It used to be more seen, more read, more shared, more commented, more searched, more linked, more noticed, more quoted, more known, more relevant. Arguably it used to be more influential, although I mean that in a purely relative sense. And now it's not.
This blog has peaked.
It was on the up for a very long time, right from that very first day in 2002. It didn't take long to get recognised, the blogosphere being a more supportive place in those days, and gradually more and more people became aware of diamond geezer. Since then it's been a mostly upward journey, gaining readers and recognition year on year, and also a growing band of commenters ready to share their thoughts and anecdotes on the matter in hand. I've long been impressed that this blog continues to generate readership and reaction when the wider general direction of travel is decay and silence.
2003 - 250 visitors a day, 3000 comments a year
2008 - 1000 7000
2013 - 1800 8000
2018 - 2400 11000
2023 - 2600 10000
But things aren't as upward as they used to be, not across the board, with indications that numbers are on the turn and people aren't dropping by as often as they did. Then those that do turn up aren't saying as much, and others who might have directed readers in this direction simply aren't there any more. This isn't a complaint, more an observation, a sense that long-form text-based bloggage has had its day and I'm doing well to have retained the interest I still have. Thanks for still being here.
According to my stats packages 2024 was the best year ever for visitors to this blog but 2025 hasn't been as good. Numbers have been in decline since the start of the year, and even the usual post-summer pick-up hasn't happened. Nothing terminal, indeed still frankly miraculous figures by 2015 standards, but a noticeable downward trend all the same. Also I suspect a lot of the supposed increase in recent years has just been bots, crawlers and AI-feeders dropping by to harvest data, and if they're excluded the decline probably started earlier and digs deeper.
Another reason readership is down is that referrals are down. Time was when I'd check the data and think "oh that's nice, I see X has linked to my post on Y". But this hardly happens any more, maybe two or three times a month, and if it wasn't for Ian Visits kindly including me in his weekly rail news round-up it'd be even less. My post on ticket offices brought a fair few extra folk here this week, but I wrote far better stuff than that which only already-regular readers will have noticed. The blogosphere/Substack universe is much smaller than it used to be, and most of what remains is more interested in saying "look at me!" than "look at them".
Jan 2025 - 19,600 clicks from Google
Feb 2025 - 20,200
Mar 2025 - 20,700
Apr 2025 - 18,400
May 2025 - 17,300
Jun 2025 - 16,600
Jul 2025 - 15,800
Aug 2025 - 15,000
Search engines no longer nudge as many readers my way as they once did. Google send me a monthly summary of search engine referrals, usually to confirm that "Where to sit on a Crossrail train" and "Free parking" remain my most popular posts. But since the start of the year they've also shown an inexorable decline in Google clicks, down as much as 25% in the space of just six months. I blame the AI summaries that now appear at the top of many results pages, which many people seem all too happy to read without ever scrolling down or clicking through to see if the unhuman text is actually true.
Other social media services have degraded too. My @diamondgzrblog daily tweet used to get 700 views before Elon Musk destroyed Twitter but these days the tumbleweed service barely registers 200 views, and hardly any of them click through anyway. If you're the kindly soul who insists on plugging all my transport posts on Reddit thanks, but hardly anyone notices, let alone comes to read the full story. When writing what I think might be a damned good post I am increasingly aware that only those who already know I exist will ever see it. It's great to have a loyal audience, but I'm only in this privileged position because I got noticed before the mechanism for noticing people collapsed.
Also my audience is increasingly reading the blog on a phone rather than a laptop. Google's monthly summaries always include data on devices used, as pictured above, so for example five years ago desktop readers still outnumbered smartphone users. The pendulum's now swung very much the other way with smartphone usage more than twice as popular, the changeover point having arrived in December 2021. I can't complain because if you look at the actual figures I have more desktop-clickers than I ever used to, it's just that smartphone-clickers have increased four-fold. But when they arrive they find this anachronistic 2002 template that definitely isn't mobile-friendly, and I do wonder how many people ever read the post they clicked through to, let alone ever come back.
Dec 2024 - 851 comments
Feb 2025 - 764
Apr 2025 - 760
Jun 2025 - 719
Aug 2025 - 699
Also the number of comments on the blog is on the decline. Engagement varies a lot according to topic, also a tiny quiz can easily boost totals by 50 so don't read too much into the individual ups and downs. But I do sometimes sit here and think "from past experience this'll be a 30-something" and it comes in nearer 20, or "people are bound to have comments today" and it limps in at 5. For example my Beachy Head write-ups normally average 16 comments on the first day, based on data from the last ten years, but this year we're down to 12.
There are bloggers out there who'd be thrilled to get 70 comments in a year, let alone 700 in a month, so I'm not complaining about my reduced engagement. But something is discouraging readers from leaving comments as often as they used to, and there may be several factors involved. It might be that the conversation's moved on and now takes place on social media. It might be that bespoke pop-up boxes are too fiddly for my new majority of smartphone readers. It might be that people are reticent to leave a comment for fear of what the reaction might be. It might be I'm writing less interesting subject matter. It might be that commenting is something older people do and I'm not refreshing my audience with younger readers. It might be all sorts of things but it is definitely a thing, whyever it may be.
It remains amazing that a blog started in an idle moment on a Sunday afternoon in 2002 still has readers, engagement and a reputation. I have to be fair put a lot of effort into it, but I've always been fundamentally reassured that more people were discovering it with every passing year. Now it seems the direction of travel is gently downward, thankfully from a high level but downward all the same, and will likely continue that way in the coming years. I have no intention of stopping writing just because not quite so many people are reading or leaving comments, but it's increasingly clear that not quite so many are.
Every two years I walk the best walk in southeast England, which is over the Seven Sisters and across the top of Beachy Head. I did it again yesterday.
