It's almost September again but never fear, London's putting on a last flurry of events, activities and happenings before the nights draw in and we're all invited. Here's my weekend-by-weekend guide to free September delights.
All month
» Totally Thames (Sep 1-30): Once again a whole month of river-focused events, most ticketed, ranging from art to walks to virtual talks to boat trips to a few exhibition boards dumped in a park. This year's festival peaks on 22nd September which has been designated Thames Day. Thankfully the website's events section is easier to scroll through these days.
» Lambeth Heritage Festival (Sep 1-30): Dozens of free talks, guided walks and openings across the borough (plus a proper week-by-week brochure to flick through, bliss). Hats off to whoever organises this every year.
Weekend 1: August 31/September 1
» Greenwich+Docklands International Festival (23 Aug - 8 Sep): This significant splurge of spectacular performances delivers artistic wonders annually. Annoyingly you'll need the brochure for an overview of what's on when. This weekend you can enjoy animal impersonations in Eltham and watch parkour at North Greenwich. GDIF ends next weekend with Canary Wharf's annual day of dance and towering balladry in Thamesmead.
» Creative Mile (Sat, Sun): Art in venues across Brentford, including The Musical Museum and the London Museum of Water and Steam.
» Green Chain Walking Festival (Sep 1-15): Fifteen free guided walks, including two chances to walk the new unsigned section 12 between Greenwich and Eltham.
» Highgate Wood Community Heritage Day (Sun, 11-4): Beekeepers, parading dogs, local history societies and the first firing of a replica Roman kiln.
» Angel Canal Festival (Sun, 11-4): Waterside gaiety beside City Road Lock, now in its fourth decade. Expect the Mayor of Islington to arrive by narrowboat. I went last year.
» Brentford Festival (Sun, 12-6): Live tunes, stalls, vintage vehicles and the obligatory dog show in Blondin Park W5. I went last year.
Weekend 2: September 7/8
» Heritage Open Days (Fri - next Sun): Once again two weekends when hundreds of buildings that aren't usually open are open. Most are outside London but 92 are in the capital, including sculpturetastic Dorich House, E3's House Mill and tours of Woolwich Works.
» Leytonstone Festival (Sat, Sun): Local performers - mostly actors and musicians - perform across E11 across the next week. The opening event is at St John's church.
» Lambeth Local History Fair (Sat, from 10.00): A coming-together of local societies, heritage organisations, friends groups and local history publishers at St Leonard's church in Streatham. Includes short films and guided walks.
» Black on the Square (Sat, from 12): The Mayor's latest culturally-themed Trafalgar Square takeover, introduced last year. Will be headlined by award-winning actor and rapper Bashy.
» Fulham Flower and Vegetable Show (Sat, 2.30-4.30): The 100th anniversary produce show at St Etheldreda's church.
» St Katharine Docks Classic Boat Festival (Sun): Annual gathering of small boats near Tower Bridge, including 18 Dunkirk Little Ships, plus dockside entertainment and opportunities to go on board.
» Thames Tidefest (Sun, 9.30-5.30): River-based activities scattered between Brentford and Chiswick, with a particular marquee-focus at Strand-on-the-Green, W4.
» Croxfest (Sat from noon): OK so this one's not quite in London, but where else are you going to hear Velour Fog, Apricot Hounds, Swanvesta Social Club and The Polaroidz other than on the Green in Croxley?
Weekend 3: September 14/15
» Open House London (this weekend and next): The grand-daddy of architectural festivals, with hundreds of weird and wonderful buildings throwing open their doors across the capital for two weekends. The online calendar currently includes 850 properties, over 400 of which are "just turn up". It's quite central-London-centric this year (6 in Hillingdon but 88 in Westminster), although I always think the outer boroughs have some of the genuine treasures. It's possible to search by date, borough, event type and map location and also to filter out events that needed pre-booking. Less practically you can only see what's fully booked if you set up an account. As ever there's far too much to choose from, but if you need inspiration here are my reports from 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023. Be there or regret it for the subsequent 51 weeks.
» Heritage Open Days Weekend two
» London Design Festival (continues next weekend): Hundreds of design-er events, many aimed at "the trade" but others more public-focused. The online programme is so diffuse I have already waved the white flag and surrendered.
» Erith Made (Sat, Sun): Erith again attempts to whip up community spirit with an extensive selection of events. But they have yet to upload the programme to their website, which is unhelpful, so maybe best keep an eye on Facebook.
» Markfield Road Festival (Sat, Sun): Art, DJs and more, spilling out into the street up N15 way.
» Hampton Court Open Gardens (Sat, Sun): One of half a dozen opportunities annually to explore the palace's historic grounds for free.
» Peckham Festival (Sat, Sun): Since 2016 a celebration of creative Peckham, with food amidst the art, music and fashion.
» Scadbury Open Weekend (Sat, Sun, 2-4.30): Archaeological excavations at the moated medieval manor house near the Sidcup bypass. I went in 2022 and I enjoyed.
» Route 61 Heritage Event (Sat, 10-5): Free vintage bus rides along route 61 in Bromley, and not just for People Who Like Buses.
Weekend 4: September 21/22
» Open House London: Weekend two
» Bermondsey Street Festival (Sat, 11-7): A designery "village fête", plus the obligatory dog show, plus curated live music, plus food and stalls.
» The Great River Race (Sat from 1.15pm): 300 craft engage in a spectacular paddle up the Thames from Docklands to Richmond.
» Chiswick House Dog Show (Sun, 11-4.15): Now in its 20th year, celebrity judges give the hounds of W4 the runaround.
» Hackney Carnival (Sun, 12-7): Not of Notting Hill proportions, but expect exuberance and booming sound systems from Mare Street to London Fields.
Weekend 5: September 28/29
» Chelsea Physic Garden Open Weekend (Sat, Sun): Annual freebie at London’s oldest botanic garden as part of the Chelsea Festival.
» Woolmen’s Sheep Drive and Wool Fair (Sun, 10-4): The celeb leading this year's first tranche over Southwark Bridge will be revealed shortly on Instagram, but they'll do well to beat Mary Berry or Michael Portillo. Come too for wool-related trade stalls and lamb burgers.
» Pearly Kings and Queens Harvest Festival (Sun, 1.30): Cockney royalty offers live entertainment in Guildhall Yard.
