The peculiar thing about Wilson Street in the City of London is that it carries on. It carries on and becomes Paul Street and carries on and becomes Pitfield Street and carries on and becomes Whitmore Road and carries on and becomes De Beauvoir Road and then it stops. Main roads and suburban roads sometimes do this, but it's unusual for a chain of central London backstreets to carry on for two miles. It makes for an easily navigable walk too... you simply carry on.
Wilson Street starts near Finsbury Circus, midway between Moorgate and Liverpool Street stations. You might never give it a second look. It's also slap bang on the edge of the City - the Red Lion on the right is in the Square Mile but the hotel on the left is in Islington. Behind the pub is the Broadgate development, but only the backside of the monolithic extension, not the alfresco-friendly Finsbury Avenue piazza. The first road junction is with Sun Street, a crossroads I blogged about in detail last year as the point where Islington, Hackney and the City meet. It's all mostly Hackney from here on, though. Prepare for many contrasts.
Paul Street is dominated by relatively recent office blocks benefiting from a near-City location without the corresponding rent, interspersed by a handful of Victorian leftovers. One's a pub (already pleading with passers-by to book their Christmas parties), another's a coffee roastery (whose obligatory humorous chalkboard would be funnier if only someone could spell 'forcast'). A couple of proper throwback cafes survive, one incorrigibly Italian, the other wafting the whiff of bacon out onto the pavement. A heavily-bearded cargo bike rider rocks by, confirming we're on the Shoreditch fringe.
The northernmost stretch of Paul Street is one of Hackney's first ultra low emissions streets, enforceable weekday peak hours only, so pick your vehicle carefully. Meanwhile the whole of Paul Street is part of Cycle Superhighway 1, or whatever it's been branded this year. Whoever mapped out CS1 clearly recognised the benefits of a quiet backstreet that carries on and on and on - this cycleway will be with us almost to the finish. The two-wheeled influence is most visible straight ahead at the extra-broad push-button crossing of Great Eastern Street and Old Street, by far the busiest spot on the entire route.
Pitfield Street will take us into Hoxton, but not the smart bit. Instead expect an increasing preponderance of council estates the further north we head. Inside the first kebab shop a moustachioed caricature is sharpening his two biggest knives. Two white-haired ladies are watching the washing machines inside the community launderette (open three days a week only). The George & Vulture takes the prize for the oddest-named pub. Muzzy's Cafe is where the hoodies hang out. Green Planet Organic sells Juices, Fruits and Veggies. It hasn't taken long for this central London street to reach somewhere to live rather than somewhere to work.
Our surroundings are now resolutely postwar, bar one classical Georgian parish church. This has a bike repair shed out back, which won't be the only cycle-related business to have taken root beside the superhighway. Eventually the flats break for green space. "We love Shoreditch Park" says the council banner slung across the railings, indeed they love it somuch they're building hundreds of flats, a new secondary school and a leisure centre in one corner. The leisure centre is to replace an existing one, and is almost complete on the site of the old tennis courts. The rest is all cranes and building site, narrowing Pitfield Street so it can currently only be used by bikes and pedestrians. Let's keep going.
Whitmore Road is relatively brief, sandwiched between the Colville and New Era Estates. A minor shopping parade exists for the alteration of clothes, the cutting of hair and (once again) the mending of bikes, but the main retail hub hereabouts is Hoxton Market. A quirky sculpture of a mother in a purple 'I ♥ Hoxton' blouse and her two children points the way. Whitmore Road's final flourish is to cross the Regent's Canal, just above The Barge House restaurant and alongside the potentially hilarious 'Canal Walk' streetsign (if the C's been painted over again, which currently it has).
De Beauvoir Road starts somewhat down at heel. A cluster of twenty storey blocks of flats overlooks a grid of lower-rise housing, this the De Beauvoir Estate thrown up in the 1960s just before the rest of the neighbourhood became a conservation area. Hackney council already have their eye on knocking down the area around the community centre to fit in several more flats. The change in circumstance as you cross Downham Road is dramatic. Here are the original "homes for the upper classes" laid out around De Beauvoir Square and first occupied in the 1840s. They're splendid, especially if you're on estate agent's commission, many with pillared porches and most with steps up to the front door and steps down to a basement. But in terms of density De Beauvoir Town's more Harrow than Hackney, and not quite what a 21st century inner city needs.
It's a very quiet road now, with through traffic diminished by the judicious sealing off of sidestreets. St Peter's church revels in the silence. The biking contingent finally leave us at Englefield Road, just past the authentic Indian restaurant and just before the horse trough lovingly filled with bedding plants. The home stretch is a broad avenue with speed humps, and retains one of Hackney's classic old N postcode streetsigns. What finally brings the two miles of linked roads to a halt is a primary school, a proper Victorian brick multi-storey, which blocks passage through to the Balls Pond Road. What I like is that anyone else who started walking up Wilson Street would have ended up precisely here, even without directions or a map, just so long as they'd carried on.
