How many chimneys in London does Santa need to go down?
The important starting figure isn't the population of London (9 million approx).
It's how many households are there?
The answer is in the latest outpourings of the English Housing Survey.
Number of households in London: 3,772,000
Next, how many of these households have children?
The 2021 census has that data, and it's approximately 35%. 35% × 3,772,000 = 1,320,000
Number of households in London with children: 1,320,000
This includes all 0-15 year-olds and 16-18 year olds in full time education so would seem to be an over-estimate for Santa purposes, but let's stick with it as an approximation.
Next, how many of these households have chimneys?
An important consideration is the age of London's housing stock.
The English Housing Survey has that information too.
Built
% of homes
Before 1919
28%
1919 to 1944
22%
1945 to 1964
13%
1965 to 1980
15%
1981 to 2002
10%
Post-2002
12%
I'm going to assume that only homes built before 1980 have a chimney.
This is a horrible generalisation but it gives us a ballpark figure of 78%. 78% × 1,320,000 = 1,030,000
Households in London with children and built before 1980: 1,030,000
Also chimneys tend to be a feature of houses, not flats.
The 2021 census has the required figures for London.
Type
% of homes
House or bungalow
54%
Flat or maisonette
46%
London has a lot of flats (in the rest of England it's 17% flats, not 46%).
But most of what was built before 1980 will have been houses, not flats, let's say 70%. 70% × 1,030,000 = 720,000
Houses in London with children and built before 1980: 720,000
Some households will be from cultures that don't follow the Christmas tradition.
In London about 25% of Londoners profess their religion to be Islam/Hindu/Sikh/Jewish.
But I still suspect a lot of them give presents on Christmas Day, so let's say only 10% don't. 90% × 720,000 = 650,000
Gift-giving houses in London with children and built before 1980: 650,000
Finally Santa only delivers to children who've been good.
But it's a cruel parent who actually goes through with holding back all presents.
So I'm going to say this last factor is irrelevant.
Number of chimneys in London Santa needs to go down: 650,000 (approx)
It's not as many as I first thought.
But it's still a heck of a lot to visit in one night flat.
45 Squared 45) EATON SQUARE, SW1
Borough of Westminster, 500m×100m
I started this series with what I said was London's largest square but it wasn't, this is. Vincent Square was merely huge and square-ish, whereas Eaton Square is huger and not very square at all. At 500m long and 100m wide it's exceptionally oblong and takes over quarter of an hour to walk all the way round, I can confirm, because those who built it were trying to impress. It's so large there's room for an extra street to run down the centre, longways, leaving those around the edge living in a privileged oasis of relative calm. No wonder it's one of Britain's most expensive place to live, indeed in 2016 it officially topped the list.
What's now Belgravia was once an expanse of rural land called the Five Fields, stretching almost a mile from Knightsbridge towards the Thames. The Grosvenor Estate sought to build here in the 1820s, first around Belgrave Square before making an official start on Eaton Square in 1826. A long elegant square spreading either side of the King's Road was proposed, set back behind central gardens, and took just over 20 years to complete. The earliest properties are on the north side in brick and stucco, and are mostly the work of Thomas Cubitt. The south side was instead the responsibility of the builder Seth Smith and are rather stuccoier, often Italianate, but equally capacious in size. The landowner was later awarded the title Duke of Westminster, the current incumbent being the richest Briton under the age of 40, and all because his ancestors once inherited a patchwork of fields in precisely the right place.
Walk round Eaton Square and one of the main things you notice are the pillars, so many pillars, in tapering classical form supporting every porch. Each is painted in the official neutral shade the Grosvenor estate prescribes, specifically British Standard Colour BS Ref 08B15, which they describe as green-grey but I'd call posh magnolia. Painted on each in black is the number of the house, an ever-increasing sequence running clockwise from number 1 in the northeast corner to number 118 by the church. Front doors are to be painted high gloss black unless approved otherwise in writing.
I got lucky with a glimpse through one front door, spying a long central hallway and a high winding stair that looked classically original, at the rear of which a uniformed man in a bowler hat was fiddling with something on a table. But in some cases it's all an illusion, every space behind the facade having been knocked through to create themostostentatious of modern homes. It's not unheard of for multiple homes to have been combined if the owner wanted to create a particularly luxurious hideaway, should the address be more important than the original architecture. If you couldn't afford to install a mirrored marble swimming pool and steam room in your basement then Eaton Square probably isn't for you.
The accoutrements of wealth are otherwise discreetly displayed. Doorstep foliage is always perfectly trimmed. Christmas wreaths invariably feature curling orange slices, almost as if there's an approved florist you're supposed to buy them from. The roof of the porch creates a tiny balcony on which can be perched iron chairs or additional shrubbery. Personalised numberplates I spotted included L4 (on a Mercedes jeep), RR02 JSR (on a cab-like Rolls) and 36C (on a well-endowed sports car). Perhaps the ultimate status symbol is a security guard standing sentinel outside on the pavement, smiling as you pass but watching like a hawk lest you be intent on indecorous behaviour. Or maybe it's having your own blue plaque.
Eaton Square has had a ridiculous number of famous residents including Rex Harrison, Sarah Duchess of York, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Lord Lucan. Not everybody gets a plaque but one who does is Lord Boothby, a politician with an infamous penchant for the Kray Brothers, allegedly. Oscar-winning actress Vivien Leigh Lived at number 54, this after divorcing from Laurence Olivier and just before her untimely death. Austrian diplomat Klemens von Metternich, forced into exile after a revolution in 1848, only spent four months at number 44 but still somehow gets officially recognised. As does Stanley Baldwin who's one of two Prime Ministers who made Eaton Square their home post-Downing Street, the other being the less acclaimed Neville Chamberlain.