This is the tenth time I've done the walk, so exhilarating do I find it. If you've never been, there are several moments where the landscape opens up and you think "seriously? wow!" before striding on across the chalky switchback. If you've never been I also haven't been doing my job properly, because if you're physically able you really should have walked it by now. Look how amazing it is. [14 photos]
This time I walked west to east, starting by the River Cuckmere in Exceat and finishing at Eastbourne Pier. This involves catching the ever-so frequent Coaster bus out and then walking ten miles back. It also means I kept up my record of never walking the same stretch in the same direction as I did last time.
One day I'll start at Seaford again and walk the full six hours, but Seaford actually works better as the end of the extended walk because if you're knackered you can always bail at Exceat and catch the bus.
There's no point describing the walk again, not on my tenth pass, but here are some things that were different this time.
Cuckmere
• At my favourite meander, a professional team had turned up to do a photoshoot involving a huge white flapping bedsheet.
• In the field above my favourite meander, a sign on the gate said "BEEF BULL IN FIELD for natural fertilisation of cows". I braved ahead, and thankfully the field was full of sheep instead.
• I was intending to count how many people were going the other way, but the South Coast Ultra Challenge was in full effect and its 2000 competitors would have skewed the statistics somewhat.
• These athletes were sleek breathing machines with sturdy calves, many with walking poles. I was well impressed even before I discovered they were walking/jogging from Eastbourne to Arundel over the course of the weekend, perhaps all 100km in 24 hours.
Seven Sisters(n.b. there are of course eight)
• This section is seriously undulating, thus the most challenging section of the entire walk. Heading west to east the worst climbs are definitely number three and number seven.
• Some favourite sights: a biplane, the shadows of a flock of seagulls skimming across the grassland, the dazzlingwhiteness of exposed chalk, the foundations of a long-vanished hut, hot twins, rabbitholes, milky waves far below.
• The Ultra Challenge crew were keeping well away from the edge, leaving the grassier strip closer to the sheer drop for those of us who didn't want to plough the muscle motorway.
• Underneath hump seven is a very obvious cave, not that I've ever walked along the pebbly beach to see it.
• What I did count this time was how long it took to walk between each of the eight peaks. It always amazes me that it only takes an hour:
Haven Brow (→8min→) Short Brow (→10min→) Rough Brow (→5min→) Brass Point (→10min→) Flagstaff Point (→4min→) Flat Hill (→7min→) Baily's Hill (→8min→) Went Hill Brow
Birling Gap/Belle Tout
• If you arrive just after high tide the beach is a) small b) mostly empty
• A heck of a lot of people merely drive to the car park, walk a fraction of the way up to the lighthouse and then take lots of group selfies with the Seven Sisters behind them.
• Standing here you would definitely count seven humps, not eight, because two of the distant ones fold into one another at this distance.
• Inflation check: Since 2023 the price of a 99 at the Birling Gap ice cream van has increased from £3 to £4, while the price of a Magnum at the Belle Tout kiosk has only risen from £2.60 to £3.
• From here on it's got a lot more safety-conscious since my last visit. The cliff edge is now almost entirely roped off all the way from Birling Gap to Beachy Head.
Beachy Head
• Mass trespass across the rope occurs at certain key points, especially those with a perfect view of the stripy lighthouse. A small chalk platform where I've stood for a great shot on nine previous occasions is now mostly out of bounds.
• The stupidest leg-danglers were the couple sitting on the edge with their dog wandering about on a long lead. "Tugged over the edge by a falling sausage dog" would be a particularly daft way to die.
• I spotted a BT inspection cover and a padlocked access hatch in the grass approximately above where I believe the offshore lighthouse to be.
• One of the kitesurfers by the triangulation point had his left leg in a serious metal brace, which didn't exactly inspire confidence.
Eastbourne
• One joy of walking west to east is that the last hour from Beachy Head to Eastbourne pier is all downhill then all flat.
• It's Steampunk weekend in Eastbourne which meant a lot of feathered goggled folk on the Wishtower Slopes quaffing beer, listening to guitar music and being served tea and biscuits by a lady with a castle on her head.
• The nudist beach by the bandstand ("no clothes or cameras") was vaguely delimited but seemingly empty.
• The chip shop at the start of the pier has closed, ditto The Grill opposite.
• I was back at the station five hours after I arrived... and will be back again in 2027.
It's looking very likely that a four-day tube strike will start on Monday, with disruption rippling into Sunday and Friday morning. The DLR is also pencilled in for two days of concurrent disruption.
Sunday on the tube is "limited services running, complete your journey by 6pm"
Monday-Thursday on the tube is "little to no service running"
Friday on the tube is "no service before 8am, normal by late morning"
These strikes normally get cancelled.
But if this doesn't, it's going to be pretty bad.
Last time this nearly happened, in July 2023, I wrote a post about the worst places to live during a tube strike. If your local tube station closes, who has furthest to go to find an alternative train?
Specifically I asked "which tube stations are furthest away from a non-tube station?" And I made this map.
grey is 'over 1 mile from a non-tube station', yellow over 1½, orange over 2, red over 2½, purple over 4
Only one tube station in zone 1 is more than a mile from a non-tube station and that's South Kensington (1.1 miles from Victoria). In zone 2 there are three - North Greenwich (1.3 miles from Westcombe Park), Stamford Brook (1.2 miles from South Acton) and Ravenscourt Park (1.1 miles from Shepherd's Bush). Zone 3 has eight such stations - Park Royal and Hanger Lane to the west, Neasden, Dollis Hill, Golders Green, Highgate and East Finchley to the north, and Upton Park to the east. Of these East Finchley is by far the remotest, being 2.1 miles from Alexandra Palace.
Heading further out, twelve tube stations are over 2 miles from a non-tube station:
By far the worst place to be during a tube strike is the eastern end of the Central line. No railways compete with the tube in the slice of Outer London between the Weaver line and Crossrail, the Central line having swallowed up the only railway that ever did. Six tube stations here find themselves more than 2½ miles from a rail station, although of these only Hainault is in London and the other five are in Essex. And the really bad places to be are Theydon Bois and Epping because TfL don't run any buses here, only trains, so with only an Oyster card you're completely cut off.
