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Tubewalker: The Tube, on Foot

Piccadilly Line: Uxbridge to Acton Town

Horsenden Hill
Horsenden Hill

So, do you want the good news or the bad new first? What, the good news? OK, here goes...

Rayners Lane to South Harrow

The European Centre for Zoroastrianism
The European Centre for Zoroastrianism

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.

South Harrow station
South Harrow station

South Harrow to Sudbury Hill

South Hill Estate
South Hill Estate

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.

Sudbury Hill station
Sudbury Hill station

Sudbury Hill to Sudbury Town

Horsenden Wood
Horsenden Wood

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.

The City from Horsenden Hill
The City from Horsenden Hill
Sudbury Town station
Sudbury Town station

Sudbury Town to Alperton

One Tree Hill Recreation Ground
One Tree Hill Recreation Ground

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...

Mind the gap between your arse and this bench

Tube humour: you've got to love it.

Alperton station
Alperton station

Alperton to Park Royal

The Grand Union Canal
The Grand Union Canal

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 gate to Twyford Abbey
The gate to Twyford Abbey
Park Royal station
Park Royal station

Park Royal to North Ealing

A witch design on a house door in Boileau Road
A rather fun door design on Boileau Road

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 to Ealing Common

Boarded-up houses along Hangar Lane
Unhappy houses along Hangar Lane

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.