20 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in August 2024
1) In 2023/24 TfL sold 3,143,828 One Day Travelcards (down 38% on 2018/19). They also sold 3,849,293 Weekly Travelcards (down 65%), 801,367 Monthly Travelcards (down 67%) and only 15,192 Annual Travelcards (down 80%). 2) Last year vehicles associated to the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan failed to pay 34 £160 fines issued for contraventions of the red route in London. 3) The fastest Superloop route is the SL3 which averages 14.8mph. In joint second place are the SL5 and SL7 (13.4mph). The slowest Superloop route is the SL6 which averages 8.7mph. In second place is the SL8 (10.7mph). 4) TfL refuse to provide a list of Underground depots and their locations because they consider that "the publication of this information would be likely to increase graffiti or security breach attempts on the network". 5) The loudest sections of the Central line (eastbound) are Holland Park to Notting Hill Gate and Stratford to Leyton, both at 95 dB. Westbound the loudest is Liverpool Street to Bank at 89 dB. 6) Touching a pink reader should never increase a fare. 7) In the last twelve months TfL received 2.4 million text messages requesting Bus SMS Live Arrivals information. This is up from 2.08 million SMS messages during the previous 12 months. 8) If you'd like a pdf copy of the October 1997 pocket tube map (which showed the Jubilee line under construction) here it is. 9) TfL's office block at Endeavour Square in Stratford contains 2644 workstations, but average daily occupancy in 2023 was only 450 (and drops off considerably on Mondays and Fridays). 10) TfL has no plans to provide dual language signs at any further stations. Any request would have to come from the local council, who would also be responsible for the costs of translation, manufacture and installation. 11) When Old Street station was temporarily renamed Fold Street (following the Burberry Street debacle) mitigations included a) signage changes limited to a maximum of 50%, b) no changes to cross-track signage, c) no changes to announcements on trains, c) no changes to announcements on platforms d) provision of stewards to aid confused customers, e) exclusion zone of no activity from gateline to Moorfields Eye Hospital exit. 12) Several bus stop tiles, bus stop names and bus shelter names along route H20 in Hounslow are either unhelpful or incorrect (for example "Lampton Road, Hounslow Civic Centre" should now be "Lampton Road") and TfL will look into reviewing this. [I thought I was obsessive, but whoever submitted this FoI is off the scale] 13) Current 2025 plans for the Rotherhithe Tunnel do not involve a full closure (except for the planned maintenance closure overnight every Monday). 14) The current state of the four escalators at Cutty Sark station is: 1) back in service since 16 August following safety defect issue, 2) back in service since 3 April following major overhaul, 3) out of service following the identification of a safety defect, 4) back in service since 23 July following major overhaul. 15) The next pocket tube map is expected to be released on 23rd September 2024. 16) If you list the locations of all the Santander cycle hire stations in alphabetical order, Abbey Orchard Street in Westminster comes first and York Way in Kings Cross comes last. 17) When designing a taxi rank, a length of 5,000mm per taxi is standard. 18) Across London 671 schools have gold Travel for Life accreditation, 105 have silver, 195 have bronze and 486 are getting there. 19) The reason there are so many weekend closures on the Windrush line a) is due to ongoing redevelopment work at Surrey Quays, b) was previously due to Crossrail works at Whitechapel. 20) Aboard new-style double decker buses on route 63, the feature the travelling public are least enthused by is wood-panel flooring.
No weekend is complete without a visit to Poverest, the charming outer London suburb handily located on the Chislehurst Road, where a good time is always on offer. [map]
Whether it's recreational excellence, prestige shopping or heritage opportunities you seek, Poverest won't disappoint. And it's so easy to get to, either a brief walk down the steps from St Mary Cray station or a short Uber hop from the bright lights of Orpington. Bring your best party clothes and/or comfortable shoes and you'll soon be able to embrace everything Poverest has to offer.
Ask anyone in Poverest where the heart of the action is and they'll likely point you towards Poverest Road, the historic backbone of the community. It stretches for almost a mile from the rustic outskirts of Petts Wood to the bustling artery of Cray Avenue with its diverse variety of commercial outlets. Along the way it passes multiple homes a millennial could only dream of owning, and additionally crosses a low hill with excellent views over the Cray valley, topped by a mobile mast so tall your TikTok vids can't fail to upload.
The summit was once home to a single farmstead which in 1327 was part of the manorial estate of a certain Margaret de Pouery, after whom the area was inevitably named. Today two churches are to be found at this prime location, one Lutheran and one Baptist, both examples of unforgettable archetypical postwar architecture. Those undecided where to worship on Sundays will be delighted to hear that their services don't overlap - one's at 10.30am and the other at 3.30pm - leaving plenty of time inbetween for a good Kentish brunch of lamb's liver and bacon at Beril's Cafe.
Heritage and history are second nature in Poverest and nowhere is this more true than in the small parklet alongside Bellfield Road at Dipper's Slip. Here can be found the double whammy of Fordcroft Romano-British Bathhouseand Anglo-Saxon Cemetery, a scheduled monument now under the protection of the Orpington and District Archaeological Society. The bathhouse was discovered by Arthur Eldridge during roadworks in 1946 and is believed to have been part of a larger villa complex in use between AD 270 and AD 400. The cemetery lies a tad to the northeast and is thought to contain mid-fifth and sixth century burials. You don't find this kind of treat at Westfield.
What's more the remains of the bathhouse are on full public view, admittedly underneath sheeting inside an open-sided shed behind a fence inside a locked enclosure, but still plainly seen. If you want to get closer (and who wouldn't?) ODAS unlock the gates once a year for an Open Day giving guided tours of the foundations and a closer look at the caldarium, tepidarium, frigidarium and bits of hypocaust. Unfortunately they do this in July so you've missed the annual unveiling, also the display of tiles and other finds in Poverest Coronation Hall, but feel free to come stare through the fence anytime.
When it comes to recreation there's only one place to head and that's Poverest Park. This former strawberry field was adapted for public use in the 1930s and now boasts a playground, some tennis courts and the Orpington Excelsior Bowling Club. It's also the ideal spot for a picnic celebration, although Alexander's 5th birthday was yesterday so Marvels puppet theatre will have packed up and gone home by now. Don't miss the mural on the front of the pavilion, painted to honour the now defunct St Mary Cray Athletic, but maybe do miss the basketballer on the side because that artwork's very poor.
