Next weekend is London Open House, when all London-based readers of this blog should, unless they have a damned good excuse, be out exploring the architectural secrets of the capital. But the rest of the country plays the same game this weekend, under the Heritage Open Days umbrella. And some bits of London choose to join in, either because they don't believe they are part of London or because they're too mean to pay the subscription. So here's a list of Heritage Open Days events you can take part in inside the capital either today or tomorrow. And if you're too late to make plans, there's no excuse for not planning ahead to next weekend already.
Bexley
• Red House (Sat 11-4): The National Trust are opening up William Morris's Arts & Crafts home for free today. And their new cafe's open.
Bromley
• St George’s RAF Chapel of Remembrance (Sat 10-1) (Sun 12-4): A simple chapel, with 17 stained glass windows, on the edge of Biggin Hill airfield.
• High Street Heritage Trail (Sat 11 & 3) (Sun 11 & 3): Two walking tours daily along Chislehurst High Street.
Harrow
[Harrow's one of the boroughs that's defected en bloc with its own Heritage Open Days programme]
• Pinner House (Sat 10-4): It's now an old people's home, but this early Georgian house was once the home of the vicar of Harrow.
• West House, Pinner (Sat 11-4): This old house in Pinner Memorial Park is being transformed, at last, into a museum to cartoonist extraordinare Heath Robinson. Tours will be given. Meanwhile, coincidentally but brilliantly, the annual Pinner Village Show is taking place in the park outside.
• St George's Church, Headstone (Sat 10-5): Late Gothic revival/Arts & Crafts interior. Organ recital at noon, piano recital at 3.30.
• Zoroastrian Centre for Europe (Sat 11-5): Grade II* listed Art Deco interior, formerly the Grosvenor Cinema, near Rayners Lane station. Architectural tours on the hour.
• Headstone Manor (Sat 11-4) (Sun 11-4): Moated manor house, parts of which date back to 1310. Four tours daily, two of them aimed at families. I thought the tour was really interesting.
• St Lawrence’s Church, Little Stanmore (Sat 2-5) (Sun 2-5): Grade 1 listed continental baroque church, 300 years old next year.
• HarrowSchool (Sun 1-5, 2-5): Take a tour of the best preserved 17th century schoolroom in the country, or look round the famous Old Speech Room Gallery. While you're waiting, look round the Museum of Harrow Life.
• St Mary's Church, Harrow (Sun 2-6): Medieval church on Harrow Hill, alongside Harrow School if you want to pop in as an add-on.
Hillingdon
• Battle of Britain Bunker (Sat 10-5) (Sun 10-5): Deep under RAF Uxbridge the Battle of Britain was plotted. Who'd not want to take a look into the command room, and associated museum, 76 steps down. I really enjoyed my trip.
Kensington & Chelsea
• Museum of Brands (Sun 11-5): How much do we love the Museum of Brands? Indeed it feels wrong to suggest you might visit and not pay. But if cornflake packets, tins of soup and chocolate bars are your thing, make hasteto Notting Hill.
Kingston
[Kingston loves to believe it's still in Surrey, hence there's a full programme of 40 Heritage Open Days events this weekend and nothing next. Here are a few highlights]
• County Hall - Heritage Day (Sat 10-4.30): That's the official seat of administration for Surrey, which is in London. Take a guided tours and see the Grand Hall, Council Chamber and former courts and cells.
• The Guildhall (Sat 10-12): See inside various rooms, including the Council Chamber, and meet the Deputy Mayor in the Mayor's Parlour.
• John Lewis Kingston Riverside (Sat 10-4) (Sun 10-4): Probably the only department store with the foundations of a medieval bridge perfectly preserved in its basement.
• Kingston Crematorium (Sat 10-1): Hourly tours behind the scenes of the crematorium. "Your questions answered".
• New Malden Library Tour (Sat 11 & 3.30): Let the librarian lead you on a tour of this hybrid Art Deco/WW2 styled building.
• Coombe Conduit (Sat 12-4) (Sun 12-4): A Tudor conduit house built to supply water to Hampton Court Palace. Small, subterranean, suburban and fascinating.
Newham
• Memorial Community Church (Sat 1-5): For those who've always wanted to explore a Plaistow belfry, and play the bells themselves.
Sutton
• Carshalton Water Tower (Sun 1-5): It's not on the official list, but the gem I told you about yesterday is open tomorrow.
Westminster
• Cabbies Shelters (Sat 7-6): Normally the interior of these roadside huts is solely for black cab license holders. But today, and next Saturday (and on some other as yet unconfirmed dates before mid-October), three of them are opening up in conjunction with a special art project. On Northumberland Avenue (7-6) Kathy Prendergast is presenting a map of The Knowledge, at Temple (10-4) take away a cup of tea in a limited edition paper cup, and in St John's Wood (7-4) just have a look inside. There's also a learning guide for kids, and a website with more information.
Having once decreed Sutton London's least interesting borough, I'm always on the lookout for something that makes me change my mind. And so I trotted down to Carshalton at the weekend to tick another heritage attraction off my list. It had to be the right weekend, in this case the first Sunday of the month, because a lot of Sutton's sightseeing spots open only infrequently. But you can still do half of what I'm about to describe on the next three Sunday afternoons (and on two of those for free).
Carshalton Water Tower Location: West Street, Carshalton, SM5 3PN [map] Open: Sunday afternoons from 2.30pm to 5pm (from the end of April to the end of September) Also open: for Open House on Saturday 20th September Admission: Adults £1, Children 25p
You may have learned about the SouthSea Bubble at school, an unprecedented stock market crash caused when shares in a speculative trading company collapsed. One of the chief protagonists lived in Carshalton, then a small Surrey village (and still with an attractive cluster of weatherboarded cottages at its heart). Sir John Fellowes was made bankrupt by the Bubble busting in 1721 but continued to live at Carshalton House, and the mansion was passed on to a succession of other wealthy types. Enlarged and landscaped, the house was later used as a prep school for military cadets, and finally bought out in the 1880s to create a Roman Catholic girls' boarding School. They're St Philomena's College, no longer with boarders but still going strong, and whose gates are occasionally unlocked to allow visitors to explore some mighty fine buildings within.
The most notable of these is the Water Tower, Grade II listed, the top of which is easily visible from outside sticking up behind the brick wall. But what's less obvious until you walk through the sidegate is that the tower is merely the ornate top of a high-ceilinged one-storey building, and that there's genuine treasure within. The long airy room across the front is the Orangery, within which some of the Friends of Carshalton Water Tower will be waiting to meet and greet and inform. It becomes more obvious why they volunteer once you pass through the door at the end. A sequence of further rooms includes a decorated Saloon, decked out with historical info and memorabilia. The Pump Chamber has recently been restored and includes a Victorian water wheel which used to lift spring water into a cistern at the top of the tower. And then...
And then there's the plunge bath, or Bagnio. An 18th century creation, this deep tiled pool was used for private bathing - a luxury in its day - and is an exceptionally rare survivor. It's really very deep, more like one end of a swimming pool, not that you'd ever want to dive in. It's not immediately obvious how bathers did enter the water, but rest assured there are steps down, in marble, obscured from the prescribed viewing position. A trio of recessed arches provide places for those out of the water to perch, and the walls are emblazoned with an impressive selection of blue and white Delft tiles. It's no surprise to discover that Lucinda Lambton loves the place, and a recording of her Sublime Surburbia visit is screened on a portable TV outside. You'll not get in as close as her, nor will you officially be allowed to take photos, but you will I think be impressed.