If the DLR isn't running either, then 11 stations are suddenly over a mile from a non-tube/DLR station.
• Devons Road, Bow Church, Bow Road (bugger)
• Mudchute, Island Gardens
• City Airport, King George V, Beckton Park, Cyprus, Gallions Reach, Beckton
Crossrail and the Overground are going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting over the next week, assuming these strikes go ahead, which alas it seems they will.
There are several out-of-date signs around the tube network, but few this prominent. It's above the entrance to the Waterloo & City line at Waterloo station, at the foot of the ramp just before the platform. And it's been wrong for years.
Waterloo and City line ↓
open until 00:30 Monday-Saturday, closed on Sundays
But the Waterloo & City line is closed on Saturdays and has been since 2020. The change was originally pandemic-related, mothballing the entire line for fifteen months, but when it reopened in June2021 there continued to be no trains at weekends. TfL have never expressed an interest in reintroducing Saturday opening, citing data showing that passenger numbers were only ever one-sixth of a normal weekday. But they've never got round to updating the sign at the platform entrance, nor indeed the identical message above a passageway leading from the mainline station.
It should say...
Waterloo and City line ↓
open until 00:30 Monday-Friday, closed at weekends
It wouldn't take much doing, the bottom line is already just a sticker, I believe added when the line had its hours extended to half past midnight in 2013. But instead misleading information has been on display to passengers since June 2021, i.e. more than four years, until someone in the signage department finally notices and does something about it. Which may be soon or may be never.
I don't feel old now I've hit 60, but when I step out onto the street most people do seem to be a lot younger. It doesn't worry me, but I wondered if there was a way to quantify all this.
So I've dug into a population spreadsheet published by the Office for National Statistics to see how relatively old I really am. They publish it every summer so I'm using the latest data, specifically the "mid-2024" estimates of population. These give a precise estimate for the number of people at each age from 0 to 89, then conclude with an amalgamated 90+ column. So for example last summer there were 691,406 21 year-olds in England, 8230 47 year-olds in Leicestershire and 681 86 year-olds in Milton Keynes.
The median age in England was 40.2, i.e. half the population are younger and half are older. If you've passed the age of 40 you are already in the older half of the population. But the most common age in England wasn't 40, it was 33. There were 833,482 33 year-olds in England last summer, marginally ahead of the 34 year-olds and 36-olds, so if you fancy setting up a greetings card company that's where you should focus your efforts.
To investigate this in more depth let's split England's population into ten equal groups, each containing approximately 6 million people. What ages make up each 10% of the population? That's the ages of the youngest 10% of residents, the next 10%, and so on up to the oldest 10%. The figures are for mid-2024 but should still be pretty accurate today. I've highlighted the group I'm in, but you should look down and see which decile you end up in.
England
Age range
Youngest 10%
0-8
11-20%
9-16
21-30%
17-25
31-40%
26-32
41-50%
33-39
51-60%
40-47
61-70%
48-55
71-80%
56-63
81-90%
64-73
Oldest 10%
74-100+
Children occupy the top two slots, i.e. 0-16 year-olds make up the youngest 20% of the country. Pensioners occupy the bottom two slots, near enough, i.e. those aged 64 and over make up the oldest 20% of the country. I'm in the group just above that along with rest of the 1960s baby boom (we're about three-quarters of the way along the English population pyramid). Approximately speaking each 10% band comprises eight years of births, extending somewhat at the oldest end.
I'm encouraged to see I'm not yet in one of the two oldest groups - 60 is not old for England. But if I narrow things down and look closer to home, outcomes change somewhat.
Here's the split for the population of London. Where are you in this one?
London
Age range
Youngest 10%
0-8
11-20%
9-16
21-30%
17-24
31-40%
25-29
41-50%
30-35
51-60%
36-41
61-70%
42-48
71-80%
49-57
81-90%
58-67
Oldest 10%
68-100+
The big difference isn't amongst the youngest - London has as many 0-16 year-olds as the rest of England. The big difference is amongst young adults because the population suddenly bulges for those in their 20s and 30s. A full 40% of London's population are under 30 and half are under 35. The central groups here comprise only five or six different ages, not seven or eight.
Meanwhile the older groups are considerably broader because there are proportionately fewer Londoners over 50. The 70% group ends at age 48, not 55, and as a 60 year-old I now find myself in the penultimate group. More to the point you only have to be over 67 to be amongst the oldest 10% of Londoners! This is one reason why services for pensioners cost less to provide in the capital than across England overall.
What's happening here is a lot of people moving to London in their 20s and 30s, either from the provinces or abroad, mainly for work, and a lot of people moving away later in life, either to realise property assets or to escape rising rents. We also have a lot of students and they skew things lower too. London really is a younger city than the rest of the country.
It turns out I also live in the youngest borough in London, which is Tower Hamlets.
Tower Hamlets
Age range
Youngest 10%
0-9
11-20%
10-18
21-30%
19-23
31-40%
24-26
41-50%
27-30
51-60%
31-34
61-70%
35-39
71-80%
40-46
81-90%
47-57
Oldest 10%
58-100+
The extraordinary thing here is the young adult bulge, which squeezes out both the younger and older ends of the population. Tower Hamlets actually has proportionally fewer children than the rest of the country, whatever you might have assumed about the offspring of a foreign-born population. It's also very very light on older people, indeed only 5% of the population are of pensionable age. No wonder our council has still money to spend - local demands for social care are way below average.
It's incredible to see an age band comprising just three year groups - our 24, 25 and 26 year-olds form a tenth of the population all by themselves. It's also incredible to see that half of Tower Hamlets' population is 30 or under, indeed over a quarter of the borough is in their 20s. The most popular age in Tower Hamlets turns out to be 27, indeed there are three times as many 27 year-olds as 50 year-olds because the population here peaks early.
But what I find really chastening is that at the relatively young age of 60 I find myself in the oldest 10% of the population in Tower Hamlets. I'm not imagining it, I really am quite old for the place where I live.
