Today I'm continuing my new feature in which I walk the entire length of Britain's B Roads, sequentially, starting with the lowest numbered. This'll disappoint several of you, not just because I haven't dropped the idea but because I've bounced back with the second road in less than a week which suggests I might be taking this over-seriously.
The B101 is even shorter than the B100, which doesn't bode well, and worse I've already blogged half of it in a post last year. Also we're already nudging just beyond central London which means the area is less well known and less likely to contain points of historical significance. At least it's more interesting than the B102's going to be, so don't say you weren't warned.
Today we're in Hoxton to walk the B101, which is two streets long and bends in the centre like a textbook obtuse angle. The road used to begin at Apex Junction on Old Street (where Great Eastern Road forks off), but significant remodelling for cycleway works in 2015 put paid to that. Instead the first 30 metres were turned into a bike-friendly swoosh with pedestrianised borders, which is all very pleasant but has led to consequential declassification. Any cars wishing to jump the gap now need to detour via narrow backstreets, so generally don't. This is of course precisely what the cycle improvements were meant to achieve but has pretty much nullified the nation's second B Road.
Pitfield Street is so named because, delightfully, it's on the site of a 17th century plaguepit. Today it's on the Hoxton/Shoreditch borders so verging on the hip and trendy, although a significant number of shuttered shops suggests trading has been hit hard by the pandemic. One of the ex-businesses is CycleLab.co.uk, a bike accessory shop which for some reason doubled up as a juice bar, while another casualty has been generic chicken fryer Taste of Tennessee. Noodles and tailoring are still available, the community laundrette might be open depending on what day it is, and Best American Pizza deserve harsh opprobrium for displaying the word PIZZA'S on their big illuminated sign. As for The Hop Pole, a smartly presented Truman'spub on the corner of Coronet Street, although it might look ready to pull you a pint it's actually been flats since 1985.
A happier tale concerns the former Passmore Edwards public library, de-booked when Hackney opened Shoreditch Library on a nearby street. Since 2007 it's been used instead as the Courtyard Theatre (named after the company who first moved in, not because the Victorians built libraries with interior open space). Tonight there's a performance of Punchy! The Musical, a post-war tale of crime and conflicted ego, while next week teen favourite Finn Askew is dropping by. Across the road is Aske Gardens, a small park that today is mostly tennis and basketball courts but used to be the front garden of some totally OTT classicalalmshouses. They boast an impressive tetrastyle portico funded as part of the original Haberdasher Aske's bequest in 1698, confirming that all you need to succeed in modern Hoxton is three centuries of compound interest.
It's amazing how quickly residential London kicks in once you step past the commercial veneer of central London. We're barely beyond Old Street and yet here are chunky blocks of council estate surrounded by leafy lawns, plus CCTV cameras on poles to make sure nobody misbehaves. The existence of a substantial local population is confirmed by the presence of a Curzon cinema in the big white building across the road. It's a strange sort of cinema because the 'films' emblazoned in plastic letters above the door are called Bar Cocktails Cafe and Shakes Small Plates Pizza, but I guess round here they make most of their revenue from halloumi bites and negronis rather than comfy seats.
The Hoxton vibe continues with an on-trend shopping parade which somehow supports three separate cafes with pavement dining. Local residents can choose to sip their coffee outside Friends of Ours (peak vibrancy), Curious Yellow Kafe (a close cosy second) or Muzzy's Cafe (full English preferred). The line-up also includes a longstanding hostelry, the George and Vulture, which claims to be "the tallest pub in London since 1870". Meanwhile a plaque above the surgery confirms that this half of the parade was rebuilt after the war with more money from those generous Haberdashers... but on closer inspection it's not actually a doctor's surgery it's an art gallery, or at least the window is, and just how Hoxton can this get?
Pitfield Street continues straight ahead but the B101 turns left instead up New North Road. This genuinely was new in 1822 - a Public Carriage Road built by order of Parliament as a fresh connection from Shoreditch to the turnpike in Islington. The church of St John the Baptist on the corner is of similar vintage, a neoclassical triumph with galleried seating and a highly decorated interior, hence grade II* listed. The current congregation is very much at the "riot of joy" end of the ecumenical spectrum, which means guitars on Sunday as well as a strong commitment to support the local community. This being Hoxton they also have a pizza oven in the churchyard from which sourdough creations are sold at lunchtimes, with toppings supposedly including 'spicy salame' and 'chilly'.
Most of the remainder of the B101 is either modern flats or school playground, but squished inbetween are a rather tasteful Georgian terrace and a teracotta-fronted Edwardian mansion block. The road's penultimate building belongs to Old Street Studios (for all your mixing and remastering needs) and the last is a bright orange ethnic supermarket (which until recently was drably green). And here again Hackney's cyclists have been victorious, with the northward exit now a one way filter and the inbound half turned over to cycle hire stands and a bike lane. From here onwards New North Road is much busier and much more important, hence classified as the A1200, so I'll not be going there. But the B102 starts not much further up and the bad news is I've already walked that too, and so this interminable feature continues.
