Famous places within 5 minutes walk of my house Number 11 - Crossrail
This unassuming and unused bridge straddling Bow Road will one day be home to London's newest rail project, Crossrail. In 10 years time sleek new trains will sail over this bridge from the commuter suburbs of Essex, plunging underground just a few hundred metres south of here to speed under Central London and then out again the other side. But I've written about Crossrail before, here, so enough about that.
Bow's first railway arrived in 1843, the Eastern Counties Railway heading through on its way to Norwich, followed soon afterwards by the London, Tilbury & Southend Railway heading instead for the Essex coast. These two parallel lines were connected by the Blackwall Extension Railway, a curved viaduct crossing Bow Road over the railway bridge pictured here. Meanwhile, not to be outdone, the North London Railway carved yet another line underneath Bow Road to link the docks at Blackwall with the cities of the Midlands via the mainline at Camden. Victorian Bow was trainspotter heaven.
A first-class murder took place on the North London Railway in 1864, somewhere between Bow and Hackney stations. An otherwise empty carriage was found splattered with blood on the train's arrival in Hackney, and the body of chief clerk Thomas Briggs was discovered sprawled across the tracks a short distance back. The murderer, a German tailor, was soon identified and later arrested after fleeing across the Atlantic to New York.
In 1902 the Underground came to Bow (see my previous rant here), at which point there were three competing stations located along a mere 300 yard stretch of Bow Road. Of these only the tube station still remains. Bow station on the North London Line closed in 1949, although this stretch of line was reborn as part of the Docklands Light Railway in 1987 and automated trains now stop at Bow Church station on the opposite side of the road. As for the old Bow Road station on the Blackwall Extension Railway, that's long since gone to rack and ruin, and the old ticket hall is now a betting shop. Sadly there are no plans to reopen the old station when Crossrail arrives, but maybe we have enough railways around here already.
Famous places within 5 minutes walk of my house
This unassuming and unused bridge straddling Bow Road will one day be home to London's newest rail project, Crossrail. In 10 years time sleek new trains will sail over this bridge from the commuter suburbs of Essex, plunging underground just a few hundred metres south of here to speed under Central London and then out again the other side. But I've written about Crossrail before, here, so enough about that.