At the other end of the scale, I've also the looked at the data for the 'oldest' English county, which is Dorset, and the 'oldest' English district, which is North Norfolk.
Median age in Tower Hamlets: 31 Median age in London: 36 Median age in England: 40 Median age in Dorset: 52 Median age in North Norfolk: 56
So skewed is the population of Dorset that if you're 52, half the population are older than you. North Norfolk is even more retirement-friendly, you can be 55 there and still in the younger half of the population.
As for the point at which you enter the oldest quarter of the population, this varies considerably according to where you live. In Tower Hamlets the "oldest quarter" borderline is 43, in London it's 53, in England it's 59, in Dorset it's 68 and in North Norfolk it's 70. If you want to feel relatively young, move to Cromer.
As a final comparison, imagine being 60 in all these places - which of the ten age bands would you fit into?
Tower Hamlets
London
England
Dorset
North Norfolk
Youngest 10%
11-20%
21-30%
31-40%
41-50%
51-60%
56-61
61-70%
59-64
71-80%
56-63
81-90%
58-67
Oldest 10%
58+
So there you go, at 60 I'm not especially old by national standards, and I shall cling to that thought for a few more years. But I am old for where I live and I shall have to get used to that. Maybe someone'll even offer me a seat on the tube this morning.
It's not every day this blog gets to celebrate an 1100th anniversary, this because not a great deal happened in the London area on verifiable dates in the 10th century. It's also not every day I get to use the Old English character Æ twenty-two times in a blogpost.
But today is the exception. Because today is the 1100th anniversary of King Æthelstan being crowned in Kingston, supposedly just round the back of Pret A Manger.
(that's not Pret A Manager, sorry, that's Kingston Market Place)
King Æthelstan is often credited as being the first King of England. He wasn't in 925 AD because England didn't yet exist, but it would two years later after Æthelstan brought together the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. But the proud country that now ties red crosses to lampposts has its origins on 4th September 925 when the Archbishop of Canterbury placed a crown atop Æthelstan's head, not a helmet as had been the case for all his predecessors.
Æthelstan was the grandson of Alfred the Great, which is impressive stuff as royal pedigrees go, and was born some time in the mid 890s, prior to the invention of birth certificates. His father was Edward the Elder, a ruler of Wessex who during his reign successfully took over Mercia, thereby gaining control of most of the land south of the Humber. Edward died in July 924, at which point the people of Wessex adopted his son Ælfweard as king whereas Mercia chose Æthelstan. But Ælfweard died just twelve days later (suspicious, what?), after which the people of Wessex moved to embrace Æthelstan too.
(that's not a recent photo, sorry, it has Charles III coronation bunting on it)
Kingston was the perfect location for Æthelstan's coronation because it was on the boundary between the two kingdoms, technically in Wessex but within wading distance of Mercia across the Thames. It was also where his father Edward had been crowned 25 years earlier, setting a precedent that would eventually see seven Saxon Kings crowned in Kingston. Only Westminster Abbey has seen more coronations, because once that was built no monarch was ever going back to riverside Kingston again. Æthelstan was the first to decree that Kingston was a royal town, and this is why Kingston upon Thames is now one of London's three royal boroughs.
The Coronation Stone in Kingston is a sarsen chunk atop a heptagonal stone base surrounded by ornate iron railings. This is not how Æthelstan would have known it - the railings are Victorian and the base includes the names of monarchs not yet born in 925. Legend says that kings sat or knelt on the stone at time of coronation, but legend also says that the coronation took place in the marketplace and was followed by a service inside a wooden Saxon chapel alongside. There's no collaborating evidence that the sarsen stone was present, only that it was retrieved from the ruins of the chapel after it collapsed in 1730, and its royal heritage may simply be supposition by 18th century historians.
(that's not a recent photo either, sorry, the stone's been scrubbed up since 2010)
The Coronation Stone sits in pride of place outside the town hall on the High Street, which is absolutely not where Æthelstan's coronation took place. It was moved here from the Garden of Rest in Church Street in 1936, a far more proximate location, although that was only temporary while building works on the Guildhall were completed. From 1850 to 1935 it had sat in the middle of the High Street, freshly positioned on its heptagonal base by patriotic Victorians looking to capitalise on Kingston's royal past. It had been moved here from an off-road site by the county assizes, prior to which it had been located beside the Elizabethan Market Hall and used as a mounting block, prior to which it had been in a more appropriate location outside All Saints' Church (roughly where the collapsed Saxon chapel had been). Never trust your eyes when it comes to historical locations.
♔ Edward the Elder - 8th June 900
♔ Æthelstan - 4th September 925
♔ Edmund - 940
♔ Edred - 16th August 946
♔ Edwy - January 956
♔ Edward the Martyr - 975
♔ Ethelred The Unready - 14th April 979
The stone base features the names of all seven Saxon kings crowned here, one on each face, with the coronation year in Roman numerals underneath. Æthelstan appears as AÐELSTAN, the "aeth" sound written as að rather than æth for reasons of Old English linguistic nuance. Meanwhile the coronation year appears as DCCCCXXV, whereas these days we'd probably plump for CMXXV rather than go all long-winded. I would show you that in a photograph but I don't have one, despite visiting the stone on several occasions, having seemingly never taken a single photo from the full-on Æthelstan angle.
(this shot's focused on his half-brother Eadmund instead, sorry)
Because look, I haven't been to Kingston to do any research in support of this post, I'm relying on past visits with different foci, be that my random jamjar borough, my walk along London Loop section 8 or a trip to celebrate King Charles's coronation. This is because I wasn't aware of the 1100th anniversary until this afternoon, by which time it was too late to drop everything, cross the capital and take a couple of photos. I choose to blame the Royal Borough of Kingston for not kicking upsufficient fuss that the anniversary was imminent, or else the inexorable decay of London-based websites that used to comprehensively preview What's On in the suburbs. I only noticed when Ian Visits went to see a train.