It's also possible to go up top. "Only 37 steps to the roof" says a sign at the foot of the staircase, presumably to encourage those less fleet of foot who might not otherwise bother. This gets you much closer to the tower itself, and perhaps to some pigeons perching in the central void. Ignore the adjacent primary school and look further across the grounds to the main house, as symmetrical as was the fashion at the time. You should also be able to see down West Street into Carshalton Village, except that the tower's only open while trees are in full leaf, so probably not. You'll be doing well if you spend half an hour looking around, that's upstairs and down. But for a one pound visit, it's worth every penny.
Additional Attraction:The Hermitage Open: the first Sunday of each month from May to September Admission: Adults £1, Children free
So no, you can't follow in my footsteps here until the weekend before next year's General Election. But for an extra quid on the right date the Friends will throw in a guided tour of the school grounds, and that's an even better deal. Sunday's tour guide was just the right mix of personable and informative, leading us off round what was once an ornamental lake. This drained away many years ago and is now a swampy expanse of brambles, but apparently it filled up again briefly during this year's unseasonably wet spring, and even the pump chamber beneath the water tower saw a light trickle. The path leads past the Sham Bridge, which is really a dam, but pimped up on one side to look impressive from the house. And the house is impressive too, with its Corinthian porch and symmetrical façade, even if somewhere behind the windows are staffroom coffee cups and piles of textbooks.
The highpoint of the 45 minute tour is a visit to the Hermitage, tucked away behind the main lawn on the banks of the former lake. It's a single-storey folly, built 250 years ago from flaky chalk and brick, half-buried beneath a turf-topped mound of earth. Restoration has been expensive but means we can now go inside, to a space designed for getting away from it all. One niched opening leads directly to a circular chamber with echoing recesses, and a rather more modern cross tiled into the floor. And another leads to a dark curved passage, leading eventually to the same point, with 18th century graffiti carved into the rock. It's not what you expect to find on a school field, but then Sutton is full of surprises.
Interesting places to visit in Sutton
• Honeywood Museum: Lovely and local, and recently restored, a short distance from the Water Tower [I've been](closed Mondays and Tuesdays)
• Whitehall: Tudor timber-framed house in the heart of Cheam village [I've been](closed Mondays and Tuesdays)
• Little Holland House: DIY Arts and Crafts home in Carshalton Beeches [I've been](open on the first Sunday of the month)
• Mayfield Lavender: Picturesque purple farm on the Surrey border [I've been] (open June to mid-September) (closes this weekend)
• Carshalton Water Tower: as above [I've been] (open Sundays from the end of April to the end of September)
• Carew Manor: Tours of the Tudor Great Hall and dovecote run four times a year (still to go this year, 14th September, 12th October) [I've not gone yet]
Two years (two years!) after the Paralympics closed, the spirit of the Games returned to the Olympic Park. At Prince Harry's request over 400 disabled servicemen and women have come to Stratford for the Invictus Games, four days of international competition in the face of adversity.
The Opening Ceremony took place last night. Yes, the whole thing was broadcast live on BBC1 but only on The One Show, rather than a mass global broadcast. Unlike 2012 there were no special traffic lanes down Stratford High Street, no police hovering round the Bow Roundabout and no razorwire CCTV-topped fencing around the perimeter, which meant it was simplicity itself to wander down to the Greenway and cast an eye over proceedings. A stream of commuters and cyclists passed the other way, oblivious to what was about to happen, unless perhaps they'd spotted the hint from the helicopters in the sky. One hi-vizzed guard blocked the footpath ramp down from the View Tube, where a makeshift barrier waited to admit last minute limousines via the Loop Road. And as seven o'clock came round, a tiny handful of spectators in-the-know stood on the sewertop and waited.
No eyes were on the Olympic Stadium. That's because it's still out of action post-Games, as cranes and workmen crawl all over it to transform it into West Ham's new home. And it's also because the Invictus Games couldn't possibly have filled it. Instead they sort-of filled the great grass lawn between the Orbit and the railway, where a crowd milled around the edges of the temporary arena and a single grandstand stood part-empty overlooking the field. One day all this will be flats, which'll make holding big outdoor events in the Olympic Park a little harder. But how exciting to have your living room on the site where Charles and Camilla sat and watched his son open an international event he'd organised, while his big brother, another future king, looked on.
From the Greenway every word the announcer made was audible, plus the grandstand was part visible through the trees at approximately sniping distance. The national anthem floated across the Lea, a highly abbreviated version, before an unfamiliar specially written fanfare followed. Local residents would have noticed little thus far, but then a low roar started and grew steadily louder. Whooosh!
I tip my hat to Ian who pointed out in advance that at two minutes past seven the Red Arrows would fly past. They appeared behind the stadium, billowing red white and blue smoke, as is their wont. The royal party, assembled crowds and TV audience saw them approach straight on, but from the Greenway their path was angled and passed directly behind the top of the Orbit. Blimey.
The Red Arrows go past ridiculously fast, of course, especially if you're fiddling with a camera rather than just staring in awe. In seconds they were heading south towards Stratford High Street and on towards Docklands, their tight lines of colour rapidly dissipating in the sky. And by the time they reached surprised residents in Greenwich and Hither Green, their presence in the Olympic Park was little more than a lingering tinge of red and blue in sunset-lit clouds.
To find out what was really happening in the Opening ceremony I had to head home to my television. Some military bits and an athletes' parade played out, along with Matt Baker being earnest and Claire Balding meeting a dog. And I watched as an Apache and a Merlin made their own Invictus fly-by, choppering over the South Lawn to the delight of the ceremonial audience. But I'd failed to put two and two together, so was somewhat surprised when the rotor noise grew louder and louder... and blimey there were the two helicopters outside my back window. I enjoyed my own private almost-flypast as the pilots pulled up, hovered briefly and headed back north.
I then wondered whether I could have stayed at home to watch the Red Arrows too, whether they had perhaps gifted me a personal flypast which I'd missed by going out. No matter, the view over Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park had been indubitably better, and more in the spirit of the Games too. I won't be attending any of the sporting events, I had my fill a couple of years back thanks, but I can recommend the wheelchair rugby if you want to watch something wild and brutally dexterous. And it's nice to have an echo of 2012 back again, if only for a brief weekend.
So what's been going on with thecablecar since we last spoke. Quite a lot, actually, mostly to increase marketing, branding and commercialisation. Three things...
1) Upselling
Time was when the most important Dangleway fare was how much it cost to travel from one side of the Thames to the other. Not any more. The single fare now appears right at the bottom of the list below five other options, all of which are returns, and most of which promise something else into the bargain.
Top of the pile is the Full Experience plus River Package, which I blogged about a couple of months ago. This permits a trip (or trips) on a Thames Clipper, a look round the sponsored Emirates exhibition on the south bank and a return trip on the cablecar. Viewed one way this is a saving of about £4 on the total price of each bought separately. Viewed another way, it's up to five times more expensive than a simple ride on the cablecar, which is probably what most tourists come here to do. I do wonder how many foreign visitors are tempted to buy the top option without thinking, perhaps not understanding precisely what it involves, nor that they'll need to make multiple riverboat journeys to get their money back. Indeed, what's the point of buying a Thames Clipper return ticket back to North Greenwich when most tourists will have travelled out here from Central London already? But it must be selling, because this combined offer was officially due to expire at the end of August, and now appears to be the lynchpin of the cablecar's marketing operation.
