I'm not bad at walking up and down them, not normally. I've had years of practice, having gained the ability to put one foot after the other when I was little. I'm not frightened by steps, spiral or otherwise. I'd rather take the stairs than wait for a cop-out lift. I can walk up several flights without collapsing in a knackered heap on a midway landing. Really, I'm not a decrepit mess when it comes to switching floors or changing level. But I'm not good with stairs when it comes to walking up and down them abnormally.
I'm not good with taking stairs two at a time. It ought to be simple, it's only raising my leg twice as far as usual. If I can step up six inches I can surely manage a foot, it's not top level gymnastics. Other people cope with ease, striding up staircases two or even three steps at a time. No need to grab hold of anything, straight up the middle like a rocket, getting to the top quicker as a result. And there's me over by the handrail, clutching cautiously, because it's the only way I trust myself to take stairs in pairs. I look down and I can see the step I'm aiming for, but somehow its precise location appears temporarily uncertain. My foot wobbles, perhaps only mentally, and I fear I'm going to miss and tumble. I don't, I land two steps up, but then I have to climb again and the whole unstable cycle repeats.
If I concentrate hard when climbing steps two at a time, then I can do it. But I'm never confident, never secure, never sure-footed. And I'm sure I used to be better at it, even until a couple of years ago. I could stride up unsupported, double height no problem, never considered it might one day cause difficulties. But now, if I don't think carefully every step of the way, I'm an ascending mess. It's a bit unnerving, this degenerative condition, particularly the way it's slowly crept up on me. I think it's a balance thing, rather than an eyesight thing, like some internal stabiliser's tripped out. And that's why you'll now most likely find me climbing one step at a time, nipping quickly upwards, because that feels inherently safer.
As for going downstairs, I've always done that one at a time. One's always felt like the right number, never two, because that would be outstretching myself. My subconscious has had years of training, it expects the next level to be a certain distance down, and I don't trust myself to reach further. One step good, two steps wholly inadvisable, at least where I'm concerned.
And I always walk. Steps are for walking down, that's what I've always believed, and never ever ever running. I absolutely can't bring myself to run downstairs, not even in cases of mild emergency, for fear of risking life and limb on the way. Running would help me reach the bottom quicker, but my brain always assumes I'd do quicker the bad way, slipping and sliding and tumbling in an embarrassed or injured heap on the floor. A deep-seated survival instinct kicks in and absolutely completely forbids my feet from doing anything other than walk, in ones.
I live in awe of the stair experts. Blokes who stride confidently past me, climbing two or even three at a time. Talented athletes who can launch up a staircase in seconds but never need to grasp the handrail. Ladies in unstable stilettos who overtake my flat-footed descent, leaving me trailing in their wake. And the real stars, the men who run nonchalantly downstairs like it were the easiest thing in the world, which to them it is. My step negotiation skills are inherently inferior to the god-like Downstair Runners, those fleet of foot souls blessed with perfect balance and natural talent. If there's a train pulling into the platform below they'll be the ones who'll catch it, and I'll be the one arriving as the doors shut, safe but boring, slow but sure.
I'm not bad with stairs, don't get me wrong. I can walk up one at a time with no difficulty. I can still run up steps when necessary. I can hold my own in a rush hour crowd without appearing inept. And I've never, touch wood, had a nasty step-related accident. But I can't tackle stairs confidently, neither in twos nor at speed, not without some subconscious wobble kicking in. It's probably long-term clumsiness, but might be middle age kicking in, or could be one compounded by the other. Whatever, my apologies to any vertical athletes who might be stuck behind me on the way up or on the way down - I am not good with stairs.
How are we all doing with Get Ahead Of The Games? That's the one stop shop for transport advice in the run-up to the Olympics. If our normal journey might be messed up because of activities at a Games venue near us, everything we might need to know is available in one place. Or that's the idea. There's certainly been a torrent of publicity, all those adverts and posters and billboards everywhere encouraging us all to check in and plan ahead. But if we've now visited the website, how comprehensive and useful has it been? Have we yet uncovered the specific information we might need? Or has the publicity perhaps peaked too early, before there's enough there to persuade us to act?
I ask, because we've recently been on the receiving end of the Olympic businessplanning drive at work. Certain activities might become more awkward during the Games, obviously, so the company doesn't want to get caught out. We've got specific people liaising, and coordinated meetings going on somewhere, and there's even been a representative from TfL in to give the company advice. You'd expect nothing less. So it's been somewhat disturbing to be at the bottom of the chain - an employee in a position of assumed ignorance - to see how little of this advice has trickled down.
At work we've not yet been told anything specific about the predicted travel problems in our part of town. Instead we've been directed to the GAOTG website, where there doesn't seem to be any specific guidance either. Instead there are borough-by-borough guides, covering a considerably broader area, and these are packed with almost but not quite specific information. Planning on travelling by bus? "Many bus services will operate more frequently and there will also be some diversions." Great, thanks, cheers. Planning on travelling by train? "Some stations and lines will be particularly busy, including <not the station nearest work>. You can minimise disruption to your journey by avoiding these stations at the busiest times." Nothing there of enormous help either.
Now I happen to know that there's much more detailed information elsewhere, most of it over at tfl.gov.uk/2012. This site has dire health warnings about congestion at umpteen stations on a half-hourly basis, all terribly useful, but nobody's directed us to this. It also warns which lines are likely to be busy when, because a slack station's no use if all the trains running through are rammed, but nobody's mentioned that to us either. There's a great deal my workmates should be concerned about, and many a commute that might become impossible, but nobody's pointed any of this out. Instead we've been sent the official dumbed-down message, essentially "there might be some problems, would you like to replan?" and that's not been motivational at all. Without specifics to guide us, nobody round my way's interested.
When the GAOTG email came round at work, most people concentrated on the interactive map, and played with that, not realising there might be anything better hiddenelsewhere. And the interactive map told them not to worry. Stations with issues are marked on the map by orange or red circles, with red meaning "exceptionally busy" and orange meaning "busier than usual". One of the main stations nearest work doesn't have a red or orange circle, not even if you move the timeline slider all the way across the top of the map, so everyone interpreted this as "it's OK, it won't be busy here, not ever". And that was it, they drifted off, opportunity lost.
Hidden in the smallprint at GAOTG is the news that the website shows only the "first round of information", and that "these are not all the stations that will be affected." We're promised more detail on National Rail services and stations, and additional information about DLR, London Overground and Underground stations. The slider at the top of the map will one day stretch back into the Torch Relay and ahead into the Paralympics, both of which were promised "soon" when the site was launched in January. But not yet. Olympic transport planners must have worked out by now that (for example) Wembley Park, Russell Square and Stratford International will be "busier than usual" during the Games, but for some reason the map's holding back on telling us this.
Expect a GAOTG website update soon, because back on 21st February they promised more information "over the next two months". But I fear they might find Londoners less than willing to notice. My work colleagues have all decided there isn't a problem, because there wasn't when they looked, and they'll only look once. GAOTG's initial poster campaign has encouraged us all to visit a website which doesn't yet reveal the full picture, so has probably lulled several commuters into a false sense of normality. We'll all notice eventually, I'm sure, but any assumption that Londoners might dutifully rearrange their summer has thus far proved wildly optimistic.
