Ten years ago, evictions complete, steel gates clanged shut around the Olympic Park. Five years later they reopened, the world arrived and two fortnights of sport took place. Five years after the Games a massive amount of repurposing has taken place, and much of the Olympic Park is now scarcely recognisable from what came before. But it's still not the case that everything's finished, ten years on, nor indeed that all the old ways into the park have been opened up. On the tenth anniversary of the initial lock-up, I'm been down to see whereabouts you still can't get in.
I started at the Bow Flyover, and worked my way east.
The River Lea towpath is still passable, but remains diverted (via a pontoon) while a new electricity substation is built alongside to power Crossrail. The pontoon was supposed to be removed in February, according to the website puddingmilllanesubstation.com, but towpath restoration is currently running six months behind schedule and workmen are still faffing around with walls and surfaces.
Barbers Road reopened in March, having been closed off since 2009, leading to a windswept new piazza outside Pudding Mill Lane DLR station. But not everything's open yet.
This is a new ramp from Marshgate Lane up towards the Greenway, parallel to the DLR viaduct, which workmen have been swarming over for months. It replaces a creepier, less accessible footpath which used to follow approximately the same route until 2007. Eventually this new footpath/cycleway link will connect the station to the Greenway and a new residential wedge beyond... but for now it's still very closed.
The Greenway remains straightforward to reach by ducking under the railway and heading up to the ViewTube.
The View Tube's cafe is now under new management, paired up with The Common on Old Bethnal Green Rd, and offers a different slant on drinks and snacks to the previous tenants. Bike hire is also available, daily (except Tuesdays) throughout the summer. But footfall around this sparsely developed location remains low, so I'm not sure how the business survives, especially now that 'coming up onto the Greenway to see the Stadium' is nothing special.
Here's the latest view of the Stadium from the Greenway.
As you can see, a large building is going up inbetween... a new secondary school on the banks of the City Mill River. Students shouldn't expect any playground space, except perhaps on the roof, so tight is the footprint of the site, although they will have a community athletics track nextdoor. That diversion sign stuck to the railings is needed because a tented village has sprung up on the lawn south of the Orbit during a special summer of athletics, and the resulting pedestrian detour is both dull and inconvenient. It also looks like all the pink arrows will fall off soon. Stay away.
I'll now return to Stratford High Street and check the next former entrance into the park.
The next former entrance into the park, up Blaker Road, is blocked. What's more the bars across the tunnel under the Greenway mean it looks like remaining blocked permanently, making this once pleasant riverside path a dead end... and a good place to sleep rough on a dumped mattress. What I best remember from standing here before Olympic construction began were the dragonflies dancing on the water. There are no dragonflies now, dancing or otherwise.
Another connection to the Greenway once existed from Blaker Road, along the northern bank of the Waterworks River.
That's still blocked too. I got excited because the barriers at the City Mill Lock end have finally been removed and I was able to walk along a long-sealed path. I reached the bench overlooking the canal, and further, but at the far end, just before the steps, no luck, the barriers remain. What is it about the Greenway which makes all these connections as yet impassible?
At the main entrance on Stratford High Street, here's the answer. 'Early investigations'.
The Greenway's northern access has been blocked since 2009, initially for Olympic reasons. When the Games were over, Crossrail operations took precedence, encompassing a major worksite where fresh railway tracks will enter tunnels. Crossrail were supposed to be finished by July 2016, but then a third interested party turned up, namely Thames Water, who need to carry out 'strengthening works to the bridge over Waterworks River'. Initially the plan was for this to be completed by July 2018, but the paperwork attached to the fence suggests the work's only just started, that the company they've brought in are "asbestos removal specialists", and that the work won't be complete until 1st January 2019. I wouldn't count on it.
The next potential entrance to the park is from Bridgewater Road, past the allotments.
This arty tunnel has been blocked off for years, then was silently opened up last winter, then was mysteriously closed off again. I managed to walk round one barrier and under the railway bridge, which has thankfully been cleaned of pigeon droppings since I was last here. But the barrier on the far side was still in place, so I had to retrace my steps and return to Warton Road to enter the park instead.
I've never seen this obstruction on Warton Road before.
These lumpen security barriers aren't permanent, hopefully, but have been installed as a precaution during "a spectacular Summer of World Athletics". The Yoghurt-Sponsored Anniversary Games took place yesterday, the World Para Athletics Championships begin on Friday and the IAAF World Championships kick off on 4th August. Congratulations to the stadium-bookers on an impressive haul of top class action, for which tickets are still available, but the associated backstage operations and security are an echo of the less attractive side of 2012.
The Stadium is no longer in West Ham mode.
The triangles on the exterior wrap remain claret and blue, but the club's name has been removed from the roof and the huge video screen is now streaming pictures of athletes rather than footballers. It's good to see the Stadium being used for the purpose it was originally designed for, even if the rarity of athletics events is a reminder of why a completely different kind of sporting presence needed to be wheeled in as anchor tenant.
And finally, here's something not yet open for those arriving by water.
Carpenters Road Lock last operated in the 1960s, but has been expensively restored and its unique double radiallock gates are finally due to open again at the end of the summer. An East London Waterways Festival is pencilled in for Bank Holiday Monday 28th August, with a variety of events on land and water including a boat flotilla, live music and dragon boat racing. The full Bow Back Rivers network will then be accessible for the first time in decades, ideal for cruising should you have a narrowboat at your disposal.
Ten years may have proved insufficient, but wait long enough and the entire Olympic Park does open up.
When Crossrail kicks off in 518 days time, travel patterns are going to change. And not just rail travel. Passenger flows by bus are going to change too, as this forecast map shows.
TfL expect fewer bus passengers on the green sections, because Crossrail will provide faster alternative links. The really big drops are expected to be a) between central London and Paddington, b) west of Ealing, c) east of Stratford. TfL expect more bus passengers on the red sections, as locals suddenly gain a super new station to commute from. The biggest rises are expected to be a) around Hayes and Southall in the west, b) around Woolwich and Abbey Wood in the southeast.
