Thu 1: After seeing the bluebells BestMate drove us on to Maldon. We watched the tide coming in, visibly, admired the sailing boats and stood by the squidgy creek at the point where the annual Mud Race would be taking place at the weekend. It looked innocuously simple, and plainly isn't.
Fri 2: Reform winning control of ten English councils - ten! - is either a temporary electoral aberration or a staging post to a populist government in 2029 because "they can't be worse than the current lot", and of course they can. Sat 3: I picked up my first free prescription from the chemist, having passed my 60th birthday, and it felt very odd walking out without paying but in a good way. Sun 4:Pick of the Pops is back at 5pm on a Sunday, which feels appropriate. The second hour clashes with Now Playing on 6Music, but they'll solve that problem at the end of the month when Tom Robinson retires. Mon 5: I do not recommend lugging a large heavy suitcase to Dorset (required because it had to contain everything for a week away plus my wedding suit). The final half mile along an unmade country lane where wheelie suitcases simply don't function comes particularly unrecommended. Tue 6: If the cottage comes with a hot tub then obviously I'm going to use it, kitted out in my finest C&A bathing shorts.
Wed 7: As part of pre-wedding arrangements we met the new in-laws for the first time (not my new in-laws, but I'm not sure there's a specific term for the mother and father of a nephew's wife). They were of course lovely, with a fine line in fruit cake and the full set of railway branch line histories in the living room bookcase. Thu 8: One of the joys of being in Dorset is the opportunity to climb a hill before breakfast, then get on with the rest of the day. Fri 9: Radio 4's Open Country is in Dorset telling the tale of the Abbotsbury Swannery, and judging by what they said about cygnet-hatching they must have visited the day after we did. Sat 10: After a wonderful wedding day with bacon rolls, coach detours, rare bells, confetti tunnels, giant Jenga, marital crossword, big bunny anecdotes and heartfelt cheers, I climbed up to the balcony and looked down on the banqueting tables and dancefloor and thought "I guess I'm never having this, never mind, same again in August." Sun 11: Things that happen the day after a wedding: everyone says how lovely it was, slices of uneaten cake are consumed, those with work tomorrow drive home, a final treat of fish and chips.
Mon 12: There appears to be a resident cat at Dorchester South station because it was lounging on platform 2 both on my way down and my way back up. It was fun watching concerned passengers trying to lure her away from the very edge of the platform as a train approached, with zero success. I wonder if it was the legendarySusie. Tue 13: Bugger, I think I left my phone charger plug in Dorset, it's definitely not in my suitcase. Wed 14: I was casually watching the lunchtime news when someone I hadn't seen for over 30 years suddenly popped up talking about a key issue of the day. Ah, so that's what you're doing now. Sorry to hear your Dad died. Thu 15: Bought a replacement phone charger plug for £2 at Cex (second hand). The assistant only spotted it at the back of the bottom shelf because she was a foot shorter than me.
Fri 16: I have once again managed to ride all the TfL buses in the space of a calendar year, in this case 4½ months. My last three buses were the frustratingly rural R8, 464 and 146 because you always end up in Biggin Hill and Keston eventually. This is the fifth time I've achieved this feat, the quickest being 2023 when I had the whole lot ticked off by the end of January. Sat 17: Someone offered me a seat on the Northern line on Tuesday, then someone offered me a seat on the Central line today. This has only ever happened to me four times, three of them since my 60th birthday, and I really didn't think I'd visibly aged that much in two months. Sun 18: Found my lost phone charger plug. It had got caught up in the one pair of boxer shorts I brought back unworn. Mon 19: The shanty town under the Bow Flyover has expanded to a new cluster of grot on the roundabout, just behind the big Bow sign. It includes a couple of chairs, a small tent, a bathtub, a wall mirror, a chest of drawers, a carrycot, a clothes drier, several boxes and a grate for lighting a fire. I'm surprised nobody's made an attempt to clear it away.
Tue 20: Took a ride on the SL4 through the Silvertown Tunnel, early afternoon, and I was the only passenger. However I know you should never read too much into a single evidence point, even on a free bus. Wed 21: Walked the Grand Union towpath between Hanwell and Hayes via what appears to have been rebranded the Southall Wellbeing Way. Some of the watery and wooden interventions were nice but the best things were still the little ducklings, the stalking heron and the giant silver fish, and could someone please put the brand consultants back in their box. Thu 22: The stamp cost five times as much as the card, and even then it was probably late, sorry. Fri 23: Ten stations I used this week that I've never used before: Albany Park (sheesh that's some footbridge), Belmont (on its 160th birthday), Belvedere (I was sorry to hear about your lost cat), Eltham (unnecessarily big), Hackbridge (I handed in a lost Zip card), Plumstead, Strawberry Hill (ooh, that's off-piste), St Helier (love the wild flowers), Tolworth (so concretey) and Whitton.
Sat 24: When I wrote about the Bonesgate Stream I didn't mention these four lovely leafleted walks published by the Community Brain, an enabling organisation based at Tolworth station. The Malden Rushett and Tolworth to Chessington walks best shadow the river. Sun 25: Watched the aftermath of a rave along the River Lea as groups of twatted revellers emerged from the towpath by the Bow Roundabout. One was being pushed in a trolley, one stumbled into the local corner shop for an urgent banana, several appeared to be struggling with the concept of 'stairs', and one group were ejected from their Uber a minute after it arrived and waddled off to brave public transport. Mon 26: If I were ranking the 500-or-so bank holidays I've experienced, today would probably come in the mid 300s. Tue 27: I know you're unhappy with things as they currently stand but could you stop going on and on about them, negatively, relentlessly, as if we all feel as pissed off about everything as you do, it's so tedious, and now so are you. Wed 28: I had a dream about BestMateFromSchool, not an especially exciting one but congratulations to my subconscious because today is his 60th birthday. Thu 29: OK we've now watched the new season of Black Mirror. The first story (about medical subscription) was the most nightmarishly believable, and the rest were fun but too many stories relied on brain-transference gizmos so were more sci-fi than darkly plausible.