The DLR will be extending shortly. Not the railway, because no extensions to the network are currently under any serious consideration. Indeed, visit the "Current Projects" page on the DLR website and all you get is the line to Stratford International that opened last summer, plus the Dagenham Dock spur that Boris mothballed four years ago. No, this extension's utterly minor, off the rails, at my local station. We're getting a new entrance.
There's been only one way into Bow Church DLR since 1987 and that's from Bow Road. A trek down narrow steps, or a ride down in the lift if it's working (which it usually is). That's fine if you live west or east of the station, but not so great from the south. A circuitous trek is required - nothing too galling but a bit annoying when the platform runs pretty much alongside Rainhill Way. And now there is access, almost.
It's been there a couple of years, off the southbound platform, this alternative "exit" leading straight into a wall. Only recently was a proper footpath laid from the corner of Rainhill Way, now marked with a DLR roundel on a stick as a beacon to guide passengers in. Except nobody's opened yet up the gap at the end - a thin blue wall still blocks the way - so anyone tempted down has to retrace their steps on an even longer diversion to reach the platform beside. Or they could stop and look at this.
This is the latest artwork on the DLR, a piece called Coming/Going. Seven metres long, it's been nailed to the edge of a temporary builders' compound on the path down to the new entrance. This montage has been put together by artist Simon Terrill as part of a community art project on the neighbouring Bow Cross estate, which is undergoing major renovation at the moment. You may remember Simon from the Balfron Project, when he egged the residents of Goldfinger's tower in Poplar into standing out on their balconies so he could take a 27-storey collective photograph of them. He tried something similarly communal here, but at ground level, aiming for more of an album than a single image. Apparently there's a large Bow Cross photograph on the Coming/Going artwork, but my eyes are so drawn by the bright yellow text that I can't quite pick it out.
You probably won't know the Bow Cross estate, even under its previous name of Crossways. Its one claim to fame is that Dizzee Rascal lived here, him and Tinchy Stryder, although you won't find a plaque or anything. Even to those of us who live round here this isolated estate is mostly off-radar and off-limits. The three 25-storey tower blocks are obvious enough, but you wouldn't want to walk underneath or through unless you had to. Two have been doneup recently, reclad in off-white, and with a blazing lightshow pulsating from the roof after dark as if to say "look at us, we're reborn". But the third, Mallard Point, is still the ugly concrete sod it alwayswas. The road from the new DLR entrance leads down and round to the bottom of the decrepit tower, and nowhere else, which is not the sort of urban cul-de-sac you ever want to find yourself in by mistake.
The rest of the estate is a revelation, in comparison. Low-rise homes in parallel terraces. Fresh flats in neat pastel blocks. Rows of cars parked up outside tiny front gardens. Access roads waiting to be unfenced. The scary concrete walkways of the past wiped clean away. A small playground to replace the bleak tarmac football pitch many of the new flats have been squished into. You can see why the housing association drafted an artist in, this could be any 21st century estate anywhere in Tower Hamlets, and an identity is sorely needed. So when the new DLR entrance finally opens, giving residents the public transport access they've long deserved, maybe a few more Bow commuters will finally realise this estate exists.
Not all of the properties here are housing association, obviously. Bow Cross West has been given the full marketing treatment from Countryside Properties, and their marketing department was in overdrive last year attempting to make the area sound far more exciting than it really is. If you live elsewhere you might have lapped this muck up, but for us local residents the blind hyperbole shines through. The "ha!"s are mine.
"Choosing to live at Bow Cross West is an opportunity to embrace a new beginning (ha!) and explore unique opportunities (ha!) within an historic context (ha!). You couldn’t be better placed (ha! ha!) to take advantage of the best of life in the bustle of cosmopolitan London (ha!) and yet be surrounded by ancient churches, buildings and monuments (ha!)."
"The area is famously known (ha!) as one of the access points (ha!) for the 2012 Olympic Stadium. The opportunities that this home location represents for experiencing the games firsthand (ha! ha! ha!) and making use of the superb facilities afterwards (ha! ha!) are not to be missed. Closer to home (ha!), Victoria Park is a popular festival venue during the summer months and for excellent and varied evenings and weekends look no further than the restaurants of Mile End (ha! ha!) and Bow Wharf or the Jongleurs comedy club at Grove Road."
"Being located in the centre (ha!) of the historic East End and within easy walking distance to Canary Wharf (ha! ha!) and other nearby tourist and historically significant spots (ha! ha!) Bow is fast becoming a solid area for investment and an exciting (ha!) location to make your home."
"Roman Road Market is... a friendly, funky place to shop (ha!) for some real bargains. Super Saturday takes place every weekend throughout the summer and features the very best (ha!) in crafts, home and garden, antiques, food, clothing, books, special events, street performances, jugglers, stilt walkers (ha!), face painting and much more (ha! ha!)! In winter, the market is smaller and still a fantastic (ha!) place for shopping."
"With the Docklands Light Railway just a few minutes walk away you can choose to explore the rest of London. But with so much to do so close to your home, you’ll be sure to spend your time enjoying the neighbourhood’s own attractions (ha! ha! ha!).
Have you been to Greenwich recently, have you, have you? It's all go down there, well you'd expect it, wouldn't you, what with the Olympics coming up and everything. They're already sealing offpart of the park to build the equestrian arena, now there's only three months to go, got to get the place ready I guess. They'll probably leave the park a ploughed-up mess, although give them their due they didn't after last year's test event, so it'll no doubt all be fine.
What a change down by the river, where the Cutty Sark used to be. Actually it still is, it didn't all burn away during that big fire five years ago, and now they've nearly finished repairing it. It's used to be just a ship, admittedly a lovely important ship, one of the fastest tea clippers of its day, but soon it'll be reopening as a proper integrated heritage tourist destination. They've lifted the ship up, several feet, rather than resting it in the original concrete-y dry dock. Previously you could walk right up to the hull and stare, but now it's all encased in some frosted glass thing, a bit like an icy sea, or some sort of frozen shiny wave. Walk up close and you can peer through and there's the restored hull behind, all polished and good as new, but you can't see much, not unless you're inside, which I guess is the idea.
The main body of the ship looks magnificent, all those famous tall masts and rigging, all of that's still open to the elements. Something's still shrouded in white sheeting, looks like the poop deck, or whatever sailors call these things, I don't know. There'll be visitors swarming all over the decks once the Cutty Sark reopens, which'll be soon, very soon, 26th April apparently. Expect the Queen to turn up for the official ceremony, which'll be nice. They couldn't quite get the Cutty Sark open before the London Marathon swings through, so everyone'll be running round the old girl still shut up and closed. Although that's probably a publicity masterstroke, isn't it, she'll be all over the telly at just the right time to stir public interest, eh? [photo]
At the moment there are still workmen everywhere, lots of them, mostly down at ground level sorting out the visitor facilities. There are swishy electronic doors in the glass wall, locked open while blocks and slabs and cables and stuff are carried through. They've been clever lifting up the ship, it's created a big space underneath. Plenty of room for a gift shop that wasn't there before, plus a cafe that wasn't there before too. I hope they make a special thing of serving tea, what with tea being the sole reason the great ship was built, but I bet it'll just be the usual coffee and brownies and light salads or whatever makes the best profit with tourists. And expect to pay twelve quid to get inside this enhanced visitor experience, up from a fiver before the big fire, even though there's not much original timber left, obviously.