Which is why TfL snuck out an enormous bus consultation on Friday, as they try to mould the capital's bus network to the realities of future demand. More than 30 different suburban bus routes could be affected, on top of the 17 routes already being tweaked following last winter's West End Bus Review. Between them, that's almost 10% of London's bus routes facing Crossrail-related change. What's more, this latest consultation suggests something unprecedented in recent years... the introduction of seven new bus routes. Might your daily ride be changing?
The proposed changes are grouped into three clusters, each based around a different arm of Crossrail. There's the West London cluster, feeding passengers into Ealing Broadway, Southall and Hayes & Harlington. There's the Southeast London cluster, feeding passengers into Woolwich and Abbey Wood. And there's the Northeast London cluster, feeding passengers into Whitechapel, Stratford, Custom House and stations beyond Romford. If you have a particular local interest in one of these areas, check out the specific consultation page, linked above. If you're super-interested, an 81-page technical report exists here.
What I'll give you is an overall summary, and a few details of some of the more intriguing tweaks.
Most of the diversions are to send existing routes past Crossrail stations and help distribute passengers around the surrounding area.
» For example, in West London route 440 is being diverted in three separate locations, one of which will snatch it away from West Acton tube station and pass Acton Main Line Crossrail station instead.
» For example, in Southeast London route 469 is being diverted to the other side of Lesnes Abbey Wood as a new link to Abbey Wood station for residents in West Heath.
» For example, in Northeast London route 115 is being diverted via Whitechapel and through Stepney, rather than its current route along Commercial Road.
More routes are being shortened than lengthened. A lot of the curtailments are to make routes more reliable, or to remove excess capacity on certain sections of road.
» For example, in West London route 427 is being halved in length, so will only go from Uxbridge to Southall, not to Acton.
» For example, in West London route 266 is being cut back to Acton, so will no longer have to struggle through the traffic to Hammersmith.
» For example, in Northeast London route 241 is being cut back to Custom House rather than Canning Town (but also extended at the northern end to Here East in the Olympic Park).
Some of the extensions are to serve new housing developments. This isn't all about Crossrail, not by a long chalk, this is TfL taking the opportunity to serve new centres of population.
» For example, in West London routes 95 and H32 are being extended to serve Southall Waterside, the mega-development I mentioned in my recent post on Southall's canals.
» For example, in Northeast London new route 497 will thread a bus service through the new Kings Park estate opposite Harold Wood station.
Some of the brand new bus routes are to replace connections broken by Crossrail-related changes.
» For example, in West London new route 218 will comprise bits chopped off route 266 and route 440, and new route 306 will comprise bits chopped off route 266 and 391.
» For example, in Southeast London new route 301 will follow some current sections of routes 472 and B11, providing a more direct route to Thamesmead from the Crossrail stations at Woolwich and Abbey Wood.
» For example, in Northeast London new route 304 will take over one arm of current route 104, which will no longer dogleg down to the A13 and back.
A lot of these modifications are only possible because of the Hopper fare. Previously TfL's planners would have thought twice about breaking passengers' journeys, but now they don't have to worry because two buses cost the same as one. The downside, of course, is that two bus rides with a wait inbetween invariably takes longer.
» For example, in Northeast London passengers on route 25 will no longer be able to reach the West End without changing buses.
» For example, residents of southeast Thamesmead can currently reach their neighbourhood shopping centre direct on route B11, but in future they'll need to take two buses.
Now let's consider capacity... are buses running more or less often? Here's another summary table.
When Crossrail begins, some of the required additional capacity can gained by running buses more frequently.
» For example, in West London route 120 (via Southall) will increase from six buses an hour to eight.
» For example, in Northeast London route 174 (via Romford) will increase from a bus every eight minutes to a bus every six.
Another simple solution is to replace single deckers with larger vehicles.
» For example, in Southeast London routes 178, 244, 291 will all link to Woolwich station using double deckers.
» For example, in West London route E10 will get longer (two-door) buses and run two extra buses every hour.
But not everything improves. TfL's latest bus-buzzphrase is "matching capacity to demand", which generally means running fewer buses.
» For example, in West London route 427 will only run every ten minutes, not every eight.
» For example, in Southeast London route B11 will be cut from four buses an hour to three, and route 472 cut from ten to seven and a half.
» For example, in Northeast London passengers on route 25 can expect to wait an extra minute and a half for the next bus.
I'll summarise by considering three particular routes, one from each cluster.
In West London, route 140 is metamorphosing into three separate strands. Buses currently run from Harrow Weald to Heathrow Airport via an orbital route unshadowed by any railway line, so buses are often crowded. The downside in the proposals is that route 140 is going to be cut back at its southern end, at Hayes and Harlington, because it need go no further than the Crossrail station. The upside is that a limited stop service is to be introduced, numbered X140, which'll go all the way from Harrow bus station to Heathrow Airport stopping only ten times inbetween. Boris Johnson proposed introducing several orbital express bus routes when he became Mayor, you may remember, but it's taken ten years for the first new one to materialise. Meanwhile the nightbus service will be left unchanged, still Harrow Weald to the airport, so that'll become the N140.
In southeast London, route 180 is being seriously played around with. At its eastern end it'll no longer serve Belvedere Industrial Estate but will be extended to Erith, before doubling back to a new housing development at Erith Quarry. Then at its western end it's being diverted away from Lewisham to terminate at North Greenwich instead, helping to make up for the reduction in frequency on route 472. Meanwhile route 129, which has been shuttling minimally between North Greenwich and Greenwich since 2006, finally gets an extension to Lewisham to make up for the 180's removal. This whole consultation sometimes feels like a giant game of dominoes, with one change setting off another change setting off another.
