shoots straight up into the sky, exploding into five lamps on a steel hoop like a firework display on a clear November night. There’s a similar shelter up the line at Oakwood, but the design complements Southgate’s main building perfectly, and I just couldn’t stop taking photographs. As with all the Holden stations on this part of the line, Southgate is Grade II listed, and quite right too.

Arnos Grove

Also along the further reaches of the Piccadilly line, up past the North Circular Road, Arnos Grove station is a beautiful sight. It’s similar in design to Chiswick Park, though it doesn’t have a tower like Chiswick Park and is less hemmed in by the roads. The station sports a huge brick and glass drum that’s capped by a concrete roof, while the station building proper is a low-rise one-storey structure with yet more glass windows. Of course, it was designed in 1932 by Charles Holden, who created most of the stations on this part of the line, and it’s possible that Arnos Grove represents the cleanest and most attractive implementation of his modernist ethos; lots of his stations have tall structures towering above the station, with large windows to let the light into the ticket hall, but sometimes the results are more attractive than at other times, and at Arnos Grove, the balance of clean lines, airy ticket halls and geometric precision is pretty hard to beat. If you like modernism, it’s well worth the pilgrimage, but don’t take my word for it: a recent article in The Guardian called it the ‘king, queen and all princes of a metro station’, and it was named as one of our great modern buildings. It’s easy to see why.

Hounslow East

Hounslow East station is a complete surprise. Tucked away along the southwest Piccadilly line is an architectural masterpiece; although the original station was opened in 1909, replacing the nearby Hounslow Town station, the current station is ultra-modern and an absolute delight to behold. It has a sloping green roof curving off a round ticket hall with cream glass walls, and inside the roof is made of wood and the feeling of space is impressive; after walking through the less-than-thrilling suburbs of Hounslow, the modern shopping complex of Blenheim Centre is enough of a shock, but to follow it up with such a beautiful Tube station is a double-whammy that indicates Hounslow is on the up.

Barons Court

Sitting astride both the District line and the Piccadilly line, beautiful Barons Court station is a Grade II listed building, and it’s easy to see why. Opened on 10 October 1905 and designed by Harry Ford (who also designed the Earls Court Road entrance to Earl’s Court station, a couple of stops down the line), the station opening lagged somewhat behind the opening of the line, which dates from 1874. Back then this whole area was rural and was mainly made up of open fields and market gardens, so there was no need for a station in this area, but when the housing boom kicked in during the late Victorian period, a new station was opened to serve the District line. The timing was chosen well, as it was also built to serve the new Piccadilly line that opened slightly later on 15 December 1906.

Canada Water

Canada Water station is on the newly extended Jubilee line, and it shows (it was built at the junction of the Jubilee and East London lines, though it owes a lot more to the former than the latter). Opened in 1999 and built on a derelict site that was formerly occupied by Albion Dock (part of the old Surrey Commercial Docks), the station building is based round a massive glass drum, 25m across, into which you descend to reach the platforms. Natural light floods the ticket hall in a nod to Charles Holden’s high-ceiling designs on the District and Piccadilly lines, and it’s a beacon of modernity in this previously quiet backwater of southeast London.

Newbury Park

There’s been a station at Newbury Park since 1903, when it was part of the Great Eastern Railway branch line from Woodford to Ilford via Hainault. This line was supposed to stimulate suburban growth in the same way as the Metropolitan line, but it never really took off and was eventually merged with the Central line as part of the New Works Programme. The new section of Tube tunnel that was built from Leytonstone via Gants Hill surfaced at Newbury Park, where it was joined to the existing Ilford-Woodford branch. The station itself lives in a cutting alongside the line, and the entrance to the Tube is a modest little doorway that takes you through to a small ticket office, but towering over this doorway is the stunning Newbury Park bus station, and it’s this that makes Newbury Park such a great station to behold. Built in 1949 and designed by Oliver Hill, it’s a huge barrel-vaulted concrete structure with a green copper-covered roof that manages to look both sturdy and lightweight at the same time. It won an architectural award at the 1951 Festival of Britain, and there’s a small plaque to commemorate this on the left-hand side as you walk in; the award was well deserved, I must say.