Only a couple of properties aren't residential, both on the northern flank. One is the Belgian Embassy, still housed in the same corner buildings as the Government in Exile in 1940. A plaque on the side of the building commemorates Belgians who signed up inside to fight alongside the Allies and died before the liberation of their country. Just down the terrace is the Bolivian Embassy, easily identifiable because it has two flags, one of which looks like a dazzling grid of rainbow-coloured tiles. This is the wiphala, a 7×7 square patchwork which officially represents the native peoples of the Andes, and don't say you never learn something while wandering around a really posh square.
Eaton Square contains not just one central garden but six, each divided from its neighbour by one of the three roads that cut across the middle. It says a lot for the scale of the space that two are designated dog gardens, lest residents should have to walk too far to exercise their pampered pooches. Most of the others are a mix of lawn and shrubbery for general relaxation (no ball games and absolutely no barbecues), carefully screened from non-keyholder passers-by. The finest is probably 'south central' which has raised beds, astrolabe sculptures and towering cycads, also a tumbling water feature like a shimmering curtain in front of a hemispherical metal fountain. Should you be feeling nosey this is also the garden the public are allowed into on Open Garden Squares weekend in June, although the tennis courts remain off-limits.
Meanwhile the wider world ploughs across Eaton Square on broad thoroughfares, ideally without noticing. Sloane Square isn't far away from one end, and Victoria Coach Station is so close that some National Express coaches overspill and park up in the middle, allowing drivers to nip out for a smoke and collective gossip. And finally there's St Peter's church at number 119, a neoclassical masterpiece contemporary with the first houses built in the square. It's burned down twice, initially in 1837 and then again in 1987 when a Protestant arsonist wrongly assumed it must be Catholic without checking first. It's still quite high church, all bells and smells and swishing around in cassocks, but that also means an exemplary musical tradition so if you fancy a good Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols then Sunday's is available to watch here.
Eaton Square is so large you could easily fit the last dozen squares I've visited inside it, and collectively so well off it could probably pay for them as well. It is I hope a fitting end to my year-long 45 Squares project, and now we're all square I can look forward to seeing what next year brings.
They didn't have blogs or the internet forty years ago, so here are 31 things I didn't digitally publish at the time. To help you get your bearings I was 20 and December was in the middle of my third year at university. I apologise for skipping November which would have included a trip to Caerphilly Castle, a burning toaster and the blue food colouring incident. Hilary never forgave me.
Sun 1: Lunch is a choice of curry or cauliflower cheese so I go back to my room and have toast. My ducks are being blown around on the balcony. On TV: Bill & Ben on Windmill. Mon 2: I've nearly run out of teabags so am considering reusing them so the box lasts until the end of term. Discover that the neighbour who's been coming round regularly at the start of term, over-hopefully, has recently coupled up with a fellow chemist so won't be simpering in my room any more. On TV: Brookside, Reggie Perrin. Tue 3: Get to lectures 3 minutes late and Dr Clifford has already started. Buy six sheets of fluorescent card in the Covered Market. On TV: Tucker's Luck. Wed 4: Award a certificate to the 500th visitor to my room this term. Forced to go to the 1st sitting of Christmas Dinner because I'm only second reserve for the 2nd. The mince pie is a bit hot. Thu 5: Lecture topics include butterfly wings and leopard spots. Another Christmas dinner, this time subject specific, at the Bistro du Marché. Fail to pull the undergraduate of my choice afterwards. Fri 6: Spend £2 photocopying the booklets in my homemade Christmas card, 'The Secret Diary of 1986'. It goes down well. The college Christmas party features blue cocktails, a bad band and a video of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Roll into bed at half past three. Sat 7: Up at eight so I can catch an early bus to Thame. I was not expecting to be buying cat litter in Budgens and visiting a leather workshop. Board games are played including 6-way Chinese Checkers. Sun 8: End of term already so Dad arrives and drives me home (via another game of Chinese Checkers). In exciting news the family now has a microwave oven. I enjoy making it ping and am amazed how fast it warms milk.
Mon 9: When Dad gets home from his festival and Mum gets home from Rangers we spend the evening looking through microwave cookery books. Tue 10: While I've been away the Odeon in Watford has been reborn as a row of shops. I buy a pair of white boots in the Co-op, reduced because they have a blue mark on the side. Wed 11: Bacon's quite fun in a microwave isn't it? Dad met Tommy Boyd today apparently. Thu 12: Drive to Portsmouth to pick up brother from university, including driving round that new section of the M25. Fri 13: Pre-Christmas haircut. Buy the new Propaganda album on cassette in Our Price so I can give it to myself at Christmas. On TV: the shocking Dynasty Moldavian wedding shootout. Sat 14: Watford beat Spurs one nil so Dad and brother return from Vicarage Road happy. On TV: The Planets with Heather Couper. Sun 15: Roast turkey for lunch, which feels a bit premature. On TV: Fawlty Towers (the Germans). Mon 16: I offer to do the hoovering but my efforts don't pass muster. Decorate the Christmas tree with very old baubles and thin postwar tinsel.