Fans of Robin Hood will notice something comfortingly familiar about the street names here, this because the avenues of Poverest were laid out on farmland which included a patch of woodland called Robin Hood Shaw. Littlejohn Road and Hood Avenue are also on the map if not on this large green sign. For the full Sherwood Forest experience you have to head to Robin Hood Green, a sloping tongue of tightly mown grass surrounded by a curve of interwar semis. Regrettably only two of its three oak trees remain upright so potential woodland activity is limited, but imagine the fun you could have practising archery on the greensward.
And then of course there's Marion Crescent! This is Poverest's buzzing retail hub, a parade brimming over with hospitality and purchasing options. For all day breakfast there's Regals Cafe (strapline We're Not Posh), for 'Mediterannean' there's The Greek Way and for all things African there's Taste House Restaurant. Alas you're too late for the legendary sausage rolls at Stanley Bakeries, where not even a £1 cuppa could keep the business afloat. But the kind ladies at Ace Ironing will be happy to deal with all your pressing issues, and if French polishing is your thing then be aware that SJM at number 30 have an actual royal warrant.
And that's not all. For evening entertainment there's all the fun of Poverest Coronation Hall, the tin-walled community centre opened in 1953, which seats 60. For motorsport there's revved-up council lawnmowing on the green at Church Hill Wood. For lovers of brass rubbing the manhole covers across the estate are classic Grip-Lock roundels from Needham of Stockport. For the green-fingered the gates to Poverest Allotments can be unlocked with a quick email and a one-off joining fee of £5. And for a rifle through six decades of sports neckwear in a museum-like setting, Winston Sports on Bridge Road have been manufacturing elite level 'ties and associated products' since 1956. On the downside there's no pub anywhere, maybe never was, but other than that Poverest really does have it all.
Before you leave be sure to climb to the lofty heights of Tillingbourne Green Open Space, spread yourself out on the dandelion slopes and stare out across the leafy canopy of the railway viaduct. Apologies for the racket coming from Poverest Primary on the hilltop but they've already gone back before the start of September, not just staff and children but also Buddy the school's therapy labradoodle. Best not head to the parade at the foot of the hill because only four of its dozen units are still trading and you might get the idea Poverest is a typically ordinary suburb struggling like any other, rather than the ultimate secret leisure destination it plainly is.
I'm indebted to Ian Visits for alerting me that a new stretch of the Thames Path has just opened up. It's alongside Craven Cottage, the home of Fulham FC, where previously you had to divert inland around three sides of the stadium. That's no longer necessary because a new Riverside Stand has been built and for the first time incorporates a proper riverside walkway. It's not, as the club's website claims, "a transformation of the riverside walkway into a world class leisure destination", that's ridiculous. But it is a nice shortcut, and because it's very new it still smells of timber rather than football.
The clever bit is that there are big black gates at either end, intermittently overlooked by security, which means they can close off the new terrace during matches. It then becomes a mingling and circulation space, ideal for accessing bars, curated streetfood and gourmet hospitality options. But the rest of the time anyone can wander through and gaze inside at the bevy of workmen still finishing things off, or gawp outside at a statue of George Cohen, 1966 World Cup winner. Even if you dawdle, it won't detain you long.
The best part is that this is yet another shortening of the Thames Path by routing it properly along the river. In recent years we've had fresh access alongside the industrial estates of Charlton, underneath Barnes Bridge, in front of Battersea Power Station and around Queenhithe in the City of London. Which left me wondering how much of London's Thames riverside remains inaccessible and whether one bank is more accessible than the other.
Here's my attempt at cataloguing the inaccessible chunks of riverbank on both sides of the Thames and their approximate lengths. I haven't included any gaps shorter than 100m. Breaks of 1km or more are in bold. The colours show general levels of accessibility (green good, amber intermittent, red poor).
SOUTH BANK
Hampton Court Bridge
NORTH BANK
Surbiton (600m)
Kingston Bridge
Hampton Wick (2km)
Teddington Lock
Teddington Reach (1km), Twickenham (400m, 200m)
Hammerton’s Ferry
Richmond Bridge
Ducks Walk (500m)
Richmond Lock
Isleworth (100m, 100m), Syon Park (1.5km)
Kew Bridge
Chiswick (1km)
Chiswick Bridge
Barnes Bridge
Chiswick Mall (200m)
Hammersmith Bridge
*newly cleared*
Putney Bridge
Putney (350m), Wandsworth (250m)
Hurlingham Club (1.6km)
Wandsworth Bridge
Chelsea Creek (150m)
Battersea Bridge
Albert Bridge
Chelsea Bridge
Battersea (250m, 100m)
Pimlico (300m)
Vauxhall Bridge
MI6 (150m)
Lambeth Bridge
Palace of Westminster (350m)
Westminster Bridge
Waterloo Bridge
Blackfriars Bridge
Southwark Bridge
Clink St (300m)
London Bridge
Tower Bridge
Bermondsey (400m), Rotherhithe (350m)
St Katharine Docks (150m), Wapping (600m, 300m)
Rotherhithe Tunnel
Rotherhithe (400m)
Limehouse (300m, 200m)
Canary Wharf Pier
Doubletree (200m), Deptford (700m)
Millwall (300m), Island Gardens (300m)
Greenwich Tunnel
Blackwall (500m, 200m)
Blackwall Tunnel
Yacht club (125m), Charlton (500m), Thames Barrier (250m)
Overall, I think you'll agree, there is an extraordinary level of access to the Thames through London. It runs for over 40 miles between Hampton Court and Erith - that's 80 miles of potential path - and yet there are only nine places where access is blocked for 1km or more. What's more every single one of those red zones is on the north bank of the river, leaving the south bank pretty much accessible throughout. From Surbiton to Putney and from Vauxhall to Southwark is pretty much unbroken access.
Out west the lack of proper Thames Path is usually housing related, a lot of well-to-do people having snuck in and bought their own piece of riverside. Out east the blockages start off being residential but as the estuary broadens it's commercial uses that smother the riverside, this having been a good place to hide industry and to allow waterborne delivery. Wharves, sewage works and former car plants don't mix well with recreational wanderings, and maybe never will.