The next option on the board is something else visitors don't really need, but is being sold to them anyway. The Full Experience combines a return trip across the river with a spin round the Emirates exhibition, which is essentially a room full of advertising material. Reading the smallprint you'll discover that the return trip is non-stop, i.e. you'll be getting off on the same side you embarked with no opportunity of visiting the opposite bank. They can't really mean that, can they, else those buying a Full Experience ticket on the Royal Docks side would never get to the exhibition? Note that there's a special "Discount Adult" price, which you might assume was only for the over 60s but is actually for anyone with Oyster... so don't buy the £10 ticket, Londoners! And only at the bottom of the price list do you finally come across the austerity option, the non-pimped-up single trip, the up-and-over ride. With TfL now upselling its expensive add-ons in preference, there's no longer any pretence that the cablecar is for commuters.
2) The Feature Tour
Previously, when you rode the cablecar, you did it in silence. That's assuming you hadn't been shoehorned into your cabin with a jabbering family, or taken some particularly noisy children with you. But the silence option has now been superseded, as you'll discover a few seconds after stepping inside your pod and preparing to take off. "Welcome to your southbound journey on the Emirates Airline", goes the script, and hey presto you're in for an eight minute travelogue as you cross. You might be expecting "...and on your right you can see..." but it's not quite like that, more an East London regeneration documentary. Heading south the first point of interest is the Olympic Park, which merits a minute of audiovisual bluster out loud and on the in-car screen. It was when an athlete chirped up and described the Games in 2012 as one of the most amazing moments in his life that I started to despair and wished I'd brought earplugs. I can watch this kind of stuff on YouTube, I don't need it on public transport.
A banker popped up to explain about the importance of London's financial quarter, and then a boatman gave his thoughts from down the estuary in Purfleet. Halfway through the presentation a thinly veiled advert for the Thames Clippers riverboat service kicked in, conveniently located "just five minutes from the southern terminal", and then of course sponsors Emirates got their airtime too. And near the end of the video I was subjected to a full description of The Line, a most worthy sculptural project coming soon down the Greenwich Meridian, but absolutely not something I want to hear about while high in the sky above London. Riding the cablecar as a tourist ought to be about spotting stuff and taking in the view, because when else do you get the chance to be 90 metres above the Thames in a glass capsule? Instead the Feature Tour distracts from what's outside the window, in a persistent "Look at me! Look at me!" manner, so you waste your time looking at pixels on a display screen rather than the rooftops of London.
The cablecar's regular commuters will be glad to hear that the Feature Tour is switched off during peak hours. That's not out of kindness, it's because the video is too long for the speeded-up five minute crossing. But the best news is that if you ask the staff at the embarkation point they can turn the Feature Tour off. One pressed button and the screen in your cabin will be muted, and a series of slides and maps played out instead. Just don't leave it too late, because once those doors close and the commentary begins, there is no escape.
3) The app
Yes, I'm afraid so, there's now an official cablecarapp. It's designed to be used while you're aboard, indeed it's heavily promoted just before you get on, so it's best to download the app before you arrive. Better still, don't download it at all, not unless you're a smartphone addict with a limited attention span who never wanted a ride in the air anyway.
There are only four options on the app's main menu, one of which lists the opening times and warns that "temporary disruption due to weather" may occur. The programming's not clever enough to display the cablecar's current status, nor even to link to the correct page on the TfL website, but instead advises you to ring an 0343 telephone number to hear a recorded message. Another homescreen option tells you how to get to the cablecar, including an invite to "Tap to view Tube Map", except this takes you through to the TfL website where the Tube Map doesn't actually show the cablecar. And a third menu button lists some of the attractions you might be able to see from the air, or perhaps visit after your flight. Surprise surprise the Emirates Aviation Experience and Thames Clippers are top, because this is the influence that sponsorship gets you, followed by a list which includes an eclectic set of places to visit - from the Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park (half a mile distant) to Wembley Stadium (a 20 mile trek).
But the main point of the app is to allow you to "Check-in" and play an interactive game during your ride. Be warned that you can't check in elsewhere, even a few hundred yards from the terminal, the GPS won't allow it. Once aloft the idea is that you point your smartphone towards the horizon, allow the camera function to kick in, and try to spot 25 different attractions. These pop up in a short list down one side of the screen, according to the direction you're pointing in, and then you tick them off one by one as you spot them. In fact you don't need to spot them in real life, you just have tick them off, ideally as quickly as you can because there are 25 to get through in eight minutes. Play to win and you won't have time to read the accompanying text, or indeed enjoy the view, merely flailing around in all directions to see if you can collect the full set. Most of the attractions are genuine but alas one is is an Emirates A380, a promotional plane which appears in animation only, while another is a time-travelling mammal which can only be 'seen' by looking down.
And all the time you're being urged, by a menu option in the corner of your screen, to take a #MyEmiratesView selfie. This is just like a normal selfie, but with the Emirates Airline logo stamped in the corner, because the app's designers really hope you'll be compliant enough to download a promotional photo to your Facebook or Twitter timeline. Meanwhile back at the so-called game, expect to be awarded a score out of 25 at the end of your trip, although with no clues as to which of the attractions you found and which you missed. And then perhaps you'll reflect that you just spent several pounds to ride high across the Thames but were so preoccupied that you failed to look at anything properly along the way, and what a total waste of an opportunity that was.
TfL appear intent on adding extra trinkets to cablecar journeys in an attempt to make the sale of tickets more attractive to punters. Instead they're contaminating the experience with noise, digital frippery and additional advertising, as if somebody's allowed the marketing department to run riot. It's a bloody cablecar for heaven's sake, it ought to be exciting enough all by itself.
Who'd live in BarkingRiverside? Not enough people, as it turns out... not because the location is Barking but because there aren't enough houses.
The area in question is the site of the defunct Barking Power Station, a huge expanse of land beside the Thames roughly halfway between the River Roding and Ford's Dagenham works. At 443 acres it's approximately two-thirds the size of the City of London, which is big, indeed big enough for an intended eleven thousand homes. The site was snapped up by a housing developer twenty years ago, with City Hall coming onside in 2004. How can it be, then, that a decade later the site holds barely one thousand homes? And the answer is trains, or the complete lack of them.
Back in the day, before the turn of the century, there were plans to bring a tram service to Barking Riverside. It'd be part of a project called the Thames Gateway Transit, and would link Barking to Thamesmead via this new housing estate and a brand new bridge across the estuary. The tram idea was later downgraded to a segregated busway, to make up for which a DLRextension was planned, snaking out from the Beckton branch to link the new estate to the rail network. Plans had almost reached the public enquiry stage when Boris came to power, and he promptly pulled the plug on the project for not providing value for money. At the same time the Thames Gateway Bridge was scrapped - a project only recently revived - and the guided busway curtailed to a part-segregated bus route with limited capacity. No more transport, no more homes, simple as that. Until now.
Yesterday TfL launched another consultation for bringing trains to Barking Riverside, but this time via the Overground rather than the DLR. The line from Gospel Oak to Barking would be extended along the line of the existing c2c railway to Dagenham Dock, before turning off on a raised viaduct to a new terminus at Barking Riverside. They've provided a very rough map to show the route, but very little more, because this is a particularly minimal consultation which essentially asks "So, this extension, a good idea or what?"