This morning SWR named a Class 450 train King Athelstan (not Æthelstan because presumably that was deemed too complex). The ceremony at Kingston station involved the historian Tom Holland, the local MP Sir Ed Davey and a group of Saxon reenactors from the Wychwood Warriors. Children from King Athelstan Primary School were also present, wearing cardboard crowns prominently featuring the SWR logo, which is a pretty good way to skive off lessons on only the third day of the new school year. Obviously there were iced cupcakes with an edible picture of the king on top because that's what Æthelstan would have wanted. Ian has all the photos of the event so do go and read that, especially if you prefer railways to history, and to be impressed by how a train company managed to hijack the anniversary and make it all about them on a site that wasn't where the coronation took place either.
(that's just me zooming in on a previous photo, sorry)
Æthelstan had a good start to his reign, unifying the entire country with victory over Northumbria in 927. He was also a wise, learned and pious man, the kind of ideal statesman that a hereditary monarchy delivers all too rarely. Wikipedia has you covered there, assuming your knowledge of Anglo Saxon hegemony isn't up to scratch. The country tottered somewhat after his death in 939 when the people of York plumped for Viking rule instead, but the defeat of Eric Bloodaxe under King Eadred in 954 brought the nation back together and there's been an England ever since.
And it all kicked off in Kingston with the coronation of King Æthelstan 1100 years ago today, not where the Coronation Stone is and definitely not at the railway station.
Where are we? Just north of Earl's Court station, tucked away quietly just south of the A4. Is it nice? Not a blue-plaqued corner of Kensington but definitely smart enough.
Is it square? Hell no, not even rectangular, definitely an irregular quadrilateral. Nominally the 'square' also includes three adjoining streets. Is there anything interesting here? Hang around for the pillar box, that's the best bit.
Where does the name come from? The original landowners (the Edwardes family) hailed from Pembrokeshire, and Nevern is a hamlet between Fishguard and Cardigan. When was it built? Between 1880 and 1886, a tad later than all the surrounding streets. How much do the houses cost? Originally in 1882, £2220. These days flats comprising half a floor sell for over a million.
What's the architectural style? Domestic Revival, which is quite bricky in contrast to the surrounding Italianate stucco, this because tastes changed just prior to construction. Why does one side look subtly different? The builder, Robert Whitaker, died during construction leaving George Whitaker to complete the southwest side. What else does the Conservation Area Appraisal tell us? "The wavelike patterns of continuous wrought iron balustrade at first floor level would not have been out of place in the Vienna of Gustav Klimt."
Any famous former residents? The novelist Compton Mackenzie (after moving down from Scotland), also the soldiers Hugh Stafford Northcote Wright and Major Herbert William Dumaresq. So no, not really. When did the flying bomb hit? 4.23pm on Sunday 23rd July 1944, killing one and injuring 85 more, 16 seriously. Four buildings in the northeast corner had to be demolished and rebuilt. This helps explain the very-postwar-looking minstrel carved amid the brickwork above the door to Rupert House.
What's the dominant commercial activity? Hotels. I counted four, one attempting chic townhouse vibes, the others appealing to a transient Earl's Court demographic with questionably enthusiastic websites and don't expect breakfast. What are six things you might see around the square? plane trees, moulded red brick architraves, conkers, nitrous oxide cylinders, a black Porsche, a six-box Waitrose delivery.
Is there a garden square in the middle? Very much yes. Can I go inside? Very much no. A thick privet hedge surrounds it. Only keyholders can unlock the gates and go in. What happens if you fail to close the gates immediately on entering? Your garden access rights are withdrawn for seven days (or longer). Any other rules? No objects thrown in the air, no gatherings of more than 25 people, only use one table per keyholder, don't leave raw meat for the foxes, no weeing in the shrubbery.
Who owns the garden? In 1974 the private owner sold it to a consortium of residents including the owner of Desert Orchid. They paid £3500. How much does access cost now? 286 property owners each pay an extra £149.95 on their council tax for the privilege of using the garden. It turns out Kensington & Chelsea Council collect garden levies for 47 garden squares via council tax, each rate set annually by the respective garden committees.
How many dogs are allowed to exercise in the gardens?19. Their owners have to pay an annual subscription of £65. Who are the Nevern Square dogs? Winston, Squirrel, Sally, Panda, Benny, Ollie, Maggie, Toby, Lexi, Paccino, Libby, Truffle, Coffee, Brinkley, Barney, Billy, Max, Dino and Teagan. Why might they be excited this week? Dogs were allowed back in the square between 2pm and 6pm for the first time since April.
What if I really want to see the gardens? They're usually part of Open Gardens Weekend in June. Anything sooner? This Friday Mary Poppins is being screened in the gardens as part of an Open Cinema event. Tickets still available at £10 a time. Snacks and refreshments available.
What happened? In 1879 Andrew Handyside's iron foundry in Derby was given responsibility for manufacturing a new design of cylindrical (not hexagonal) pillar box. Unfortunately they weren't asked to include either the VR cypher or the Post Office's name so they didn't. Amazingly it took until 1887 for the error to be noticed, after which decades of pillar boxes were produced perfectly properly. But Nevern Square's box arrived during the errant eight years, thus stands proud on the corner with no reference to Queen Victoria whatsoever. Are these anonymous boxes rare? I don't think so. There's one on Rounton Road in Bow, for example. Saves going to Nevern Square? I think so.
In February, as part of a series of changes to extend the gateline at Liverpool Street station, the ticket office was moved. It had been located between platforms 10 and 11, a bright area with plenty of space and five ticket windows. It wasn't particularly appealing but it still felt important.
The new ticket office is round the back of the old one, up a passage beside platform 10. It's on the way to Left Luggage so a bit of a backwater. That's it on the right, the small door beside the Customer Lounge.
And this is the new ticket office, a stunted narrow space with ticket windows on two sides. It feels more like walking into a hospital corridor and has all the allure of queueing for a basement appointment.
According to Network Rail the change is to improve the customer experience.