Tue 17: Mum gets stopped in the street to do a survey about blue loo blocks and is given a mini Milky Way for her trouble. Wed 18: Go out into the garden and try to look at Halley's Comet with binoculars but no luck. Thu 19: Get a very rare headache and have to retire to bed early, so my brother ends up with double portions of gammon. Fri 20: On TV: the Breakfast Time panto (featuring Denis Healey and Leon Brittan), the Countdown final and the Masterteam final (Olive's team wins because 'electro-magnetic' has a hyphen). Sat 21: Festive snacks start making an appearance, in particular a bag of marshmallows and a bottle of cream soda. On TV: Edge of Darkness (the plutonium at Gleneagles finale). Sun 22: Charles isn't as good at singing the first verse of Once In Royal David's City as I was. Mon 23: Clean sheet at the dentist. The express checkout at Sainsbury's has a 10 minute queue. Tue 24: The theme in the jumbo prize crossword is 'monkey puzzle'. You can tell it's Christmas because I've been offered a port and lemon. The Christmas Top 3 is Shakin Stevens, Whitney Houston and Band Aid, thankfully followed by new group Pet Shop Boys with West End Girls. On TV: The Snowman.
Wed 25: Some presents... Dad: a demisting sponge and cycle lamps. Mum: a bar of soap and microwave handbook. Brother: a Watford FC towel and blank tapes. Me: a window thermometer, carved personalised pencil rack, Guinness Book of Answers, Hitch-Hiker's Guide radio scripts, some Wispa bars and a 1986 diary. After the Queen's speech we beat the neighbours at Woodland Happy Families. On TV: Noel Edmonds up the Post Office Tower. Thu 26: Football's off because of a waterlogged pitch. My aunt approves of my recent haircut. An afternoon quiz session with the nice old ladies, including an A-Z of carols, 'guess the month' and a trick questions round. On TV: Treasure Hunt in Florida. Fri 27: Shepherds pie as a break from turkey. On TV: Digby the Biggest Dog In The World, the Max Headroom pilot. Sat 28: [Basically when I'm not at university pretty much nothing consequential happens, as I'm sure you've noticed by now.] Sun 29: Insist that the family keep the garage light on throughout the Top 40 rundown of 1985's best selling singles so that no static interrupts my recording. Mon 30: Turkey curry to finish off the festive meat. Tue 31: 238 times altogether this year, because I've been counting. Take my ghetto blaster back to the shops to get it replaced because the buttons stopped working properly. See in the New Year with the Wogan show and a glass of flat cider.
Number of times I went to bed after 2am: 6 Latest I woke up: 10.30am (on the 12th, 26th and 27th) Number of days I had Coco Pops for breakfast: 30 Number of times I ate baked beans: 11 Number of roast dinners: 8
To meet the three wise men, look to the east. They're to be found in Leyton, appropriately enough up Church Road, admittedly just the one wise man rather than a trio but it'll do for now. It's not a long street, barely 100 metres long with just a dozen houses, but it does thankfully have religious connections so I will be able to stretch this write-up to a second paragraph. A terraced loop of three streets was built here between the wars, now one-way with Wiseman Road the last of the three as you drive out. It starts by a non-descript corner shop selling vapes and packaged meats, passes between whitewashed houses and the backs of flats, and ends on a bend at the entrance to the Leyton Business Centre. This is a typical cluster of hireable sheds where businesses like Woodford Dairies, Crystal Patisserie and Wanstead Windows hang out. Eclat Cosmetics might conceivably have made some of their serums with frankincense, but they moved away to Woolwich last year so it's irrelevant now.
You probably get a better idea from above.
You may also have spotted a quirky white building, not quite in Wiseman Road but at the centre of the development nextdoor. This is Etloe House, built 250 years ago when Church Lane was a quiet rural lane dotted with grand houses. Its first owner was Edward Rowe Mores, author of the seminal work A Dissertation Upon English Typographical Founders and Founderies because being nerdily interested in typefaces isn't a new thing. The finicky crenelations and battlements came later. The most famous resident was the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Westminster who used Etloe House as his summer residence between 1858 and 1864, hard though it is today to imagine the location as a bucolic hideaway. His name was Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, and that's why the street built later across one of his fields is called Wiseman Road.
By 1907 Etloe House had become a convent for the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, also a laundry for mentally handicapped women, until in the 1970s the sisters moved out to Chigwell and the site became a 44-bed retirement home instead. Pick the right maisonette and you can look out of the window into Wiseman Road, although you're more likely to see three cars plugged into a charging station than three camels and a selection of expensive gifts.
And there's more.
Three Kings Road CR4
This is the corner of Mitcham Common, specifically the northwest corner closest to the town centre where the duckpond is. The two roads that meet here are called Commonside West and Commonside East, and Three Kings Road used to be a track that cut the corner providing a shortcut to the pub. Alas a better road junction was required so in 1982 the council inserted a roundabout and stopped up Three Kings Road completely, which is why I'm showing you a photo of some bird-infested grass where Three Kings Road used to be.
The grass however still goes by the name of Three Kings Piece, a large triangular wedge to the west of the railway line. It's where Mitcham Fair is held each summer, an annual celebration since the 17th century but which relocated here exactly 100 years ago. The pond is also called Three Kings Pond, originally somewhere for livestock to take a drink and carts to wash their wheels, then surrounded by railings to make a scenic feature in the 1910s. It has ducks and geese and Egyptian geese which are actually ducks, some of whom get a bit territorial if you dare to approach, also a heck of a lot of perching pigeons. It's only shallow but it does have an island covered in spindly trees and also a tall post, which on closer inspection is an old pub sign.
Because yes The Three Kings was a pub, and a very old one at that, hence the fact everything nearby is named after it. The current building is MockTudor, a style very much in vogue in 1928 when the 18th century village inn was replaced by this half-timbered high-chimneyed version with increased drinking space. The most famous landlord was Will Poluski, half of a famous Victorian music hall act who performed knockabout comedy alongside his 'straight man' brother. Alas the last pints were pulled in 2004 after which the pub became a Chinese restaurant, and then offices for a computer software company called M3 who once grilled me a very good free sausage.
The pub may have closed and the road may have vanished but Three Kings Piece and Three Kings Pond live on, and if you have any gifts to bring these days you can even catch the bus.