And it is a good idea, indeed a better idea than the DLR extension scrapped five years ago. That would have seen Riverside residents linked to Newham rather than Barking, and taken ages to ply its way through about ten stations to Canning Town. Instead the Overground would link directly to Barking town centre and its decent range of shops, and from here to a variety of rail links including fast services to the City. If there is a disappointment it's that no intermediate station is planned along the four kilometre extension, just a single outpost by the Thames. That'll be great for houses yet to be built, but the northern end of the Thames View estate could surely do with an extra station to improve connectivity, and that's not on the cards. It seems the only drivers for new stations these days are fresh residential developments, and existing communities be damned.
If you've ever been to Barking Riverside, for example by visiting Dagenham Sunday Market, you'll know that the site is currently about as bleak as London gets. Part of the site is decommissioned power station, a large area of fenced off tarmac and transformers. The waterfront starts as smelly ex-industry and switches to patchy vegetation growing on spoil heaps. Lines of pylons cut across the sky, occasional horses graze, and resilient forms of bird life flit across polluted hillocks. A lonely footpath winds from the warehouses on Choats Road down to the Thames and then along the waterfront to a futuristicenvironmental centre, with less than gorgeous views of Thamesmead across the river. I'm never certain whether the path is public or not, but I love the walk for its isolation, at least until the promised wall of flats arrives.
The new Overground plans already have funding - the government stumped up the cash in a Budget announcement last year. If all goes to plan construction could begin in 2017, and the extension could be up and running by 2019. That's only two years slower than the proposed completion date for the original DLR extension, because that would have required an awkward river crossing whereas this is much more straightforward.
And this is all part of a massive expansion of the Overground network in northeast London. Suburban lines to Cheshunt and Chingford are coming under the orange umbrella next year, along with an entirely separate branch line between Romford and Upminster. As part of this consultation TfL have provided a map of the proposed network by 2026, depicting an increasingly disjoint collection of lines that all too rarely intersect, potentially spelling confusion for passengers trying to work out which route to take to where. Careful study reveals a proposed new Overground station at Old Oak Common in West London, but alas no new station at Surrey Canal Road which lost out on funding in 2010 and it seems will never be built. Best therefore that we all get behind Barking Riverside in the latest consultation so that ten thousand new homes can be unlocked... far too late, of course, but better late than never?
I started this blog precisely twelve years ago, on a dull Sunday afternoon. I didn't know what I was getting into at the time, but I did have one underlying motive, which was that I hoped it might help me to meet people.
At the time BestMate was preparing to move abroad, which he did shortly afterwards, so I thought I might be in need of a social top-up. Plus I didn't have the widest range of friends, having never been the oversociable type, so a few more might be useful. Plus I'd been single for three years, which seemed an age at the time, and it couldn't hurt to trawl my net a little wider. People might read what I had to say and be interested in connecting... I'm not sure I'd thought it through, but it was clearly worth a try.
And it sort of worked. Blogmeets were the big thing back in the day, as you might remember, so I stepped out and met some bloggers once or twice. And that was nice, we even had a few things in common, although often it was just that we wrote stuff and published it online, nothing more. Some of those names are now legends, while others faded away into obscurity, but at least I did genuinely get to meet new people. Even now I can sometimes be watching TV or reading the press and go "Omigod I know them!", although really what I mean is that I once had some beers at a table they might occasionally have been sitting at, which isn't quite the same.
Email's been very useful over the years in getting to know some of you out there. Hundreds of readers have emailed me out of the blue over the years, and I've usually responded, occasionally kicking off a chain of communication that's lasted a bit before fading away. Some of you, no offence, we were never going to get on. But for a handful of people it's been the opening of something more long term, at least in terms of communication if not actually meeting up, not just across the other side of London but even to the other side of the world.
I once used to chat to several of you on Instant Messenger, on services like MSN and Yahoo, back when that was a thing. It's still my very favourite form of online communication, but services have moved on and gradually my whole world's dropped off of it. I tell a lie, BestMate's still on there, but everyone else is elsewhere these days chatting in different communities I'm not a member of. If I did Facebook I might have acquaintances to chat too, but I draw the line at Facebook, hence a lot of my digital life is tumbleweed most of the time.
Twitter's also been very useful at helping me keep in touch with a wide range of blog-related acquaintances, particularly those who broadcast their entire waking lives online. But it's a very one way relationship, with me finding out much more about you than you find out about me. I don't broadcast my life in even partial detail, nor do I engage in conversations with other tweeters in public. I'd probably have made better-lasting social relationships if I joined in a bit more, bantered a bit, made arrangements to meet, but that's not ever likely to happen.
I don't know what you did this weekend, but it probably, at some point, involved meeting people. Maybe you live with them, maybe you're married to them, or maybe you just met up for beers or food or shopping or a nice day trip out somewhere. My weekend didn't involve meeting up with anyone I know, merely traipsing across the capital to do lots of stuff on my own. And that's fine, I'm perfectly used to making my own entertainment, indeed that's probably where this blog comes into its own. I can fill Saturdays and Sundays by going and doing stuff and then writing about it as some kind of justification that my life isn't somehow devoid of meaning. Indeed these twelve years have been great for getting me out across the capital and beyond, and I'm undoubtedly far more widely travelled as a result.
But as a downside, I fear comprehensive blogging may actually be to blame for my unsociable solitary outlook. I may go out and do stuff during the day but I don't go out so much in the evening because there are posts to write, which when I stop and think about it is ridiculous. And OK, I do go out with some of you sometimes, indeed one of last week's posts was started at 11pm after five bottles of Becks, proving that I can mix content generation with a social life. But in general all those years of blogging have made me more of a hermit than a gadabout, which isn't quite what I was hoping for when I started.
As for weekend trips, I've managed to find the occasional partner to go out exploring with, someone who doesn't mind heading somewhere obscure and exploring it in too much detail. This I'm chalking up as a big plus, thanks, not least because it encourages me to head to places I wouldn't normally go by myself. But most adventures are still best done as a solo trip, I find, because no hanger-on or friend would ever suffer the general all-over-the-place-ness of one of my days out (see yesterday's posts as evidence). Plus I can't cope with people who want to keep stopping for a coffee or a long lunch, I mean what's wrong with you when there's a world to be explored... and yes, I know why I'm still single.
So I'd say twelve years of blogging has merely reinforced my independence and introversion, rather than opening up my social life to broader dimensions. It's led to proper friendships, don't get me wrong, of the kind that involve occasionally going out for beers and providing mutual support, which is ace. But several other attempts at camaraderie, with people I should still be getting on with, I've allowed to fade away. It's not necessarily what I expected when I started typing on that dull Sunday afternoon back in 2002. And if you are that magic perfect match I should have met years ago, hurry up and show yourself, because in another twelve years it'll be too late.
Only a mile apart, and held on the same afternoon, two Islington festivals are very much the same and yet completely different. The Angel Canal Festival takes place on the first Sunday in September, and has done since 1987. Originally a narrowboat fundraiser, it's grown over the years to become a fully fledged community event based around the City Road Basin. The Mayor of London lives only a few hundred yards away, but it's always the Mayor of Islington who arrives by narrowboat to open the festival. This year that's Theresa, and she duly alighted near the ukulele band before setting off on her meet and greet around the stalls. Various local organisations had come up trumps - the Scouts had cakes, the Angel Association had tea, and the Inland Waterways lot had a tombola based on disused canals. The towpath got a bit narrow in places, especially when cyclists attempted to push through, but there was always space to peruse the books, trinkets and N1-based advice, or just disappear up to the pub. Further stalls led off down Graham Street, the road marked by spray string where one stallholder's product had got a little out of hand. In the pocket park a parliament of owls was tethered up, and much admired, while littl'uns got to follow the Bee Trail or gawp at three visiting Pearly Queens. A proper community spirit was evident, of the kind that many places outside London might take for granted. And yes, you've completely missed it until next year, but as one small girl on her mother's shoulders exclaimed, "I wish this happened every day!"