It's all about food in Greenwich these days, isn't it? Not least down by Greenwich Pier, on the bend in the Thames, where the cruise boat ticket office used to be. Sheesh, who the hell allowed anyone to build theseeyesores here. Two big curvaceous buildings, both covered in ostentatious golden metal, and each divided into two tediously chain-brand restaurants. Nando's and Zizzi in one half, for that authentic non-English meal, and Frankie and Benny's and Byron in the other, ditto. One in each pair gets a second storey, the other gets a roof terrace, but it doesn't matter, they're all still f**king ugly. Seriously, it's a World Heritage site is Greenwich, and yet naked commercialism has somehow wriggled in and vomited on the waterfront.
There's a third smaller building between the two, which is the new ticket office for the pier beyond. Tellingly it's not yet complete, still fenced off, littered with tables and planks and other builders' detritus. Typical, they can finish the restaurants on time, but the main functional part of the site, nah, that can wait, and would-be passengers can buy their tickets from a temporary wooden shack in the grounds of the Naval College instead.
And there's more new food back in the town proper. That's Goddards, you remember Goddards, the pie and mash people, they've reopened. They closed their proper old restaurant near the DLR back in 2006. Something about wanting to spend more time with the family, wasn't it, or the fact that some burger chain was offering large sums to buy them out, one or the other. They've been serving hand-made pies from some market stall ever since, not the same experience, but saw an opportunity when a chip shop went bust and bought up their place instead. It's on King William Walk, on the corner of that alley into the market, not quite so much footfall, but enough. Looked busy on Saturday, queues at the counter, Union Jack bunting across the menu on the wall behind. And the punters looked well happy, the meat and gravy and eels are back, come clog an artery or three why don't you? But BestMate says he won't be going back, dirty sellouts he calls it, never quite got over the burger thing, no pie for him.
Anyway, that's Greenwich for you, ever changing, often for the better, sometimes for the worst. At least nobody's gentrified the covered market yet, something to do with a new hotel coming, redevelopment essential. Expect that to be ghastly and sanitised by the time it's finished, hardly a move forward, but it's all about maximising tourist cashflow innit? To follow what's going on more regular, keep an eye on The Greenwich Phantom, they've got lots to say, or the folk at Greenwich.co.uk, ditto. Or pick up a copy of The Greenwich Visitor when you come out of the station, excellent monthly publication that, and available online too. Because it's all going on.
Seaside postcard: Hastings Halfway between Folkestone and Brighton, and not especially close to either, Hastings is home to almost ninety thousand people. Should you choose to visit (fifty miles down the A21 from London, or 100 minutes by train), here are ten potential attractions. (20 Hastings photos) » Hastings Castle: Hastings is but a footnote in the story of its eponymous battle. William landed at Pevensey up the coast, may have made his original base camp in Hastings, but then fought Harold inland at Battle. After England had fallen the Conqueror came back and built his first castle on West Hill, the first motte and bailey in the country, not that anyone knew to call them that then. Other royals stopped by over the years, until dissolution sent the place into terminal decay (I picked all this up in the portakabin cinema in the courtyard, you know). Centuries of clifftop erosion caused further damage, with half the original site either crumbled to the ground or carved away to create a residential crescent below. What this means for visitors is that, sorry, there's not much of Hastings Castle left to see. Bits of the chapel, including an broken arch and two spiral staircases to nowhere. Some walls, if you like walls. And the twisty tiny dungeons, which would be highly atmospheric if only they hadn't been scratched by generations of teenage graffiti. The view from the castle mound's good, although arguably just as good from the neighbouring lawn. The toilets are terribly well hidden behind the ticket hut. And the castle's worth a look, but if you can get to Bodiam inland I'd far recommend that instead. (£4.25) » Smugglers Adventure: Beneath West Hill run St Clements Caves, long used by smugglyfolk to hide themselves and their contraband. It's now the domain of "Hairy Jack", a fictional character who leads lawful cavers through a semi-modern tourist attraction. It boasts "life-size figures, push-button tableaux, dramatic lighting, eerie sound effects" and "surprises", which sounded like a lot of dimly-lit mannequins so I thought I'd give the place a miss. If you have children of an above-impressionable age, this might be for you. (£7.40) » Blue Reef Aquarium: Thirty displays of sea creatures, including a walkthrough tunnel in an ocean tank. Didn't do this either. (£8.20) » Jerwood Gallery: See yesterday (£7) » Fishermen's Museum: A truly charming room and a half, the largest containing a hundred year-old sailing lugger you can clamber up aboard. Also contains the full story of the legendary Hastings Winkle Club (all members must carry a winkle with them at all times, and have to pay a fine if they fail to produce it when challenged). They seem a fun bunch - many were down at Winkle Island on Friday competing for a marbles trophy sporting a wide variety of ostentatious black headgear. (free) » Shipwreck Museum: A warren of rooms, displayed 1990s style, outlining the many tales of salvage and sinking that have happened off the Hastings coast over the years. It's a bit one-track, but the story of the Amsterdam is fascinating - it slowly sank into mud in 1749, and the skeleton of its hull is still visible on the beach at Bulverhythe during exceptionally low spring tides. (free) » Hastings Museum & Art Gallery: Out of the way up Bohemia Road, this old house hides many pleasant local secrets. As well as the amazingDurbar Hall and John Logie Baird exhibit, there's a tableau-ed reminder of the infamous Mods and Rockers influx one bank holiday Monday in 1964. One large section has been given over to native American culture, and to GreyOwl, the North Ontario environmentalist whose authenticity was trashed when it was discovered he wasn't authentically Apache but was in fact a bloke from Hastings called Archibald. Throw in a temporary exhibition of map-related art, and this museum's well worth a look. (free) » Old Town Hall Museum: It's under renovation at the moment so the top floor's closed, but I hope they're doing a better job than the just-updated snoozeathon on the ground floor.(free) » Hastings History House: A properly amateur hideaway in the backstreets of the Old Town, home to the local history society and with an eye to preserving the town's rich culture. (free) » Jack in the Green: If you're waiting for an excuse to visit Hastings, come on May Day bank holiday weekend for this traditional pagan festival (and booze-up) where folk music and swirling dancers (and menwearingleaves) fill the streets. (free)
In a last hurrah before pre-recession funding dries up, Hastings opened a major new art gallery lastmonth. It's one of a so-called string of pearls round the southeast coast, linking Margate via Eastbourne to Chichester. The idea is that cultured townies will flock to the seaside for the promise of "art", and hopefully stay long enough to drip their cosmopolitan wealth in each resort's economy. This latest project is the Jerwood Gallery, a major project by the eponymous Jerwood Foundation, a charitable organisation in need of its own display space. They settled on a location on the Hastings seafront, more specifically on the former long-stay coach park on The Stade, close to where the town's fleet of fishermen haul their boats up the beach. They're absolutely livid at this middle class interloper invading their space, not just because they miss the coachloads of tourists, but because it's out of place in this hard-working part of town. The council disagree, hoping for regeneration-a-go-go, and gave the land rent-free to keep their major benefactor on side.
The building's low-rise, so as not to dominate its surroundings, and jet black so as not to distract from the famous wooden Net Shops alongside. It's all abitblocky, to be honest, so you won't be visiting to marvel at the architecture. The occasional large glass window breaks up the walls, although those on the ground floor are tinted to stop too many passers-by from snooping through. That's because this place costs to get in, a grand total of seven pounds a ticket, or rather seven pounds for a till receipt and no accompanying leaflet. Local residents are allowed entry for only £2 on production of proof of address, although you might get past the front desk for nothing if you can reel off a Hastings postcode without pausing.