In Network Rail's eyes new shops are more important to the customer experience than the ability to buy a ticket. The new gateline swept away several small retail units so the need to replace them has clearly taken precedence. Indeed you may remember Liverpool Street once had a much larger ticket office, roughly opposite, but that was closed in 2016 and now houses Oliver Bonas, Greggs and the inevitable Gail's.
That said there's no longer need for the sheer volume of ticket windows we used to have, times have moved on. There were 12 at Liverpool Street before 2016, cut to 10 when the replacement ticket office opened. After the pandemic the number of windows was halved to five, all down the far end. It's still five in 2025 but now crammed into a much smaller space as if ticket purchasers are an afterthought. Admittedly most passengers are tapping in on the Elizabeth line, not buying a return to Norwich, but it feels like a downgrade.
So I wondered how many ticket windows the other London rail termini have... and this turned into a major orienteering exercise yesterday, which means I can now present this comprehensive summary.
Liverpool Street: 5 ticket windows (three open, all being used)
See above. Opens ridiculously early and has the longest opening hours of any terminus ticket office.
Fenchurch Street: 2 ticket windows (both open, no customers)
The two ticket sellers here looked very bored, but I guess nobody wants to travel from the City to Southend on a Monday morning.
Cannon Street: 4 ticket windows (none open, no customers)
Staff at Cannon Street were somewhat preoccupied yesterday because they were celebrating the station's 159th birthday. Several were dressed in Victorian clothing, all the better to sing Happy Birthday to the Lord Mayor when he arrived. Elsewhere I spotted a tombola, a cake stall, a plaque waiting to be unveiled and, inside the very very quiet ticket office, three helium balloons shaped 1, 5, and 9.
London Bridge: 8 ticket windows (2 open, both being used)
When the new revamped London Bridge station opened in 2018, eight ticket windows seemed a perfectly practical number. These days the central ticket office rarely has a long queue and had they rebuilt it today I'm sure it would have been smaller.
Blackfriars: 3 ticket windows (none open, six people waiting)
This was a miserable experience for the family and the elderly gentlemen who turned up wanting to buy tickets, none of whom spotted the lunchbreak sign in the window saying 'back at 2pm'. Opposite are three ticket machines, one of which is currently broken. Based on experience I would never risk trying to buy a ticket at Blackfriars before an important journey, it's the flakiest terminus of all.
King's Cross: 7 ticket windows (6 open, all being used)
This capacious ticket hall dates back to the big revamp in 2012. Perversely the windows are numbered 2-8 because number 1 has been subsumed into some kind of kiosk.
St Pancras: 4 ticket windows (2 open, queue of 13 waiting)
Until recently there were two adjacent ticket offices, one notionally Thameslink and the other for Midlands-bound trains. One of those is now a Gail's because travellers want pastries more than they want tickets, but the remaining ticket office seemed overstretched because it had by far the longest queue of any terminus I visited.
Euston: 11 ticket windows (6 open, only 4 being used)
What a busy space this used to be in Virgin days but it has a tumbleweed feel these days, including seven additional windows no longer numbered or used. Even the rank of ticket machines outside is pretty paltry, I guess because nobody buys an extortionate walk-up Avanti ticket unless they really have to.
Marylebone: 4 ticket windows (2 open, one being used)
Used to be five windows but one is now for 'Information' only. Cute but quiet. I think I missed the morning Bicester Village rush.
Paddington: 9 ticket windows (5 lit, 3 open, all being used)
A usefully-flexible space, perhaps understaffed. Quite a few ticket machines have disappeared out front on the concourse so maybe even they're no longer so necessary. Ticket purchasing options have plainly changed over the last few years.
Victoria: 8 ticket windows (3 open, 2 being used)
Still the same long row of windows but rarely busy any more. Alongside are five Gatwick Express windows to tempt airportgoers to part with their money (only one of which was open). All are now overshadowed by a massive arc of 21 ticket machines, yesterday overseen by a single member of staff hence hugely cheaper to operate.
Charing Cross: 4 ticket windows (2 open, both being used)
A low key facility beneath the clock, just behind some seating. While I was watching one of the staff brought down the 'Position Closed' screen and slunk away.
Waterloo: 14 ticket windows (4 open, two being used)
11 numbered windows for travelling today, plus three for advance travel (and they were busier). I once queued behind Su Pollard to buy a ticket here, and I doubt that would happen again now.
I can summarise all of that with the following ranking, which also includes the number of ticket machines I spotted at each station.
Waterloo, Euston and Paddington continue to top the ticket office table, although all have a surfeit of windows only some of which are generally lit up. Elsewhere rather fewer windows suffice, with Liverpool Street now firmly mid-table and the other City termini propping up the list.
Loads of rail passengers buy advance tickets online or on their phone these days, without ever needing to go near a ticket office, and it shows. But there'll always be people who want or need to buy a ticket in person, not least because a trained member of staff is more likely to sell you the optimum ticket than a menu-driven machine.
In the meantime the inexorable shrinkage of ticket office totals shows that reduced walk-up facilities are very much the direction of travel. If even the busiest station in the country is deemed worthy of only five ticket windows, what hope ultimately for everywhere else?
Fri 1: I ummed and ahhed about doing another month-long series about the River Fleet, because maybe it's best to only do things once, but once I was stalking through the woods at the top of Hampstead Heath hunting for muddy rivulets it all felt worthwhile. Sat 2: I didn't blog about my walk across Richmond Park so I've had nowhere to put this photo of the flower beds near Pembroke Lodge. Sadly my shot of the deer and the bike came out blurry.
