Walking Britain's B Roads: the B111 Northwold Road
[Hackney] [0.6 miles]
Let's head back to north Hackney for a short B Road linking Stoke Newington to Upper Clapton. I'd only ever walked one end of it before so the second half was fresh and new, but not necessarily more exciting.
Once upon a time the B111 started on Stoke Newington High Street opposite the entrance to the cemetery, but then the A10 was diverted to form a looping gyratory and the first 100m was upgraded from B to A. That's a shame narrative-wise because I have to skip the Tower Theatre, an achingly hip coffee shop and the iconic Sellfridges white goods outlet... which alas closed a few years back and morphed into a vegan takeaway, which it seems has also now closed. Instead...
Ooh, the B111 starts with a road sign which explicitly states that this is the B111, which is unusual because A roads normally get all the love. Veer right and you'll eventually end up in the City, whereas we're veering left past a bike rack, a block of modular flats and a passive aggressive safety sign urging pedestrians to Push Button WAIT for Green Signal. The road follows the northern edge of Stoke Newington Common, a triangle of land formerly known as Cockhanger Green so you can imagine why they changed it. It used to have a more coherent feel before the Victorians dug a railway cutting through the middle and divided it in two, but it'll look a lot more scenic after we cross the bridge and get beyond the Overground.
The villas facing the common enjoy a sylvan aspect and include one with a brown plaque confirming Marc Bolan lived here until the age of 15. The playground opposite his house looks too new to have been frequented by the famous guitarist, and likely not entertaining enough to hold his interest anyway. Close your eyes and you might be able to imagine back 150 years to when this was common grazing land with the Hackney Brook babbling along the northern edge. Archaeological digs around the common have uncovered nationally significant examples of flintaxes from the Mesolithic period, but visualising Stone Age encampments along a B Road is considerably trickier.
Today's residents are well served by buses, this being a favoured spot for routes to terminate, but only one bus follows the entire length of Northwold Road and that's the 106. Beyond the mini-roundabout we find a Londis with seriously blacked out windows and immediately nextdoor a competitor independent mini-market with a considerably livelier selection of fruit and veg out front. St Michael and All Angels church is of 1885 vintage and exhibits a squeezed Gothic aesthetic. It also marks the spot where the Hackney Brook once bore off to the south, now culverted somewhere beneath Norcott Road.
This is a Rail Adhesion Train, or RAT for short. It has absolutely no connection whatsoever to the Stoke Newington area but I'm shoehorning it into the middle of this reportage in an attempt to revive the fading interest of my transport-obsessed readers. Yes this is Debden station so yes this is the Central line, but no it's not a modern Central line train it's 1962 stock repurposed. This special train helps mitigate against leaf fall problems by applying a ‘friction modifier’ containing silica, stainless steel balls and gel to the railhead to break down the leaves and normally runs from October to Christmas. A shorter unit operates at the western end of the Central line and yes, there are separate RATs on the Metropolitan and Piccadilly. n.b. I shall not be visiting Debden on my B Road journey because the B171 past the station was upgraded to the A1168 when junction 6 of the M11 opened in 1977, but the B170 still passes Buckhurst Hill and the B172 still passes Theydon Bois so I should get there eventually.
Meanwhile, back in Hackney, Northwold Road is meandering like the country lane it originally was. Further examples of past heritage include the separate boys' and girls' entrances to Northwold Primary School, the cast iron K2 telephone kiosk on the pavement opposite and the street sign with the NE postcode on the wall above. Another NE sign will be coming up in a couple of street corners' time, and that's 3% of Hackney's entire complement accounted for. Before that the B111 finally throws up a proper pub, the Royal Sovereign, which is more than the much longer B109 could muster. Everything on their exterior menu comes with an upbeat adjective, so their pizzas are amazing, their salads are super, their lagers are superb and their ales are well kept.
I was much more intrigued by the takeaway at number 92 which seems unable to decide whether it's called Curry & Pizza or Pizza & Curry, then goes on to confound expectations with the strapline 'More Than Just Curry Pizzas'. The splendid redbrick building across the street with the copper turret is Clapton's Old Parish Hall, opened in 1915. The hall is upstairs and was stripped out in the 1990s to create an event space ideal for wedding parties, and also gets used by the osteopaths downstairs to facilitate their "dynamic wellness offering", i.e. yoga and pilates classes. Cauliflowers and Class 1 flat cabbages are available in the corner shop opposite, which is a sure sign that I'm running out of things to say as the road draws to an end.
Every single shop in the last parade has been converted into a dwelling, in some cases shoddily, but a rather nice 'Strongs for Best Quality Meat' ghostsign lingers on the wall above. The final redbrick beauty is Clapton Library, closed Wednesdays, where the feature to look out for is the owl hidden within the scrolled cartouche above the entrance. It's one of London's Carnegie libraries, dates back to 1914 and thankfully isn't slated for closure in the borough's latest review. The final stretch of the B111 is lined by dull flats and an anonymous eyebrow salon, eventually terminating at traffic lights halfway down Clapton Road (opposite the Jerk Hut and a boarded-up Launderette). Hopefully the B112 won't require quite so much padding.