In the large gallery downstairs, the inaugural exhibition is a retrospective of work by Kent artist RoseWylie. No, me neither. Six very large works fill the room, under the collective banner Big Boys Sit in the Front, each painted in almost cartoon style. Her brush strokes are thick, her colours are bold, and her characters are roughly drawn. One of her paintings is in reaction to the Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds, which isn't what you'd expect a septuagenarian to be painting, while another features cats with oddly triangular heads. I couldn't quite enjoy the work, and I may not have been alone. The room slowly emptied until I was the only one in it, which was in sharp contrast to the galleries still to come. The most interesting canvas turned out to be the live show of customers at the Fish Hut and Jellied Eel Bar opposite, augmented by passers-by pausing to peer in through the tinted window. A series of short documentaries screened in the adjacent room helped endear me to the artist a little more, but alas not to her œuvre.
Seven further galleries showcase the Jerwood Collection, or about a third of it, on rotating display here in Hastings for the first time. There are no old masters here, the emphasis is on more modern artists, especially work that's been shortlisted for the annual Jerwood Prize. Much of that downstairs was challengingly abstract, in a way that judges like but leaves me cold. Upstairs the subjects were more recognisablyfigurative, which helped. Female portraits clustered in one room, while "Look, I've painted a jug" seemed to be the theme in another. Most artists have been represented by a single canvas, which increased variety, and you'll probably leave with a couple of "I never knew I liked them"s added to your repertoire. But sixty paintings don't go far. "Is that it?" asked one fur-coated lady to the attendant at the top of the stairs, then wandered off swiftly when told that it was.
There's a café, obviously, because there has to be a café, and dozens of bank holiday art lovers had settled in there for lunch. The menu looked rather appetising, and not unduly expensive, and reassuringly locally sourced. But there was something slightly awkward about the outdoor terrace, where diners can gobble gravadlax whilst looking directly down over the fishermen of Hastings toiling and flogging fresh fish from their ramshackle stalls.
It's a fine gallery, although it does indeed feel out of place amid the bustle of the harbour. It showcases some fine art, although not enough to detain me for more than forty-five minutes. It has a fine-looking website, but one sadly lacking in detail if you drill down further. And really, it's fine, although not quite as entertaining as I might have been hoping. As part of a trip to Hastings it's an essential addition to the tour schedule. But don't come specially just for the Jerwood, because it turns out the rest of the town was plenty interesting enough before it arrived.
I wasn't expecting to like Hastings quite so much. It's the sort of town benefit-light Londoners might soon be displaced to, a long faded resort far from any employment hotspot. But it's a pretty town, from the seafront to its hilly hinterland, and by no means any kind of hostel ghetto. Steep steps and sharp contours, within town and without, add more genteel character than, say, Folkestone or Brighton. Having said all that, I did narrowly miss a blazing row outside the station where a hoodied lad bit a woman's leg, so it's not all sweetness and light. Most visitors spend their day near the seafront, but I've been inland as well, up the sheltered valley of Alexandra Park. Its temperate microclimate allows rare trees to thrive, including nine which are the tallest of their species in Britain. I didn't get as far as OldRoarGhyll, a revamped suburban waterfall, but I did find the blue plaque on John Logie Baird's home/laboratory in Linton Crescent. There are at least four major tourist attractions in town I've not yet mentioned, one of them very new, so I'll tell you about that/them tomorrow once I'm home. Things aren't quite so attractive now the clouds have rolled in and a chill has descended, but I'm pleased I made the effort to come. For a day trip, or maybe three, Hastings has much to recommend.
The beachfront at Hastings is called TheStade. It's long and broad, with go-karts, crazy golf and boating lake, plus a whole load besides. There's no harbour so the fishermen pull their boats up onto the beach, and sell fish and other seafood from ice counters alongside. They store their equipment in Net Shops - multi-storey blackwoodenhuts, which cluster like a small village at the foot of the cliffs. Here you'll find the Fisherman's Museum and the Shipwreck Museum, the former with an old boat to clamber on, the latter full of salvage and stories. The area's full of bank holiday bustle - kids and grans, beer and scallops, salt and vinegar. Hastings boasts two historic cliff lifts, one up the East Hill and one up the West. Ascend to the east (in the rattling wooden carriage) for a breezy stroll across gorse-edged heathland. I walked further, until the deep wooded valley of Ecclesbourne Glen forced my descent. A breathless climb beside the stream, naturally concealed, convinced me I should return one day and walk onthroughthecountry parktoRye. I'm writing this sat on the cliff-top barrier at the top of the West Hill, looking down on the rooftops of the Old Town, watching the start of the tourist season in full swing below. Bring it on!
Facing the channel, all threat of invasion long past, lies the seaside town of Hastings. It's world famous for the battle which didn't happen here, but not so fortunate that many daytrippers make the effort to visit. Terraces of tall thin houses encircle the shore, against a backdrop of grassy slopes and crags. Along the seafront there's a pebbly beach, and a main road nobody's yet sensibly diverted. Thepier sticks out like a sore thumb, burnt in an arson attack two years ago and still in desperate need of restoration. Beyond the security barriers the woodwork stretches off to black remains, with a charred crescent scar burnt into the boardwalk. Nearby is the town museum, hidden where no casual tourist will ever find it, in a crenelated building surrounded by tulips. John Logie Baird is celebrated here, a local resident when he first broadcast images via his new-fangled television. Ethnic artefacts are displayed in the Durbar Hall, an amazing wood-panelled rich man's annexe, transported here from Park Lane. The town's main shopping centre is largely normal, though with rather more tattoo artists than usual. But follow the esplanade east, past gaggles of French schoolkids, and the Old Town is in complete contrast. Here are white-boarded restaurants and non-chain boutiques, frequented by a more discerning breed of shopper, while the all-pervasive smell of chips wafts up from the harbour.
Stratford International is a ghost station early on a bank holiday morning. Upstairs the entrance hall is empty, bar a bored-looking minion tapping on his phone, and the ticket gates are locked open. Downstairs a deep concrete chasm, hewn for millions from the Olympic hinterland, echoes in unloved solitude. The Eurostar platforms stretch out in the sunshine, untrod. A few dozen shoppers disembark from Kent, chatter excitedly, and are gone. Only half a dozen of us wait in silence to board the outbound train, our escape to the country, our bullet to the coast. The fields beyond Ebbsfleet are a budding green, the Medway glistens, and the Ashford skies are a perfect azure blue.