Sun 3: In Richmond Park yesterday I saw an unusual red spotty butterfly and wondered what it was. I wasn't expecting to hear the answer on the 6.30am radio news - it's a Jersey Tiger, one of the exotic species wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation are urging people to spot for their annual butterfly count. Also it's a moth. Mon 4: The gloriously down-to-earth Blackmans shoe shop off Brick Lane closed two years ago and the business went online. Its replacements are a designer menswear boutique and a creative hair agency, such is the driving thrust of gentrification hereabouts, and let's just say that for the price of a houndstooth cardigan you could have bought 23 pairs of plimsolls. Tue 5: The elderly lady sitting beside me in Mansfield bus station got very agitated when the bus arrived and I didn't board first. She'd assumed there was a queue and I was at the front of it, I knew if there was a queue I wasn't at the front of it, and the lad who got on the bus first never even considered that the disparate rabble was a queue at all. She tutted to another waiting pensioner, hoping for support, and I recognised her as one of the miseries who go through life picking fault in other people. Daily Mail reader, obviously.
Wed 6: I was thrilled when I switched on my TV and got an on-screen message saying that "Viewing on this TV is being measured" by BARB, the independent ratings agency. That's what media dreams are made of. Then I did an online search and discovered this had happened to loads of other people over the last few weeks so I was nothing special after all, dammit. Thu 7: I see TfL are still prominently displaying their "Please carry water with you in hot weather" posters on days nobody would describe as hot. Fri 8: Ten dull things I did today: microwaved a croissant, got 90p off a Pukka pie, took the binbag out, squeezed past two bikes on a train, found a newspaper in Ruislip Manor, passed the Cricklewood sheep, pointed at a bad map, watered a bay tree, cropped a miner, sang along with the Wombles on Top of the Pops. Sat 9: I thought Royal Mail had ended Saturday deliveries but today I received a bank statement and a Tesco Clubcard voucher. It's also the first post I've received in two weeks, so maybe they're only doing Saturday deliveries now. Sun 10: My Dad rang and the phone came up with his real number for the first time in years, rather than 'Withheld'. Previously I've always known it was him because nobody else with a withheld number calls.
Mon 11: Seen on a rack outside a gift shop at Piccadilly Circus - really crappy tote bags, £12.99 each or two for £20. I guess some overseas fools must buy them. Tue 12: I was pleased when the gladiolus on my balcony pushed up three shoots this year (last year two, previously one). Alas none of them have brought forth any flowers (2023 was my only previous floral failure). Wed 13: Started watching Destination X, then remembered they're doing two episodes a week and I hadn't seen last Thursday's. By the time I'd fired up iPlayer they'd summarised last week's show and completely spoilt the "where are we?" surprise. Thu 14: There are numerous posters across the transport network for an upcoming cinema release starring Joaquin Phoenix. It's a western called Eddington, and I bet that works fine with American audiences but I can't stop thinking it's a shootout between PM Jim Hacker and Jerry from the Good Life.
Fri 15: That's the first time I've ever seen a parakeet from my window. I've seen them around London for many years but it's my first sighting here in Bow. Sat 16: Another Saturday mail delivery. It included a gas bill (posted 10 days ago) and a greetings card (posted five days ago, 1st class!), so the mail round here is screwed. Sun 17: There's a barber shop in Kingston with a sign in the window that says "your beard is your identity". I guess for a heck of a lot of men it is, but I can't grow one so I fear that makes me a non-entity. Mon 18: Paid my gas bill. Meanwhile British Gas posted "a gentle reminder to pay your gas bill". It'll arrive in 10 days time.
Tue 19: Just down the road from Harold Wood station is a small undistinguished garden, supposedly of Asian plants, added as part of Havering council's legacy offering for the 2012 Olympics. I very nearly blogged about it but could find no further information online, so you got lucky there. Wed 20: At Tesco Express on Bow Road a man appeared to be humping the cashpoint out front. He looked straight at me as if to say "yes I am humping a cashpoint, what of it?", and I walked swiftly on. Thu 21: Visited a different library to usual and picked up the latest copy of Michael Palin's diaries. It's both fascinating and reassuring, although I should perhaps have started with the 1969-1979 volume rather than launching straight into 1999-2009. Fri 22: Six things seen through my Dad's window: a bright red butterfly on the rudbeckias, a hot air balloon, a man on the roof of the cottage opposite bashing the chimney to pieces, jackdaw, wild rabbit, nextdoor's son riding the family tractor.
Sat 23: The celebrant at my niece's wedding finished off with the wise words "Life is what you make it, but love is what makes it worth living". Everyone else smiled because a happy married life lay ahead, but I sat there thinking "dammit, I guess I've completely wasted my life". Sun 24: Why is it so hard to make a good cup of tea in an unfamiliar kitchen? Kettles all boil water, milk is milk and I brought a teabag with me specially, but the end result was still dire. Mon 25: Just after leaving Ipswich the train driver suddenly announced "If you look out of the window on the left you should be able to see a polar bear", and he was right. Tue 26: I laid back in the bath and enjoyed this year's episode of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme. I'd heard all the sketches before because I was in the audience last month, but still laughed along. They record it twice so I wonder how much I actually witnessed.
Wed 27: The TJ Jones in New Malden (formerly WH Smith) has a handwritten sign on both doors saying "WE DO NOT SELL POKÉMON HERE". I doubt that any of this improves customer footfall. Thu 28: Received an email from a Guinness World Record Holder saying "Just found this daily puzzle - tubedoku.com. Perhaps you've seen it already but thought it would be right up your street." He was right, I've added it to my daily regime, and it might be up your street too. Fri 29: Ooh, you can walk across the central span of Hammersmith Bridge again, also cycle across it, that's much nicer than squeezing along the edges. [Quick check, ah, you've been able to do that since April]
Sat 30: I got a spare set of keys cut because when you live by yourself the potential jeopardy of getting locked out is huge. Gosh replacement fobs are expensive. Also the locksmith winked at me on the way out, and I wonder if he thought I was up to no good. Sun 31: For completeness' sake here's the wet/dry weather for the last week of August following on from my St Swithin's Day report. Not good if you were out and about, but we got very lucky with the bank holiday.
Let's finish off my five-part walk down the River Fleet by following the long-buried section through the City of London. It's barely a ten minute walk from Smithfield to the Thames but packed with interest, so much so that 20 years ago I spent a week writing about it, but this'll be a more fleeting precis. Relevant landmarks along the way include Holborn Viaduct, Ludgate Circus and Fleet Street, obviously, plus several structures that weren't here back in August 2005. And OK there's no sight or sound of the river this time but the signs are everywhere.