The blockages in central London are really impressively few - the Houses of Parliament and the environs of Southwark Cathedral - plus a number of smaller interruptions which don't meet my 100m threshold. It'd be great if a few more gaps could be closed, as at Fulham, and here future development is key. Deptford's dockyard will one day be housing with an additional 700m of riverfront, ditto the 400m at Albert Island and further gains out near Barking Riverside. On a more serious note, as sea levels rise it turns out most of the defences that'll need strengthening are along riverside paths, not riverside buildings, and maybe that'll make the engineering easier.
Whatever, the Thames remains one of the very best places in London to go for a walk because in most places you can just head off without having to worry about too many intrusions along the way, especially along the south bank. I walked from Fulham to Kew yesterday and it was unbrokenly glorious, for which all Londoners should thank the foresight of years and years of careful planning.
i.e. the largest, smallest, deepest, farthest, earliest, weirdest, exitiest... all the extremes.
n.b. this gets subjective in places because what exactly is a roundabout anyway, and will also have gaps, omissions and inaccuracies, but thankfully a lot of my readers are inquisitive research-friendly pedants.
The largest
London's largest roundabout is the CranhamInterchange, aka M25 Junction 29, an intersection with the A127. It's the M25's easternmost junction, indeed it's right on the edge of the capital and Essex kicks in as soon as you join the A127 slip road. It's also almost perfectly circular with a diameter of 225m (roughly the length of two football pitches), which means if you were to drive all the way round it'd be a 700m circuit. As a motorway junction it's not especially pedestrian friendly which is why I don't have a photo of it, although I have walked round it while trying to cross the A127 in Cranham and it was fairly traumatic. I do however have a photo of the second largest.
London's second largest roundabout is the PoyleInterchange, aka M25 Junction 14, an intersection with the A3113. This time it's on the very western edge of the capital and most of the slip roads lead straight into Slough or Surrey. It's 220m wide but not quite circular so more like 190m wide on the perpendicular axis. As a motorway junction it's not at all pedestrian friendly, but they did have the foresight to route a footpath through the middle should anyone have a desperate urge to walk from Stanwell Moor to Poyle. The path dips down to a remote-feeling subway, then climbs to cross the motorway beside the inner edge of the actual roundabout, then dips down to a remote-feeling subway again. Both halves are planted with thick woodland, in one of which I disturbed teenage moped riders who thought nobody would ever find them in there so I left pretty sharpish.
London's third largest roundabout is the BrentwoodInterchange, aka M25 Junction 28, an intersection with the A12. It's 220m long but only 160m wide and has three slip roads that lead into Essex. The largest roundabout that isn't on the M25, nor on the very edge of the capital, is the BecktonRoundabout where the North Circular meets the A13. It's 210m at its widest dimension. Fifth place goes to the Waltham CrossRoundabout, aka M25 Junction 25, and I can confirm that walking through that is a much more pleasant experience than negotiating Poyle.
The most easterly/northerly/westerly/southerly
Interestingly we've already mentioned three of these. London's most easterly is at M25 J29 (Cranham), the most northerly at M25 J25 (Waltham Cross) and the most westerly at M25 J14 (Poyle). The roundabout at Poyle includes the westernmost point in the whole of Greater London. The most southerly roundabout is harder to determine, the M25 being of no help. I think it must be the mini roundabout at the foot of Old Lodge Lane close to Kenley Airfield, unless there's a roundabout further south in Biggin Hill I haven't spotted.
The smallest
I'm not sure it's possible to determine London's smallest roundabout with any degree of certainty. It's probably a mini-roundabout somewhere, but short of measuring them all (which would be impractical and dangerous) the tiniest will remain unidentified. There might somewhere be a smaller object that traffic gyrates around, like a lamppost or a milestone, but would that even be a proper roundabout?
The most exits
This is a great question - which London roundabout has the most exits? Most have three or four, some have five and a few have six. But I reckon there's at least one roundabout with seven exits and you already know where it is, it's this.
This is Seven Dials in the heart of Covent Garden. This seven-way junction came about in the early 1690s when Thomas Neale realised he could squeeze in more buildings if the streets met in a series of triangular wedges. Originally all seven streets had different names but they've since been rationalised to become Earlham Street, Mercer Street, Monmouth Street and Shorts Gardens. The sundial in the middle has only six faces, which might seem remiss but the argument is that the column itself casts a shadow creating the seventh dial. And if you're thinking "that's a monument in the middle of the street, that's not a roundabout", I draw your attention to the blue roundabout sign on Monmouth Street which confirms yes, it absolutely is.
Roundabouts I've spotted with six exits include the Leamouth Roundabout (near East India DLR), the Gallions Roundabout (near Gallions Reach DLR) and the Rosehill Roundabout in Sutton. There may be more. I should say I'm not including gyratories, nor garden squares, nor residential roads that just happen to be circular. I nearly included Hyde Park Corner on the list but on closer inspection it's more of a complex road junction than a proper roundabout which follows proper roundabout rules.
The fewest exits
One exit would be silly, more a turning circle than a roundabout. It is possible there's a partly-opened roundabout somewhere that thus far only has one exit but I haven't found one of those. Roundabouts with two exits are equally silly, because what's the point, but I have found a particularly good example and it's here.
This is the CyprusRoundabout on Royal Albert Way, an elevated dual carriageway running parallel to the Royal Docks. It runs above the Beckton branch of the DLR, indeed was built at the same time, and in two places incorporates a roundabout with a DLR station in the centre. At Beckton Park that roundabout now includes access to the failed Royal Albert Dock development, but at Cyprus there is no such access so the roundabout still has only two exits. It's proper ridiculous. The first roadsign you pass as you approach in fact shows a double bend, not a roundabout, because this 'junction' has proved to be an unintentional means of stopping cars from driving too fast. The approach also has a sign saying 'New Roundabout Ahead', despite it having been here since last century. Cyprus may not be the only two exit roundabout in London but it is the stupidest.
The oldest
I suspect this comes down to definitions, but Seven Dials being 17th century probably makes it London's oldest roundabout.
The oldest mini roundabout
Now this I can tell you, thanks to a detailed online tribute to the inventor of the mini roundabout, Frank Blackmore, who died in 2008. He was a WW2 RAF pilot who rose to the rank of Wing Commander and then in 1960 started work at the Road Research Laboratory in Berkshire. His first dabble with a smaller than usual roundabout was at Peterborough in 1968, but his brainwave that you could simply paint a circle on the road was first brought to life in South Benfleet in May 1970. Upton Cross (in Dorset) followed in June and then in July he introduced a double mini-roundabout at Eastcote (along the High Road near the tennis club) and that's still there.