Fri 30: The latest cartographic online meme is an interactive map of the UK by programmer Sophie Stone, allowing users to mark areas as lived, stayed, visited, stopped, passed through or never been. Each county scores a maximum of 5 points and my total is 241 - can you beat that? Sat 31: Here's another website for you, Is the UK hot right now?, which uses the latest data to show temperature anomalies around the country on a colourful map. Pick a location to see even more anomaly data and specific local graphs.
Finally, let's see how my annual counts are going...
• Number of London boroughs visited: all 33 (at least ten times each)
• Number of London bus routes ridden: 547 (all)
• Number of Z1-3 stations used: all
• Number of Z4-6 stations used: 175 (70%)
One of west London's most important roads is 100 years old today, the Brentford By-Pass or as it's better known the Great West Road. Hounslow council are making a big thing of it.
The new dual carriageway swept through fields and parkland to the north of Brentford and Hounslow, starting where the Chiswick Roundabout is today and ending eight miles away in East Bedfont. Brentford High Street had long been an appalling bottleneck for westbound traffic and planners recognised that the increasing popularity of the motor car was only going to make congestion worse. The new road was duly opened on the afternoon of Saturday 30th May 1925 by King George and Queen Mary who joined local dignitaries in walking along a short stretch and making speeches. You can see a few photos of the event here, here, here and here. This is what the Middlesex County Council spokesman had to say...
The final section to open was the eastern end between Syon Lane and Chiswick which includes the section now known as the Golden Mile. Businesses flocked to this part of the new road, attracted by excellent connectivity and plenty of space, building factories that very much reflected the aesthetic of the day. One of these was the Gillette Factory, a landmark Art Deco building on the corner of Syon Lane whose lofty brick tower is topped by four neon clocks that can be seen for miles around. Not only was this Gillette's European headquarters but also their chief UK factory for the manufacture of razor blades, at least until 2006 when production moved to Poland and the place emptied out.
The Gillette Factory endured several vacant years while investors decided no, arterial Brentford wasn't a great location for a luxury hotel, then creative types moved in and filmed a few low-key productions for lesser-watched streaming channels. It's recently been decided that the premises should become a full-on six-stage film studios, indeed Hounslow council are very keen, plus it makes sense because the site stretches all the way back to the rainbow-topped headquarters of Sky TV. When I came to walk the Golden Mile earlier this week I was pleased to see the scaffolding had been removed from the clocktower, the outer brickwork had been scrubbed up and that the cherubic lamps around the perimeter still glow. I wasn't impressed by much else though.
Alas only a few buildings from the Golden age of the Great West Road survive. There's the Coty Cosmetics factory at number 941, a squat block with white walls and strip windows which looks like it could have been a 1930s air terminal, but which is now occupied by a tech-heavy private health clinic. There's the Pyrene building at number 981, designed for a fire extinguisher company by the same group of architects who conjured up the glorious Hoover Building in Perivale. It's very white and very long with a thin central tower, and is now an office block substantially occupied by students on skills-based courses who cluster on the elegant front steps for a vape. And there's also the former Currys head office at number 991, another sleek white beauty with flag-topped clocktower, which since 2000 has been home to outdoor ad agency JCDecaux. Their name was in the corner of the digital billboard in my first photo, if you noticed.
But most of the rest of the buildings hereabouts are architectural horrors, or at best bland, of the kind you'd expect to find along many an out-of-town dual carriageway. A Renault dealership sealed inside a metal cuboid. A Carpetright shed with ample parking. Storage depots with all the elan of a bingo hall. Several monstrous 80s office blocks that are predominantly hubris and glass. There's even a Currys outlet, almost bang opposite where their HQ used to be, where access for vehicles is between the proud gateposts of a former Art Deco behemoth, the much missed Firestone Tyre Factory. Of all the buildings along the Golden Mile the Firestone was by far the longest, fronting a 26 acre site, but also the most rapidly undone. When the business closed in 1979 the new owners exchanged contracts on a Friday, then sneakily demolished the ornate frontage on the Saturday before a civil servant could get round to signing a preservation order. On the positive side this triggered the 20th Century Society to campaign more vigorously for the preservation of modern buildings, and on the downside the bastards totally got away with it.
In 2025 the Firestone building is being replaced again, this time by "A New Iconic HQ Distribution/Logistics Warehouse". The architects have at least gone for an Art Deco-inspired design solution, although the artist's impression looks more slatted plastic than iconic glass and the currently reality is a half-clad functional lattice. If it improves the backdrop to the Firestone's surviving front gates and chunky lanterns, however, good luck to it. The really big redevelopment story along the Golden Mile is currently the transformation of GlaxoSmithKline's enormous ex-HQ, a futuristic upthrust which opened in 2002 on a landscaped site beside the Grand Union Canal. All the staff moved back to central London last year and the latest plans foresee a "housing-led mixed-use redevelopment" of tightly-packed polygonal towers, one 25 storeys high, delivering upwards of 2000 new homes. It's by no means the first Golden Mile site to pivot to boxy residential and it won't be the last.
The best way to see the Golden Mile thus isn't really on foot because the surviving treats are too sparsely spread, it's from the road itself. I recommend boarding the road's bespoke red double decker, the H91, a route which conveniently runs along five miles of the Great West Road from Gunnersbury to Hounslow. For the first mile the M4 shadows the A4, quite literally, passing directly overhead on a four lane viaduct supported by an sequence of chunky concrete pillars. Only on reaching Brentford does the motorway veer off, bombarded by elevated advertisements, leaving the way clear down below to enjoy what remaining treats the Golden Mile has left.