The people of Barnsbury don't have a canal to linger by, but they do have the Caledonian Road and this has been closed all day for the Cally Festival. Considerably more streetsmart than its Angelic twin, the Cally excelled at food, sporting action and entertainment. A boxing ring had been set up at one end, while a highly imaginative bus-stop themed dancefloor pumped out toetapping disco tunes further up. Rappers held forth on a stage up one sideroad, while the poetry stage could only have been located on the extremely apposite Story Street. The whole event was ripe for punnage - "Cally Ho!" said one sign, "Super Cally" another. And against the backdrop of betting shops and kebaberies, an entirely cosmopolitan mix of local people had turned up. They sat on roofs, they scooped up trays of noodles, and they kicked footballs between the Arsenal In The Community goalposts. You'll know which of the two events you'd have felt more comfortable at, but the Callyfest was indisputably the more Londonish.
Shall we call the strip of London opposite the South Bank the Northbank? Let's not. But that's the plan of the Business Improvement District of the same name, paid for by companies who trade in a zone stretching roughly from Trafalgar Square to Aldwych. They're trying to enhance the reputation of the district by improving public realm and promoting corporate social responsibility, as well as encouraging you and me to visit and spend money. To this end they're holding a Thames SENSEation this weekend in Victoria Embankment Gardens, and everyone's invited. Not many people have noticed, not unless they've walked up Villiers Street and taken heed of the banner outside or stumbled into the gardens for some other reason.
In the first tent a keen young lady told me all about the Northbank BID team, and attempted to hint that they've cut crime in the district single-handedly since their formation last October. I smiled, and resisted picking up a free Northbank branded Oyster card holder before wandering off. The adjacent tent promised a Modern Thames Exhibition, but in fact held only some information about the proposed Garden Bridge and several creations from a 3D printing company. As for the (cough) Aromatic Time Tunnel, this turned out to be three linked tents each with their own scent, with 1950s London inexplicably represented by the smell of mango. A chap in a Northbank bowler hat stood around by the historical enactors, which must have been a pleasant change from his usual lonely perch overlooking Embankment station. Meanwhile over at the bandstand was the Sensory Hub, where local chefs and tea merchants performed culinary presentations to a half-empty sea of deckchairs. And the whole thing was fine for a 10 minute lookaround, but somehow had the feel of an event knocked up by a small team on a low budget to tick a community engagement box. And shall we call the strip of London opposite the South Bank the Northbank? Let's not.
It's a long walk from Jarrow to London, but then the dissolution of the National Health Service inspires deep-seated protest. Day 22 of the People's March For The NHS took the marchers from Edmonton to Trafalgar Square, with a final run-in along the Strand. Joined now by thousands more protestors, they waved their placards, handed out leaflets and chanted in unison. "Whose NHS?" "My NHS!" "Whose NHS?" "Our NHS!" The strength of feeling against cuts and creeping privatisation came across loud and clear. Those who'd been sightseeing or shopping turned to stare, many getting out their cameras, others chucking coins into buckets to support those who'd walked all the way. A bulky bloke in a swish car tooted his horn in support, garnering great cheers and inspiring others further back in the queued traffic to join in.
Into Trafalgar Square they poured, the nurses and health workers and Trade Union members and the odd Socialist Worker with a slightly different agenda. Some stood around the edge of the square with their banners, others paraded unflattering effigies of the Prime Minister above the heads of the crowd. Up on the wheeled-in stage a series of speakers addressed the gathered throng. I missed Billy Bragg, but a doctor from Ealing gave a passionate indictment of the route services in northwest London are going, and the masses roared their disapproval. Someone attempted to lead the crowd in a singalong rewritten to the tune of the Hokey Cokey, but they'd changed too many of the lyrics to polemic, and the rendition never quite caught fire. And as I wandered off, a team of paramedics passed in the opposite direction heading for someone taken ill in the audience. You never do know when you're going to need the NHS, nor is certain it'll always be there, in its current form at least.
The Tall Ships, and the crowds, also came to Woolwich. Not the hugest crowds, but enough to create a real buzz throughout the Arsenal site all the way up to the river. Here were the high-masted yachts, about a dozen in total, moored just off the shore near the Thames Clipper jetty. Again, no sails billowing, there being no wind and no immediate need to sail anywhere. Those on the water or on the waterfront had a good view, so long as they found a vantage point away from the queues, but otherwise the high river wall blocked much of what everyone had come to see. And yes there were queues. Punters waited patiently to go aboard some of the ships, because that was the main point of coming, even if it took a bloody long time to achieve. And they queued to buy tickets for the Thames Clipper, so that eventually they could join the separate queue for the Thames Clipper, so that eventually they could go out onto the water and see all the same ships obscured through a pane of glass. Elsewhere hog roasts and music, plus souvenirs and stalls, much as at the other Festival villages at other locations, except this one had staff from the cablecar attempting to sell tickets. The Firepower museum appeared to be doing well, indeed had such levels of patronage been common they'd not have been forced to close in 2016. And I heard at least two people express amazement at the number of flats built here, and that's just for starters, lots more are on their way.
The not quite so Tall Ships, and not quite so many crowds, also came to Wood Wharf. This is the open space to the east of Canary Wharf that will one day soon be towers but for now is a useful waterside events space. The queues here were shorter, but not many ships were letting people on board, and it was hard to get a sense of one-off amazingness. That's all four festival venues visited, and my hunch is that the Tall Ships event's not been as big a people-puller as the organisers had hoped... or maybe I just went to the wrong places at the wrong times. Still three days to go, and if the weather finally improves that could be a gamechanger.
[Caveat: I visited the Tall Ships event between 5pm and 6pm on Friday. The skies were a sullen grey. It might be that not all of the tall ships had turned up yet. I didn't get to board any of the ships. The remainder of the Festival might turn out to be a bit more thrilling that my report is about to suggest.]
The Tall Ships have arrived in Greenwich after a seabound regatta from Falmouth. It's the biggest assembly of tall ships in London for 25 years. There are "almost 50" of them, which is quite a lot, except you're highly unlikely to be able to see even half of them at the same time. A grand parade of sail is promised on Tuesday afternoon, when you're probably at work, but for most of the rest of the time the ships are moored up along several miles of the Thames. They've been split across four locations in order to spread the love between various local communities, with some off Maritime Greenwich, some along the Greenwich peninsula, a handful in Docklands and the rest at Woolwich. I never got as far as Woolwich, so maybe it's the ships at Woolwich that are brilliant.
The Royal Borough of Greenwich is extremely proud of their Tall Ships event, and have set up various shore-based activities to keep the expected million visitors entertained. Beside the Cutty Sark is a Festival village sponsored by a mobile phone company (they have a small tent), featuring a cluster of traders transferred from Greenwich Market. One trailer is selling nothing but The Captain's Hat, eight pounds worth of souvenir headgear, presumably bulk-bought in the hope visitors would all want one, although nobody I saw had succumbed. Round the corner in the grounds of the Old Naval College are groups of historians dressed for the occasion with a collection of implements to demonstrate - they were rather popular. Less so the echoing marquee by the main road, lightly filled by a collection of maritime-related organisations and charities. Neither were the food merchants doing especially well, but then it was Friday afternoon so who'd want fish and chips, a hog roast or fried chicken anyway.