In northeast London, route 25 is currently the busiest bus route in London.... but TfL clearly think its crown is under threat. That's because the 25 shadows Crossrail from Bond Street to Ilford, so TfL expect thousands of passengers to switch from bus to rail, and are cutting back the service accordingly. Not only will the frequency be reduced from ten buses an hour to eight, but the route is being completely withdrawn along Oxford Street and High Holborn. Instead buses will start and finish at Holborn Circus, a not-entirely useful terminus, and Soho-bound passengers will have to switch to the 242... hang on, no, that's been cut back too, which leaves just the 8... except no, that's been cut back to Tottenham Court Road. Could this be sequential curtailment overkill? Many's the night I've waited on Oxford Street for a 25 home, but no more, unless someone official decides an N25 might be a sensible option.
In conclusion, Crossrail has set off an avalanche of potential bus changes affecting approximately 10% of London's bus routes. Some of these are to match supply to post-Crossrail demand, but others are simplifications, reductions and rationalisations which may affect your journey in other ways. It seems the Hopper fare has finally allowed TfL's backroom bus planners to be let loose, crayons poised, 'matching capacity to demand' in radically new ways. Expect a faster rate of changes in the future, and for the current London bus map to be seriously out of date in a few years time.
If you like (or don't like) what you've seen here, be sure to respond to the consultation and make your voice heard, else opinions on each individual route will be lost amongst the hubbub of the other thirty.
A special hello to TfL's bus consultation department. Your West London page says at the top that you're planning to make changes to route E1, then completely fails to mention further down what those changes actually are. I only know what your proposals are because I've read page 28 of the technical report - you'd like to cut peak hour frequency from eight buses an hour to six, and cut one bus an hour on Sundays "to better match capacity with demand". Best add that in on the main page, otherwise it's not really a proper consultation. [Tuesday update: This has been added]
And while we're here, a word about the numbers TfL have chosen for their brand new routes. The eight lowest numbers which aren't currently used for a TfL bus route are 82, 84, 218, 239, 278, 301, 304 and 306. This consultation proposes using five of these (218, 278, 301, 304 and 306), which would leave the lowest three unused route numbers as 82 (recently withdrawn), 84 (still lingers in Barnet) and 239 (last used 2008).
I'm now just over halfway through my Herbert Dip project.
If you remember, that's my ludicrous plan to visit all 52 of the boroughs proposed by the Herbert Commission at the birth of Greater London. These were rejigged and slimmed down after consultation to create the 33 boroughs we know today. But I'm going to the 52 that never were, at a rate of one a week, and then writing you a report on each.
To randomise the whole affair I matched each borough to a playing card, as detailed in a table I posted back in January (so won't post again). At the start of the project I shuffled my pack of special Millennium Dome playing cards, and am turning over the top card each week to discover where I'm going next. I don't look at the next card until I've come back from my previous visit. I have no idea what order the remaining cards are in.
This map shows all the 'Herbert boroughs' I've visited so far.
The pattern may not look especially random, but that's the joy of random selection - every possible pattern is equally likely.
Thus far I've covered almost all of outer northwest London, a fair amount of the centre and a large solid block down the eastern side. But my pack of cards has yet to send me anywhere in outer east or southeast London, or to a significant wedge of the southwest. Even the card I know is coming next isn't going to help with geographical spread - it merely fills in a gap rather than branching out somewhere fresh.
(If we're playing Blockbusters, there's a yellow chain from west to sort-of east, but also a white chain from east to sort-of west, so I don't think we can claim either player's won)
In terms of modern boroughs I've wiped out Hillingdon, Ealing, Brent, Newham, Greenwich, Sutton and half a dozen others, but I've still not touched Richmond, Kingston, Croydon, Barking & Dagenham and Havering.
In terms of playing cards, so far I've turned over all the 3s, all the 6s, all the 7s and all the Queens, but I've yet to turn over a single 2. I've also dealt eight of the Clubs, seven of the Diamonds and eight of the Spades, but only four of the Hearts (which is one reason so little of south London is covered).
On turning over each card and discovering the next borough, the tough decision is what sort of visit I'm going to make (or what my 'angle' is going to be). I try to do something a bit different each time.
Thus far I've walked a bus route, hunted for blue plaques, visited parks, climbed hills, walked a trunk road, spotted election posters, followed the canals, toured bus stop Ms, tracked down old street signs, followed a river, walked on top of a sewer, traced a boundary, picked highlights from a museum, circumnavigated a football stadium, explored a conservation area, walked round an airport, hunted down mildly interesting places, dropped in on a development zone and been to a suburb with a silly name.
I worry that I'll run out of original ideas before I'm finished, but hopefully I'll continue to think up more... and of course it's OK to repeat some if the location permits.
I'm also aware that at least 51 times out of 52 I'll be writing about somewhere you don't live, which could be dull. That's also part of the joy of the project, however, because if you live in London I must be writing about your bit at least once. Some so-called London websites never write about Uxbridge, Barking and Penge because their remit is geographically blinkered. My playing cards force me to consider the suburbs as well as the built-up centre, which has got to be a good thing overall.
With 27 cards dealt and 25 to go, I hope I can keep up the momentum until the end of the year.
Thank goodness our capital remains a deeply fascinating city. As I hope my blog proves, there's always somewhere in London you've never been, something in London you've never seen and some fact about London you'd never previously known.
How many bus timetables should there be at Bus Stop M? 7
How many bus timetables were there at Bus Stop M...
...fourteen months ago? 7 ...thirteen months ago? 0 ...twelve months ago? 7 ...six months ago? 5 ...three months ago? 7 ...six weeks ago? 1 ...one month ago? 2 ...two weeks ago? 3
How many bus timetables are there at Bus Stop M now? 3 Which bus timetables are present? 8, 108, N205 Which bus timetables are missing? 25, 276, 425, 488
When will there be 7 bus timetables at Bus Stop M? Who knows?