Although not in London, Tilbury used to be one of the capital's most important locations. The Port of London opened a new deep water dock at Tilbury in 1886, which has grown and grown as world shipping has inexorably upsized. The town alongside grew from nothing until in 1912 it was large enough to boast its own urban district council. That's a 125th anniversary last April, and a 100th anniversary this April. Any excuse for a celebration, which is why a Centenary Open Day was held at the Tilbury Cruise Terminal last weekend. I took a punt that it might be an interesting day out, and was pleased to be proved correct. A trip to Tilbury... who'd have thought? [full report][video]
Tilbury Cruise Terminal Crossing the oceans by liner used to be the way to travel. London's intercontinental travellers would depart from a custom-built deep water landing platform in Tilbury, opened in 1930 just downstream of the docks. You might mistake it for a town hall, this long brick terminal parallel to the river, except the nearest bit of town is some lengthy walk away. On Sunday morning a crowd of expectant visitors milled outside the passenger entrance, most of them locals, not for the luxury of a long-distance voyage but for the rare opportunity to look inside the building [photo]. And when the Tilbury Band struck up a brass welcome from within, in we poured. In the entrance lobby is a tapestry commemorating the arrival here of the EmpireWindrush in 1948, whose Caribbean migrants helped create our multi-cultural nation. The main room is the size of a school hall, and was laid out with front-facing chairs as if expecting a headmaster's speech. Various community groups had set up stalls within, and there were indeed a couple of historical lectures during the day. But modern cruise-goers are funnelled instead through a less impressive (but more comfortable) lounge, from which double doors lead out to a long covered jetty, and a waiting ship, and a lovely trip round the Med.
Tilbury Riverside Station It used to be an essential part of the ocean-going journey, the train journey to the Thames. The line to Southend kinked down to the river, allowing travellers (and their luggage) a short trolley-push to their cabin. So important was this station that it merited four platforms... now cut down to zero. They've been replaced by a cluster of warehouses and a car park, and now only the shed at the head of the platforms remains. It's a big shed, not especially impressive from outside, but with a decrepit charm from within [photo]. White metal arches curve across the roof, while pigeons flap and fly through broken panes. Paint flakes from the upper walls, and the sign to the non-existent Buffet and Dining Room is now barely visible. In the centre of the space is a squat brick structure, the old ticket hall, with broken furniture within and a rusty clock stuck fast at twelve o'clock above [photo]. It's been stopped twenty years, so our Sunday access was a rarity, although there are hopes to reopen the space for markets, community events and the like. And the station still sort of exists, thanks to a British Rail quirk. Any rail ticket to Tilbury Town also allows free passage on the 99 bus to the Riverside... should you ever need to use the TilburyFerry, which runs from alongside.
Tilbury Riverside It's a fascinating short stretch of riverside, this, as some of us discovered on a short guided walk led by local historian MikeOstler. The Thames is relatively narrow here, he explained, which is one reason why so many activities have sprung up on these marshy banks directly opposite Gravesend. The Romans settled nearby, while thefort on the Tilbury side (and its maple-leaf moat) dates back to the defensive tactics of Henry VIII. It being low tide we spotted the stumpy remains of one of the ferry's earlier jetties rising from the mud outside the World's End pub. Samuel Pepys was a semi-regular drinker, as was author Daniel Defoe who made a considerable sum of money using Tilbury mud to make the bricks from which the Royal Greenwich Observatory is constructed. I may have walked this way before, but I was reminded how even the briefest stroll (along concrete walls, downwind of a power station) can be brought to life by a knowledgeable and talented guide.
The Port of Tilbury Forget the mothballed past. Tilbury's container port is a massive facility, 850 acres in total, through which a significant proportion of the nation's imports passes. You won't normally get inside the perimeter, not unless you work here, but a select group of centenary visitors got to take an hour-long tour from one end to the other... in a vintage Routemaster bus. I got a seat on the top deck, along with several port workers past and present keen (at last!) to show off their day job to other close family members. We passed several large warehouses, many used for the storage and transfer of paper for which Tilbury is nationally renowned. LOCOG are stockpiling all sorts of equipment for the Olympics inside Berth 46, including ten thousand tons of sand destined for the equestrian arena in Greenwich Park this summer. Further along is a row of grain silos the height of a seven-storey building, beside which is a mill manufacturing a significant proportion of southeast England's bread. On and on the port's buildings stretch, round every nook and cranny of the comb-shaped docks, from logistics hubs to recycling facilities to P&O ferry terminals. In one corner we even spotted the Ross Revenge - Radio Caroline's converted trawler - and the Queen Mary which used to be moored along the Victoria Embankment. But it was the cranes and containers that most impressed, even on a quiet Sunday, as the metal boxes were stacked and shuffled on and off and around the quaysides. "That's a straddle-carrier," explained one father as we passed a group of tall yellow cranes-on-wheels scuttling between the containers. "And look, that's what Daddy drives for a living," he added, if only eldest son had looked up from his mobile long enough to take note. A most impressive port tour, opening up a world we all take for granted but so few of us ever see.
If you're slightly gutted you missed out on this, then keep an eye on Ian Visits' What's On calendar for similarly quirky round-London events. (if you're thinking "yeah, so it was a tour of the Port of Tilbury from the top deck of a Routemaster, so what?" then probably don't bother)
Crystal Palace Analogue TV (all 1000kW) Ch23: ITV1 (switched off today, 00:30) Ch26: BBC ONE (closes 18 April) Ch30: Channel 4 (closes 18 April) Ch33: BBC TWO (ITV moves here today) (closes 18 April) Ch37: Channel 5 (Croydon) (closes 18 April)
Crystal Palace retune 1 (starts midnight, ends by 6am) » BBC TWO analogue closes on Ch33 » ITV1 analogue moves to Ch23 from Ch33 » Multiplex 1 closes on Ch25 » Multiplex BBCA starts on Ch23
1) BBC ONE 2) BBC TWO 3) ITV1 4) Channel 4 5) Channel 5 6) ITV2 7) BBC THREE 9) BBC FOUR 10) ITV3 11) Pick TV 12) Yesterday 13) Channel 4+1 14) More 4 15) Film4 16) QVC 17) (G.O.L.D.) 18) 4Music 19) Dave 20) Really 21) VIVA 22) Ideal World 23) bid tv 24) ITV4 25) Dave ja vu
26) (Home) 27) ITV2 +1 28) E4 29) E4+1 30) 5* 31) 5 USA 32) Big Deal 33) ITV1 +1 34) (ESPN) 35) QVC Beauty 36) Create & Craft 37) price drop tv 38) QUEST 39) The Zone 40) Rocks & Co 1 41) (Sky Sports 1) 42) (Sky Sports 1) 43) Gems TV 44) Channel 5+1 46) Challenge 49) Food Network 60) The Jewellery Channel
70) CBBC Channel 71) CBeebies 72) CITV 80) BBC NEWS 81) BBC Parliament 82) Sky News 85) Russia Today 87) Community 89) Al Jazeera Eng 92) ADULT Section 93) Television X 94) smileTV2 95) smileTV3 96) Babestn 97) Party 98) blue 99) ADULT Section 101) Teletext Hols 102) Rabbit 103) Gay Rabbit 104) 1-2-1 Dating 105) BBC Red Button 108) Sky Text
110) Vision (HD) 111) China Central (HD) 112) Sports (HD) 113) CONNECT 1 (HD) 114) CONNECT 2 (HD) 115) CONNECT 3 (HD) 116) Racing UK 189) ADULT Section 193) Babestn2 194) Playboy 199) ADULT Section 301) Red Button 303) Red Button 306) Channel Zero 307) (Topup Anytime1) 309) (Topup Anytime3) 310) (Topup Anytime5) 311) (Topup Anytime6)
800) BBC FOUR" 801) CBeebies* 802) BBC Parliament* * temporary duplicate
Possible problems at digital switchover » Very, very old equipment will not function (old boxes were only designed to work with 1705 sub-signals, not 6817 sub-signals) » Missing channels, no subtitles, no programme guide, etc (solved by selecting "first time installation" before rescanning) » Signals from more than one transmitter (unlikely in London) » Upgrade in strength from 20kW to 200kW providing "too much signal" (solved by disconnecting high gain aerials and signal booster boxes) » Some BBC channels and radio stations duplicated (temporary - these appear on old multiplex B and new multiplex BBCA)
Crystal PalaceDigital TV multiplexes (from 18 April) (20 → 200kW) Ch22: COM5 (Arqiva A) (commercial multiplex) Ch23: PSB1 (BBC A) (public service multiplex) (opens today) Ch25: COM4 (SDN) (commercial multiplex) Ch26: PSB2 (Digital 3&4) (public service multiplex) Ch28: COM6 (Arqiva B) (commercial multiplex) Ch30: PSB HD (BBC B) (public service multiplex)
ProposedFreeview Channel Re-numbering (to start in the Autumn) General Entertainment: 1-99 HD: 101-109 Children's: 110-119 News: 120-139 Text and Multimedia: 200-299 Adult services: 300-349 Interactive services: 350-399 Internet delivered services: 400-499 Radio: 700-750
When I was little, my family often went for a walk in CroxleyhallWoods. We didn't call them by that long-winded name, we called them "The Woods" because everybody in Croxley knew where that meant. A swathe of deciduous woodland between Watford Road and the Common Moor - nothing special except by virtue of their local accessibility. We could be there in five minutes, maybe ten with my little legs, slipping down the gravel lane opposite the church and turning off by the allotments. There were only a small number of paths to follow, weaving through the trees and undergrowth, although it was easy to wander off into uncharted greenery and pretend to be completely lost.