Can we journey further?
Magi Crescent UX3?
Alas no, there is no street called Magi Something, not in London or in any other part of the country. I would have settled for Magill Close, Magister Drive or Magistrates Road but they're in Wokingham, Maldon and Peterborough respectively so they don't count. There is a gift shop opposite Brockley station called Magi Gifts but their Birthing Essential Oils Kit only stretches to sage, spearmint and lavender, not gold, frankincense and myrrh, so best not go there.
2005-2010 & 2013-2014: X Factor tosh
2011-2012 & 2015: charity mega-groups
2016-2017: normal pop songs
2018-2022: Ladbaby
2023-2024: Last Christmas
2025: Kylie Minogue
Non-Christmas songs in this year's Christmas Top 20
7) Dave (feat Tems): Raindance
13) Olivia Dean: Man I Need
14) Sam Fender & Olivia Dean: Rein Me In
19) HAVEN (feat. Kaitlin Aragon): I Run
London's most extreme Festive Bakes
southernmost: Greggs, 33 Central Parade, New Addington CR0 easternmost: Greggs, 72 Station Road, Upminster RM14 northernmost: Greggs, 308 Baker Street, Enfield EN1 westernmost: Asda Express, Southern Perimeter Road, Heathrow TW6
Last posting dates since 2005
2nd
1st
2005
Sat 17
Tue 20
2006
Sat 16
Tue 19
2007
Mon 17
Thu 20
2008
Thu 18
Sat 20
2009
Fri 18
Mon 21
2010
Sat 18
Tue 21
2011
Sat 17
Tue 20
2nd
1st
2012
Tue 18
Thu 20
2013
Wed 18
Fri 20
2014
Thu 18
Sat 20
2015
Sat 19
Mon 21
2016
Tue 20
Wed 21
2017
Wed 20
Thu 21
2018
Tue 18
Thu 20
2nd
1st
2019
Wed 18
Fri 20
2020
Fri 18
Mon 21
2021
Sat 18
Tue 21
2022*
Mon 19
Wed 21
2023
Mon 18
Wed 20
2024
Wed 18
Fri 20
2025
Wed 17
Sat 20
* In 2022 last posting dates were brought forward to Mon 12 and Fri 16 due to strike action.
What's on TV at 9pm on Christmas Day
BBC1: Call The Midwife
BBC2: The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show
BBC3: EastEnders Christmas 2007
BBC4: A Classical Christmas
ITV1: Bullseye
ITV2: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
C4: Christmas Bake Off
5: Armageddon
YouTube: anything
What was on TV at 9pm on Christmas Day 1985
BBC1: The Two Ronnies (with Phil Collins)
BBC2: Edge of the Wind (with Omar Sharif)
ITV: Minder on the Orient Express
C4: Fonteyn & Nureyev
The cost of 500g of sprouts
Sainsbury: £1 (15p with Nectar)
Morrisons: £1 (5p with More Card)
Tesco: 89p (15p with Clubcard)
Waitrose: 40p
Asda: 30p (or 5 packs for £1)
Lidl: 5p
Aldi: 5p
Amazon Fresh: 15p yesterday (all stores now permanently closed)
All the trains running in the UK on Christmas Day
→ 0003 Bishops Stortford → 0012 Stansted Airport
→ 0005 Tottenham Hale → 0020 Liverpool Street
→ 0007 Bishops Stortford → 0042 Liverpool Street
→ 0001 Romford → 0017 Shenfield
→ 0029 Manor Park → 0031 Shenfield
0003 Liverpool Street → 0046 Shenfield
0019 Liverpool Street → 0100 Shenfield
0034 Liverpool Street → 0117 Shenfield
Also Heathrow Express shuttles between T2/3, T4 and T5, every 20 minutes from 0515 to 2338.
Also Jubilee line trains, the last arriving at Stratford at 0024
Also Piccadilly line trains, the last arriving at Heathrow T2&3 at 0027
Also Central line trains, the last arriving at Epping at 0021 and West Ruislip at 0027
Also Metropolitan line trains, the last arriving at Amersham at 0036 and Uxbridge at 0059
Also District line trains, the last arriving at Upminster at 0059
After Eight facts
Created: 1962 by Brian Sollit, Lead Confectioner of Rowntree's ‘Crème Experimentation’ division. Dimensions: once 60mm square, now 40mm square (and no longer fills the envelope) Recommended serving: two squares, 73 calories Past flavours: Strawberry & Mint, Orange & Mint, Mint & Cherry, Mint & Blood Orange, Gin & Tonic
Anagrams of Christmas
Arch mists
Rat schism
Shirt scam
Trims cash
Hi Mrs Cats
HM's racist
Mr Ass Itch
Tube stations that opened on Christmas Eve
1868: South Kensington, Sloane Square, Victoria, St James's Park, Westminster
Maximum temperature on Christmas Day in east London(since 1900)
Over 15°C: 2015
Over 13°C: 2016
Over 12°C: 1920, 1954, 1983, 1988, 1997, 2011, 2023
Over 11°C: 1912, 1929, 1947, 1953, 2002, 2022, 2003
(or Sion Corn, Ogof Sion Corn, Gwlad Y Ceirw XM4 5HQ)
Countries that don't recognise Christmas
Not a public holiday: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bhutan, North Korea, Libya, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Yemen Not a public holiday (but observed): Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cambodia, China, Comoros, Iran, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam A public holiday on 25th December but not because it's Christmas: Pakistan, Taiwan
By woodland I mean a dense area with tree cover you can wander through.
And by most central, I mean closest to Trafalgar Square.
There is a big tree from a Norwegian forest in Trafalgar Square at the moment but that doesn't count.