Wembley Park

Sitting on both the Metropolitan and Jubilee lines, the station building at Wembley Park is impressive enough, but the really amazing part spills out of the southern entrance, down towards Wembley Stadium and the spiritual home of the nation’s favourite sport. Obviously designed to enable huge crowds of screaming fans to get in and out as quickly as possible, a cascade of steps falls down from the entrance to a subway under the main road, taking the coloured scarves and party atmosphere off to the stadium below. I bet it’s quite a sight on match day.

Loughton

Out in the sticks along the eastern Central line, Loughton station is an architectural tour de force, which I wasn’t expecting after the pleasant but hardly outstanding station buildings along this part of the Central line. A Grade II listed building, the current building dates from 1940, though the original Eastern Counties Railway station was opened in 1856. The new station was built in anticipation of the track joining the Central line, and was designed by John Murray Easton for the London and North Eastern Railway, who operated the line before it came under London Underground’s control. The main part of the building is a large, square block with a very high ceiling and a huge arched window on the front face, letting light into the ticket hall in the traditional Tube manner. It’s all rather attractive, and easily rates as the best station along the far eastern Central line.

South Ruislip

The housing around Northolt at the northwestern end of the Central line is not that thrilling, with rows of white terraces and a proliferation of bungalows being the order of the day, but South Ruislip station is a different matter altogether, particularly when compared with the other Ruislip stations on the Metropolitan and Central lines (in particular, West Ruislip and Ruislip Gardens are good examples of functional design rather than aesthetic). Topped by a large and very impressive brushed metal rotunda, the inside of the station features a concrete frieze by Henry Haig, and the whole building is pleasantly reminiscent of Holden’s high-ceiling design at Chiswick Park, updated in buffed metal.

Chiswick Park

Sitting on top of a hill overlooking Turnham Green, Chiswick Park station is a corker. The original station opened on 1 July 1879 as part of what was then called the Metropolitan District Railway (now the District line), but between 1931 and 1932 it was rebuilt to a design by Charles Holden, the most significant station architect of them all. The station is dominated by its tall, semi-circular ticket hall, with large panels of clerestory windows that let light into the structure. Inside, the ticket hall is light and airy, a surprise for such a solid structure, and the icing on the cake is a huge brick tower, emblazoned with the London Underground roundel and the station name, which was built to make the station visible from Chiswick High Road. This is my favourite Holden station so far, and it makes the likes of Rayners Lane look positively industrial (though given Rayners Lane station’s position on its busily eponymous road, its industrial appearance is well placed). Perhaps it’s the round design that makes the difference, but whatever it is, I love it.

Chalk Farm

Chalk Farm station, on the Edgware branch of the Northern line, is a wedge-shaped building that’s clad in the familiar Leslie Green ox-blood red terracotta tiles of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway. The narrow width of the wedge means that this station has the longest frontage of any Leslie Green station, with eight arched windows in a row, but more impressive to me is the fact that Madness were photographed in front of the station for the cover of their album Absolutely (they originally wanted to be photographed in front of Camden Town, but the traffic was just too crazy). The station was refurbished in 2005 and the terracotta has polished up nicely; it’s now quite a sight, particularly when set against a deep blue sky without a cloud to be seen.

Southwark

Heading east along the Jubilee line extension, Southwark station gives you your first glimpse of above-ground modern station architecture. The entrance is all curved glass and open spaces, and even though it’s fairly small, it’s perfectly formed. Like Leslie Green’s ox-blood red stations, Southwark station has been designed to be built on, and once you know this, it perhaps looks a little lonely, stranded there on the corner with nothing to keep it company. Still, the station’s beauty is again underground, this time in the intermediate concourse on the way down to the platforms, which is lined with a blue glass wall that’s 40m long and made up of 660 individually cut pieces of glass. Designed by the artist Alexander Beleschenko, it’s well worth seeking out.