The weirdest
Frank Blackmore was also the man behind the Magic Roundabouts in Swindon and Hemel Hempstead, the extraordinary amalgams of five or six small roundabouts to create a larger one. Neither of these are in London but we do have a similar one and it's to be found on the eastern edge of Heathrow Airport, just outside Hatton Cross bus station. The Hatton CrossRoundabout is formed from five mini roundabouts arranged in a pentagonal loop, each joined by a two-way road whose lanes are divided by a line of wands. Two of the exits are merely service roads so it's not especially busy, but it does seem to work well and without the trepidation Swindon might cause. Why drive that far for Magic when we have it here in London?
The most layers
This is my local roundabout, the BowInterchange. Not only is there a roundabout at ground level but also a flyover (for the former A11) and an underpass (for the current A12), making it a triple-decker junction. This is rare. It's not unique in London because the Cranham Roundabout also has a flyover (for the M25) and an underpass (for the A127), but Bow does feel like the most compact example with a top, middle and bottom.
And those are London's most extreme roundabouts. Unless of course you know better...
• The double decker: Westferry Circus, Canary Wharf (thanks Dave)
• The double flyovered: Staples Corner (west) (thanks Sprout Eater)
In this series I'm taking the train one stop beyond the Greater London boundary, getting off and seeing what's there. Today that means Theobalds Grove, one stop beyond Turkey Street on the Southbury Loop, better known these days as the Weaver line of the London Overground.
Essentially we're in Waltham Cross, but that'd already had a station for 50 years when this opened in 1891 so it got called something else. It's located on a viaduct where the railway crosses the end of the High Street, but the quiet end of the High Street, not the historic end with the Eleanor Cross, the shops and all the people. I'll not be writing about that end in today's post, I'll save that for when this series returns to Hertfordshire to do Waltham Cross. Things were still so rural at Theobald's Grove in 1909 that the station stopped serving passengers, reopening as late as 1960 to serve a few suburban streets that had appeared between the nurseries. Residents of those streets included my grandparents and my Mum, who grew up here, so I know the area better than most thanks to childhood visits. Forgive me if this gets a bit nostalgic at times.
I remember the station 50 years ago as a long elevated curve accessed via deep oppressive stairwells. The steps are still just as steep but now have orange handrails and non-slip treads, which older me approves of, while chunks of plaster have fallen off the walls through lack of love. Nobody checks your ticket any more, nor will sell you one, this being one of the few Overground ticket offices TfL successfully extinguished, but there are still smiley staff with little to do other than usher you in and out. The car drop-off loop feels like an anachronism, connecting buses are still more frequent than the trains, and the car park is on the site of what used to be the goods yard. On the entire line into Liverpool Street, only Stamford Hill is quieter.
Stepping outside the station the most striking building is Christ Church, a capacious symmetrical crenellation with turrety upthrust built as a chapel of ease as long ago as 1830. It's reached by crossing a teensy stream called the Theobalds Brook, and was originally called Holy Trinity before a merger with the local Methodists in 1974. It's also invariably locked, which I know because it's where my parents got married and I have only successfully gained access once since. It was a bit weird standing mid-pew and realising I'm only here because they walked up the aisle and exchanged vows, and a bit sad on other visits when I manage to get no further than the food bank 'pantry' in the porch.
The adjacent shopping parade used to be much better, which I can tell you for certain because there used to be a knitting shop that sold craft kits for making felt animals and no such delights exist now. These days it's mostly takeaways, salons and the groceries of many nations, the only proper throwbacks being the gloomy glaziers at 263A and the ketchup-friendly Olympic Cafe at 257. The Wheatsheaf has the air of an old coaching inn but may just be a row of converted cottages, although its sporty clientele are currently locked out while the brewery hunts for a fresh landlord. The Tesco Express gave me pause for thought because it claimed to be "Serving Theobalds Park" and that's the name of a nearby luxury hotel, not the local neighbourhood.
All was fairly quiet to the south until the mid 1990s when the Department of Transport decided to build a link road to the A10 and carved a half-mile line of destruction across the neighbourhood. They spotted a gap that mostly crossed glasshouses and the backyard of a paintbrush factory, but also required the demolition of sixteen properties on the High Street including the White Hart pub. The Vine lived to fight another day and is already promoting Christmas bookings. A dozen houses on Hedworth Avenue were also sacrificed, in their place an awkward footbridge across a roaring dual carriageway in a deep concrete-walled cutting. My grandparents' house narrowly escaped, which is nice for nostalgic reasons, although standing outside I see their front garden has been fully paved over, all their windows replaced and their loft converted to an extra room supporting a slew of solar panels.
The link road means things are now rather quieter to the north of the station, a single spine road towards Cheshunt with various suburban turn-offs and a handful of reminders of more ancient times. The Coach and Horses is now a blazingly orange tapas restaurant but if you check the wall nextdoor it has a plaque saying Established 1614. Other listed buildings include a partially 16th century cottage, a 17th century white-weatherboarded property and an 18th century residence now used for car maintenance. Here too is the somewhat austere HQ of the Lea Valley Growers Association, a confederacy of local market gardeners founded in 1911 when greenhouses were the area's chief landuse and income stream. According to their website the Lea Valley still produces around 75% of the UK's cucumbers, sweet peppers & aubergines (which may well be true) and "is often described as the Cucumber Capital of Britain" (which I doubt).
The Theobalds name comes from a royal palace, a seriously blingy one, a short distance to the west of the station. William Cecil's new house came to royal attention in 1564 when Queen Elizabeth first visited, so he jazzed it up some more and she came back ten more times, on one occasion staying for nine days. James I liked it so much he bought the whole estate, or rather swapped it for Hatfield House, and duly died here in 1625 after a nasty bout of dysentery. After the Civil War the palace was alas demolished, being a possession of the losing side, and the spoils divided between members of the Parliamentary army. Later a fresh mansion was built a mile to the west, this called The Cedars, where a brewery magnate's wife once purchased the original Temple Bar as a garden monument. For a minor Overground outpost this is an immensely impressive backstory.
