For the antidote to Tube Week let's head to the resolutely tubeless borough of Bexley, and specifically to the peculiarly-named locality of Crook Log. Some know it as a street corner, some as a leisure centre and some as a carvery, but as far as I can tell it's really a brief stretch of Watling Street which somehow gained the name Crook Log before any historian was able to jot down why.
Crook Log lies just west of Bexleyheath town centre, indeed Broadway morphs silently into Crook Log just beyond the Post Office. This quarter mile used to be lined by big Victorian villas but only a few remain, it's a lot flattier now. One of the leftovers has become the Crook Log Guest House, which is proudly bedecked with two huge flapping Union Jacks, but that's very much the exception. The chief heritage leftover is the Crook Log pub, first recorded over 200 years ago so very probably the origin of the locality's name. I'd imagine a bent tree was involved somehow, it definitely wasn't somewhere criminals assembled to make a list.
Today the Crook Log is a Toby Carvery, and is already promoting its £16.49 festive menu (although they won't serve it to you until mid-November). Other manifestations of the Crook Log name appear at Crook Log Primary School, Crook Log Dental Practice, half a dozen Crook Log bus stops and the Crook Log Pharmacy (although that last one's an impostor because its address is 329 Broadway). Technically the Asda supermarket is designated Bexleyheath Crook Log but they've done the counterintuitive thing of sealing the main doors and writing 'Store entrance to rear' on them, because the new front is the car park in Clarence Road instead.
Amongst the wider Bexley community Crook Log is better known as the location of the borough's main leisure centre. Prior to 2005 the pool was on the south side of the road and the dry activities on the north side, but this wasn't a terribly efficient use of land. I know this because BestMate did a school project on it as part of his Creative Design GCSE in which he proposed that the two sites be merged into one building, which he then proceeded to draw from multiple angles using multi-coloured pens and a ruler. Earlier in the week he whipped out his portfolio to show me, and was inordinately proud that his solution was essentially adopted by the council two decades later.
The new pool is half-Olympic-sized and can be glimpsed through the glass as you walk round to the main entrance. The Queen walked through these doors when she came to open the building, because even she's been to Crook Log, wearing an ensemble which the local paper described as a mustard skirt suit. Today a line of turnstiles prevents unpaid entry, but the coffee shop just inside the entrance would be very pleased to see you. "Not A Member, Not A Problem" their chalkboard says, before tugging heartstrings with "Please Come And Say Hello And Support Our Small Family Business". If you are a member then their Pre-Workout Yeti Juice may provide the massive energy you need.
World heavyweight boxing champ Lennox Lewis is a former Crook Log resident, and so was Roger Moore if you believe the unchecked claims of the internet (although his mansion at Coldblow has the better Bexley claim). William Morris built his Red House a couple of streets away when all this was orchards, but that's not Crook Log, that's officially Bexleyheath. I did drop in and admire his gardens while I was in the area, which is the second outing my National Trust card has had this week, but to get inside the building you need to have pre-booked a tour so I made do with the splendid autumnal flowerbeds instead.
The other local treasure is Danson Park, the borough's finest open space, which covers the estate of a grand Georgian mansion. I went for a walk round that too and it was glorious, but to keep it relevant I entered via the ornamental park gates that face the traffic lights at Crook Log. The Lord Mayor of London came down to open the gates in 1929, in the sense that he performed the opening ceremony and is therefore commemorated on the attached plaque. He's been, the Queen's been, BestMate's been and I've been, but how many Londoners have truly been to Crook Log?