A good place to start looking is a map.
Hurrah for the Forestry Commission who maintain a National Forest Inventory woodland map allowing anyone to scroll around England and see where the woods are. There are a lot in Surrey. There are rather fewer in London.
According to the NFI woodland map the closest woodland to Trafalgar Square is in the corner of St James's Park, 250m distant. [map snapshot]
I went to the corner of St James's Park and wasn't convinced.
I found lawns and shrubbery, also magnificent avenues of plane trees, also a tall lime near the weather station, also a screen of foliage around the park offices. I certainly found trees but I didn't find anything resembling the common understanding of woodland. What I found was a park, not woods.
I checked what the NFI woodland map is supposed to show and that explained it.
The National Forest Inventory (NFI) woodland map covers all forest and woodland area over 0.5 hectare with a minimum of 20% canopy cover, or the potential to achieve it, and a minimum width of 20 metres. This includes new planting, clearfell, windblow and restock.
20% canopy cover is quite low for what I might think of as woodland, which is denser-packed with broadly-spreading trees. Also the mention of 'potential' means the NFI map could include a lot of woodland that isn't (yet) woodland at all. I'm not sure what percentage canopy cover I find acceptable when I think of woodland but I'm sure it's much higher than 20%.
Other areas near Charing Cross the NFI map claims are woodland include Victoria Embankment Gardens (nope, gardens), St James's Square (nope, garden square) and Green Park (nope, another park). I decided to ignore the NFI map because its threshold for woodland was too low.
I tried ordinary maps instead.
• OpenStreetMap shows woodland in a darker green than grass, which sounded promising, but it too thinks the corner of St James's Park is woodland so it's much too loose. [map]
• Google Maps (and similar) show aerial imagery where you'd hope woodland would be obvious, but it turns out far too many places have close-together trees and this is no confirmation of land use underneath. [map]
• Ordnance Survey maps use green colouring and special symbols for woodland, especially at 1:50,000 scale, with parkland shaded very differently in grey, and this was much more promising. [map]
OS maps confirm a distinct lack of woodland anywhere near Trafalgar Square, as I suspected. Loads of parks because London is well blessed, but no woods anywhere until you get three miles out and then... aha.
This is Holland Park, not the southern part which is definitely parkland but the northern part which is 25 acres of trees. Within the woodland is the beautiful Kyoto Garden, also an adventure playground and an ecology centre, but essentially this is a deciduous landscape. It's woodland because it has dense trees and thick undergrowth, also various criss-crossing paths some of which are even potentially muddy underfoot. The catch is that everything's fenced off for protection creating a segmented environment of woody enclosures, so you can't actually walk through any of the woodland, merely alongside it. Holland Park isn't quite what I was looking for either.
I tried another map. Ah yes, I thought, the Woodland Trust.
Again their map confirms the scarcity of woodland in central London. Inside Zone 1 nothing. North towards Tottenham, nothing. West along the A40, nothing. The closest marker turns out to be Battersea Park Nature Areas to the southwest, although that's definitely more park than it is woods. The second closest is Holland Park, as previously mentioned. And the third is in the cluster of pins near Hampstead so that's where I went next.
This is Belsize Wood, just round the back of Belsize Park tube station. It's not ancient, it exists on the roof of a London Midland train tunnel, the remainder of which got turned into a council estate. Its not huge, more a long thin stripe on the steeper flank inappropriate for flats. But it is undeniably woodland, as you can see if you walk through the middle up a twisting set of fenced-in steps, its slopes planted with ash, sycamore and whitebeam. Just don't count on getting in.
The southern half is a nature reserve and firmly locked except to conservation volunteers and booked educational parties. A smart porch welcomes the fortunate with a chalkboard for recent nature sightings (currently blank) and various information boards. According to the map it contains a daffodil bank, four loggeries and a cherry tree planted to commemorate Agatha Christie's residence in the adjacent Isokon Building. A looping path passes through the trees, immaculately lined by logs and scattered with wood chippings, passing benches and a ventilation shaft along the way.
I'd read online that the reserve is open to the public on Wednesday afternoons but turned up within the three hour window and can confirm it isn't. Instead I had to make do with the less loved northern snippet, this only partly padlocked, where a short set of steps leads down to a brief perimeter path. It goes pretty much nowhere, passes several discarded plastic bags and re-emerges by a basketball court, but it is at least a walk in the trees.
For woods you can walk through willy-nilly, which to my mind is proper woodland, you need to head out further to the slopes of Hampstead Heath. Here trees and bushes grow freely across a considerable area, some enclosing the headwaters of the river Fleet, amid a woody landscape worthy of exploration. It's also ancient woodland, as can be determined on yet another online map (this from Natural England), so very much the real thing.
That's a photo from last autumn because I had no intention of going up onto Hampstead Heath during yesterday's downpours. But it is very much what I was hoping for when I went hunting for London's most central woodland... even if you have to head over four miles out of town to find it.
Once again TfL have silently published their annual spreadsheet listing the number of passengers using every London bus route and how many kilometres those buses travelled. Data is for April 2024 - March 2025. Comparisons are with the previous year.
n.b. Because of leap years last year's data was for 53 weeks rather than the usual 52. I've tried to balance this out when making comparisons.