6♠ Harrow Harrow is unique as the only pre-1965 borough to survive the creation of Greater London, indeed its boundaries have barely changed since 1934. I've also blogged about it several times... the School, the Hill, the Manor, the Heath Robinson Museum, the Belmont Trail, Grim's Dyke, tworivers and an Art Decocinema... what could there be left to say? But I checked the map more carefully, and there were three places in Harrow I'd always meant to go but never been, so that's where I went.
Stanmore Country Park/Wood Farm
On previous arrivals at Stanmore station I've always turned either left or right, never walked straight across the road. This is a pity, because it turns out the homes behind the hedge are Modernistjewels decked out with flat roofs and rounded staircase towers, built in the late 1930s and part of the Kerry Avenue Conservation Area. They're also London's last hurrah before the Green Belt begins, behind the gate at the top of the rise, on former farmland snapped up by Middlesex County Council in 1940 and safeguarded from development. Since then Stanmore Country Park has been overgrown with trees, mostly oak, beech and sycamore, becoming a prime example of how secondary woodland can take hold in a couple of generations. It's large enough to get lost in, so (unless you like QR codes) best download the nature trail before you arrive.
For the best bit, keep walking through and up until you reach open meadow. This is Wood Farm, formely a pig farm owned by a British heavyweight boxing champion, then used for landfill, and now a gorgeous open space. A carpet of thick bramble scrub covers the hillside, at this time of year resplendent with multi-coloured wild flowers, mown through with broad sweeping footpaths to provide public access. But the best bit comes at the summit, where a gravel circle marks out the best place to stand to enjoy the so-called 'London Viewpoint'. From here the skyline's clear all the way round from Alexandra Palace (105°) to the Heathrow Control Tower (212°), with Wembley, Harrow-on-the Hill and the BT Tower featuring prominently. Docklands and the lower half of the Shard are shielded somewhat by Hampstead Heath, but I'm definitely adding this to my shortlist of "safe places to stand and gawp in awe if aliens ever park a mothership over central London".
I briefly admired the wedge of gabled brick mansions on the brow of the hill, that is until I walked up to Wood Lane and discovered they were newbuilds, part of a gated community shoehorned into a super-prime location. Ten fortunate families will get the chance to live up here overlooking sparrowhawks and the London Eye, enjoying "contemporary luxury living in an exclusive, picturesque setting" and paying three million apiece for the privilege. Alas, the developers have only managed to sell half of their luxury cluster despite them being on the market for over two years, but it's up-front cash from the project which has allowed the rest of Wood Farm to be spruced up for the rest of us to enjoy. This open hillside is a peaceful delight... and if you'd like more details/pictures then the official website is here, and Ian's Visited here.
Belmont
Last year when I reported on London's artificial hills I missed one, or at least I included one in my list I'd never visited. That's Belmont, formerly Bell Mount, a substantial pile of earth dumped in the early 18th century to act as the focus of a landscaped view. The beneficiary was the 1st Duke of Chandos, whose stately home at Cannons (near Stanmore) was the wonder of its age.
Coupling Palladian and Baroque styles, tourists flocked to Cannons to enjoy the collection of artworks on display, and to walk in the extensive water gardens. The western vista was terminated by the aforementioned mound, well over a mile from the mansion, and topped off by an elegant summerhouse. Even George Frideric Handel was the resident composer at Cannons for a couple years, such was the place's fame. But the South Sea Bubble burst the family's accounts, and after the Duke died in 1747 the building and all its contents had to be auctioned off to satisfy debts, leaving not a brick behind. The estate eventually became the suburb of Canons Park, the North London Collegiate School occupies the site of the great house, and the ornamental mound was absorbed into Stanmore Golf Club.
Some golf clubs don't mind public footpaths weaving through, but Stanmore is not one of these, and tolerates its public right of way by confining it to a six-foot fenced off corridor. This footpath kicks off from a dogmess bin on Vernon Drive, rising fairly steeply between a pair of spacious semis and climbing into scrappy woodland. The summit comes quickly, 105m above sea level, and is surrounded on its various flanks by three tees and four greens. The trig point sits beside the tee for the 3rd hole, while the tee for the 7th hole has the best view, not that the golfers seem to like being overlooked by hiking non-members. How brutally the footpath divides the course in two, with only one pair of unlocked gates halfway down the other side to provide groundsman's access, but how marvellous the rest of us can still climb the Duke's belle mount and view the pleasure grounds beyond.
Pinner Park Farm
Back in the golden age when councils had money, which would be about ten years ago, Harrow produced a series of five full-colour family-friendly fold-out Heritage Trails. I bought the set, because they were excellent, but until yesterday had never followed the Hatch End loop. I knew the leaflet was out of date when Point Of Interest Number 6 was supposed to be the LetchfordArms pub, but reality was a row of six 3 bedroom townhouses, with the inn sign preserved apologetically outside. Thankfully the next Point of Interest remained intact on the other side of the West Coast mainline... a 212 acre dairy farm, somehow still undisturbed.
Most of Pinner Park Farm is off-limits unless you're a farmer, or a cow, but a single footpath crosses centrally allowing public access. Across the fences cattle graze, along with the occasional horse, producing the expected aroma. Some of the hedges are supposedly medieval, from when this used to be the Archbishop of Canterbury's deer park. Stacks of silage bales line the track, concealing part of the 18th century farmhouse from view. The unusual rotunda building in the farmyard was once a milking parlour. There's very much a working feel, and every chance of catching a truckload of pedigree Aberdeen Angus bullocks being taken off to market. The one oddity carving through is George V Avenue, a demure tree-lined 1930s dual carriageway once intended to reach Watford, but which terminates just up the road three miles short.
Three years ago landowners Harrow Council proposed replacing the working farm with a country park, 'to improve public access', with luxury housing shoehorned in around the farmhouse to help pay for restoration and renewal. Their consultation offered two options, neither of which included continuing agricultural use, but 53% of respondents completed their forms demanding that the farm remain. The council of course decided to press on with their plans regardless... but the newsmedia and the Friends ofPinner Park Farm have since fallen silent, so maybe the entire project's stalled. It seems the public would rather have a farm they can walk through than a country park they can roam, however ultimately realistic that may be.