We'd always end up down by the railway, we couldn't avoid it, because a triangle of deep cuttings divided The Woods into three parts. At one much-loved spot a bridge crossed the Metropolitan line, close to the junction with the main line, where it was possible (if we waited long enough) to watch silvery trains rumbling round the bend below. But up the lane was another crossing above the railway, more heavily wooded, where no matter how long we waited no trains came. I always listened, in case some ghost service might emerge unprompted from the tunnel below, but I knew deep down that nothing ever would.
This was the silent North Curve, mothballed since 1960, linking Croxley station directly round to Rickmansworth. It used to see regular service but declining traffic closed it down, leaving only two sides of the Croxleyhall triangle visible on the tube map. More recently things have changed, very slightly, and now a handful of timetabled services run along the curve at obscure times. They're run to get trains into the right positions at the beginning and end of the day, and if the travelling public happen to be awake and want to take advantage, all well and good.
But last weekend, thanks to engineering work between Harrow on the Hill and the edge of Hertfordshire, this rare stretch of line was put into all-day service. A train every half hour between Watford and Amersham [photo] and a train every half hour between Watford and Chesham [photo], these are services normally reserved for the realms of fantasy. And I was in the area, so I took the opportunity to take a ride on part of the Underground I've never travelled on before. [video]
You wouldn't have known the train at Watford station was going anywhere special, not if you'd walked straight past the wall of noticeboards in the ticket hall and ignored the unusual destination on the rear of the train. Passengers who boarded at Croxley were equally baffled, wondering how on earth there might be a rail replacement bus to catch from Rickmansworth because the train was never going that way... except hang on, yes it was. I've ridden this way hundreds of times in my life and the train's always veered left, but this time it veered right along untasted tracks.
I noted with some horror the savaged state of the banks rising to either side. For decades these have been blessed with trees and vegetation, but earlier this year TfL sent in their chainsaw squad and hacked the whole lot down. About 1000 mature trees have been razed along a mile of track between the Chess and the Gade, allegedly because of risk management and leaf fall issues. This sudden cull has displaced wildlife and left residents living alongside fuming. The Croxley Green Residents' Association claims the end result is like "a film scene of a First World War zone", which may going a bit too far, but the barren landscape looks to me like an unnecessary corporate over-reaction made worse by an overzealous contractor.
It took only seconds for our train reach the tunnel - at 80 metres the shortest on the entire Underground network - and then only seven seconds to pass through to the other side. I can't claim it's anything special, just a gentle curve of gloomy brickwork dug deep into the surrounding woodland. But very definitely a tunnel and not a long bridge, as I knew from years of standing somewhere on the roof. The cutting continued, again with little to see, until we reached the points and clattered back onto the main line to Rickmansworth. The curve was so brief that I confess I caught the first train straight back again, just to say I'd done it both ways... and then again, and then again. I think I've got it out of my system now.
But I did have to go back to where I'd stood as a child, back down that leafylane, back to The Woods again. The trees were in bud and the first tentative bluebells were out, a harbinger of springglories yet to come. The paths were quiet, apart from several scampering squirrels and an unidentified bird of prey with a whopping wingspan. A pair of teenage boys sat on an overturned beech trunk smoking weed, while a young family much like mine trudged happily through the undergrowth.
And at the lane across the tunnel I got my wish, helped greatly by TfL's arboreal slaughter opening up unexpectedly clear sightlines. A noise in the distance revealed itself as a red-faced snake crawling forward through the cutting, then curving gently into the brick portal beneath my feet [photo]. By crossing the lane I watched it emerge on the opposite flank and slither on, far below, before disappearing from view. A few minutes later and its sister rattled through in the opposite direction, again a flash of red tracing the earthen valley [photo]. It had taken forty years but I'd finally seen what I always wanted to see, from above and below, and in both directions. Sometimes, if you wait long enough, even a childhood pipedream can come true.
As unlikely as it might seems, Watford now boasts a world class visitor attraction - the Harry Potter Studio Tour, On Saturday Warner Brothers opened up part of their Leavesden studios in tribute to JK Rowling's boy wizard, and in the hope of making a shedload of money. They hope that families (and international tourists) will be tempted out of the capital to look round all the old film sets, as used by Daniel Radcliffe and friends for the best part of ten years. You must have seen the poster adverts plastered around town, they're everywhere, paid for out of a bottomless marketing budget. You won't have been yet, obviously. But I nearly have, if you're interested.
Most families will drive to get to Leavesden, obviously, because the M1 and M25 are only a very short distance away. But if you come by train via Watford Junction, a slightly special bus service has been laid on. Alas it's not the purple triple-decker which awaits in the bus station (that particular prop's at the studios), but a specially-dolled up black double-decker with scenes from Diagon Alley emblazoned across the outside [photo]. It's damned good value too, a mere £2 return up to Leavesden and back, even if it's fairly pointless taking a ride aboard if you haven't already shelled out the £28 for admission at the other end.
The bus gets querulous stares from the population of Watford as it passes, or maybe that's just a first weekend thing. It was all very exciting on board too, at least for a pair of Japanese tourists snapping away at the streets of North Watford as we sailed by. Proper terraces at first (they became quite animated on spotting "Shakespeare Road"), then outer suburban more reminiscent of Privet Drive. Only after humping across the A41 do the studios come into view - a long row of sheds across what used to be Leavesden Aerodrome. They've dressed them up very slightly by plastering five stills from the films across the front, but otherwise you could well believe Rolls Royce were still building aircraft engines inside.
The new road off the roundabout has been called "Studio Tour Drive", and is marked by an especially lame street sign pushed apologetically into a fresh flowerbed. Through the gate, past security, the bus pulls up on the edge of the car park pretty much outside the main entrance. I suspect there won't normally be four black buses parked up in a line, that was probably a special for the world's press who were swarming all over [photo]. They also made rather a nice backdrop for the Japanese folk to take more photos ("ha, this is me outside Ollivanders"), before wandering off in the general direction of the entrance doors.