At Syon Lane the frantic commercial vibe abruptly changes, this because the Church Commissioners owned all the land west of here and permitted only housing rather than factories. The A4 thus rushes ahead through acres of interwar suburbia fronted by a nigh unbroken line of gabled semis, occasionally punctuated by Tudorbethan shopping parades and sports facilities. You see it all from the top deck of the H91, the endless ribbon development, the long chains of street trees, the budget hotels where pubs used to be, the peculiarly thin tower at Osterley station, the planes on Heathrow approach and the very necessary subways for nipping from one side to the other. It's not the ideal environment in which to live but it is much better to build along a new road than to bludgeon a dual carriageway through existing neighbourhoods... which is exactly what King George said in his opening speech 100 years ago today.
To celebrate the 100th birthday of the Great West Road an anniversary website has been set up at goldenmile.london including historical links and modern stories. It is perhaps a tad commercial, overplaying the interest anyone might have in bold redevelopment visions and Brentford's vibrant cuisine, but it does include details of a number of special commemorative events. Chief amongst these are a GM100 Public Exhibition at Boston Manor Park this weekend (10am-4pm Sat, Sun; free entry) and a Classic Car Cavalcade departing Boston Manor Road at noon tomorrow before heading to Gillette Corner. Later chances to look inside some of the Art Deco treasures appear to be sold out, but all the good bits are in a new illustrated book The Great West Road: A Centenary History written by James Marshall and purchasable from the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society.
The road that unchoked Brentford and transformed Hounslow, the Great West Road, is thankfully 100 years old today.
25 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in May 2025
1) Last year 712 trips and falls were reported on the stairs of buses in London, of which 52% led to a minor injury and 3% led to a serious injury. 2) The paint codes used to coat the exterior of tube rolling stock are RAL 3020 (Traffic red), RAL 9002 (Grey White) and RAL 5002 (Ultramarine Blue). 3) Since the launch of the ULEZ, more Penalty Charge Notices have been issued to drivers living outside London (4 million) than inside London (3½ million). 4) Last year the tube stations with the most reported injuries on escalators were Waterloo (116), Kings Cross (101) and London Bridge (91). In total there were 1521 injuries of which 33 were major. 5) Of the 18,038 bus stops across London, 93.79% are deemed accessible. This relates to the raised height of the kerb in relation to the floor of the bus.
6) Aboard new buses, in addition to wheelchair users and priority seat occupants, a minimum of 51% of seated customers must have an unobscured view to at least one digital screen. 7) Last year 13,263 ULEZ Penalty Charge Notices were cancelled after the vehicles were identified as having cloned plates. 8) Last year TfL issued 253 permits to film or take photographs on the network, including 52 on the Underground and 2 on the cablecar. The majority of permits applied to roads and buses. 9) Last year TfL spent £22,093.35 on name badges. Each badge costs £4.50 with a pin/clip or £2.50 with a magnet. There is no additional cost for adding pronouns. 10) Since the start of 2024 bus drivers on route 17 received more passenger commendations than on any other route. In second place was route 1 and in third place route 111.
11) Within the 'Legible London' wayfinding scheme, maps and signs assume a walking speed of 1.3 metres per second. 12) Regarding street lighting, TfL are responsible for a total of 34,862 lighting points. 13) During the six months since bus routes W12, W13 and W14 were restructured, route W12 averaged 3900 passengers per day, route W13 2900 passengers and route W14 just 280. 14) All Elizabeth line stations have bins on the platforms. Only four Overground stations don't, due to narrow platforms. TfL have no idea how many tube stations have bins on the platforms. 15) 58% of bus fare payers use contactless, 41% use Oyster and less than 1% use paper tickets (these are mostly one day Travelcards).
16) The axonometric diagram for newly-step-free Knightsbridge station is available here. 17) No passengers have been prosecuted for vaping on buses because vaping is not included in the current legislation that would allow for prosecution. 18) Before the end of 2026 it is hoped to increase peak service frequencies on the Mildmay line between Clapham Junction and Shepherds Bush from 5tph to 7tph, and on the Windrush line between Crystal Palace and Highbury & Islington from 4tph to 6tph. 19) The three Elizabeth line ticket offices which sold the fewest tickets last year were Acton Main Line (3343), Hanwell (3410) and Maryland (4882). 20) On the Overground the least used ticket office last year was Caledonian Road and Barnsbury with 25 sales, followed by South Hampstead with 91 and Brondesbury Park with 151. 15 ticket offices sold on average less than one ticket a day. I've made this map to show 2024 ticket sales.
21) On digital bus blinds, the screen displaying the route number on the front or rear of the bus should have minimum dimensions of 450mm x 330mm. 22) In its first year of operation 7,326,963 passengers rode Superloop route SL8. During the previous twelve months, when the same route was numbered 607, total passenger numbers were 6,340,632. 23) 92 million Oyster cards have not been used in the last 12 months, with a combined total unspent balance of £268m. 24) Reducing the frequency of route G1 from four buses an hour to three is expected to save over £700,000 per annum. 25) In the last financial year, the estimated level of fare evasion on the London Underground was 4.8%. This compares with 4.7% on the DLR, 3.3% on the Overground, 2.6% on buses and 7.2% on trams.