Today if you leave the station and walk along Theobalds Lane you come to the gates not of a palace but of a much-loved local park. The few walls that remain are from a later Georgian villa, mainly the flint walls of an arched folly, but the trees are fabulously mature and diverse as is often the case with a former rich man's garden. The royal menagerie here once contained elephants and camels, hence a scattering of wooden beasts can be found around the park, and there's also a very small pets corner (admission £2.40) with genuine armadillos, meerkats and tarantulas. This week has been designated Whose Poo At The Zoo? Week, if you're planning on bringing littl'uns. I found the park heaving with young families, especially the cafe and the snail mound, although the recreation of William Cecil's Tudor labyrinth now looks weedy and very much the worse for wear.
Head in the opposite direction from the station, i.e. east, and you follow an old country lane leading down to the river Lea. It was once called Marsh Lane, for reasons obvious when you get to the far end, and is now called Trinity Lane as a reminder of what the top end at the beginning used to be called. My Mum went to school down here, on a site that's now a block of flats, before moving to the same school as local boy Cliff Richard (although she'd left to start work at the Co-op just before he turned up). Trinity Lane tracks the entrenched Theobalds Brook, with residents on one side having to cross it when driving out, and ends today at what used to be a level crossing until Network Rail replaced it with a lofty footbridge in 2016. I bet that slows the dogwalkers down. On the far side are the glories of Cheshunt Marsh, an open area of rough grass and squidgy rivulets, and if you get as far as the London 2012 White Water Centre the nearest station is now Waltham Cross so you've gone too far.
And I still don't know why the station's called Theobalds Grove as opposed to Theobalds Lane, Theobalds Park or Theobalds Whatever.
Yesterday I undertook the not inconsequential task of buying a new laptop, something I'd been putting off for a long time.
I bought my current Thinkpad in July 2015, i.e. it's over 9 years old, so it's fairly impressive it's still capable of churning out daily blogposts. I queried replacing it in 2020 and your collective advice was "if it's still working keep using it" so I did. It's got slower, as you'd expect, but I've worked around that and put up with the treaclier moments. Then six months ago six of the keys on the keyboard stopped working, a problem solved by the addition of an external keyboard but also a sure sign of approaching obsolescence. The replacement trigger has actually been one of the programs I use announcing it was about to stop working because my system was deemed too archaic. OK, hints taken, purchase approved.
I like that I'm buying a much more powerful laptop than last time and yet it's £90 cheaper. I like that it'll have a bigger screen (because I'm not getting any younger), and also a whopping amount of solid state memory. I don't like that I'm having to buy key software again because manufacturers are overly protective and won't let you simply transfer it. I am not looking forward to all the set-up palaver and trying to customise how everything operates. I am particular nervous about making the leap from Windows 7 to Windows 11, but it had to happen one day. Looking back to 2015 I see the actual delivery of the machine was a total balls-up and I'm hoping that part goes considerably more smoothly this time.
But hey, I've taken the leap and spent the dosh and now await a delivery date. I look forward to the arrival of my ninth computer and hope it lasts as long as the eighth, a workhorse which has served me well for the equivalent of 40p a day. I'll let you know when it gets here, and also whether it's all been a ghastly mistake or whether I should have taken the leap a long time ago.
The renaming of the Overground lines draws closer, indeed should be taking place next month. The original intention was for the changeover to be in August in conjunction with a new tube map, but that's not happened so technically it's late. That said, an awful lot of signage on the Overground has already been replaced, and there are two ways to tell this.
Firstly, if you look closely at a lot of Overground signage you can see the new signs underneath. This is Kensal Rise.
It's hard to get the lighting right for a photo, but the hidden slightly-raised lettering says 'Mildmay line' across the top, then the stuff about trains to Richmond and Clapham Junction in a smaller typeface, then a revised line diagram a bit lower down. What they've done is install the new sign and then immediately cover it over with the old sign printed on a sheet of vinyl. This is very clever because it means all the vinyl can be peeled off on launch day rather than signs being replaced incrementally over several weeks.
And secondly, the London Transport Museum Shop is already flogging off old signs that've been removed.
At time of writing they have 63 such signs available, any of which can be yours for a hefty price. For example the decommissioned sign from platform 2 at Shoreditch High Street is currently on sale (vitreous enamel/good condition/105 x 70 cm/14 kg) for £995. The original sign from Kensal Rise is also up for grabs, this time for £750, confirming that my first photo must show vinyl stuck over a new enamel replacement.
To save you asking, the cost of replacing all this signage is £2.3m, because a lot of miserable grumps put in FoI requests six months ago to check.
Of course the risk with covering signs with vinyl is that someone unofficial might peel it off, and this is indeed what happened along the Watford-Euston line a few weeks ago. Travellers at various stations were suddenly faced with signs showing they were travelling on the Lioness line even though that hadn't yet been launched. This was Kensal Green.
Previously the title would have said 'Bakerloo & Overground' but now we get two separate headings, each with a top strip in the correct line colour. Previously there was one line diagram but now there are two. Previously you'd change at Willesden Junction for two Overground line mouthfuls, but now it says change for Lioness line and Mildmay line instead. It's amazing how many subtle tweaks need to be made when six new line names are introduced.
TfL evidently weren't pleased with this unplanned reveal along the Lioness line because they've covered them all again. Fresh vinyls have been printed and these have been diligently stuck back over the new signs so that passengers still think they're looking at the old signs. So don't go to Kensal Green, Bushey or wherever expecting to see a new sign because you missed your chance. But do keep your eyes peeled across the Overground network because the new signs are increasingly ready and waiting for launch day, secretly hidden in plain sight.