But no ticket, no further progress. Especially not when the paying public are queueing along the red carpet for the official opening, blessed by whichever bunch of minor HP actors the management could persuade to attend [photo]. News crews and internet entertainment outlets swanned around, filming (and re-filming) snippets to camera ready for chopping up and editing later. And security kept their eyes on proceedings, wandering across the empty car park and milling around by the main entrance [photo]. Nothing to do but take the black bus back to Watford Junction, this time with a recorded "thank you for coming" message from Warwick Davis (seriously? WarwickDavis?) and a blaring showreel of Warner Brothers' upcoming releases.
So anyway, the message is, if you haven't bought a ticket in advance there really is no point in turning up to enjoy the cafe and the gift shop and the backlot, because there's nothing to see here but two big sheds. If you'd like to buy a ticket, be aware that the Easter holidays are fully booked and the next available timeslot is on Tuesday 24th April. And if you're playing the long game, Warner Brothers have hinted that their studio tour won't stay Potter-themed forever, and that the Dark Knight or Sherlock Holmes might get a look-in on site eventually. On the outskirts of Watford. Who'd ever have thought.
Ten Harry Potter Studio Tour bits and pieces » All the film stages at Leavesden are lettered. The Harry Potter Tour is housed in Stages J and K, which is extremely appropriate. » Mosquitos and Halifax Bombers were manufactured here during World War II, back when this was de Havilland Engine Company Limited. » Warner Brothers recommend three hours inside from start to finish, although it's a self-guided tour so you might walk it rather quicker. » It's £21 for a child's ticket, if you were wondering. You could buy half the Harry Potter novels for less than that. » The bus to the studio is officially route 311, as a nod to the service that used to run out to Leavesden when it was still an aircraft factory. » All the bus drivers on the special Watford Junction service were invited to tour the attraction last week. "The attention to detail is amazing," so I'm told. » In the first film, Privet Drive was a cul-de-sac in Bracknell. For subsequent films, they recreated ten houses from the street on the backlot. » Watford's no Orlando, so there are no rides. » The Studio Tour isn't actually in Watford, it's a few hundred metres over the border into Three Rivers, although everyone keeps quiet about that. » If £28 isn't enough, you can pay £55 for a combined entrance ticket plus coach travel from Victoria. For heaven's sake take the train and bus, it's much cheaper and much quicker. Or stay at home and read a good book.
Few things in life are quite so wonderful as a renamed tube map.
The wit and creativity that goes into renaming all the stations on the London Underground map should never be underestimated.
But here's something you won't have seen before, a renamed tube map to beat all other renamed tube maps.
It's the renamed tube map where all of the stations are named after renamed tube maps. The Tube Map tube map.
All the favourites are here. The anagram tube map takes the place of Cosset Frock, or Cockfosters as it's more usually known. Three stops down the line, at Argos Grove, is the definitive sponsored tube map. Epping is replaced by the mashed-up map that started it all, Simon Patterson's The Great Bear. And Buckhurst Hill on the Central line commemorates the very latest addition to the genre, TfL's Olympic Athletes tube map.
Who could forget the marvellous South London tube map, inverted to give the bottom half of the capital due prominence. The map of famous musicians, where every line represents a different genre of music, that's here too. Then there's the Kitten-tastic tube map, possibly the cutest mashed-up tube map ever devised. All these plus hundreds more graphical masterpieces, each linked via a classic reimagining of Harry Beck's iconic original.
But the Tube Map tube map has one additional feature which doesn't work on any other renamed tube map. All of the station names are hyperlinked! Click on each station name and you'll be instantly whisked through to the mashed-up tube map it's been named after. Try it now by clicking on the enlarged extract below...
See how easy it is to enjoy your favourites, now that they've all been brought together on the same map. No longer need you keep all these mashed-up tube maps individually bookmarked, because now they're all collectively indexed in this beautiful new design. Simply click and enjoy.
Not only is the Tube Map tube map available online, it's also being made available in a variety of other formats. A Tube Map tube map app for your smartphone, which auto-locates as you travel around the capital. A Tube Map tube map t-shirt to wear proudly in the street or on the beach. A Tube Map tube map Oyster card holder for every day use out and about. A Tube Map tube map tea towel for hanging up in the kitchen. There's even a Tube Map tube map mug for your daily teatime delight.
Any renamed tube map is truly a work of originality and genius. But the hyperlinked Tube Map tube map elevates London's finest art form to an unsurpassable new level. Harry Beck would surely have been proud.
When the GAOTG email came round at work, most people concentrated on the interactive map, and played with that, not realising there might be anything better hidden elsewhere. And the interactive map told them not to worry. Stations with issues are marked on the map by orange or red circles, with red meaning "exceptionally busy" and orange meaning "busier than usual". One of the main stations nearest work doesn't have a red or orange circle, not even if you move the timeline slider all the way across the top of the map, so everyone interpreted this as "it's OK, it won't be busy here, not ever". And that was it, they drifted off, opportunity lost.
The rest of the estate is a revelation, in comparison. Low-rise homes in parallel terraces. Fresh flats in neat pastel blocks. Rows of cars parked up outside tiny front gardens. Access roads waiting to be unfenced. The scary concrete walkways of the past wiped clean away. A small playground to replace the bleak tarmac football pitch many of the new flats have been squished into. You can see why the housing association drafted an artist in, this could be any 21st century estate anywhere in Tower Hamlets, and an identity is sorely needed. So when the new DLR entrance finally opens, giving residents the public transport access they've long deserved, maybe a few more Bow commuters will finally realise this estate exists.
What a change down by the river, where the Cutty Sark used to be. Actually it still is, it didn't all burn away during that big fire five years ago, and now they've nearly finished repairing it. It's used to be just a ship, admittedly a lovely important ship, one of the fastest tea clippers of its day, but soon it'll be reopening as a proper integrated heritage tourist destination. They've lifted the ship up, several feet, rather than resting it in the original concrete-y dry dock. Previously you could walk right up to the hull and stare, but now it's all encased in some frosted glass thing, a bit like an icy sea, or some sort of frozen shiny wave. Walk up close and you can peer through and there's the restored hull behind, all polished and good as new, but you can't see much, not unless you're inside, which I guess is the idea.
And there's more new food back in the town proper. That's Goddards, you remember Goddards, the pie and mash people, they've reopened. They closed their proper old restaurant near the DLR back in 2006. Something about wanting to spend more time with the family, wasn't it, or the fact that some burger chain was offering large sums to buy them out, one or the other. They've been serving hand-made pies from some market stall ever since, not the same experience, but saw an opportunity when a chip shop went bust and bought up their place instead. It's on King William Walk, on the corner of that alley into the market, not quite so much footfall, but enough. Looked busy on Saturday, queues at the counter, Union Jack bunting across the menu on the wall behind. And the punters looked well happy, the meat and gravy and eels are back, come clog an artery or three why don't you? But BestMate says he won't be going back, dirty sellouts he calls it, never quite got over the burger thing, no pie for him.