National Landscapes(aka Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty)
none (although Farthing Downs and Happy Valley are well advanced in becoming part of the Surrey Hills National Landscape)
National Nature Reserves
• Richmond Park: Charles I's royal hunting park, an enormous roamable oasis of ancient woods and wide-open grasslands, perhaps best known for its historic herds of deer but also home to a multitude of birds, fungi, wildflowers and looping cyclists. Also a European Special Area of Conservation and listed at Grade I on Historic England's Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. [2500 acres]
• Ruislip Woods: The largest block of ancient, semi-natural woodland in Greater London, including one of the most extensive oak/hornbeam coppice woods in southeast England. The UK's first urban NNR, designated in 1997. Busier near Ruislip Lido, blissfully quiet out west. [755 acres]
• South London Downs: An arc of dense woodland and chalk grassland, designated in 2019, stretching from Coulsdon to Sanderstead via Farthing Downs, Happy Valley, Kenley and Riddlesdown. London Loop section 5 threads though most of the NNR so if you've ever walked that you'll know how uplifitingly gorgeous it is. [1030 acres]
Local Nature Reserves
There are 154 of these, from Abney Park Cemetery to Yeading Woods. You can see a DEFRA database here, a Wikipedia list here and a map here (the local nature reserves are in blue). The map works outside London too. Tower Hamlets' local nature reserves are Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, Mudchute Park and Ackroyd Drive. Merton has the most local nature reserves (15), followed by Kingston (12), Sutton (11) and Ealing (10). Seven boroughs have only one local nature reserve, and Newham and Kensington & Chelsea have none. London's largest local nature reserve is the Ingrebourne Valley (362 acres) and smallest is Burnt Ash Pond (0.3 acres). 13 reserves are inaccessible to the public and six only open at limited times. Four are islands, four are cemeteries and at least eight are on former railway land. 9% of England's local nature reserves are in London.
Back in January I spotted an original 40 year-old poster at Leytonstone station.
It was from January 1985 advertising the new Capitalcard and had been unexpectedly uncovered after an untimely rip.
"I hope someone preserves it," I wrote, and what do you know they have!
It now has a secure glass frame across the front and also one of the London Transport Museum's blue heritage posters alongside. This is a bespoke poster, specially devised for this location, showing three examples of what a Capitalcard used to look like.
Further along the southbound platform are three more blue heritage posters showing fare adverts from the 1980s.
I'll only show you two, so as not to ruin all the delight if you go to Leytonstone and look.
But how wonderful that sometimes creative cogs whirr and the unexpected is preserved, adding a splash of delight where you least expect it.
45 Squared 19) MARWOOD SQUARE, N10
Borough of Haringey, 120m×90m
I'm trying to visit a Square in each of London's boroughs during the course of this year-long project, and by coming to Haringey I'm now halfway through the list. Today's Square lies just north of Highgate Wood on the edge of Muswell Hill, immediately opposite what used to be Cranley Gardens station. It's a relatively new square with old bits, and occupies the final site of a former hospital that started out in Moorfields. And just to confuse things the housing development is called Woodside Square but the road that threads through it (and thus everyone's address) is Marwood Square instead.
St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics was founded in 1751 and was London's second asylum for the mentally ill, targeting patients who might be curable rather than locked away for ever. Its main premises were on Old Street, roughly where Aldi and Argos are today, but were sold off to the Bank of England in 1916 who used it for the printing of banknotes. In the 1920s the hospital's governors bought up land on Woodside Avenue for the construction of a 50-bed facility for treating mental disorders called the Woodside Nerve Hospital, later St Luke's Woodside Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders. Three existing Edwardian mansion blocks were repurposed for staff use and are still present on site. But everything else was demolished after the hospital closed in 2010 and the site then sold to a housing developer who replaced it with a loop of upmarket townhouses, which'd be Marwood Square.
It's a private development so wandering in is discouraged, and if you're driving it's strictly clockwise only. But follow the tiled road past the heritage frontage and you find yourself in a very modern estate comprising densely-packed blocks of flats and townhouses. They have a very contemporary aesthetic, all redbrick and timber with just enough irregularity to soften the overall vibe. The townhouses are particularly substantial, assuming you don't want a decent sized garden or indeed anything more out front than a scrap of shrubbery. They came Highly Commended in the Development of the Year (More Than 100 Homes) category of the Sunday Times British Homes Awards in 2018, thus as you can guess they don't come cheap. And therein lies the sadder and greedier side of this story.
When certain older Haringey residents found out that the hospital site was to be redeveloped they decided to work together with the planning process to promote the concept of co-housing. This is where the elderly choose to live in close proximity rather than move into a retirement home, supporting each other and sharing key facilities like laundry, thereby keeping costs down. It's been done successfully elsewhere in London and the hope was to follow that example and integrate co-housing into one corner of Woodside Square. Dozens of people expressed an interest, even setting up their own blog to explain the potential benefits and encourage others.
They succeeded in getting a communal 'Common House' incorporated into the design with space for meetings and food preparation, also the provision of tiny allotment strips in raised beds. They debated how best to set up a car share scheme and strongly supported the developers with their planning application. But when it was finally revealed how much each flat would cost they got a shock - it was a third more than expected - and most of the group realised they could never afford the flat and the service charge.
So was utopia dashed. A wealthier group of over 55s moved in and the Common House became a hireable meeting space rather than a daily focus. At present it's yoga on Tuesdays, gardening on Wednesdays, bridge on Thursdays and art on Fridays, plus a library that only opens once a month. Meanwhile at the other end of the development one of the 4-bed townhouses is currently on the market for over £2m, which to be fair is also the going rate for one of the Edwardian terraces on the avenue round the back. It does feel wrong that a prime development site on former NHS land has ended up this way, but that's 2013 land sales for you.
Reassuringly the former care home across the street is currently being redeveloped into '32 council homes and 9 private sale homes' as Haringey council now have a better grip on housing tenure hereabouts. But Woodside Square stands as testament to profit-focused acquisition, most definitely somewhere nice to live but a dream snuffed out all the same.