London's ten busiest bus routes (2024/25) 1) -- 18 Euston - Sudbury (12.1m) 2) -- 149 London Bridge - Edmonton Green (11.9m) 3) -- 29 Trafalgar Square - Wood Green (11.3m) 4) -- 207 White City - Southall (10.4m) 5) -- 86 Stratford - Romford (10.1m) 6) ↑1 5 Canning Town - Romford (10.1m) 7) ↑6 243 Waterloo - Wood Green (9.9m) 8) -- 279 Manor House - Waltham Cross (9.7m) 9) -- 36 Queens Park - New Cross Gate (9.7m) 10) ↑1 109 Brixton - Croydon (9.6m)
The next ten: 35, 25, 53, 141, 38, 55, 158, 182, 140, 43
For the sixth year running London's busiest bus is the 18, long-term plier of the Harrow Road. The runners-up remain two northern workhorses, the 149 and 29. The 207 is the all-stops version of Superloop service SL8 between Southall and White City. The 86 parallels Crossrail in east London but retains strong ridership (whereas the once-triumphant 25 has tumbled out of the Top 10). The 243 enters the top 10 after picking up displaced commuters from the withdrawn 521. The 109 is the busiest route entirely south of the Thames.
In news that may unnerve TfL's accountants, all of the top 10 routes have fewer passengers this year than last year. Before the pandemic thirteen bus routes managed to convey more than ten million passengers but now it's only six.
The next ten: U10, 146, 375, 209, 464, 467, 359, R2, 404, 379
These are all the usual suspects, topped off by a pair of brief turns in Barnet connecting daytime residents to the shops. The R5 and R10 operate the same route in rural Bromley but in opposite directions, and would be in 7th place if their totals were combined. Six of the top 10 are circular routes. Route 18 is busier than the forty-five least used buses put together.
n.b. Routes 347 and 549 were both withdrawn during the year. Technically they should be third and fourth on the list but I've placed them lower down in line with their average weekly figures. The two routes were merged into the 346 and W14 respectively, neither of which appear in the bottom 50.
London's ten most travelled bus routes (2024/25) 1) ↑6 SL7 Croydon - Heathrow (2,160,000 km) 2) ↓1 18 Euston - Sudbury (1,860,000 km) 3) ↓1 111 Kingston - Heathrow (1,830,000 km) 4) ↓1 5 Canning Town - Romford (1,810,000 km) 5) ↓1 86 Stratford - Romford (1,800,000 km) 6) -- 174 Harold Hill - Dagenham (1,740,000 km) 7) ↑1 102 Brent Cross - Edmonton (1,781,000 km) 8) ↓3 182 Brent Cross - Harrow Weald (1,730,000 km) 9) ↑10 SL8 White City - Uxbridge (1,710,000 km) 10) -- 53 Lambeth North - Plumstead (1,700,000 km)
The next ten: 96, 38, 466, 207, 229, 113, 65, 55, 36, 177
This is a list of the routes whose vehicles travelled the greatest distance in one year. Long distance buses (like the SL7 and 111) and high frequency buses (like the 18 and 86) tend to travel the furthest. We have a new winner in the SL7, the Superloop route that traverses 24 miles across southwest London. It doubled in frequency when it was rebranded from the X26, and now we have a full year of data it's way out in front. The 174 also had a frequency increase hence its arrival in the top 10. The 389 remains London's least travelled bus route, covering just over 8000km per year.
London's ten most crowded bus routes (2024/25) 1) -- W7 Finsbury Park - Muswell Hill (9.0 passengers per km) 2) ↑1 149 London Bridge - Edmonton (8.2) 3) ↓1 98 Holborn - Willesden (8.0) 4) ↑2 35 Shoreditch - Clapham Junction (8.0) 5) -- 29 Trafalgar Square - Wood Green (7.8) 6) ↑1 109 Brixton - Croydon (7.6) 7) ↑5 9 Aldwych - Hammersmith (7.5) 8) ↓4 238 Stratford - Barking (7.4) 9) ↑4 104 Stratford - Beckton (7.2) 10) ↓2 41 Archway - Tottenham Hale (7.1)
This Top 10 is determined by dividing the number of passengers by the number of km travelled to get a 'number of passengers per km'. The higher the number, the less likely it is you'll be able to find a seat. By this measure the most crowded bus is the W7 which, along with the 41, delivers residents of Muswell Hill and Crouch End to their nearest tube stations. Haringey is scoring highly here. The 195 is the most crowded single decker (5.2 passengers per km) so is arguably more crowded than some of these double deckers. Most London bus routes carry 2-5 passengers per km.
The next ten: 120, 69, 243, 58, 205, 32, 94, 279, 1, 24
Seven of these buses serve the rural fringes of Bromley, London's emptiest outlier.
The ten routes with the biggest increase in passengers: SL2, 439, S2, SL3, SL5, SL1, SL10, 346, W12, S4
The first seven of these are routes which started in 2023/24 so now have their first year of full data, whereas the 346, W12 and S4 have been significantly restructured. The two routes with the highest genuine increase in passengers are the 456 to Crews Hill and the P5 to Nine Elms, both up 15% on last year.
The ten routes with the biggest decrease in passengers: 470, W14, H14, W9, P12, 183, 34, 228, D7, 269
The 470 lost half its route to the S2 last year and also half its passengers. The W14 is what the runty 549 morphed into. The H14 suffered nine months of diversions due to gas-related roadworks. Both the 183 and 34 have lost passengers to parallel Superloop routes. The ten listed routes all lost more than 15% of their passengers last year.
Routes introduced between April 2024 and March 2025: 310 Routes withdrawn between April 2024 and March 2025: 549, 347, 118, 414, R6
More routes were lost than gained last year.
London's ten busiest nightbuses: N15, N25, N18, N207, N29, N279, N9, N8, N98, N140 London's ten least busy nightbuses: 486, 213, N33, 365, 85, 474, 321, N72, 158, 24
Passengerwise the N15 is 40% ahead of its nearest competitor, the N25.