On Tuesday I took the High Speed train from Stratford to Margate.
The bloke at the ticket office apologised for how confusing the fares were.
"Even I don't understand it," he said.
Here's how confusing the fares are.
Five High Speed trains depart Stratford International for Margate between 09:16 and 10:34.
The day return fare for each train is different.
Depart
via
Ticket
Fare
Restrictions
Arrive
09:16
Ashford
Canterbury
Anytime Day Return
£45.10
10:39
(1h23m)
09:34
Gravesend
Herne Bay
Off-Peak Day Return
£35.90
Only valid for travel via Herne Bay.
Not valid on trains timed to depart before 09:30
10:58
(1h24m)
09:44
Ashford
Dover
Off-Peak Day Return
£41.40
Not valid on trains timed to depart before 09:30
11:30
(1h46m)
10:15
Ashford
Canterbury
Super Off-Peak Day Return
£32.10
Not valid on trains timed to depart before 10:00
11:39
(1h24m)
10:34
Gravesend
Herne Bay
Super Off-Peak Day Return
£25.70
Only valid for travel via Herne Bay.
Not valid on trains timed to depart before 10:00
11:58
(1h24m)
I knew tickets were cheaper after 09:30, but I didn't realise the price dropped another 20% after 10am.
It's not like the trains out of London are busy on a weekday morning.
I also didn't know that Southeastern had started charging less if you travelled via Herne Bay.
It's not even a slower route.
For comparison, here are three consecutive trains from London Victoria via the non-High Speed route...
Depart
via
Ticket
Fare
Restrictions
Arrive
09:07
Bromley
Herne Bay
Anytime Day Return
£38.90
Not valid on Southeastern high speed services.
10:58
(1h51m)
09:37
Bromley
Herne Bay
Off-Peak Day Return
£35.70
Not valid on Southeastern high speed services.
Not valid on trains timed to depart before 09:30
11:22
(1h45m)
10:07
Bromley
Herne Bay
Super Off-Peak Day Return
£23.70
Not valid on Southeastern high speed services.
Not valid on trains timed to depart before 10:00
11:58
(1h51m)
The journey times are longer than the High Speed route, by about 25 minutes...
...but this doesn't actually save much money - between 09:30 and 10:00 it only saves 20p!
As another comparison, two Advance Singles from Stratford would have cost a total of £27.20.
...but I didn't know what time I'd be coming back, plus there was a cheaper option anyway.
Five consecutive trains with five different fares is ridiculous, surely?
How have we ever let the system get this complicated?
Is it only Southeastern who are toying with passengers like this?
And where will it all end?
TfL have just published a special tube map showing where all the tunnels are.
Officially it's to help "customers living with claustrophobia or anxiety conditions who find it difficult using the Tube" "by showing them routes they can take to avoid areas with large stretches of tunnels." A wholly laudable aim.
But some of the 'tunnels' are a bit short, barely even 100m in length, which isn't much worse than going under a bridge. I wonder if the map will deter some people from using stretches of line they previously wouldn't have worried about.
'Tunnels' less than 100m in length
Dalston Kingsland - Hackney Central (30m)
Leytonstone - Snaresbrook (40m)
Clapham Junction - Wandsworth Road (40m and 70m)
Walthamstow Central - Wood Street (50m)
Either side of Denmark Hill (50m and 80m)
Crouch Hill - Harringay Green Lanes (60m)
Westbourne Park - Royal Oak (70m)
Highbury & Islington - Canonbury (80m) (how many more can we find?)
(I'm using Open Street Map to estimate distances)
At least one of the 'tunnels' doesn't actually exist.
'Tunnels' which shouldn't appear on the map
Shadwell - Tower Gateway (there are no tunnels on this branch) (how many more can we find?)
Also, if we're being pure about this, there are other places where tracks go underground (in at least one direction) which aren't shown.
'Tunnels' missing from the map
Kew Gardens - Richmond (40m)
Harrow-on-the-Hill - West Harrow (40m)
Kingsbury - Wembley Park (50m)
Upney - Barking (westbound) (60m)
Lewisham - Elverson Road (60m)
Cyprus - Gallions Reach (80m)
Gallions Reach - Beckton (100m)
Croxley Curve (because that's not on the map) (how many can we find?)
Unofficially, obviously, the new map is to tell people whether they'll be able to get a phone signal or not.
The Duchess of Cambridge opened it last Friday, a new gateway to a new courtyard to a new entrance to some new rooms. It faces Exhibition Road, almost immediately opposite the back entrance to the Natural History Museum. Don't come via the subway from the tube station or you'll miss it, or if you do, come up one staircase early.
This was originally the boiler house, shielded from view by a masonry screen, then in the 1970s the machinery was removed and the space filled in with staff accommodation blocks. This wasn't the most productive use of valuable land, so the V&A decided to build more gallery space instead. In 1998 architect Daniel Libeskind came up with 'the Spiral', a radical design resembling a stack of crumpled boxes, which divided public opinion, failed to raise sufficient funding and was eventually axed. Over a decade later its somewhat less ambitious replacement is now open to the public... and is mostly empty space.
The original Edwardian masonry screen remains, now opened up so you can walk through the arches, but capable of being sealed off by perforated aluminium gates when the museum's closed. Beyond this, in the quadrangle where you might have thought they'd have built something, is a large courtyard with a sliver of a cafe along one edge. It's an arrestingly impressive space. Everything looks very white because this is "the world's first all-porcelain public courtyard", a peculiar concept intended to reflect the V&A's magnificent collection of ceramics. The tiles are ridged with parallel stripes and other geometric patterns, are hopefully non-slip, and already don't look as white as they presumably started out.
