A tributary of the River Fleet once ran from (approximately) PC World on Tottenham Court Road to St PancrasStation, wiggling parallel-ish to what is now the Euston Road. Here's a brief summary of what you'll find today in these North Bloomsbury streets:
University College Hospital ...which would be where I spent my last night in casualty, you may remember. A new skyscraping turquoise and white hospital has just opened, pumped full of far more NHS cash than the crumbling Victorian building ever was, dominating the Euston Road skyline. A workman was taking down the 'Accident & Emergency' sign on the old site when I walked past - the NHS moves onward and upward. (photo) University College:UCL was the third university to be established in England (in 1826, several centuries after Oxford and Cambridge) and the first to admit students of any religion (hence initially vilified by the church as 'The Godless Institution of Gower Street'). The mummified body of philosopher JeremyBentham sits in a glass case near the entrance, and very convincingly alive he looks too. Upper Woburn Place: Until last month you probably wouldn't have known where this short road was. Bet you do now, sadly. Tavistock Square: Ditto this peaceful gardened square. There's a statue of Gandhi sitting crosslegged in a flowerbed in the centre, a tree planted in remembrance of the victims of Hiroshima up the central footway and a Conscientious Objectors' Memorial on a big rock at one end. How ironic that a place so devoted to non-violence should have been visited by terrorism. (photo) Woburn Walk: Very easily missed, this leafy Victorian backstreet is a narrow pedestrian bolthole complete with flagstones and old black and white shop fronts. There's a herb shop, a few boutiques and a couple of restaurants, plus a sandwich bar in the house where Irish poet WB Yeats lost his virginity (at the age of 31). It's all charmingly out of place, and out of time. (photo) British Library(pictured): Not your average lending library, this. For a start it's huge, secondly there are bigsculptures outside, thirdly it contains a copy of nigh everything ever published in the UK (including some absolute treasures), and fourthly it's even open on Sundays. Unheard of. And the library's web address - bl.uk - is probably the (joint) shortest in the world... unless you know better? Following the Fleet (approximately): Tottenham Court Road (PC World), Grafton Way, University College Hospital, University College, Endsleigh Gardens, Upper Woburn Place, Woburn Walk, Flaxman Terrace, Euston Road, British Library, Midland Road, St Pancras Station
Reviewing the Fleet
University College Hospital ...which would be where I spent my last night in casualty, you may remember. A new skyscraping turquoise and white hospital has just opened, pumped full of far more NHS cash than the crumbling Victorian building ever was, dominating the Euston Road skyline. A workman was taking down the 'Accident & Emergency' sign on the old site when I walked past - the NHS moves onward and upward. (photo)
Reviewing the Fleet
University College Hospital ...which would be where I spent 