2nd Arsenal 4th Chelsea 10th Brentford 11th Fulham 12th Crystal Palace 14th West Ham United 17th Tottenham Hotspur
It's been a disastrous season for Arsenal who were merely the top performing London team, ten points adrift of Liverpool who were Premier League champions. Second place is a disastrously uncelebratable position and there was much rending of shirts. Arsenal were also the top performing London club in the Champions League, outstaying Aston Villa's run in the competition, but going out in the semi-finals is heartbreakingly calamitous and absolutely nobody was pleased. Second place in the Premiership does of course mean Champions League qualification for next season but past form suggests only near-excellence which will undoubtedly be utterly disappointing for everyone concerned.
Chelsea had an excellent year, ending the season two places higher than last year and qualifying for Europe and everyone was very proud.
Brentford had an excellent year, ending the season six places higher than last year and everyone was very proud.
Fulham had an excellent year, ending the season two places higher than last year and everyone was very proud.
Crystal Palace had a seriously excellent year, winning the actual FA Cup for the first time in the team's history. They were also the first south London team to win the FA Cup since 1988, plus they qualify for the Europa League next year, also they held a big open-topped parade through Selhurst yesterday while waving the silverware from the top of a bus and everyone was unutterably proud.
West Ham had an excellent year, winning no great honours but finishing comfortably mid-table so the money rolls in again next year and everyone was very proud.
Tottenham had an excellent year, sinking embarrassingly to only one place above relegation but utterly redeeming that by winning the Europa League, the actual UEFA Cup as it once was, which wipes the floor with any domestic achievement and finally sticks silverware back in the trophy cupboard and everyone was very proud.
Charlton Athletic had an excellent year, ending the season twelve places higher than last year, thus earning a play-off place, then winning the play-off final at Wembley at the weekend and gaining promotion back to the Championship for the first time since 2020. This also means local derbies against Millwall are back on the cards, we hate Millwall and we hate Millwall, and everyone was very proud.
Leyton Orient had an excellent year, ending the season five places higher than last year, thus earning a play-off place. Admittedly they didn't win the play-off final at Wembley at the weekend but they came second, plus they weren't losing for the first thirty minutes of the game so the fans could still dream of glory, and OK it all ended in heartbreak and tears but hey there's always next year and everyone was very proud.
AFC Wimbledon had an excellent year, ending the season five places higher than last year, earning a play-off place, then actually winning the play-off final at Wembley yesterday and gaining promotion back to League One for the first time since 2022. This could potentially lead to their highest ever League position next season, plus they will 100% definitely finish higher than the scum at Milton Keynes Dons in 2025/26 so everyone is currently exuberantly proud.
Bromley had an excellent year, spending their very first year in the Football League and cementing their credentials with a creditably mid-table finish which is their best ever position and everyone was very proud.
Barnet had an excellent year, topping the National League and thus earning automatic promotion back to the Football League. This follows two successive disappointing seasons in which they failed to get past the play-offs so the full-on glory days have returned and everyone was very proud.
Sutton United had an excellent year, making up for being relegated from the Football League last season by not being relegated again this year which would have been calamitous, and everyone was very proud.
Wealdstone had a excellent year, reaching the second round of the FA Cup for the first time since 1983, also thrashing Halifax on the last day of the season and so avoiding almost-certain relegation by just one point, and everyone was terribly proud.
Dagenham & Redbridge had a bad year, throwing away a lead in the last match of the season when Solihull Moors equalised and so being demoted to National League South where no London team wants to be. But at least they didn't come second in the Premier League like total losers Arsenal so it could have been worse, thus everyone was terribly proud.
1st Chelsea 2nd Arsenal 9th West Ham United 11th Tottenham Hotspur 12th Crystal Palace
Chelsea had an excellent year, winning the entire women's league caboodle and the Women's FA Cup too for good measure. Their season could hardly have been better all things considered and everyone was very proud.
Arsenal could only emulate their male colleagues by coming second in the league to a better team, their season thus almost entirely wasted. Not even winning the UEFA Women's Champions League in Lisbon at the weekend could quite ease the pain because what's the point in being certifiably the best team in Europe if Chelsea then edge you in domestic competition? Admittedly the crowds celebrating the Champions League win in North London yesterday looked ecstatic, packed with so many thousands of young girls in red and white bouncing excitedly that the future of the women's game looks utterly assured. But Chelsea still did technically better this season so in truth everyone present was just deluding themselves.
West Ham had an excellent year, ending the season two places higher than last year and everyone was very proud.
Tottenham Hotspur had an excellent year because 11th in the Super League is obviously a higher position then the 17th achieved by the men in the Premier League. Admittedly both Spurs teams only avoided relegation by a single place but hey, both still remain in the upper division and everyone was very proud.
Crystal Palace had an excellent year, not the women who were horribly demoted after a ghastly failure of a season but the men who won the only FA Cup that really matters. It truly was an excellent yet disappointing season in London football, but mostly excellent and almost everyone was very proud.
A Grand Day Out:LEEDS CASTLE Location: nr Maidstone, Kent, ME17 [map] Open: 10am-6pm Admission: £36.50 (£33 online) House open: 10.30am-5pm Website:leeds-castle.com Four word summary: moated glory amid parkland Time to allow: all day
The thing about Leeds Castle is that it is in Leeds but not the Leeds you expect. This Leeds is a small village in Kent, not Yorkshire, about five miles east of Maidstone. If you drive in it's only a mile from Junction 8 on the M20, which is damned convenient. If you take the train it's a half hour walk from Hollingbourne station, plus you get 20% off the admission price (ditto those arriving by bus or bike). It's a fairly whopping admission price but for that you can return any time for a full year, so you could come back again next Spring Bank Holiday. Plus it's gorgeous.