There are two routes to the main entrance, either straight ahead and down some steps, or branching off down a ramp to the side. Between the two is an angled wedge which swiftly morphs from "quite safe to walk on" to "a bit treacherous", because the off-white colour conceals the gradient. Beyond this is a mirrored opening which acts as a lightwell to the basement space below, and also flashes with a triangular pattern resembling alligator teeth, as if begging to have its photo taken. Other than this oculus (and the cafe I mentioned) there's not much here... but it will be a lovely space for the V&A to scatter with temporary sculptures, or to seal off for a coffer-filling cocktail party. Officially this is the Sackler Courtyard, paid for out of the same philanthropic bucket as the Sackler Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens, the Sackler Galleries at the Royal Academy, the Sackler Library at the Bodleian, the Sackler Library at the Design Museum, the Sackler Library at the City & Guilds, the Sackler Crossing in Kew Gardens, the Sackler Hall at the Museum of London, the Sackler Octagon at Tate Britain and the Sackler Institute for Translational Neurodevelopment at King's College.
The new entrance hall is the ground floor of one wing of the original building, an offshoot of the main galleries, but has been stripped out to create a mostly-empty circulation space. Here V&A staff hover to meet, greet and check bags, while the job of selling tickets has been automated by what's described as a "unique self-service ticketing experience". I had a go at using the giant touch screens to see if I could book a ticket to the Pink Floyd exhibition, purely to try the system out, and three minutes later was still trapped in subroutine hell trying to get the glass to respond to my fingers. A nice man came over and showed me how to press properly, then walked away and left me to it, but I still couldn't advance to the final screen, so I walked away and saved £20. Officially this is the Blatnavik Hall, paid for out of the same philanthropic bucket as the Blatnavik Building (formerly Switch House) at Tate Modern and the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford.
Turn right and you enter familiar parts of the museum, specifically the very-long Sculpture gallery, whereas all the new stuff is to the left, mostly downwards. A new shop has been squeezed in, plus a coat check, plus a new suite of toilets (the gents is decorated in a stereotype-smashing shade of pastel pink, I can report), plus an attractive pair of entwined wooden staircases. These are here to lead down to the unexpected extra gallery below the courtyard, a vast room with no supporting pillars, deftly excavated during the construction period. Officially this is the Sainsbury Gallery, paid for out of the same philanthropic bucket as the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery, the Sainsbury Galleries at the British Museum, the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia and the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at UCL.
The new gallery is very empty. For opening week a sonic exhibit called 'Partials' is booming out from a set of speakers, a light show called 'Shade' is filtering ambient light through the skylight, plus there's an aluminium bench called 'Aluminium Bench'. The combination is shamelessly minimalist, more the kind of barren void you'd expect at Tate Modern, but it'll make a nice Instagram post. Ultimately the V&A intend to use their 1100 square metre basement for the display of temporary exhibitions, presumably the kinds of blockbuster they're currently charging £20 for elsewhere, plus it'll be ideal for drinks receptions, project launches and catwalk shows.
I love the V&A because it's crammed with so much gorgeous "stuff", but Exhibition Road Quarter hasn't been developed to display stuff, it's been developed to generate income. A courtyard with event potential, an additional cafe, an additional shop, and a gallery space targeted at paid-for exhibitions and private hire - that's all we're getting here. The architecture's photogenic, so visitors will find much to fill their social media feeds. But those who truly love design will want to be elsewhere, exploring the Albertopolis warren for the real treasures.
Cycle Superhighway 1(Dalston - Stamford Hill, 2 miles)
I live on CS2, which is segregated throughout and therefore one of London's 'gold standard' cycle lanes, but this has given me a false impression of what some of London's other Cycle Superhighways are like. CS1 works to a very different model, being a tour of the back streets rather than a special strip of main road, and this makes following it a bit of a challenge. Indeed, TfL's official map of CS1 is so broad-brush that I really didn't have much sense of where I'd be going until I got there, and only then did I discover how misleadingly simplified their map is. (here's a better one)
Heading out of Dalston Kingsland station, for example, it's not obvious where the nearest Cycle Superhighway might be. That's because the route doesn't pass the nearby busy intersection, it follows Boleyn Road round the back, because the whole point of CS1 is to be following the quieter roads. But even then there's no blue paint on the road to indicate you're on the right track, nor any feeder signs to funnel you in... the priority is occasional signage to tell those already on CS1 where to go next, and not much else.
I was expecting a sign at the Crossway crossroads, surely, but found only large painted letters on the tarmac and a couple of arrows to direct cyclists across. One of the lampposts on the far side had a tiny blue sign on the pole to confirm this was CS1, no bigger than a sheet of A5 paper... this is the standard CS1 repeater. The road ahead surprised me - parking and a bus stop on the left, more parking on the right, and sufficient space through the middle for only one lane of traffic and a bike going the other way. It seems segregated lanes were never an option in these residential streets because parking takes priority... whereas outside my house in Bow parking was withdrawn so that CS2 could speed safely through.
CS1 has been weaving north for a few miles before this point, but on my journey the first sharp turn was to the right up Wordsworth Road. This time there is a sign on a post to follow, but no big white letters on the road you're leaving, only on the road you're turning into. A pot of money has been spent at this T-junction to add a speed bump and a pedestrian crossing, and to seal off this end of the road to all vehicles other than bikes. Curtailing through-traffic makes the Cycle Superhighway safer at a stroke, leaving residential drivers to find another way out, a tactic which has been used several times ahead.
At the next junction a bollard has been plonked in the middle of the cycle lane so that it covers the tip of the arrow painted on the tarmac, as if this were an after-thought. Meanwhile at Butterfield Green a brief car-free shared-space has proved so bike-friendly that the park railings are emblazoned with children's posters imploring cyclists to slow down - the endangered are now doing the endangering.