I'd arrived too early for the evening's entertainment, an artistic performance of illuminated fish, but watched intrigued as the Catalan theatre company manoeuvred their giant sharks and jellyfishes into position overlooking the river. I was also much too early for the fireworks, but you can always head down to Woolwich after dark tonight if you want to see part two. And what of the tall ships, I hear you ask? What indeed. A few were moored off the promenade, not as many as I'd been expecting, but more seemed to be arriving upriver as the afternoon progressed. "I was expecting sails," said one woman I passed, evidently disappointed to see only bare masts on the majority of vessels present. If you're hoping for something resembling The Onedin Line, think again, this is more a riggingfest for most of the time.
The festival promises the opportunity to board certain ships and look around, but those off Maritime Greenwich are exempt. Instead you can pay £3 for a boat trip half a mile upriver to board the tallest tall ship of all, the Dar Mlodziezy. This is moored at Enderby Wharf, a historic site which developers have all but demolished in order to built apartments, duplexes and boxes in the sky. It'll come as no surprise to hear that one of these developers is the festival's principal sponsor, because what could be better for business than attracting hordes of would be purchasers to the riverside? I'm not sure that those who ventured up the footpath north from Greenwich were especially impressed, however. Only one residential project is yet complete, a bland stack of flats called The River Gardens, and beyond that the Thames gets fairly desolate. Now I like desolate, or at least I liked it before they knocked all the old industrial buildings down, but what's promised over the next few years is a monotonous frontage of non-affordable dwellings with all character sucked out.
I should at this point point out how awful the map in the official Tall Ships visitor leaflet is. The underlying base map is fine, but then some trainee without a geography qualification has dropped symbols onto it that bear only passing resemblance to reality. In Greenwich the Festival Village has been plonked beyond Maze Hill, while the disabled viewing zone is apparently somewhere in Deptford. Woolwich's disabled viewing area is much too far west, beyond the Ferry, while that at Canary Wharf is somehow inland. Worst of all is the cartographer's attempt to add the cablecar to the map, departing from the wrong point behind a relocated O2, then crossing the Thames at the wrong angle to land beside a completely misplaced (and much too convenient) Canning Town station.
I really wasn't expecting to stumble across the North Greenwich festival hub where I did. I thought it'd be by the Dome, but not so, it's a half-mile trek along wheelchair-unfriendly paths down the western side of the Greenwich peninsula. This too is a bleak walk, brightened only by housing developers' banners announcing what you'll be able to buy on the levelled wasteland behind the fence. And what of the tall ships, I hear you ask? Well, here are half a dozen more, assuming they've all turned up, including two schooners and the trainee brig Stavros S Niarchos. Crowd control barriers are in place to marshal the queues for getting on board, should huge crowds ever turn up at this remote spot. Shipboard visits are free and could be really interesting, but you need to turn up well before the official closing time else stewards will send you packing. A most unlikely hospitality village has been set up on what's more normally the Hanson aggregates site, with a small bandstand, several refreshment trailers and a souvenir van pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't busy on my visit - it might possibly be today.
The Tall Ships are off Greenwich until Tuesday, with on-board visits and onshore entertainment promised between 10am and 6pm. You'll not be dazzled, but you might well be impressed, and it's not like this spectacle will be returning any time soon.
[Caveat: I visited the Tall Ships event between 5pm and 6pm on Friday. The skies were a sullen grey. It might be that not all of the tall ships had turned up yet. I didn't get to board any of the ships. The true Festival might turn out to be a bit more thrilling that my report suggested. And I might even go back again over the weekend to make sure.]
Vacancies have become available in the diamond geezer circulation team.
Several new distributors are required to continue the good work of handing out copies of the blog outside tube and railway stations. The current campaign has been extremely successful in bringing the world of diamond geezer to a wider audience, and it's only thanks to volunteers such as yourselves that the good news can continue to be spread.
Opportunities for Information Dispersal Agents exist at a variety of locations. The majority of these are in Central London adjacent to entrances and exits to underground stations. Alternative pitches may be available at mainline termini, outside large shopping malls and along especially narrow sections of pavement. It is also hoped that the missionary campaign will be able to expand into key areas of East London, including Bow and Stratford, but this is contingent on the availability of fresh personnel.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to ensure the availability of printed material at all times, and to present a neat and ordered face to the world. All volunteers are provided with a fold-up display stand designed to fit inside a small suitcase (suitcase not supplied). This must be set up in the approved way, with your designated selection of propaganda materials arranged in alphabetical order of title, and replenished at regular intervals.
Booklets provided for distribution purposes include "Good News from the Geezer", "What does the Geezer actually teach?" and "Where Can We Find Answers To London's Big Questions?". These are available in a wide variety of languages including English, Urdu, Polish and Cockney, thereby ensuring the spread of DG's core message to all. Copies of the latest edition of The Watchlister magazine will also be provided, in bundles of 100, and volunteers will be expected to clear the whole batch before moving on.
Training will be made available to ensure that you stand with your outstretched arms the requisite distance apart. Smiling is important, in a beatific style where possible, as this engenders feelings of trust and increases the likelihood of customer interaction. Casual dress is not acceptable, as there is a positive brand image to maintain. Please bring your own suit. Regrettably a clothing allowance is not provided.
For many, the move to static distribution methods will be particularly welcome. No longer will agents be expected to traipse from house to house, ringing on bells and doorstepping potential clients. Research suggests that this direct method of approach has not been popular, and may have contributed towards the low take-up of diamond geezer across the capital. In consequence the project management team has approved a switch to standing immobile outside stations, and residents may rest easy in their homes while the campaign continues.
Under no circumstances should distribution agents address commuters and other members of the public directly. Instead you should wait for intrigued members of the public to approach you, and only then may you engage in conversation. Always begin politely and tentatively, before moving on to wax lyrical about diamond geezer's intrinsic philosophy and its potential to explain the mysteries of life. At this point please offload the printed material, and direct the new convert towards the home website.
Remember that the homebound commuter is particularly susceptible to the distribution of printed matter, as they are about to embark on a journey during which their smartphone or tablet may not be able to function. Slip in between the Standards and Shortlists and Stylists, and you too can be responsible for bringing the true message of London to the people who matter.
Applications for new Information Dispersal Agents are now being taken on the diamond geezer Vacancies Portal. Please consider giving up two hours of your week to win over the hearts and minds and souls of the capital.
Yesterday TfL launched a consultation about two new cycle superhighways, one east-west and the other north-south. Here's what they have to say about one of those routes.
This is impressive stuff, finally giving cyclists the road space they deserve through the centre of London. A properly separated lane might actually entice large numbers of other travellers onto two wheels, in a way no previous infrastructure project has.
It's interesting that the new Superhighway will link to CS3, which is generally deemed a success, and not to CS2 which is still wildly substandard along much of its length. But the new proposals owe much to the CS2 extension along Stratford High Street, completed in autumn last year, which brought early start junctions and bus stop bypasses to our streets. It also pioneered the acquisition of traffic lanes for bikes, reducing a six lane highway to four, and similar plans are now scheduled for the Embankment. Here's an artist's impression.