The castle's glory years began in 1278 when Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I, bought the original Norman fort here and transformed it into a royal residence. The site was perfect, spanning two islands in the River Len which was duly flooded hereabouts to create a huge protectivelake. Later Edward II besieged it, Richard II's wife-to-be overwintered here and Henry VIII gifted it to his first wife long before that fateful divorce, so the castle can claim plenty of history. Its last owner was Lady Baillie, a Manhattan socialite, who retained Leeds Castle in her second divorce settlement and on her death chose to gift it to a charitable trust (and definitely not the National Trust). Hence we can all pop round today.
The main thing to see at Leeds Castle is thus the castle, although it may be a bit of a hike across the grounds to get there. It stands proud in the middle of the lake and you can only reach it by crossing an arched bridge (and showing your wristband to a member of staff). This delivers you through a portcullis throat to the Inner Bailey, which is mostly lawn with the main crenellated building on the far side. Prepare to do that thing where you walk round a series of old rooms on a prescribed route entering each one with an 'ooh'. The Library unsurprisingly is full of books, the Dining Room was being polished in readiness for some grand meal and you may or may not find a guide tinkling the ivories in the Drawing Room.
Where things really pick up is when you cross another arched bridge, this time fully internal, from island number one to island number two. This is the older part of the castle where Catherine of Aragon had her apartments, although a lot of reconstruction and faux-medieval infill has been added since. Here are splendid wooden ceilings, massive fireplaces and gothic iron lanterns, plus scattercushions embroidered with facts about former female residents. Most of the rooms are laid out as they might have been in the heyday of Lady Baillie's occupation with props including typewriters, champagne towers and Harrods hatboxes, so the ambience is more prewar Art Deco than Tudor palace. But what a splendid place to have lived, secure on your own double island, these days the only potential attack being from a golf course across the moat.
Ten other things to see and enjoy at Leeds Castle[map]
• Adjacent to the giant moat is a second lake called the Great Water, which may looks old but was actually added in the 1970s when Leeds Castle was being transformed from family home to landscaped attraction. It's broad enough that you can take a boattrip across it - slow and flat-bottomed - for the additional fare of £1.50 each way. Watch out for swans (and currently cute little cygnets).
• A trio of formal gardens is scattered across the site, the finest probably the Culpeper Garden behind the cafe with its low box-hedgedbeds. Again it's a 1970s addition, transformed from a small sloping cottage garden into a semi-geometric pattern divided by brick paths, and currently ablaze with colour. Apparently the plants were originally laid out in twenty-six alphabetical rows, although the alliums are now so widespread (and so few plants labelled) that you'd never guess.
• Nowhere else in the world has a Dog Collar Museum, a collection of canine neckwear spanning five centures donated to Leeds Castle by antiquarian collector. I stepped in expecting to see dozens but the stuffycases have been replaced by "a fresh and creative new presentation" which means only fifteen remain on display. They're fascinating creations, from an iron beast with chunky spikes to ornate silver rings, but alas merely a fraction of the good stuff and thus more of a disappointing whimper.
• Added in 2022, the Queens With Means Experience is "a seven-minute cinematic experience featuring the Castle's six medieval Queen owners stepping out of the shadows of history to share their untold stories", but I can't tell you if it's smart or crass because it wasn't clearly enough signed and I never spotted it existed.
• The courtyard above the Great Water is the site's refreshment nexus, from a sit-down restaurant ("can you get me some chips?") to a seasonal ice-cream kiosk (expect lengthy queues for two scoops of Hackney Gelato).
• The Leeds Castle Trust have worked out that the best way to earn repeat custom on a year-long ticket is to create a large adventure playground zone, vaguely medievally themed, for kids of all ages. Expect plenty to clamber up and lots of sand, plus an array of parents and grandparents sitting patiently on the grass bank inbetween nipping to the cafe for another cold drink. The Adventure Golf course is Leeds-Castle-themed, which is dead clever but the hole with the ferry appears to take ages so was creating a long tailback of frustrated putters.
• The Maze comprises 2400 yew trees and was "designed using a computer programme", which must have been cutting edge for 1987. It's also a decent challenge with just enough loops to be frustratingly fiendish, perhaps too much so because at one point in the labyrinth we found a uniformed member of staff nudging everyone down one particular path. BestMate's Mum said she'd heard the secret was to take the left hand path at every turning whereas in truth it's the opposite, always turn right and you'll reach the centre in the optimum time. Here you get to climb a small mound and look out across what you've just been solving, confirming yes it's bigger than you thought. And the unexpected prize is then to descend into a brilliantly bonkers grotto, supposedly themed on Ovid's Metamorphoses, which winds through a long dimly-lit cavern decorated with all kinds of mythologicalsymbolism to a final hermit's cave. You'll never be impressed by Hampton Court again.
• The wider parkland is extensive, should you feel the need to explore further than the already lengthy hike from the entrance. It's also criss-crossed by at least four public footpaths which means you can walk in legitimately so long as you stick to the appropriate routes, which conveniently include the scenic stretch between moat and lake past the entrance to the castle.
• At the top end of the site is a Bird of Prey centre where you can eye up owls, vultures and eagles in shedlike cages. But the best time to arrive is 2pm when the daily display takes place, first the snake-thwacking Red Legged Seriema, then a pair of harris hawks swooping low over the audience from gauntlet to gauntlet, then the gleefully free-flying red/black kite hybrid. If you want value for money out of your day, don't miss it.
• Leeds Castle often hosts special extra events, many of these expensive add-ons but huzzah, the three day jousting tournament over the bank holiday was included with general admission. A big arena had been set up on the Clover Lawn with quintains and all that malarkey, overlooked by food stalls selling non-medieval fare like Yorkshire Pudding wraps and tubs of apple crumble. Knights from England, France and Norway were competing in teams, duly smashing their lances to smithereens for the honour of a Canadian queen on horseback, while umpteen folk wearing a variety of cloth headgear performed lowlier tasks like umpiring the horses, replacing the cabbages and playing the shawm. It was nothing I hadn't seen before at the Lambeth Country Show, to be honest, but all the better for being in a historically appropriate location just off the M20 in Leeds.