We're then back into a succession of narrow streets lined with parked cars supporting two-way traffic... not much traffic, but cyclists have to keep their wits about them at all times just in case. They also have to watch out for cars reversing or pulling out, or drivers opening car doors, lest inopportune timing and inadequate attention should have painful consequences. And although CS1's designers have managed to follow the least zigzag route through the residential grid, there are still zigs and zags where staggered turns are required, ensuring that the route ahead isn't all plain sailing.
The staggered crossing of Stoke Newington Church Street didn't look especially cycle-friendly. The central traffic island was proving helpful to pedestrians trying to cross in two stages, but were the unmarked strips to either side meant as similar zones for bikes? A blue sign on the way into the junction would have helped confirm the intended route, rather than two separate painted arrows and a blue sign on the way out. Obviously it's really hard to shoehorn top-class cycling infrastructure into some of London's historic streets, there simply isn't the space, but this junction definitely missed the standard.
Bouverie Road leads up the western edge of Abney Park Cemetery, or would do if there weren't a row of houses inbetween. They're rather nice houses too, as are many of the Victorian avenues round here... so long as you don't cross the reservoirs into Woodberry Down. The next few streets are broader which aids cycling, and still quiet, and also home to a significant population of Hasidic Jews. Because I visited on Saturday they were on the move everywhere, walking (not cycling) from synagogue, a stream of fur-hatted fathers leading their plait-haired sons. I doubt this highly segregated community are impressed to have a cycling route for hundreds of commuters routed through their part of town, and I felt somewhat out of place following CS1 on foot.
A lengthy zig and zag leads to West Bank, a residential street where the Hasidic community gradually thins out. Again it's on the narrow side for comfortably safe cycling, but one-way for vehicular traffic at the far end which halves the risk. Here another staggered crossing of a main road is required, but once again there's nowhere in the centre of the road for cyclists to attempt the right turn in two steps. The downward slope past Stamford Hill station marks the edge of the borough, so that's where I stopped, but CS1 continues north towards Tottenham, soon shunted onto the busy High Road when the backstreets finally run out.
In summary, CS1 is nothing like CS2, it's a completely different style of route. Instead of segregated lanes there are shared backstreets, with funding spent on calming and enhancements rather than serious redesign. The corridor's not direct, hence signage is crucial, but this is intermittent. The whole experience seems very much targeted towards the regular commuter rather than the occasional tripper - there's too much to learn to get it right on your first ride, and too much to be watching out for along the way. A practical solution for shoehorning a safer cycle route through a difficult grid of streets, for sure, but hardly super, and definitely no Superhighway.
Midyear's Day, also known as The Feast of Midyear, is the precise midpoint of a calendar year. The day is celebrated on July 2.
Midyear does not occur at midnight on June 30, as most people who haven't stopped and counted assume.
Chronology
July 2 is the 183rd day of the common year in the Gregorian calendar. This day is the midpoint of the year because there are 182 days before and 182 days after. The exact time of the middle of the year is at noon.
In countries that use summer time the actual exact time of the midpoint in a common year is at 1:00pm. This is when 182 days and 12 hours have elapsed and there are 182 days and 12 hours remaining. This is due to summer time having advanced the time by one hour.
July 2 is the 184th day of a leap year, with 183 days before and 182 days after. The exact middle of a leap year is therefore at midnight at the end of July 1.
In countries that use summer time the actual exact time of the midpoint in a leap year is at 1:00am. This is when 183 days have elapsed and there are 183 days remaining. This is due to summer time having advanced clocks by one hour.
In the southern hemisphere daylight saving acts in reverse, advancing an hour in October and returning the hour in April. In southern hemisphere countries using daylight saving the midpoint of a common year is at 11:00am on July 2, and the midpoint of a leap year is at 11:00pm on July 1.
In case this is clear as mud, here is a summary.
The midpoint of the year occurs at...
• 23:00 July 1 - leap year, southern hemisphere, with daylight saving
• 00:00 July 2 - leap year, no daylight saving
• 01:00 July 2 - leap year, northern hemisphere, with daylight saving
• 11:00 July 2 - common year, southern hemisphere, with daylight saving
• 12:00 July 2 - common year, no daylight saving
• 13:00 July 2 - common year, northern hemisphere, with daylight saving
In the UK the midpoint of the year always occurs on July 2, either at 1am in a leap year or at 1pm in a common year. The same is true in the USA, Canada and the EU. This is why July 2 is known as Midyear's Day. It falls on the same day of the week as New Year's Day in common years.
Background
Midyear traditions are pre-Christian in origin, and take place approximately ten days after solstice celebrations.
Although Midyear is originally a pagan holiday, in Christianity it is associated with the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, which is observed on the same day. The celebration of Midyear's Eve was from ancient times a festival of summer plenty. Bonfires were lit to protect against evil spirits which were believed to roam freely when the sun was turning southward again.
In Belarus, Albania, Lithuania and Namibia, the traditional Midyear's Day, July 2, is a public holiday. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Midyear's Eve is the greatest festival of the year, comparable only with Walpurgis Night.
Contemporary national traditions
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, Midyear's Day is widely celebrated.
In Shropshire many leave the towns for Midyear and spend time dressing trees in the countryside.[1] In Lancashire it is thought that when the sun rises on Midyear's Morning, anyone seeing the sunrise will be in good health during the rest of the year.[2] Traditional Midyear beacons are still lit on some high hills in Cornwall.[3] In Wales people dress in traditional Midyear costume and throw wreaths made of flowers into mountain streams.[4] In Lincolnshire the traditional Midyear bonfire is built, and whittling spears are carved from the embers.[citation needed] In the village of Westmoretonhampton the streets are decorated with balloons, people dance in the fields, and a small bullock is slaughtered to beg the tree spirits for good fortune.[5] Midyear is not celebrated in the Outer Hebrides or in Surrey.