The Embankment's a very clever choice for a cycle superhighway, firstly because it has no bus routes, so TfL aren't taking capacity away from their own services. And secondly there are no road junctions on the riverward side, other than the occasional bridge, which removes all those nasty conflict situations that sometimes kill people. On the downside, look, there are now only three lanes of traffic, still two running west but just one to the east. This has the potential to slow down vehicles and create tailbacks at busy times, which could then cause repercussions on neighbouring streets. TfL admit as such...
Essentially cyclists benefit greatly, and all other road users take a hit. There'll be plenty of times of day when disruption is minimal, but your drive, your bus journey and even your power-walk are likely to take longer. And lane shrinkage isn't limited to the Embankment. It'll happen north-south on Farringdon Street and Blackfriars Road too, and they're even threatening to shut one lane on the elevated A40 Westway! Thanks to the CS2 extension there are already times on Stratford High Street when I avoid taking the bus home to Bow because the jams between Westfield and the Bow Roundabout are far worse than before. Now more central parts of London will get to experience what providing proper facilities for cycling really means.
It's worth taking a look at the detailedplans for various sections of the new routes, where TfL have been comprehensive in trying optimise each section as best they can. This means closing and shifting bus stops, banning certain right turns, paving over parking spaces, even removing parking for the disabled in some places. It would be all too easy to reply to TfL's consultation with a general "Wow, yes, this is precisely what cycling in the capital's been waiting for", whereas what's really required is a forensic analysis of the new superhighway's path, junction by junction. Iron out the wrinkles at this stage and more than simply bikes might benefit.
Somewhere at TfL HQ a team is busy drawing up similar plans for the road outside my house. They're desperate to upgrade CS2 from an embarrassing blue stripe to something mostly-segregated, and they'll be announcing their intentions some time in the next few months. I hope they're creating something marvellous, but I worry they might be taking liberties with the footpath outside my front door, or relocating my local bus stop, or increasing the exhaust fumes I breathe in by restricting space for road traffic. Time will tell.
In the meantime, do check the east-west and north-south Cycle Superhighway plans carefully, providing constructive feedback as appropriate. Because this consultation isn't about giving cyclists due priority - that battle's finally been won - the key thing now is getting the details right.
A Thames Estuary Airport isn't the first impractically grand scheme to have foundered on the Hoo Peninsula. There were once plans for the best holiday resort in Europe to be built here, on the northern coast at Allhallows-on-Sea. The fact you may not even have heard of the place should give some hint as to how far short those plans fell. And now, with Boris Airport definitively crossed off London's regional hub shortlist, there's nothing to stop this small village from living out the future in continued obscurity. I visited at the weekend too. (11 photos)
There are two villages here, one old, one new. The old is a mile inland, that's Allhallows, which grew up around the church of the same name. Like many churches on the peninsula this was established in Saxon times, although the present building dates, in part, to the 12th century. It's very pretty, with a tiny tower perched above castellated walls, but also very locked, usually, if you were hoping to take a look inside. It's also the second Grade I listed church that the Thames Estuary Airport would have obliterated, this under one of the western terminal buildings and Grain's under the end of a runway three miles to the east. You can see right over to Grain from the lane close by, across harvested fields and liquefied gas tanks, in a peculiar mix of utterly rural and utterly not.
And Allhallows village might have remained undeveloped had it not been for the keenness of the Southern Railway to create a new holiday destination to compete with Southend. Herne Bay and the Isle of Sheppey they deemed too far away, while Gravesend was lacking in beach, so they alighted on the Hoo Peninsula as their best compromise. Arailway already ran to Grain, not profitably, but it was easy enough to drive a branch line across the marshes to a new station called Allhallows-on-sea. Services began in 1932, and by 1934 almost ten thousand visitors made a bank holiday daytrip to this fledgling resort. They didn't find much, apart from what they made themselves. A large Charrington's pub was built by the station, The British Pilot, but the promised spread of shops and attractions never quite developed. World War Two then put paid to dreams of hotels and enormous swimming pools, and afterwards the crowds never returned, having worked out that Brighton was easier to get to and a lot more fun.
The station's long demolished, replaced by a long thin caravan park which looks like the affordable face of retirement. The British Pilot survives, now reliant on local residents and car-driving families, although don't think of walking in across the marshes because Patrons With Muddy Boots are Not Welcome. A few folk were out following the footpath along the estuary at the weekend, this being the relatively less squelchy part of the year. I'm not sure quite how far they were heading, although they seemed to be aiming for the monument at the mouth of Yantlet Creek. This is the London Stone, the traditional beginning of the Thames estuary, and once marked the boundary of the City of London's fishing rights. I understand the creekside path runs far enough to join up with a back lane though the marshes and thence to the village of Grain, but round here the existence of a line on the map is no guarantee of safe passage.
What seems most peculiar about the village of Allhallows-on-Sea today is the lack of access residents have to the coast. I should qualify and say residents in houses, because what's grown up between the last road and the sea is a substantially-sized caravan park. Two guards sit in a hut by the entrance, and they'll raise the barrier for your car if you can give the name and number of your caravan without stumbling. Pedestrian access seems to go unchallenged, but finding a direct path through the estate isn't entirely straight-forward, and in particular there are no obvious signs directing non-residents back to the exit.
The park's on the large side, spread out along a kilometre of sloping foreshore, and divided into two very distinct halves. To the east nearest the ex-station are the older chalets, more shed-like than mobile, while to the east are more modern metallic cuboids. Families who like this sort of holiday are in abundance, most taking advantage of the onshore watery facilities (pool with flume) rather than having anything to do with the beach. You can see their point. From the greensward promenade the view is of grey estuary, passing ships and a thin strip that turns out to be Southend. Step down through a gap in the sea wall and the beach is, well, extensive, and might be sand or might be mud depending on how good a PR agency it's hired.
It's extremely hard to picture Allhallows-on-Sea as the best holiday resort in Europe, as Kent County Council and the railways and once hoped. Equally it's extremely hard to picture an artificial airport spread out for miles across the mudbanks and marshes, destroying the ancient landscape and dislocating the past. Intriguingly the eastern side of Allhallows was pencilled in as the terminus for the new High Speed railway, reopening a connection that lack of interest had formerly closed. But that's not going to happen now, except in Mayoral pipedreams, leaving this dead end oddity of a village to survive as best it can on estuarine charm.
How to get to Grain, Allhallows and Hoo: Take the train to Strood or Rochester, either fast from St Pancras or slow from Victoria. Then you'll need the 191 bus which runs approximately hourly most days, but only two-hourly on Sundays. The route twists to take in every sizeable village along the way, so the bus takes all of an hour to reach Grain at the tip of the peninsula. But the double deckers afford an excellent grandstand view across the landscape, and there probably won't be anyone battling you for the front seat. A Medway saver ticket costs £6, allowing you to nip off as the fancy takes you, which is how I got to visit Grain and Allhallows before lunchtime, and then take a walk in the afternoon...