Canary Wharf

The much-lauded Canary Wharf station is to the south of Canada Square, down a set of steps that gives a grand view of the open space in front of the station. The busiest Tube station outside of central London, and the busiest single-line station on the whole network, Canary Wharf is absolutely massive, though most of that bulk is below ground. Above ground, the Norman Foster-designed entrance is little more than a lovely steel-and-glass arch at the western edge of a wide open square, but you have to go inside to appreciate the splendour of this staggering building. You don’t need a ticket to go down into the main entrance hall, so the detour is well worth the effort (and there are toilets down here, too, which might be useful after all that walking). Canary Wharf is regarded as the centrepiece of the Jubilee line extension, and it’s been a source of national pride since it opened in 1999; the praise is well deserved, I have to say.

Osterley

Osterley station – on the Piccadilly line to Heathrow – is an interesting Charles Holden building from 1934, when this new station was opened to replace the old Osterley & Spring Grove station a few hundred yards to the east. It is dominated by a huge brick tower topped with an obelisk made from concrete, which itself is crowned by a spike (though I think this might be a radio antenna, as it doesn’t seem to appear in period photographs of the station opening). The station building is fairly low key and without the tower it would be pretty hard to identify as a Tube station, but the tower and obelisk, complete with the Underground roundel, are really distinctive and instantly cry out ‘Tube station’... which, I guess, is the point.

West Acton

In zone 3, perched high above the western half of the Central line, West Acton station is an imposing sight, surrounded as it is by Mock Tudor estates and unassuming suburbia. Dating from 1923, a rectangular glass-fronted tower rises out of the station, looking for all the world like the front of a huge factory, with solid, red brick sides and the Underground roundel on a pole to the left. The ticket hall is extremely well lit by light coming in through the high glass slats, and the overall effect is very pleasing.

Willesden Green

The suburbia along the northern stretches of the Jubilee line doesn’t make for the most scintillating walking in the world, but Willesden Green station is a cracking building. The original Metropolitan Railway station was opened in 1879, but the current building dates from the station reconstruction of 1925, when the company’s architect, CW Clark, designed a magnificent marble-white building with ‘Metropolitan Railway Willesden Green Station’ emblazoned round the eaves that’s as grand today as when it was unveiled. It’s deservedly a Grade II listed building.

Stratford

Although Stratford started out life on the Central line, it was the arrival of the Jubilee line in 1999 that totally transformed things round here, and nowhere is that more evident than in the large transport junction just below the Olympic park. There’s a huge bus station here, and it was from this point in 1832 that Walter Hancock operated the first fee-charging London to Brighton bus service (a first for Britain) in his steam-powered ten-seater bus The Infant. The train station next door is even bigger, and looks more like an aircraft hangar than a train station, though it’s an architectural aircraft hangar if ever there was one; the roof curves elegantly away from the entrance, and it’s well worth poking your head inside to look at the gleaming ceiling. Even though Stratford station was built well before we started bidding for the Olympics, you get the feeling that this is what this station has been waiting for; it’s huge, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and now it’s time to flex its muscles.

Farringdon

Farringdon station is just along Cowcross Street from Smithfield market, and this is where the real history of the Tube begins, for the oldest underground railway in the world was opened here on 10 January 1863, joining Paddington to Farringdon along the Metropolitan line (though these first tunnels are actually used by the Hammersmith & City line these days). The station itself looks quite similar to Aldgate station, but being the original City tube station, it’s just that little bit more impressive.

Hillingdon

To appreciate Hillingdon station, out there on the northwestern edges of the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines, you either need to be driving along the A40, or you have to cross to the other end of a long walkway. Not only are the views from the walkway impressive (though only in the sense that the A40 is a scary and noisy beast below you, and is therefore worth staring at, if only in terror), but the station is delightful. The original Hillingdon station, which was opened a little bit further north along the line in 1923, was the last new station to be built on the Metropolitan line; the new station, however, was opened in 1992, and that same year it won the Underground Station of the Year award. The station is light and airy, being made of glass and steel, and it’s a strange place to find such a delightful piece of architecture, perched over the rumbling bowels of the A40, and seemingly miles away from anywhere.