The key minute 1:59am: South Western Railway is a privately-owned company 2:00am: South Western Railway is a government-owned company
Already-nationalised rail services 2018: London North Eastern Railway (formerly Virgin Trains East Coast) [defaulted] 2020: Northern Trains (formerly Arriva Rail North) [defaulted] 2021: Transport for Wales Rail (formerly KeolisAmey Wales) [pandemic] 2021: Southeastern (formerly Govia) [undeclared revenue] 2022: ScotRail (formerly Abellio ScotRail) [poor performance] 2023: TransPennine Trains (formerly First TransPennine Express) [poor service] 2023: Caledonian Sleeper (formerly Serco) [poor value for money] 2025: South Western Railway [DELIBERATELY NATIONALISED]
A very brief history of rail nationalisation 200 years ago: all railways built by private companies 1 Jan 1948: railways nationalised - birth of British Railways 1 Apr 1994 - 31 Mar 1997: railways passed to private companies 24 May 2025: start of deliberate renationalisation
Some historical nuance 1825-ish: first rail service 1914: the government takes control for wartime reasons 1923: railways return to the control of four private companies 1965: British Railways rebrands as British Rail 2020: there will be no more new rail franchises
Highly relevant legislation 6 Aug 1947: Transport Act 1947 5 Nov 1993: Railways Act 1993 28 Nov 2024: Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024
Public opinion(2024)
Do you think that railway companies should be nationalised and run in the public sector, or privatised and run by private companies? Public sector - 66%
Private sector - 12%
Don't Know - 22%
Owners of Train Operating Companies Sole owners: Arriva UK Trains, FirstGroup, Transport UK Group In partnership: East Japan Railway Company, Go-Ahead Group, Keolis, Mitsui, Serco, Trenitalia Government: DfT Operator, Scottish Rail Holdings, Transport for Wales
The ten rolling stock leasing companies (ROSCOs)
Angel Trains Ltd, Beacon Rail, Caledonian Rail Leasing, Eversholt Rail Group, GE Capital, Halifax Asset Finance, Macquarie European Rail, Lombard North Central, Porterbrook Leasing Company Ltd, Rock Rail
Start of current franchise 1996: c2c, Chiltern Railways 2006: Great Western Railway 2007: CrossCountry 2014: Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Southern, Thameslink 2016: Greater Anglia 2017: South Western Railway, West Midlands Trains 2018: LNER 2019: East Midlands Railway, Avanti West Coast
Earliest possible renationalisation dates whenever: Chiltern Railways, Govia Thameslink Railway, West Midlands Trains 22 Jun 2025: Great Western Railway 18 Oct 2026: Avanti West Coast, East Midlands Railway 17 Oct 2027: CrossCountry
Attempted summary of franchise evolution Chiltern: 1996 Chiltern Railways (and still is) CrossCountry: 1997 Virgin CrossCountry → 2007 CrossCountry East Anglia: 1997 Anglia + 1997 Great Eastern → 2004 One (later National Express East Anglia) → 2012 Greater Anglia East Coast: 1996 GNER → 2007 National Express East Coast → 2009 nationalised → 2015 Virgin East Coast → 2018 nationalised (LNER) East Midlands: 1996 Midland Mainline → 2007 East Midlands Trains → 2019 East Midlands Railway Essex Thameside: 1996 LTS Rail → 2000 c2c (rebrand) Greater Western: 1996 Thames Trains/Wales & West/Valley Lines → 2001 Wessex Trains → 2006 First Great Western → 2015 GWR (rebrand) Northern: 1997 First North Western/Arriva Trains Northern → 2004 Northern Rail → 2016 Arriva Rail North → 2020 nationalised ScotRail: 1997 National Express → 2004 First → 2015 Abellio → 2021 nationalised South Eastern: 1996 Connex South Eastern → 2003 South Eastern Trains → 2006 Southeastern → 2021 nationalised Southern: 1996 Connex South Central → 2001 South Central → 2003 Southern → 2015 Govia South Western: 1995 South West Trains → 2007 +Island Line → 2017 South Western Railway → 2025 nationalised Thameslink & Great Northern: 1997 Thameslink/WAGN → 2004 Great Northern → 2006 First Capital Connect → 2015 Govia Thameslink TransPennine Express: 2004 TransPennine Express → 2023 nationalised Wales & Borders 1996 Wales & West/Valley Lines → 2001 Wales & Borders → 2003 Arriva Trains Wales → 2018 TfW → 2021 nationalised West Coast: 1997 Virgin Trains → 2019 Avanti West Coast West Midlands: 1997 Central Trains/Silverlink → 2007 London Midland → 2017 West Midlands Trains
THE UNLOST RIVERS OF LONDON Bonesgate Stream Malden Rushett → Chessington → Tolworth (4 miles)
[Bonesgate Stream → Hogsmill → Thames]
The southwestern tip of London pokes deep into Surrey, the boundary sticking out like a tongue. The Bonesgate Stream is the river which drains this elongated extrusion, from a field in sight of Chessington World of Adventures to a rewilded channel on the Watersedge Estate. Most of it flows across private land so in the upper reaches you only get a glimpse, but the last mile is fully followable with a slew of pylons to boot. The somewhat macabre name comes from the river's association with the burial of plague victims, although don't let that put you off.
