West Drayton is where this journey ends. But first death, a shaky bridge and some giant fish. [map][photos]
West Drayton Cemetery [51.5°N 0.470°W]
Normally this is a quiet tongue of land off the Harmondsworth Road, crowded only with graves and tributes, but I can immediately sense I've arrived a bad time. A pair of white vans and a Range Rover are amongst the vehicles parked up on the verge out front, a couple of suited drivers are standing around smoking, and the little council shed inside the gate is open for business. At the far end of the cemetery, beyond the cypresses, a dense concentration of mourners is starting to disperse from the freshest graveside, their ceremony complete. Everyone's dressed up in their finest black, some in waistcoats which might once have fitted better, others in slim sleek dresses. A strong sense of family reverberates. I make a strategic withdrawal as the first of the hearses zigzags up the uneven driveway and heads off towards the wake. I elect to come back later, after this human drama is complete.
One hour later I'm back, having been kept busy researching the paragraphs you've yet to read. The cemetery is quiet again, apart from the two gentlemen I last saw outside their shed, who in the intervening period have filled in the grave with the aid of a small digger and are busy spreading floral tributes on top. A huge Irish flag labelled 'Dad' forms the backdrop at the head, this just a tiny fraction of the florist's considerable commission, while 'Grandad' and 'Jimboy' are now positioned along each side. A photo of the almost-smiling deceased has been placed on a small easel to one side. I notice that the adjacent grave has a couple of stone leprechauns on it, indeed this whole corner of the cemetery has an Irish feel, and my word there's one particular memorial across the path which takes the breath away.
Jerry Hanrahan wasn't quite 18 when he died, and his loving family have placed two almost-lifelike statues of him on either side of a flamboyantly decorated monument. To the right the young boxer is dressed in a smart blue jacket and has his fists raised, while to the left he's in a tight red G-Star Raw t-shirt, with one hand in his jeans pocket and the other clutching a fibreglass bottle of Bud. Numerous artificial blue roses are dotted around, along with lanterns and patio lights, and the entire tableau is faced by a bright blue bench positioned slightly too close to comfortably sit on. The main text chiselled into the marble is unnervingly lengthy, written as if Jerry is speaking down from Heaven, and has all the sincerity of a much-liked Facebook post. Happy Birthday Daddy, reads the silver balloon his seven-year old left last week. West Drayton, it's clear, will never be allowed to forget.
Cricketfield Road [51.5°N 0.483°W]
The last road in London to cross the 51½th parallel is Cricketfield Road, which is indeed named after the obvious. It forks off from Mill Road at the very western edge of West Drayton, just before all the waterways start, and runs bumpily and pavementlessly alongside the last few yards of the Frays River. At its top end until a few years ago was the Anglers Retreat public house, ideally suited for post-fishing beers or an after-innings pint. But it was demolished last year and is currently being resurrected as flats, in front of a more snazzy eco-development of a dozen more. The adjacent cricket ground has been out of action for rather longer, but remains undeveloped because it isn't brownfield, despite being just as suitable. Next comes the entrance to the local Travellers site, and then an outstanding London oddity - a Bailey Bridge across the River Colne.
The bridge dates back to the Forties, but isn't thought to be war-related. Before it was constructed vehicles could only reach further Riverside properties across a ford, but then woodyards and scrapyards grew up and needed better access, so a former footbridge got replaced by this prefabricated span. A further cluster of automotive businesses was established as a result, so today's pedestrians need to time their journey across the bridge carefully to avoid a stream of cars and vans. The clatter of the decking is evocative, and I kept expecting a tank to appear and start thundering ominously towards me above the reeds and Himalayan balsam.
The handful of people who live out here, on the very edge of London, own fiercely-defended detached homes behind spiked walls and electric gates. The house at the end of the bridge has a decorative lamppost and a request stop flag in the garden, along with a lot of sheds. The potholed track leading off to the right ends swiftly at the gates of the Arklyn boarding kennels, this unwelcoming dead end the furthest west it's possible to stand on the line of 51½°N without entering private property. Technically it's still 250m to the border, but the remainder is mostly fishing lake, all sight of which is shielded behind bungalow and fence. To reveal more, I'm going to have to take an off-line diversion...
Mayfields Lake [51.5°N 0.489°W]
The dividing line between London and Buckinghamshire hereabouts isn't quite the River Colne, but a tiny offshoot called the Bigley Ditch, which explains the impracticalmeanderings of the boundary. Originally the land between the Colne and the Ditch was all meadow, but selective postwar flooding created three separate lakes for angling purposes, the first of which was called Mayfields. Access must be via Thorney Mill Road, a ratrun with a 7-foot width restriction, which passes what used to be the rather splendid West Drayton Mill, where Allen Lane the Penguin books magnate once lived.
Residential quality slumps somewhat after that, with a large estate of mobile homes crammed in just before the boundary. Nobody here gets a garden, only a lot of close neighbours, if a 2-bed for under 200K within walking distance of Crossrail is your thing. The Bigley Ditch is barely visible from the road, but a bright white coal tax post marks the spot, as well as two more modern borough signs. The road continues to a bridge over a single trackfreightline, whose presence is the reason it's impossible to approach these fishing lakes from the west, with the M4/M25 interchange an even more serious obstacle from the south.
The sole entrance is through a locked gate topped with barbed wire, for paid-up members of the Mayfields Syndicate only. They fish these lakes for humongous carp, some over 30 pounds in weight, whose occasional capture must make up for all the long hours spent patiently dangling bait. According to a notice pinned to the gate, members turning up with wet equipment is a serious problem. While I'm reading about this an archetypal fisherlad appears behind the mesh, baseball cap poised. He pauses, as if wondering why the hell I'm so interested, then wanders off to catch a monster. I'm left staring at a photograph of Mayfields Lake...
...which, as the endpoint of my 31-mile latitude quest, will have to do.