» Hastings Castle: Hastings is but a footnote in the story of its eponymous battle. William landed at Pevensey up the coast, may have made his original base camp in Hastings, but then fought Harold inland at Battle. After England had fallen the Conqueror came back and built his first castle on West Hill, the first motte and bailey in the country, not that anyone knew to call them that then. Other royals stopped by over the years, until dissolution sent the place into terminal decay (I picked all this up in the portakabin cinema in the courtyard, you know). Centuries of clifftop erosion caused further damage, with half the original site either crumbled to the ground or carved away to create a residential crescent below. What this means for visitors is that, sorry, there's not much of Hastings Castle left to see. Bits of the chapel, including an broken arch and two spiral staircases to nowhere. Some walls, if you like walls. And the twisty tiny dungeons, which would be highly atmospheric if only they hadn't been scratched by generations of teenage graffiti. The view from the castle mound's good, although arguably just as good from the neighbouring lawn. The toilets are terribly well hidden behind the ticket hut. And the castle's worth a look, but if you can get to Bodiam inland I'd far recommend that instead. (£4.25)
» Fishermen's Museum: A truly charming room and a half, the largest containing a hundred year-old sailing lugger you can clamber up aboard. Also contains the full story of the legendary Hastings Winkle Club (all members must carry a winkle with them at all times, and have to pay a fine if they fail to produce it when challenged). They seem a fun bunch - many were down at Winkle Island on Friday competing for a marbles trophy sporting a wide variety of ostentatious black headgear. (free)
In a last hurrah before pre-recession funding dries up, Hastings opened a major new art gallery last month. It's one of a so-called string of pearls round the southeast coast, linking Margate via Eastbourne to Chichester. The idea is that cultured townies will flock to the seaside for the promise of "art", and hopefully stay long enough to drip their cosmopolitan wealth in each resort's economy. This latest project is the Jerwood Gallery, a major project by the eponymous Jerwood Foundation, a charitable organisation in need of its own display space. They settled on a location on the Hastings seafront, more specifically on the former long-stay coach park on The Stade, close to where the town's fleet of fishermen haul their boats up the beach. They're absolutely livid at this middle class interloper invading their space, not just because they miss the coachloads of tourists, but because it's out of place in this hard-working part of town. The council disagree, hoping for regeneration-a-go-go, and gave the land rent-free to keep their major benefactor on side.
In the large gallery downstairs, the inaugural exhibition is a retrospective of work by Kent artist Rose Wylie. No, me neither. Six very large works fill the room, under the collective banner Big Boys Sit in the Front, each painted in almost cartoon style. Her brush strokes are thick, her colours are bold, and her characters are roughly drawn. One of her paintings is in reaction to the Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds, which isn't what you'd expect a septuagenarian to be painting, while another features cats with oddly triangular heads. I couldn't quite enjoy the work, and I may not have been alone. The room slowly emptied until I was the only one in it, which was in sharp contrast to the galleries still to come. The most interesting canvas turned out to be the live show of customers at the Fish Hut and Jellied Eel Bar opposite, augmented by passers-by pausing to peer in through the tinted window. A series of short documentaries screened in the adjacent room helped endear me to the artist a little more, but alas not to her œuvre.
There's a café, obviously, because there has to be a café, and dozens of bank holiday art lovers had settled in there for lunch. The menu looked rather appetising, and not unduly expensive, and reassuringly locally sourced. But there was something slightly awkward about the outdoor terrace, where diners can gobble gravadlax whilst looking directly down over the fishermen of Hastings toiling and flogging fresh fish from their ramshackle stalls.
It used to be an essential part of the ocean-going journey, the train journey to the Thames. The line to Southend kinked down to the river, allowing travellers (and their luggage) a short trolley-push to their cabin. So important was this station that it merited four platforms... now cut down to zero. They've been replaced by a cluster of warehouses and a car park, and now only the shed at the head of the platforms remains. It's a big shed, not especially impressive from outside, but with a decrepit charm from within [photo]. White metal arches curve across the roof, while pigeons flap and fly through broken panes. Paint flakes from the upper walls, and the sign to the non-existent Buffet and Dining Room is now barely visible. In the centre of the space is a squat brick structure, the old ticket hall, with broken furniture within and a rusty clock stuck fast at twelve o'clock above [photo]. It's been stopped twenty years, so our Sunday access was a rarity, although there are hopes to reopen the space for markets, community events and the like. And the station still sort of exists, thanks to a British Rail quirk. Any rail ticket to Tilbury Town also allows free passage on the 99 bus to the Riverside... should you ever need to use the Tilbury Ferry, which runs from alongside.
The Port of Tilbury
When I was little, my family often went for a walk in Croxleyhall Woods. We didn't call them by that long-winded name, we called them "The Woods" because everybody in Croxley knew where that meant. A swathe of deciduous woodland between Watford Road and the Common Moor - nothing special except by virtue of their local accessibility. We could be there in five minutes, maybe ten with my little legs, slipping down the gravel lane opposite the church and turning off by the allotments. There were only a small number of paths to follow, weaving through the trees and undergrowth, although it was easy to wander off into uncharted greenery and pretend to be completely lost.
This was the silent North Curve, mothballed since 1960, linking Croxley station directly round to Rickmansworth. It used to see regular service but declining traffic closed it down, leaving only two sides of the Croxleyhall triangle visible on the tube map. More recently things have changed, very slightly, and now a handful of timetabled services run along the curve at obscure times. They're run to get trains into the right positions at the beginning and end of the day, and if the travelling public happen to be awake and want to take advantage, all well and good.
I noted with some horror the savaged state of the banks rising to either side. For decades these have been blessed with trees and vegetation, but earlier this year TfL sent in their chainsaw squad and hacked the whole lot down. About 1000 mature trees have been razed along a mile of track between the Chess and the Gade, allegedly because of risk management and leaf fall issues. This sudden cull has displaced wildlife and left residents living alongside fuming. The Croxley Green Residents' Association claims the end result is like "a film scene of a First World War zone", which may going a bit too far, but the barren landscape looks to me like an unnecessary corporate over-reaction made worse by an overzealous contractor.
But I did have to go back to where I'd stood as a child, back down that leafy lane, back to The Woods again. The trees were in bud and the first tentative bluebells were out, a harbinger of spring glories yet to come. The paths were quiet, apart from several scampering squirrels and an unidentified bird of prey with a whopping wingspan. A pair of teenage boys sat on an overturned beech trunk smoking weed, while a young family much like mine trudged happily through the undergrowth.
As unlikely as it might seems, Watford now boasts a world class visitor attraction - the Harry Potter Studio Tour, On Saturday Warner Brothers opened up part of their Leavesden studios in tribute to JK Rowling's boy wizard, and in the hope of making a shedload of money. They hope that families (and international tourists) will be tempted out of the capital to look round all the old film sets, as used by Daniel Radcliffe and friends for the best part of ten years. You must have seen the poster adverts plastered around town, they're everywhere, paid for out of a bottomless marketing budget. You won't have been yet, obviously. But I nearly have, if you're interested.
The bus gets querulous stares from the population of Watford as it passes, or maybe that's just a first weekend thing. It was all very exciting on board too, at least for a pair of Japanese tourists snapping away at the streets of North Watford as we sailed by. Proper terraces at first (they became quite animated on spotting "Shakespeare Road"), then outer suburban more reminiscent of Privet Drive. Only after humping across the A41 do the studios come into view - a long row of sheds across what used to be Leavesden Aerodrome. They've dressed them up very slightly by plastering five stills from the films across the front, but otherwise you could well believe Rolls Royce were still building aircraft engines inside.