London's ten busiest single deckers: 235, C10, 195, 170, 316, W15, 214, 366, 112, 33 London's ten least busy double deckers: 467, SL6, 481, 298, 412, 317, 498, 215, 492, 428
All those single deckers are busier than all those double deckers.
There are over 5000 Oyster Card validators across the TfL network.
How much do you think it would cost to sponsor them all?
If you said £1,647,437 you're wrong.
That's how much it cost Google to sponsor them in 2020.
They've been paying a similar amount annually since.
But now it's time for a new sponsor to wade in.
And they've agreed to pay £2,500,000 a year.
For five years.
Starting 1st January 2026.
Contract here.
The new sponsor is American bank Chase, a subsidiary of JP Morgan.
If you've never heard of them that's the point.
What they want you to know is a) they exist b) they have a debit card c) if you use it you get 1% cashback.
And they'll let you know by screaming at you from every contactless pad for the next five years.
Here's one already in situ on the Waterloo & City line.
As you can see, the advert takes up over half of the pad.
Who needs passenger clarity when you can have £12½m?
The contactless symbol and the word 'Oyster' are much less prominent.
Three alternative payment methods (Amex, Mastercard, Visa) are even smaller.
As for previous sponsor Google Pay, it's suddenly nowhere to be seen.
The important bit is the smallprint which says See chase.co.uk/TfL for eligibility, limits, exceptions and T&Cs.
It's 1% cashback, which isn't much.
Make a £3 tube journey and it's 3p.
You're going to need to make 100 tube journeys to buy a coffee.
But it's better than getting no cashback at all.
Also it's a maximum of £15 cashback a month.
Only 'everyday travel', groceries and fuel purchases apply.
Also it's new customers only, and only for a year.
After a year you only get 1% cashback if you pay at least £1500 a month into your Chase account.
It's all got a bit sickening on TfL's LinkedIn account. We’re proud to have partnered with Chase as our ‘Official Payment Partner’. 🤝
You’ll start to see the Chase brand take pride of place on over 5000 contactless Oyster readers across London very soon.
Keep your eyes peeled!
'Official Payment Partner' is just weaselspeak for sole advertiser.
TfL's head of Commercial Froth is also very excited.
"This commercial partnership with Chase is a great example of how TfL can work with brands," she said.
The arse-licking of brands is very much a TfL speciality.
Get used to tapping your card or contactless device on the Chase pad.
For the next five years.
The road bridge at Clapham Junction station has always been a fairly horrible place to walk through, not quite of Finsbury Park proportions but grim nonetheless. Now that's all changed thanks to an art project in conjunction with the London Festival of Architecture and a winning design submitted by a community group. Over the last few months the 100m tunnel has been transformed into a brightly-lit panelled passage, supposedly pigeon proof, and my goodness it looks a lot better.
The design comprises six repeating panels depicting local icons including Battersea Park's Peace Pavilion, the cupola at Arding & Hobbs and the chimney at Battersea Power Station. Lavender, daffodils and bumble bees represent nature and the buried river the Falcon Brook is in there too. As for the lighting it's blue at present but can be changed if anything colour-specific needs commemorating. It's a fine nod to the end of Wandsworth's year as London Borough of Culture (should anyone outside the borough have noticed).
2) See in 2026 from a unique vantage point
I am contractually obliged to mention every time the Dangleway promotes anything ridiculous, so here we go again. New Year's Eve anyone?
Book now and you can enjoy a view of the fireworks at midnight from a cabin above the Thames. What's more more your evening begins with a three course meal accompanied by live music, followed by dancing before boarding your flight. Alcohol provision includes a glass of prosecco on arrival, half a bottle of wine with your meal and a flute of champagne to toast the New Year in the sky.
The downsides are that the meal takes place in the room that houses the Cable Car Experience, a truly soulless shed, also you might spend the entire evening in there if bad weather makes your midnight flight impossible, also "fireworks viewing is subject to weather conditions" so you might see nothing of note, also you may be crammed into a cabin with up to 9 other people, also the Dangleway is five miles from the proper fireworks at the London Eye so what you'll mainly see is East Londoners firing random rockets. And all for £299 a head, so I don't think I'll be the only one giving the New Year's Eve Fireworks, Dinner and Cable Car Experience a miss.
3) Discover connectivity in your local area
Connectivity Tool is an online map (provided by the DfT) which displays how well connected any location in England and Wales is to everyday services by walking, driving, cycling and public transport. Originally it was a professional service requiring registration but now there's Connectivity Tool Lite for anyone, just launched, and it's a lot of fun to investigate. The country's been divided into 100m squares and each assigned a connectivity score out of 100, then the entire grid coloured in. Trafalgar Square scores 96, Inner London is almost all over 80 and even the middle of Richmond Park scores 41. The highest score I can find is 100 around Aldgate East station. Meanwhile Birmingham peaks at 90, Stonehenge and Lands End are both 15s and the middle of Dartmoor is a big fat zero.
You can also 'Explore the score' to discover how the overall score was calculated, the weighting being public transport 52%, walking 40% and cycling 8%. At Bus Stop M, for example, the overall score of 93 comes from 'Public transport 95', 'Walking 89' and 'Cycling 93'. My Dad may be surprised he scores 30, despite his Norfolk village seeing less than ten buses a day, but a high cycling score has provided a boost. For further interrogative fun you can ask the map to show scores for just one form of transport, and for a fascinating flourish you can turn on the location of every station, tram stop, ferry terminal and bus stop in the country. Full documentation is provided. Happy playing (and hello to fellow smug members of the 90+ club).
1) Two Piccadilly line stations are partially closing next year
Barons Court: Monday 19 January until mid-June 2026
Eastbound trains will not stop. Mitigation 1: Walk to West Kensington instead (only 500m, so not terrible). Mitigation 2: Catch a westbound train to Hammersmith and change back there.