UK cities without a railway station: Armagh, Ripon, St Asaph, St Davids, Wells Commemorative stamps 2024: Spice Girls, Weather forecasting, Vikings, Dinosaurs, 100 years of commemorative stamps, Peppa Pig, Dogs, Red Arrows, Dungeons & Dragons, Tower of London, Porridge, Spiders, The Who, Christmas, Winston Churchill Names of the Seven Dwarfs in Polish: Apsik, Gapcio, Gburek, Mędrek, Nieśmiałek, Śpioszek, Wesołek Prime-numbered bus routes in Barking & Dagenham: 5, 103, 173, 179, 499 Murdered female EastEnders characters: Saskia Duncan, Trina Johnson, Gemma Charleston, Heather Trott, Lucy Beale, Margaret Midhurst, Chantelle Atkins, Tina Carter, Debbie Colwell
Singles kept off Number 1 by Love Is All Around by Wet Wet Wet: Baby I Love Your Way, I Swear, Crazy For You, Compliments On Your Kiss, Confide In Me Prime Ministers who've served for fewer days than Keir Starmer: Liz Truss Times when the two hands of a clock are opposite each other: 12:32, 1:38, 2:43, 3:49, 4:54, 6:00, 7:05, 8:10, 9:16, 10:21, 11:27 Paralympic sports that aren't Olympic sports: Boccia, Goalball Things I did for the first time 40 years ago today: woke up above an estate agent, ate a bowl of Start cereal, played the computer game Chuckie Egg, watched the video for Master and Servant, picked up a Daily Mirror million pound Bingo card, drank in The Perch at Binsey
Monarchs at the turn of the century: Henry I, John, Edward I, Henry IV, Henry VII, Elizabeth I, William III, George III, Victoria, Elizabeth II Teams Arsenal have beaten in an FA Cup Final: Aston Villa, Chelsea, Huddersfield Town, Hull City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton Accented arrondissements of Paris: Hôtel-de-Ville, Panthéon, Élysée, Opéra, Entrepôt, Ménilmontant Farrow & Ball grey paint colours: Off-White, Ammonites, Dimpse, Skimming Stone, Elephant's Breath, Mole's Breath, Purbeck Stone, Worsted, Plimmett, Lamp Room Gray, Dove Tale, Down Pipe, Hopper Head Club biscuits (discontinued): Milk, Plain, Fruit, Coffee, Wafer, Chocolate, Coconut
Shipping forecast areas with no coastline: Bailey, Dogger, Forties, Sole, Viking Counting with bands: One Direction, Two Door Cinema Club, Three Dog Night, Four Tet, Five Star, Electric Six, Shed Seven, Eighth Wonder, Nine Inch Nails, Ten Pole Tudor Countries in the UK's timezone: Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Faroe Islands, Gambia, Ghana, Greenland, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, Ireland, Liberia, Mali, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Spain, Togo, UK Parliamentary constituencies with the smallest majorities: Hendon (15), Poole (18), Basildon and Billericay (20), North West Cambridgeshire (39), Central Devon (61), Havant (92), South Basildon and East Thurrock (98) Paninaro: passion, love, sex, money, violence, religion, injustice, death, girls, boys, art, pleasure, food, cars, travel
Classified roads on the Isle of Skye: A87, A850, A851, A852, A853, A854, A855, A856, A863, A864, A881, B883, B884, B885, B886, B887, B8009, B8036, B8083 Things I did more than twice yesterday: woke up, made a cup of tea, used a pedestrian crossing, washed a spoon, sliced a cucumber, switched stations on the radio, bit into a hot cross bun Surrey towns with a Gail's: Cobham, Epsom, Farnham, Godalming, Guildford, Redhill, Weybridge, Woking Hats ending in 'a': balaclava, biretta, chupalla, fedora, montera, panama London bus routes that are a multiple of 84: 252, 336, 672
Planets (shortest day first): Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Mars, Mercury, Venus Independent radio stations that went on air in 1984: Viking Radio, Leicester Sound, Invicta Sound, Radio Broadland, Hereward Radio, Radio Mercury Purchasable moquette: Barman, Barman Bakerloo, Buses 2016, Colindale, Crossrail Standard, District, Elizabeth Line Standard, Green Line, Old Metropolitan, Overground, Piccadilly, Routemaster, RT/RF, S Stock, Straub, Victoria 1967, Victoria Starsigns of members of ABBA: Aries, Taurus, Scorpio, Sagittarius Square-numbered Freeview channels: BBC ONE, Channel 4, BBC FOUR, QVC, U&W, Sky Arts, 4seven, Blaze, Blaze+1, Freeview
Micropubs in Bexley: The Bird & Barrel, The Bolthole, The Broken Drum, The Door Hinge, The Halfway House, The Hackney Carriage, The Hangar, The Hoppers Hut, The Kentish Belle, The Long Haul, The Penny Farthing, The Silver Fox Unused storm names (2023/24 season): Minnie, Nicholas, Olga, Piet, Regina, Stuart, Tamiko, Vincent, Walid Clues I haven't got in the prize jumbo cryptic crossword: 20 down, 47 down Names of British Rail sleeper trains in 1993: The Night Scotsman, The Night Caledonian, The Royal Highlander, The Night Aberdonian, The West Highlander, The Night Riviera, The Night Scot, The Night West Countryman Scandinavian Eurovision host cities: Bergen, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Helsinki, Malmö, Oslo, Stockholm
Heroes: Creme Egg Twisted, Crunchie, Dairy Milk, Dairy Milk Caramel, Double Decker, Eclair, Fudge, Twirl, Wispa Commenters who've risked a surely this month: Stephen, Scott, THC, A3Warrior, Sean, freddie fitch, Ken, Philip, anon Current lineup of the BBC News website menu bar: Home | InDepth | Israel-Gaza war | US election | Cost of Living | War in Ukraine | Climate | UK | World | Business Mandatory public holidays in Uruguay: New Year's Day, International Workers' Day, Constitution Day, Independence Day (today), Day of the Family The Very Hungry Caterpillar in emojis: 🐛🍎🍐🍐🟣🟣🟣🍓🍓🍓🍓🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🎂🍨🧀🍭🥧🍉🍃🦋
Stations in zone 7: Carpenders Park, Chorleywood, Croxley, Rickmansworth, Theobalds Grove, Waltham Cross, Watford Orange flags: Armenia, Bhutan, Cyprus, India, Ireland, Ivory Coast, Marshall Islands, Niger, Sri Lanka, Zambia 7 letter palindromes: deified, hadedah, halalah, Nauruan, peeweep, racecar, reifier, repaper, reviver, rotator, seities, sememes Squares a white knight could be on after two moves: a3, a4, b1, b5, c3, c4, d2, d4, d5, e2, e4, e5, f3, f4, g1, g5, h3, h4 Three-word English Football League teams: Milton Keynes Dons, Preston North End, Queens Park Rangers, West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United
Bands I saw in 2003: More Fire Crew, The Streets, Mull Historical Society, The Polyphonic Spree, Liberty X, The Darkness, Ash, Moby, Spiritualized, Arab Strap, Mogwai, Audio Bullys Overground stations that start and end with the same letter: Dalston Kingsland, Hampstead Heath, Norwood Junction, Seven Sisters, Surrey Quays, Turkey Street Archers characters who have yet to speak this year: Debbie, Johnny, Ian, Leonard, Martin, Usha Dwarf planets with moons: Eris, Gonggong, Haumea, Makemake, Pluto, Quaoar, Orcus, Salacia Spangles flavours: acid drop, aniseed, barley sugar, blackcurrant, cola, fruit cocktail, lemon and lime, lime, liquorice, mint humbug, orangeade, pear drop, peppermint, pineapple, spearmint, strawberry, tangerine, treacle
If you were wondering what symbol would be added to the tube map next, how about a refillable water bottle?