The Bonesgate Stream has three sources, one marginally in Surrey, but one flows muchfurther than the others so I'll be following that. Everything kicks off amid a gloriously broad field belonging to Rushett Farm, just below the treeline of Ashtead Common. Freshly-planted wheat spreads down to a thin line of trees following the lowest contour, within which the slightest of trickles begins its journey towards the Thames. The first sighting comes from a slab bridge on a farm track where the earth has fallen away beneath a hawthorn in full flower. Keep walking and in a few minutes you could be sipping a flat white in The Barn, part of the farm's diversification into glamping, boutique wellness and corporate awaydays, whose refreshment offering is open to all. But the river, thankfully, isn't going that way.
Instead follow the line of a fledgling hedge, recently planted by CPRE's Hedgerow Heroes, to a second gap in the trees and cross the foliage-shrouded stream. The field on the far side is parched and fallow but also flat, which is why it also doubles up as an occasional airstrip. This looks quite prominent on a map but the uncultivated grass landing strip is really only visible from the air, while from the footpath the only clue is a windsock flapping away in the distance by the farm. The Bonesgate Stream is alas already making a break for privacy, emerging from its oaken sleeve only to dip into a pipe beneath busy Rushett Lane. You really don't want to come to these upper reaches solely for the river but this is excellent walking country, not just for the vast expanse of Ashtead and Epsom Commons but also (as previously recommended) for the Chessington Countryside Walk.
Beyond the road a half-mile-long bridleway sets forth between further fields, bursting with buttercups, brambles and butterflies. Near the halfway point is a bend with a small wooden footbridge where a minor tributary passes, its invisible source somewhere near the Malden Rushett crossroads and/or the Chessington Garden Centre. It feels serene, but a planning notice attached to a post alerts passers-by that a battery storage facility is destined to fill an adjacent field, approved on appeal by a government inspector. Also if you can hear screaming in the distance it's not carnage, it's because Chessington World of Adventures is imminent and the Vampire ride is in the nearest corner. I have never screamed on the Vampire, only grinned wildly, but I digress.
Up ahead the Bonesgate Stream is doing its own thing unseen amid a sweep of fields. Attempting to follow it semi-closely instead requires a road walk past the theme park's very own Premier Inn and Beefeater, then a dodgy crossing of the Leatherhead Road to follow Chalky Lane. Followers of the Southern Combination Football League will know Chalky Lane as the home ground of Chessington & Hook FC, mid-table stalwarts of Division 1, there being no other reason to visit. The surrounding fields would likely have become housing instead had Hitler not invaded Poland three months after Chessington South station opened. Half a mile of additional track had already been laid, terminating here, but the postwar Green Belt kyboshed that and so the unlost river trickles on.
Green Lane is well named, with the occasional view across paddocks to a line of trees shielding the Bonesgate Stream. It should also be very quiet unless you too happen to bump into several teams of schoolgirls on an orienteering challenge belting out "Umberella-ella-ella" at the tops of their voices, because no teacher wants to do proper work on the day before half term. The rural illusion ends as the lane emerges beside a car repair works brimming with smashed chassis, then proceeds past a string of badlands bungalows and fortified detached houses before entering the backside of Chessington. To reacquaint yourself with the river you can follow a narrow alley down to a concrete footbridge over a low dribble, now a couple of metres wide, but only do that if you're continuing up the other side to Horton Country Park because it's no grand sight.
Far better to continue past Chessington's 13th century parish church and the chip shop at Copt Gilders, ticking all sightseeing boxes, then descend into what's now a very pronounced valley. The delightful riverside attraction here is Castle Hill Local Nature Reserve and Scheduled Ancient Monument. Nobody's quite sure when the central earthworks emerged or why, only that a Roman coin was once found here, but the information board says the most likely theory is that it was built for a medieval hunting lodge in a deer park. Feel free to scramble up top or explore the hazel coppices, but the real gamechanger riverwise is the existence of a path alongside the shady Bonesgate Stream, which thankfully continues all the way to river's end.
Welcome To The Bonesgate Nature Reserve says the wooden sign on the other side of the road, immediately underneath a massive pylon plonked down beside the stream. A similar sentinel guards the northern gate, and between them a fizzy catenary hangs high above a stripe of lawn and linear undergrowth. A couple of locations exist where you can duck into the trees and stand beside the stream, such as it as at present after barely any rain, but mainly this appears to be a very popular place to walk a dog. At the next road crossing is a sturdy faux-Tudor pub which used to be called the Bonesgate but is now inexplicably the William Bourne, recently optimised for Sky Sports with the addition of an eighth HD TV screen. Check the culvert and you may spot a narrow metal 'mammal ledge', designed to shepherd small creatures under the main road in relative safety.
This is also the point where the Bonesgate Stream becomes the de facto boundary between London and Surrey for the best part of a mile, generally with footpaths on either side so you can pick your authority of choice. Initially Kingston is more open and Epsom & Ewell more wooded, with postwar cul-de-sacs nudging in as far as the floodplain allows. The Surrey side in particular treats the riverside as a recreational stripe so expect to pass a children's playground, a basketball court and a strangely isolated skateboard ramp tucked away to service the neighbouring community. Try not to focus too much on the residential bin stores, the abandoned mattresses and the feral ratboy revving his moped round a Watersedge car park.
The Environment Agency remodelled the river hereabouts in 2008, removing six austere weirs and replacing a harsh concrete channel with soft-edge meanders. Look down from the cycle path and you'll now see low gravel riffles and occasional log deflectors, all supposedly improving flow diversity and bed scour although it's hard to tell at current river levels. Any fish hereabouts would be far better sticking to the deeper, broader Hogsmill, into whose waters the Bonesgate Stream merges beyond a final white footbridge.
Cross here to follow Tolworth Court Farm Fields back to civilisation or maybe piggyback onto London Loop section 8 and meander riverside to Kingston. Not that you ever will but the Bonesgate valley has much to recommend it, be that open fields, ancient earthworks or a 35 year-old suspended swinging rollercoaster.