(and after that, about five months when westbound trains won't stop)
Southgate: Monday 5 January until mid-March 2026
No entry to the station (exit only). Mitigation 1: For Cockfosters, take bus 298 or 299 (only seven buses an hour, could a be a wait) Mitigation 2: For Oakwood, take bus 121 (only six buses an hour, could be a wait) Mitigation 3: For Arnos Grove, take bus 298 or 382 (the more frequent 382 takes twice as long)
(basically three grim months in N14)
Also:
• Cutty Sark station is closed until spring 2026.
• No down escalator at Maida Vale from 7 January until mid-March 2026.
• No Piccadilly line trains beyond Rayners Lane fron 24 December to 4 January.
• No service on the Bank branch of the Northern line after 10pm from 12 January until late May (Mon-Thu only).
2) DLR extention to Thamesmead gets public thumbs up
The results of the DLR Thamesmead extension consultation have been published.
» 76% said they thought the route via Beckton to Thamesmead was the right route (I'm amazed it's that many).
» Less than 15% of respondents had issues with the either of the proposed station locations.
» 30% of respondents wanted to extend the DLR further (there's no funding, said TfL).
» 53 respondents wanted more New Routemasters on London bus routes (because they are sad obsessed weirdos).
» Only 4 respondents expressed concern about the removal of safeguarding for the Thames Gateway Bridge (so that's dead then).
3) Rare Overground hybrid in new rail timetable
A unique Suffragette/Mildmay hybrid service now operates late on Sunday evenings.
The 2324 from Barking Riverside runs to Upper Holloway, then skips Gospel Oak, then serves all stations from Hampstead Heath to Willesden Junction.
The last westbound Suffragette line train thus morphs into the last westbound Mildmay line train.
If you have a rail-related YouTube channel and are running out of ideas, there's one for you.
45 Squared 44) ALBION SQUARE, E8
Borough of Hackney, 100m×40m
This is one of my favourite squares. It's tucked away in a dense grid of streets just east of Haggerston station, and I only stumbled upon it during lockdown because I eventually walked down the right road. It's also incredibly well documented so I could drone on about its history for ages, but let's just get all that out of the way in one quick sentence.
Albion Square was developed by the Middleton family in the 1840s on land alongside Stonebridge Common, a fragment of which survives close by, and mainly comprised on-trend Italianate paired villas sold for about £400, each lit by gas from the get-go, initially marketed as a middle class haven with a locked central garden but by the 1890s it had fallen out of favour and the square had become an eyesore, so well done to the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association for hiring Fanny Wilkinson to restore the central space and opening it up to the public, although by the 1930s things were pretty shabby again with many properties subdivided into rented flats, so much so that Hackney council proposed redeveloping everything in 1966 but the middle classes successfully fought against demolition having realised there were classy bargains to be had, successfully getting many of the properties listed, though it wasn't until 1977 that the iron railings were reinstated, and in its centenary year Albion Square Garden won first prize in the Small Publicly Maintained Garden section of the London Garden Squares Competition, and now won't you look at the place with its multi-million pound homes and prime herbaceous borders. Sorry if that was a bit brief.
The best part is the inner oasis, long and thin with gates on each side and overshadowed by four mature plane trees. There are also eight sturdy cabbage-palms adding an exotic touch along the central walkway, which loops like dumbbells at each end. December is not the best time to admire the planting and the grass does look somewhat shabby at present, but shoots that looks like crocuses are bursting up in one bed so a burst of colour can't be too far away. You can tell the horticulture's a cut above thanks to the cutesy gardener's hut by the western entrance, inside which a wicker chair, straw hat and wooden stepladder await better weather. Everyone else has to make do with a dozen public benches, four of which are hexagonal and encircle the aforementioned plane trees. The local parking enforcement officer prefers to skulk at the far end.
In the very centre is a rare Passmore Edwards drinking fountain, one of just three of his philanthropic gifts that survive in the capital (thus outnumbered by his libraries). It was installed in 1910 with twin marble bowls, and if its gold text and taps look sparkling that's because it was restored by the Heritage of London Trust a couple of years ago. The gardens' noticeboard looks at least 60 years old and has some pleasingly retro posters pointing out that dogs must be kept on leads, also a more recent screed warning visitors to keep a safe distance from 'large tractors, ride-on mowers, pedestrian mowers and strimmers'. As for wildlife the trees are not immune to the curse of the parakeet, but all I saw down below was a tentative pigeon.
If instead you walk the square outside you get to admire some mighty fine villas that an estate agent could, but never would, describe as semi-detached. They have yellowbrick walls with superfluous stucco, also basements where scullery staff would have been hidden away, also an excessive number of chimneypots. In some cases it's just a facade, everything behind having been knocked through to create an architect's wet dream, a transformation number 6 is going through at present. Ignore the slightly less authentic quartet on the western side because they're part of Albion Terrace, not Albion Square, built on the site of a piano showroom, formerly gymnasium, formerly ballroom and concert hall, formerly school, formerly literary and scientific institute. Perhaps the quirkiest feature is that Albion Square has four different styles of streetsign, none the most recent design, one of which is an iconic rarity depicting the now extinct NE postcode.
And by visiting a square in Hackney I've now achieved my intended aim of blogging about a square in every London borough as part of my 45 Squared project. Best of all I've achieved that with square number 44 so there's one more to go and all I have to do is decide how best to finish. I started with the largest London square and last week I did the oldest, so something appropriately superlative would be ideal. It has to be in the National Street Gazetteer and it has to be one I haven't blogged before otherwise Noel Square would be a shoo-in. I've got a week to mull it over.
X-5
