Onwards across Ealing, our penultimate borough. [map][photos]
Northfields station [51.5°N 0.312°W]
South Ealing and Northfields are the closest Underground stations outside zone 1, and aligned approximately east-west, and yet the 51½th parallel still somehow manages to slide between the two. You can see how close they are if you stand on the bridge in Weymouth Avenue and peer through the gauze, South Ealing barely a platform's length away, and Northfields more like two. I feared I was going to have to write about the doctor's surgery on the corner, and an abandoned towel, and Magda's cat who went missing on 17th May ("Wolly has mikrochip!!!!!! can be very hungry!!!!!! empty bowls and his bed break our hearts"). But I went and checked out both stations just in case, and I think one of them just about counts.
It started looking good for Northfields when I spotted Diamond Food And Wine on the street outside. I suspect Magda shops there. And Northfields has always looked good because it's a Charles Holden station, with its tall Sudbury-esque ticket hall balancing out a low horizontal frontage, panelled clerestory windows and a flat slab roof. The Metro bins out front aren't quite the right shade of blue, and the pigeon spikes on the uplighters aren't what the architect intended, but some people are extremely fortunate in where their daily commute starts and ends.
I walked down to the far end of the platform, beyond the concrete canopies, a raised flower bed and those self-supporting roundel/advert combos that were de rigueur in the early Thirties. I watched the latitude on my phone tick up to 51.4998°N, then 51.4999°N, but it wasn't going to reach 51.5000°N unless I trespassed beyond the barrier or stepped off onto the tracks. When the station opened there was a further walkway connecting with a path leading along the trackside to Weymouth Avenue, which has been demolished at one end and sealed off at the other, but it's for this reason I'm claiming that Northfields station just crosses the line.
Elthorne Park [51.5°N 0.336°W]
Residents of south Hanwell have enjoyed the formal part of this park since 1910, its opening delayed a few days by the announcement of the death of king Edward VII. It's a bandstand and tennis courts kind of place, the latter with a large banner for an investment company hung up behind the baseline. But walk a little further and you enter a much more recent addition, Elthorne Waterside, where scrubby meadows and young woodland are taking over the site of a former rubbish tip.
Though abundant with wildlife it's not especially feature-rich, so Ealing Council commissioned a local artist to work with seven schools to create 'The Mosaic Trail' linking various colourful works of art. I found one by some thistles, a circular disc with only a tiny sliver of its original mosaic remaining, like some smashed fragment of Roman pavement. Best not tell the children. Also, despite being called Waterside, it's very difficult to get down to the River Brent/Grand Union Canal unless you join the towpath at either end, the difference in height being a silent reminder of quite how much waste the park is perched on.
I was expecting a long detour to my next location, but instead spotted a sign by the orchard exit indicating a public footpath. Talk about unpromising. It led me through an industrial estate, past the shedlike Magic Food cafe, to a grimy corner where some workers had brought their own liquid lunch. I eventually worked out that the footpath passed through a closed gate, which led to an unexpected level crossing over a single track freight line. A narrow littered path then ran beside a high fence, overlooked by the occasional horse, alongside a vast tract of undeveloped inaccessible brownfield. And I mention this because sometimes London's most unexpected corners only reveal themselves when you try to walk between two random locations, and this is why we should do it more often.
Windmill Lane [51.5°N 0.349°W]
This may just be one of London's oddest streets. A mile long, it joins the edge of Osterley to sort-of Hanwell, and looks like a rural road somebody forgot to upgrade. No public transport runs this way but it's a popular cut-through, so has street lamps and signs that flash if you try to do more than 30. Partway up is the kind of lay-by where 'No Dumping' signs are essential, and the pavement (where it exists) occasionally narrows to pushchair-unfriendly width. A collection of buildings hides on the other side of a very long brick wall, the entrance to which is deliberately unlabelled. Try to follow Windmill Lane on Google Streetview and you'll discover the picture freezes out at each end. It's almost like somebody doesn't want you snooping around.
That somebody is the Sultan of Brunei, who bought Aviary Farm many years ago and now maintains it as one of his many global residences. He's not here much, but his extended family are, enjoying the seclusion and a lot of life's luxuries, including a big swimming pool, an outdoor basketball court and a manicured lakeside lawn. I happened to be walking past when a car pulled in and the main gate silently opened, revealing a little more than the Sultan likes to show, if nothing more than some very nicely sculpted trees. Heaven knows what CCTV made of a random pedestrian walking past taking random photos, but thankfully nobody emerged to tell me to stop or to feed me to a pack of hounds. For an unnerving and unwelcoming walk, give Windmill Lane a spin.
Havelock Estate [51.5°N 0.369°W]
We'll cross the Grand Union Canal one more time, but here's a quiet spot undergoing transformational change. The Havelock is another of Ealing's less-loved council estates, a 50s/70s development that could have worked out better, crammed into an awkwardly inaccessible triangle between an industrial estate and the canal. As at Acton Gardens a phased plan of decanting and relocation is underway, with additional homes added for private buyers, and the end result will look exactly how you expect. Placards advertising 'canalside living' will only become reality once the Canal & River Trust have hacked two and a half metres off the height of the hedge along the towpath, which they're kindly undertaking this summer. Narrowboaters in the know take advantage of ample mooring opportunities.
King Street, Southall [51.5°N 0.383°W]
Here I found myself well to the south of the railway station, in what was originally Southall Green, with its typical Middlesex high street. But the suburb's character changed dramatically after 1950 when the partitioning of the Punjab brought Sikhs and other South Asians to Southall in great numbers, initially in search of work. Today Southall has Hindu mandirs and most notably ten Sikh temples, with Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha the largest anywhere outside Asia. Its domes can be seen from some distance, or suddenly come into view when you turn into the adjacent terraced street. What the other gurdwaras lack in size they make up for in dazzle, or openness, or the overuse of orange paint. At least three Sikhs passed me on their way to a service holding sitar-sized carrying cases.
I didn't see a single other European face on King Street as the local mixed community went about their business. I should emphasise I never felt uncomfortable, it's just another vibrant neighbourhood, but the only other monocultures I've walked through in London have all been white. Clothes and food shops predominate, the former incorporating textile merchants and tiny cubbyholed-sized dry cleaners. The Naan Shop sells its takeaway goods for a pound. One bazaar advertises nothing but its supply of Rakhi cards for those celebrating on 26th August. So many letters have fallen off the front of the Tesco Express (or 'Teo press') that the opening times somehow read 'penery damp'. A half-timbered pub nobody wants to drink in any more has become a Ladbrokes. The paving slabs outside what used to be St John's Church are inscribed with the names of local historical figures who resonate with a minority of the community. I'm pleased not to have reached the end of my journey without a reminder of the capital's true diversity.
