After yesterday's world-famous haul, can the 51½th parallel keep coming up with a series of locations you've properly heard of? Yes, yes it can. [map][photos]
Belgrave Square [51.5°N 0.153°W]
The epitome of unaffordable housing, Belgravia was a speculative development on fields to the west of London in the 1820s, and its success is why the Duke of Westminster is now exceedingly rich. Belgrave Square is its focus, and is much larger than your average London square, but even so the architect only managed eleven houses on each side. Each is a mini palace hidden behind standardised white stucco frontage, although an element of difference exists in which particular style of heritage black lantern each resident has chosen to hang inside their porch. Counting flags confirms that least a dozen of the houses are used for diplomatic purposes, including the Turkish Embassy, which is a precise 51.5°N hit. A fleet of black cars and vans with diplomatic plates is parked outside, along with a cluster of visiting motorbikes, and every now and again a sleek black Rolls Royce glides past. I actually saw two in a row... we're not in Thamesmead now.
At the square's northernmost vertex, where the anti-clockwise numbering starts, a statue of Argentine general José de San Martín faces the ambassador's residence on Grosvenor Crescent. The plinth lies within one of the few visible pockets of central garden, the remainder screened behind carefully cultivated shrubbery for the benefit of the few. On the traffic island opposite is the Romanian Centenary Garden, a raised bed planted with native flowers to mark 100 years since unification, although in late summer it has the look of well-cultivated weeds. Nearby I saw several groups of workmen taking a quick break before they returned to upgrading the interiors of their vastly wealthier paymasters, and seemingly in no hurry to get back.
WESTMINSTER KENSINGTON & CHELSEA
Harrods [51.5°N 0.163°W]
Strictly speaking, 51.5°N only scrapes the pavement outside the northern tip of Harrods, but anyone standing here would immediately have their eyes drawn towards the adjacent world-famous department store. Door 6 leads into the lipstick room, just before the handbag hall, each offering far more luxurious varieties than anyone might rightly need. A lot of those swanning inside are tourists from the wealthier end of the scale, their numbers boosted by the weak pound, very likely wearing sunglasses, and often designer headscarves or gold-threaded shawls. The next entrance along Hans Crescent has been converted into a fake bullion vault, because that thrills the clientele, and the commissionaire is only too happy to step out and take a grinning family snapshot.
Back on the corner, a young busker with an electric cello is sitting on an amp and wowing the crowds. He starts with a familiar tune I eventually work out is Ed Sheeran, then smiles and segues into Hallelujah - a not-especially Leonard Cohen version. The circling crowd is enthralled, and appreciative, perhaps inspired by the handwritten sign 'Saving Up For Music College'. With admirable frequency audience members step forward and drop notes and coins into his case, not necessarily in the local currency, helping towards his three year overdraft. I suspect this is one of the primest pitches in London, although I wonder quite how long your performance would have to be to save enough for a Christian Louboutin.
KENSINGTON & CHELSEA WESTMINSTER
Royal Albert Hall [51.5°N 0.177°W]
My chosen line doesn't cut the concert rotunda itself, but instead the steps to the south connecting down three flights towards the Royal College of Music. Previously these were the South Steps, but at the turn of the century they were ripped out and rebuilt to accommodate dressing rooms, energy equipment and a loading bay underneath. Today they're the Diamond Jubilee Steps, renamed when HM The Queen officially graced them with her presence, and you'd never guess all that infrastructure was hidden beneath your feet.
At the top of the steps is the 1851 Exhibition Memorial, originally intended to be 'Britannia Presiding over the Four Quarters of the Globe', but then Prince Albert died and he got to be the main statue instead. As the key driver behind Albertopolis I guess it's only right. The upper piazza is large enough to cope with scores of Promenaders, including those hanging around for day tickets to the Gallery (£6, first come, strictly 1 each). I decided against hanging around for Prom 43, and also against popping into the Verdi restaurant for tagliatelle al ragù d'anatra or a quattro stagioni. A word of warning if you cycle here, don't leave your bike chained to the railings outside Albert Court because the porter charges £20 to release unwelcome steeds.
WESTMINSTER KENSINGTON & CHELSEA
High Street Kensington station [51.5°N 0.192°W]
This is one of zone 1's odder outdoor stations, accessed through a shopping arcade rather than directly from the street. I bet Pret, Nero, Leon and M&S weren't the original vendors immediately outside the ticket hall, but times change. Platforms 1 and 2 are fairly standard, if often thronged, while platform 3 is used by the wilfully downgraded Olympia service. But platform 4 is the true curio, an almost-unused siding accessed down a barely-noticed staircase from the concourse, or via a gloomy crossing behind the buffers of platform 3. I couldn't bring myself to walk down to the far end without appearing astronomically suspicious. Come back on 1st October for the station's 150th birthday party.
Design Museum [51.5°N 0.200°W]
Formerly the Commonwealth Institute, this is where the Design Museum ended up after fleeing their previous Thamesside home at 51.503°N. The shell of the building survives pretty much intact, notably the copper-covered hyperbolic paraboloid roof, but the entire interior was gouged out at the behest of the new owners, and it isn't the same without the central podium and flying staircases. Don't get me wrong, it's a different kind of impressive inside, but walking round again I was struck by how much of the new museum is wasted empty space. Stepping up from the gift shop in the foyer, a set of benches sponsored by Land Rover. Around the central atrium, a string of haute couture photographs as a sop to visitors too poor to pay £16 to see the main exhibition. On several floors, locked doors leading to study zones, education spaces and a dead restaurant. In the basement, a few posters. It could be so much more. It isn't.
At least the free exhibition Designer Maker User is always open on the top floor, and that's extremely good, but again crammed into a much smaller space than the building's footprint could allow. I love the wall which shows a century of gadgets shrinking inexorably towards a tiny smartphone. I always stop to pay homage to Kinneir and Calvert's road signs. But having been round before it didn't take me long to wander through, and I barely stayed in the building for half an hour. I should've been more appreciative because, looking ahead, the Design Museum's the last building of any familiar stature on 51½°N before the suburbs kick in ahead.