Rayners Lane

Although I’ve chosen Rayners Lane for my final station, I could just as easily have chosen Eastcote, Sudbury Hill, Sudbury Town, Alperton, Oakwood, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Northfields or a number of other stations, as they all have a similar design: a huge, rectangular glass-and-brick block looming above the station entrance, forming a wonderfully spacious ticket hall and screaming ‘Tube station’ to all around. Rayners Lane on the junction of the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines is a particularly good example of the oeuvre, with its large brick tower looming over the busy A4090, complete with the same slatted glass windows that the other stations boast (not surprisingly, as most of these were redesigned by Charles Holden in the 1930s in his signature style). It fits its surroundings well, as this is a brash, loud main road, and this clearly requires a different kind of finesse to more elegant Holden creations like Arnos Grove or Chiswick Park, particularly as the station is just down the road from the old Art Deco cinema, now the European Centre for Zoroastrianism. It’s an interesting area, if a little noisy from the traffic, and Rayners Lane station fits right in.

Further Reading

If you enjoyed this book, you might like to know that there’s a whole series of free books like this available from www.tubewalker.com/ebooks, covering walks in six countries and three continents:

- Annapurna Circuit, Nepal

- Bada Valley, Indonesia

- The Capital Ring, United Kingdom

- Fraser Island, Australia

- Gunung Rinjani, Indonesia

- Hinchinbrook Island, Australia

- Hollyford-Pyke Route, New Zealand

- Kepler Track, New Zealand

- Land’s End to John o’Groats, United Kingdom

- The London Loop, United Kingdom

- Mt Cook, New Zealand

- Pilbara Bushwalk, Australia

- Routeburn-Greenstone Track, New Zealand

- Taman Negara, Malaysia

- Taranaki Circuit, New Zealand

- Tongariro Northern Circuit, New Zealand

If you know someone who might like any of my books, please pass them on; I make no money from this, but I do enjoy the thought of people reading my books and recommending them to their friends. If you’ve enjoyed reading my writing (or even if you haven’t) I’d be delighted if you could sign my Guestbook at www.tubewalker.com/guestbook – after all, it’s the feedback that makes it all worthwhile. Happy walking!

THE END

Table of Contents

Map

Preface

An Introduction to Tubewalking

The Rules of Tubewalking

Walking Through Tube History

Aldgate to Finchley Road

Finchley Road to Wembley Park

Wembley Park to North Harrow

North Harrow to Watford

Moor Park to Chorleywood

Chorleywood to Amersham and Chesham

Harrow-on-the-Hill to Uxbridge

Hammersmith to Barking

Richmond to Ealing Broadway

Turnham Green and Kensington (Olympia) to Victoria

Victoria to Bow Road

Bow Road to Becontree

Becontree to Upminster

Wimbledon to Edgware Road

Shoreditch to New Cross and New Cross Gate

Aldgate to Tower Hill and Gloucester Road to High Street Kensington

Waterloo to Bank

Morden to Kennington

Kennington to Euston to Kennington

Euston to East Finchley

East Finchley to Mill Hill East and High Barnet

Camden Town to Edgware

West Ruislip to Perivale

Perivale and Ealing Broadway to Shepherd’s Bush

Shepherd’s Bush to Liverpool Street

Liverpool Street to Leytonstone

Leytonstone to Debden

Debden to Epping

Leytonstone to Barkingside

Barkingside to Woodford

Elephant & Castle to Willesden Junction

Willesden Junction to Harrow & Wealdstone

Heathrow Airport

Hatton Cross to Boston Manor

Boston Manor to Hammersmith

Hammersmith to King’s Cross St Pancras

King’s Cross St Pancras to Bounds Green

Bounds Green to Cockfosters

Uxbridge to Acton Town

Brixton to King’s Cross St Pancras

King’s Cross St Pancras to Walthamstow Central

Stanmore to Dollis Hill

Dollis Hill to Green Park

Green Park to Canada Water

Canada Water to North Greenwich

North Greenwich to Stratford

My Favourite Tubewalks

My Favourite Tube Stations

Further Reading