High Halstow to Cliffe(5 miles)(11 photos): One terribly impressive thing about even the smallest village on the Hoo Peninsula is that they all have clean, open, functioning toilets. They also all have old churches, and are mostly named after them, although not the 10th century survivor in High Halstow. This village is located at the highest point on the peninsula, and lies adjacent to a large RSPB reserve at Northward Hill which supposedly has the largest heronry in Britain. I saw no herons on my woodland wander, but I did catch a ghastly mis-carved apostrophe, and was amazed to spot Docklands and the Shard rising faintly on the horizon. The next village along is Cooling, one of Charles Dickens' favourites, and he took regular constitutionals to the church. Outside the main door are a dozen baby-sized gravestones which inspired the opening to Great Expectations, and are known colloquially as Pip's Graves. The church is now redundant, but that's good news for the visitor because a charitable trust keeps it maintained and open. At the western end of the village is CoolingCastle, once overlooking the estuary, now two miles inland. Its impressive gateway survives, while the interior contains a more modern dwelling currently owned by none other than Jools Holland. Across the fields, past orchards dripping with excess pears, lies the ancient settlement of Cliffe. This consists of one long street along a low chalk escarpment, leading to one of the largest parish churches in Kent at its tip. Had Boris's Estuary Airport been built then residents here would have been first in line of fire from the southern flightpath, although that's far better than under a previous plan whereby the airport was located on top of Cliffe rather than Grain. As it is, the whole of Hoo can continue in peaceful obscurity, at least until some other dreamer with a grand plan turns up.
And then there's the plunge bath, or Bagnio. An 18th century creation, this deep tiled pool was used for private bathing - a luxury in its day - and is an exceptionally rare survivor. It's really very deep, more like one end of a swimming pool, not that you'd ever want to dive in. It's not immediately obvious how bathers did enter the water, but rest assured there are steps down, in marble, obscured from the prescribed viewing position. A trio of recessed arches provide places for those out of the water to perch, and the walls are emblazoned with an impressive selection of blue and white Delft tiles. It's no surprise to discover that Lucinda Lambton loves the place, and a recording of her Sublime Surburbia visit is screened on a portable TV outside. You'll not get in as close as her, nor will you officially be allowed to take photos, but you will I think be impressed.
The area in question is the site of the defunct Barking Power Station, a huge expanse of land beside the Thames roughly halfway between the River Roding and Ford's Dagenham works. At 443 acres it's approximately two-thirds the size of the City of London, which is big, indeed big enough for an intended eleven thousand homes. The site was snapped up by a housing developer twenty years ago, with City Hall coming onside in 2004. How can it be, then, that a decade later the site holds barely one thousand homes? And the answer is trains, or the complete lack of them.
Yesterday TfL launched another consultation for bringing trains to Barking Riverside, but this time via the Overground rather than the DLR. The line from Gospel Oak to Barking would be extended along the line of the existing c2c railway to Dagenham Dock, before turning off on a raised viaduct to a new terminus at Barking Riverside. They've provided a very rough map to show the route, but very little more, because this is a particularly minimal consultation which essentially asks "So, this extension, a good idea or what?"
If you've ever been to Barking Riverside, for example by visiting Dagenham Sunday Market, you'll know that the site is currently about as bleak as London gets. Part of the site is decommissioned power station, a large area of fenced off tarmac and transformers. The waterfront starts as smelly ex-industry and switches to patchy vegetation growing on spoil heaps. Lines of pylons cut across the sky, occasional horses graze, and resilient forms of bird life flit across polluted hillocks. A lonely footpath winds from the warehouses on Choats Road down to the Thames and then along the waterfront to a futuristic environmental centre, with less than gorgeous views of Thamesmead across the river. I'm never certain whether the path is public or not, but I love the walk for its isolation, at least until the promised wall of flats arrives.
I started this blog precisely twelve years ago, on a dull Sunday afternoon. I didn't know what I was getting into at the time, but I did have one underlying motive, which was that I hoped it might help me to meet people.
Only a mile apart, and held on the same afternoon, two Islington festivals are very much the same and yet completely different. The Angel Canal Festival takes place on the first Sunday in September, and has done since 1987. Originally a narrowboat fundraiser, it's grown over the years to become a fully fledged community event based around the City Road Basin. The Mayor of London lives only a few hundred yards away, but it's always the Mayor of Islington who arrives by narrowboat to open the festival. This year that's Theresa, and she duly alighted near the ukulele band before setting off on her meet and greet around the stalls. Various local organisations had come up trumps - the Scouts had cakes, the Angel Association had tea, and the Inland Waterways lot had a tombola based on disused canals. The towpath got a bit narrow in places, especially when cyclists attempted to push through, but there was always space to peruse the books, trinkets and N1-based advice, or just disappear up to the pub. Further stalls led off down Graham Street, the road marked by spray string where one stallholder's product had got a little out of hand. In the pocket park a parliament of owls was tethered up, and much admired, while littl'uns got to follow the Bee Trail or gawp at three visiting Pearly Queens. A proper community spirit was evident, of the kind that many places outside London might take for granted. And yes, you've completely missed it until next year, but as one small girl on her mother's shoulders exclaimed, "I wish this happened every day!"
Shall we call the strip of London opposite the South Bank the Northbank? Let's not. But that's the plan of the Business Improvement District of the same name, paid for by companies who trade in a zone stretching roughly from Trafalgar Square to Aldwych. They're trying to enhance the reputation of the district by improving public realm and promoting corporate social responsibility, as well as encouraging you and me to visit and spend money. To this end they're holding a Thames SENSEation this weekend in Victoria Embankment Gardens, and everyone's invited. Not many people have noticed, not unless they've walked up Villiers Street and taken heed of the banner outside or stumbled into the gardens for some other reason.
It's a long walk from Jarrow to London, but then the dissolution of the National Health Service inspires deep-seated protest. Day 22 of the People's March For The NHS took the marchers from Edmonton to Trafalgar Square, with a final run-in along the Strand. Joined now by thousands more protestors, they waved their placards, handed out leaflets and chanted in unison. "Whose NHS?" "My NHS!" "Whose NHS?" "Our NHS!" The strength of feeling against cuts and creeping privatisation came across loud and clear. Those who'd been sightseeing or shopping turned to stare, many getting out their cameras, others chucking coins into buckets to support those who'd walked all the way. A bulky bloke in a swish car tooted his horn in support, garnering great cheers and inspiring others further back in the queued traffic to join in.
The Tall Ships, and the crowds, also came to Woolwich. Not the hugest crowds, but enough to create a real buzz throughout the Arsenal site all the way up to the river. Here were the high-masted yachts, about a dozen in total, moored just off the shore near the Thames Clipper jetty. Again, no sails billowing, there being no wind and no immediate need to sail anywhere. Those on the water or on the waterfront had a good view, so long as they found a vantage point away from the queues, but otherwise the high river wall blocked much of what everyone had come to see. And yes there were queues. Punters waited patiently to go aboard some of the ships, because that was the main point of coming, even if it took a bloody long time to achieve. And they queued to buy tickets for the Thames Clipper, so that eventually they could join the separate queue for the Thames Clipper, so that eventually they could go out onto the water and see all the same ships obscured through a pane of glass. Elsewhere hog roasts and music, plus souvenirs and stalls, much as at the other Festival villages at other locations, except this one had staff from the cablecar attempting to sell tickets. The Firepower museum appeared to be doing well, indeed had such levels of patronage been common they'd not have been forced to close in 2016. And I heard at least two people express amazement at the number of flats built here, and that's just for starters, lots more are on their way.
There are two villages here, one old, one new. The old is a mile inland, that's Allhallows, which grew up around the church of the same name. Like many churches on the peninsula this was established in Saxon times, although the present building dates, in part, to the 12th century. It's very pretty, with a tiny tower perched above castellated walls, but also very locked, usually, if you were hoping to take a look inside. It's also the second Grade I listed church that the Thames Estuary Airport would have obliterated, this under one of the western terminal buildings and Grain's under the end of a runway three miles to the east. You can see right over to Grain from the lane close by, across harvested fields and liquefied gas tanks, in a peculiar mix of utterly rural and utterly not.
