Having identified London's longest and shortest High Streets, I thought I'd better visit them.
London's shortest High Street High Street (Wembley) [50 metres]
This is no ordinary High Street, it's a dead end and it's never seen a shop. It's also located somewhere fairly familiar - in sight of Wembley Stadium just round the back of the Designer Outlet. And it's a lot more interesting if you turn up when there's a match on because it has a security guard.
The first thing that strikes you about High Street is it's on a hill, indeed this is likely how the road originally got is name. This is Wembley Hill, a 72m-high hump which would have been proper rural in 1722 when the Green Man pub opened taking advantage of the excellent vista. In the late 19th century a cluster of a dozen cottages joined it, this the aforementioned High Street, before developers moved in and created a genteel microsuburb across the surrounding slopes. High Street doesn't look terribly promising from the bottom, a steepish lane between 30s semis and a building site, but at the top is a cute little enclave that feels wonderfully un-Wembley, almost a bit Yorkshire. Parking looks like it'd be a problem.
Up the side of one house is a narrow unsigned alleyway which leads to a short terrace of five more cottages. Their front doors have footpath access only, which must confuse most delivery drivers turning up here for the first time. Keep going and you reach... aha, the grass round the back of the Green Man pub, except I found it blocked off with temporary metal fencing. The pub was busy with Rugby League fans in town for the Challenge Cup final and the smell of warm lager was unmistakeable. It turns out this alleyway is the most direct route from the pub to the stadium and I guess the railings are there to prevent fans from using High Street as a rowdy cut-through, or indeed as a semi-private spot to relieve themselves by the back fence.
I also guess the security guard at the bottom of the street is there to deter cars from driving in, this because he totally ignored me wandering in on foot, even when I started taking a suspicious number of photos. Alternatively maybe he only activated yesterday if you were wearing Wigan or Warrington colours, whereas I'd sensibly turned up in a neutral shirt. And I'd have got none of this excellent nuance if I hadn't turned up on a Saturday afternoon and seen High Street in matchday mode, just a sleepy uphill enclave that predates everything sporty about Wembley.
London's longest High Street High Street (Harlington) [1¼ miles]
This is no ordinary High Street either, being the main road in what's essentially a linear village. It also gets genuinely high at one point courtesy of the M4 motorway but we'll get to that. If you think of Heathrow Airport then Harlington is top right, fortunately entirely to the north so that no planes actually fly over, and fortunately the Third Runway's dead otherwise the racket here would be deafening. At the foot of High Street is a busy junction called Harlington Corner, very much in sight of touching-down Boeings, which is currently a dense forest of temporary traffic lights and draped yellow cables. It also has the first streetsign and, ah, damn, look at that.
Having gone to all the effort yesterday of saying I was only interested in perfectly-named High Streets, this one's signed as High Street Something. I guess it made sense to add the name Harlington because the entire village is strung out along it, but the suffix wasn't what I wanted to see after I'd slogged for two hours across London. It can't be London's longest High Street if it's not a High Street, indeed was it even worth turning up? I did walk it and make notes but I'm not sure I can be bothered to write them up, what would be the point, so here's a very condensed version of what I saw and perhaps you can imagine the paragraphed prose I might have turned them into.
» Starts at Best Western hotel - ugly rotunda
» Highest house number - 443, I think
» A handful of old cottages amid much suburban linear infill
» Only two streetsigns - both alas the long version
» Food options include the Harlington Tandoori and The Flying Egg cafe
» Both parish noticeboards empty
» Site of village pond was landscaped in 1977 - a minor green focus
» Reasonable parade of shops peaking with a Co-Op
» The salon is called 'Hair by Amnesia' (hahahaha) (sheesh)
Nod to target audience 1:West London Models sell mini cars, helicopters and planes. Shop has a railway layout in its window. Currently selling a 'Back To The Future v Knight Rider' Scalextric for £159. Nod to target audience 2: Superloop route SL9 stops here - it's only one stop to Crossrail at Hayes and Harlington. Nod to target audience 3: In the flowerbed outside the chemists is a classic 'red triangle' road traffic hazard sign. It's over 100 years old and Grade II listed. Nod to target audience 4: The Harlington Locomotive Society (founded 1947) opens for miniature steam train rides once a month from Easter to Christmas. Their next open day is This Afternoon from 2pm-5pm and you know you want to.
Pub 1: The Wheatsheaf is closed and empty - locks changed 5/6/24 Pub 2: The Red Lion is long-closed, boarded and gutted Pub 3: The White Hart survives and thrives (and is reputedly haunted by a dead barmaid called Alice)
» High Street suddenly diverts off to the east up a new road
» Parish church is on former alignment (flinty, locked)
» New road slowly launches over very minor stream called Frogs Ditch
» New alignment of High Street then crosses busy M4 (so is genuinely high)
» Old alignment ducks underneath M4 via grim subway
» Viaduct lands gently amid extensive lowly suburbia
» Road here appears to be called Harlington Bridge
» High Street ends by vets at traffic lights and becomes Station Road
I was fairly peeved that this particular High Street is apparently High Street Harlington, at least as far as road sign evidence goes. But is it really? When I got home I checked with the Royal Mail postcode finder and it lists addresses on this road as 'High Street' and then 'Harlington' on separate lines. I also went on Hillingdon's website to check the bin collection day, which is Monday, and they give addresses as 'High Street Hayes', which is neither 'High Street, Harlington' nor 'High Street Harlington'. Finally I doublechecked with the National Street Gazetteer and that definitely calls it 'High Street', not 'High Street Harlington', and they're the definitive record of what a UK street's officially called.
Whatever its streetsigns say it seems Harlington's High Street isn't a High Street Harlington, it's a High Street and therefore London's longest. I'm still not writing it up properly though, sorry.