It's always obvious retrospectively.
To be fair this isn't the actual tube map, it's only the Overground network, hence the map is titled "London Overground stations with free drinking water fountains". The new symbol thus means "station with free drinking water fountain", and you'll either be impressed by how many there are or disappointed how few.
The Mayor wants you to have somewhere to refill a water bottle because he's trying to reduce London's use of single-use plastic, and TfL want you to be able to hydrate more easily because people who faint on trains tend to disrupt the service. Apparently the average Londoner buys more than three plastic water bottles every week, or 175 a year, which disturbingly is the precisely the same statistic peddled six years ago when the Mayor's first tranche of drinking fountains was announced.
It seems odd launching a water bottle map at the end of summer rather than at the start, and also odd launching it a month before all six Overground lines get different colours, but ours is not to reason why.
Also if I shift across the map it looks nowhere near as impressive. It turns out the Liberty line will have zero free drinking water fountains, the Lioness line only one (at Euston) and the Suffragette line only two. Mildmay, Weaver and Windrush do rather better, but thus far there are only 28 refill-enabled Overground stations so best fill up before you go.
Reading a press release is all very well but I wanted to experience these free water fountains for real, so I grabbed my refillable bottle and went to visit seven of them. It may not surprise you to hear that the map wasn't always especially helpful, or indeed seemingly correct.
Homerton
Homerton's a tiny station so this was dead easy to find, plumbed into the wall just beyond the ticket gates beside the Metro bins. This is one of the Overground's six newly installed free water refill points, and very smart it looked too. It's also entirely automatic, you just place your bottle under the spout and the water flows until you take it away again. I thought the dispensed water had a light chill but I may have been imagining it. Also the machine has a tiny LCD display showing the number of Bottles Saved. Yesterday that number was only just over 3000, but I admire the optimism of the manufacturers because the display has eight digits so could comfortably cope with everyone in the UK using it.
Hackney Central
One stop up the line I had more trouble. I scoured the platforms to no effect, also the original ticket hall beside platform 2, also the new ticket gates off platform 1. This took some time. In the end I approached the staff at the assistance window, waved my bottle and asked if the station had a water refill machine. They shook their heads. I didn't say "but there's a new map out today and it says Hackney Central has a free drinking water fountain", but I did think "ha, typical, the map is actually wrong". I cannot fault the staff, however, because they offered to provide me with a free refill anyway. They led me round to the platform where I waited while they topped up my bottle in the mess room, right to the top, and what's more it was properly chilled too. I'd received fantastic customer service but it couldn't disguise the fact that the new map appeared to be incorrect.
Hackney Downs
I had trouble here too. The station has three sets of platforms, a deep connecting subway and a narrow funnel out onto the street. I explored some of these, eventually ending up asking the member of staff at the entrance if he knew where a water refill machine was. Alas he didn't. But I carried on looking anyway and eventually found it in the centre of platform 2 beside the staff office, also with just over 3000 lifetime users. Now I know where the machine is I can use it again and again, but the trouble with the map is that it doesn't state a location, merely sends you off on a treasure hunt around the station until you manage to find it. This, I'd argue from bitter experience, is suboptimal.
Bethnal Green
Is it on the platforms? No it's not. Is it in the subway? No it's not. This time it's in the ticket area, outside the ticket gates, beneath a dinky little blue sign saying Compliments of London Overground. Because it's outside the ticket gates this means anyone on the street can use it, which is good, but also that nobody on a train can nip out and use it without incurring a nasty fare penalty. Inside or outside turns out to be rather important, practically speaking, if you want your bottle filled.
Haggerston/Hoxton
These are also outside the ticket gates, indeed this time they're also outside the station because they have nothing to do with the Overground. They were introduced five years ago in Sadiq's first wave of fountains, part-funded by Thames Water, and have a telltale blue water droplet perched on top. You can't miss them on the pavement, the Hoxton dispenser especially, but you do have to think to go outside and look.
Liverpool Street
My final water refill search was a tricky one because Liverpool Street station is vast and the machine could have been anywhere. It certainly wasn't in the 'Overground' part of the concourse because I looked, and then decided it would be quicker if I just went and asked at the central information kiosk. "It's over there," gestured the member of staff, and ah yes there it was near the entrance to the Underground in the alcove beside the lift used for step-free access. It turned out to be a beast of a machine, a flashy dispenser provided by @sipplehydration which appeared to be offering Double Filtered UV Sterilised Super Chilled water... at a price. It wanted 45p for half a litre chilled, 75p for a litre at room temperature and 10p extra if you wanted sparkling. Fret not, an option for free tap water was provided underneath so I used that, but it was all a bit of a touchscreen palaver and give me Homerton's squirty simplicity any day.
In conclusion, of the seven stations I tried...
Homerton: Inside gateline (in subway) Hackney Central: Could Not Locate Hackney Downs: Middle of Platform 2 Bethnal Green: Outside gateline (by ticket machine) Haggerston/Hoxton: Outside station (on street) Liverpool Street: Beside lift to Underground
An Overground map with bottles on is all very well but what's missing, practically speaking, is a list of precisely where the water refill stations actually are. For example it turns out Hackney Central does have a water refill machine, a slim black thing outside the ticket gates at the new Graham Road entrance, but staff on the other side of the station were entirely unaware of its existence. If they can't locate it, what chance do the rest of us have?
The Overground's new refill points are excellent once you find them but at present the campaign's too much like a poorly charted orienteering challenge, and at a fairly miserly number of stations to boot. Let's hope things have improved, numbers- and directions-wise, by the time next summer comes around.