The Fleet enters the City beside Smithfield Market. The area was originally known as Smooth Field, a grassy bank leading down to the river, hence the ideal place for a cattle market. Of the subsequent buildings the closest is the General Market Building, long vacated and currently being reimagined as a home for the London Museum which is due to open next year. The Victorian facade isn't quite ready so is screened at present by a long white hoarding featuring 33 pigeons each decorated by an artist from a different London borough. Here we read "These hoardings are a creative expression of our new brand identity", also that the museum will be "a shared place where all of London's stories cross and collide", and I fear that someone at the museum may have paid their strategic narrativeagency too much money.
The standout structure hereabouts is Holborn Viaduct, or the Holborn Valley Viaduct as it was known when the foundation stone was laid in 1867. The valley of the Fleet is particularly pronounced here, so for centuries cross-town traffic had been forced to dip down Holborn Hill and climb Snow Hill on the opposite side. The new cast iron span was over 400m long, supported on granite piers, and cost over £2m in conjunction with the associated road improvements. It still looks gorgeous with its red and gold gloss exterior and dragon-supported City arms, plus four statues on the upper parapets representing Commerce, Agriculture, Fine Arts and Science. Look underneath to find arched vaults, one currently occupied by a wine merchant, or head to one of the four corner pavilions to find staircases connecting top and bottom. The two southside stairwells are gloriously evocative whereas the northside pair are modern rebuilds with less character, lifts and in one case a huge tiled mural depicting the viaduct's construction.
Holborn Bridge, now Holborn Viaduct, once marked the Fleet's tidal limit. North of here the river was originally known as the Holebourne, literally the stream (bourne) in the hollow (hole), in case you'd never realised how the name Holborn was derived. South of here the river lived out its final days as a canal, Sir Christopher Wren having transformed the filthy channel into what he hoped would be a majestic 50-ft-wide waterway after the Great Fire. Things didn't quite turn out as hoped, the water soon silted up again and under private ownership the canal fell into disrepair. In 1733 the section between Holborn and Ludgate was arched over and topped off with a long line of market stalls - the Fleet Market - which was eventually cleared away in 1829 after becoming a dilapidated impediment to traffic.
Although Farringdon Street is a Victorian creation this valley section feels increasinglymodern as large-scale office developments inexorably replace the buildings to either side. Goldman Sachs massive HQ occupies a huge block as far down as Stonecutter Street while a new 13-storey curtain of student accommodation is rising opposite adjacent to Holborn Viaduct. Its hoardings are emblazoned with Fleet-related ephemera and artefacts, quite impressively so, including pewter tankards, Turnmills flyers and fascinating double page spreads from old books. One consequence of construction is that Turnagain Lane has been wiped from the map, a medieval alley so called because if you drove a cart down it to the river you'd have to come back up again. Of the handful of parallel alleys that survive, all have been relegated to become dead-end service roads for adjacent office blocks, each brimming with nipped-out smokers.
The notorious Fleet Prison was once slotted between Bear Lane and Seacoal Lane, originally located here just outside the City walls after the Norman Conquest. Its 19th century replacement was the Congregational Memorial Hall, birthplace of the modern Labour Party, whose memorial plaques can be seen embedded in the wall of the latest office block to grace the site. Back in 2005 this was a huge hole in the ground and now it's the Fleet Place Estate, a split-level generic mass of workspace offering KERB streetfood and "best-in-class end-of-commute facilities". Close by is Ludgate Circus, originally the site of Fleet Bridge, the key river crossing on the medieval road between Westminster and the City. To one side was Ludgate Hill and on the other side Fleet Bridge Street, its name subsequently shortened to Fleet Street. The bridge was essentially buried at the same time as the river in the 1760s, and the current concavecrossroads appeared 100 years later.
The final 300m to the Thames follows New Bridge Street, which was named after the original Blackfriars Bridge and not its Victorian replacement. This was the second section of the Fleet to be arched over, covering Wren's former wharfage, a hollow subsequently used to funnel both the Fleet Sewer and the Fleet Relief Sewer towards the Thames. It's a fairly lacklustre road today, its bland nature exemplified by the presence of Fleet Street Quarter's Green Skills And Innovation Hub halfway down. It would have looked considerably more magnificent 500 years ago when Henry VIII built a royal palace here, and far less appealing a century later after that had evolved into the Bridewell house of correction, lowest of the Fleet's three notorious lockups. The Bridewell Theatre round the back is a much more recent addition inside a converted Victorian swimming pool.
On the opposite bank was Blackfriars Priory, which despite being dissolved 500 years ago still manages to lend its name to much of the modern locality. As well as the bridge there's also the railway station, which now spans the Thames, and the tall thin Black Friar pub whose exterior mosaic features two friars dangling a fish by the mouth of the Fleet. The expansive road junction here was originally called Chatham Place and is now a major feeder of bicycles as well as passing cars. Until 2017 it was possible to descend to the walkway beneath Blackfriars Bridge, peer down and see the outfall where the brick-chambered Fleet Sewer overspilled into the Thames. The best view was from a staircase that no longer exists, this because the Tideway super sewer took control and has been refashioning the waterfront for several years longer than originally intended. 110m of fresh foreshore is scheduled for completion next month, and already looks nearly ready, while the former outfall has been encased behind a slabby protrusion that'll feed any brown sludge into the mega-tunnel 48m below.
And that's my fleeting return to the Fleet completed, a five-part skim down the river from fledgling peaty trickle at Kenwood to brand new post-Bazalgette megapipe at Blackfriars. Its path is rarely visible but can often be easily traced if you know where to look, and hides a fascinating fluvial history. What's more it's changed far more than I expected since I last blogged the Fleet 20 years ago, so who's to say I won't come back in 2045 and give it another go?
Fleeting