Midyear's Day will be incorporated as a half-day public holiday from 2019.[6] Church bells will be rung at 1pm and a cannon fired from Windsor Castle. Banks and schools will close, and those on zero hour contracts will be allowed to knock off for ten minutes. Everyone will go down the pub, or to the beach, or catch up on all that DIY and gardening they didn't quite finish off in May. In leap years, Midyear's Day will be taken as a full day's holiday.
Notes
1. ^ Merrill, Jean (2009). Ribbontide and Other Woodland Festivals. Infobase Publishing. p. 21. ISBN 1637197049.
2. ^ Pietr Hans Kapfel, The Pendle Witches Museum
3. ^ "tor-beacon" - Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved 3 November 2016
4. ^ Jones, Bronwyn (1983). The Welsh Holiday Book. Llantrisant Press. p. 192. ISBN 057219583X.
5. ^ "Why The Midyear Bullock Must Die". westmoretonhampton.org. Retrieved 2012-07-15.
6. ^ "Brexit Holiday Gift Of Joy". Daily Express. Retrieved 2016-06-22.
Ghent is Belgium's third largest city (1st is Brussels, 2nd is Antwerp). It's part of Flanders, or more correctly the Flemish Region, which is a broad densely-populated strip to the north of of the country. In the Middle Ages it was one of Europe's wealthiest cities, thanks to the cloth trade, but has suffered several economic and political knockbacks over the centuries. A lot of old buildings survive in the centre of town, their setting enhanced by broad canals and an extensive car-free zone. And the locals never call it Ghent, they call it Gent, because that's the Flemish way. [Visit Gent]
Stuff to see in G(h)ent
» You're never too far from the looping chain of rivers/canals through the city centre, a network not quite at Amsterdam standards, but several rungs better than Birmingham. Hence tourists in Ghent always gravitate towards the waterside and the historic buildings which line them, each tall and narrow in true Flemish style. Some are now bars and restaurants, others banks and chiropractors, and others fractionally further out are homes, you lucky people. The most celebrated stretch borders Graslei and Korenlei, or would be celebrated were two buildings not scaffolded with a crane looming overhead, but you can't go wrong with a camera along most of theadjacentquays.
» A thriving market in canaltours exists, in what look like oversized rowing boats, with 40 minutes floating out and back for €7 looking like a decent bargain. Perhaps not quite so recommended in wet weather, however, as snowflake passengers shelter under large rainbow brollies shielding the beautiful architecture they've come to see. I made sure to walk a little further out of the central zone where the rivers grow wider andmore residential, then metamorphose into post-industrial dockland with wharves, cranes and a giant power station. Only the city centre is properly chocolate box, and Ghent remains a living city.
» At Ghent's heart is Castle Gravensteen, or, if you prefer, 'The Castle of the Counts'. This proper Euro-fortress (with circular turrets) dates back to 1180, and comprises a lofty keep protected by an outer ring of sheer stone. For €10 you can tour the interior, wandering in through the main gate from the square where the lampposts flash, then up a spiral staircase or two. One of the upper rooms acts as a Torture Museum, replete with thumbscrews, bridles and anguish pears, plus a guillotine blade once used to decapitate local citizenry. There's a great view from the roof, assuming it's not drizzling, and also from the top of the gatehouse, assuming you spot the right stairs partway round the wall-walk. I enjoyed the non-Norman influences in a variety of uncluttered rooms around this self-guided tour.
» Ghent's well-known for its towers, and from one particular spot on St Michael's Bridge three of them line up. The closest is that of Sint-Niklaaskerk, a tall Gothic church, and the furthest rests atop St Bavo Cathedral. Pop inside to see The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, a 12-part van Eyck altarpiece deemed one of the finest surviving Renaissance artworks, yours for €4. But the most iconic tower is the free-standing Belfry, proud civic symbol of the city's medieval wealth, from which a tuneful carillon of bells erupts every quarter hour. Take the stairs, or the lift, to the toppermost chamber to enjoy the view... or if it's grey and raining maybe save your €8 for another day.
» If you enjoy a good museum, Ghent has several. The Museum of Industry, Work and Textiles (MIAT) is located in a former three storey cotton mill and looked fascinating, but was closed on Wednesdays. The Design Museum has been in place since 1922, and I very much fancied a visit, but it was also closed on Wednesdays. I hoped to be able to look round the recently updated Ghent City Museum (STAM), but that turned out to be closed on Wednesdays too. This did leave the Museum of Fine Arts (MSK) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (SMAK) in Citadelpark, which close on Mondays instead, but I didn't feel the urge to go inside. If you enjoy a good museum, think twice before coming on a Wednesday.
» Yes, Ghent has trams - four lines in total. Line 1 connects the station to the city centre, which is otherwise a 30 minute walk. I walked it in both directions and didn't get on a tram all day, just to niggle those of you who like trams.
» Yes, Ghent has bikes. Cyclists are everywhere, weaving through the central pedestrianised zone and out onto separate paved segregated lanes, like somebody's planned all this from the bottom up. I didn't get on a bike because I like walking, and it was hard enough doing that while remembering to look the right way.
» Yes, Ghent has beer. Belgians love their beer and are damned good at making it, so several local brews are sample-able in a variety of relaxed hostelries. I didn't stop for a beer either, sorry. Or chocolates. Or frites. You might well have different priorities if you visit.
» Yes, Ghent has shops. For a conurbation the size of Leeds you'd expect nothing less, with a lot of designery fashiony boutiques for those who like them, and not especially targeted at tourists. Indeed tourism has yet to smother the city to any considerable extent, thanks to Bruges being quite close, hence Ghent remains a bit of an undiscovered treasure. I'm delighted to have made its acquaintance.
» For a free town map and tourist guide, locate the Fishmarket opposite the castle and the Tourist Information Centre within, where paperwork in a multiplicity of languages is available. Don't disregard the 'seasonal magazine', because this has a historical city walk pullout with a particularly useful map. Digital natives can find all the relevant documentation here.