Tue 1: Walked to Upton Park to see what West Ham's old ground had turned into. A lot of flats, of course, but only half as many flats so far as there will ultimately be. Most of the blocks are named after former players, including Alan Sealey, Noel Cantwell and Wally St Pier. Any ex-footballing vibe was otherwise entirely absent.
Wed 2: It seems a lot busier on the roads this morning. Maybe people really are 'going back' to the office and to school... and judiciously avoiding public transport. Thu 3: Went to the dry cleaners to collect my winter jacket because it pays to be ready. Then I hid it away because obviously it's not necessary yet. Fri 4: The leaves on the trees by the lake in Victoria Park look they might be on the turn already, but I suspect that's an illusion. Sat 5: My neighbours, in an upstairs direction, have decided to throw a party. They do not normally do this. Their party is loud, goes on late and involves a possibly-not-illegal number of revellers. When they turn up the volume on Teardrops by Womack and Womack I do actually shout a swear word in their general direction, but I doubt they hear. I survive the evening by watching three hours of Battlestar Galactica until I'm tired enough that I fall asleep anyway. Sun 6: The problem with walking around the Isle of Dogs at the weekend is the number of joggers out puffing and panting, especially through the narrow bits. Island Gardens is the furthest south I've been since March. It was nice to wave at Greenwich again. Mon 7: Boarded a train to go to Southend, which was nice and empty because it was 10am, but made the mistake of getting the train back at 4pm which meant the carriages were full of schoolkids (who it turns out travel a lot further west than anticipated). Tue 8: This is the first time I have ever seen Carpenters Lock, in the centre of the Olympic Park, open... although only for cleaning gunk out of the mechanism, not to let an actual boat through.
Wed 9: Radio 4Extra is repeating Hordes of the Things, a four-part epic fantasy Tolkien spoof. When it was first broadcast in 1980 I recorded it on a C120 cassette and played it over and over, which meant I was able to mouth along to the latest broadcast almost word for word. HotT was written by Andrew Marshall and John Lloyd, starred Paul Eddington and Frank Middlemass, and was I suspect a formative influence on my sense of humour. Thu 10: The squirrel who frequents my balcony is more interested in acorns than conkers. Fri 11: Mince pies are back, and 2020 deserves treats so I bought a box. That said, I haven't finished off my Creme Eggs yet. Sat 12:Londonist continues to publish very little, as opposed to the usual fifty posts a week pre-lockdown. This week they've only published eleven, five of which have been sponsored posts extolling the likes of Chinatown, mealkits and a shop that sells mattresses ("If you think mattress shopping means making a long trip out to a retail estate on the outskirts of town, think again"). When your business model is predicated on people going out and doing stuff, and they no longer do, it's damned hard to make a living. Sun 13: TfL have deleted the @elizabethline Twitter account, just four years after prizing it off an American businesswoman. They've also killed off @circleline, all the other tube lines, @LondonDLR, @TfLTravelAlerts, @TfLBusAlerts, even the official Dangleway account, in an attempt to focus customer response on the increasingly bland @TfL account. Hundreds of thousands of old tweets have been extinguished overnight, erasing all sorts of embarrassing optimism. Mon 14: The first visitor to my flat in six months arrived to fix my cooker. It's not good that an eleven-month-old cooker should need urgent repair, but guaranteewise much better than failing at thirteen months. Tue 15: Let's go to Wanstead Flats, said Best Mate, so we did. I also showed him the delights of the vast City of London Cemetery, but we had to keep dodging funerals because bright red t-shirts don't look especially respectful.
Wed 16: Walking beside the river in the Olympic Park, three irrigation sprinklers popped up and started spraying in a slow rotating pattern... and suddenly I was starring in my own sci-fi movie trying to dodge deadly killer lasers in a futuristic corridor. I escaped with slight leg wounds. Thu 17: Hurrah, it's launch day for the new Ben Aaronvitch Rivers of London paperback, False Value. Bought the only copy in Stratford and was 80 pages in by the time I reached Ramsgate. I'm never disappointed. Fri 18: Went round to BestMate's for dinner, which we used to do weekly but haven't risked since March. Managed to work out which Netflix episode we'd got up to, and we're optimistic we might be able to finish the series before London locks down again. Sat 19:My Open House tally for the day: 2. Walked 13 miles to visit them and got a nasty blister for my troubles. Sun 20:My Open House tally for the day: 2. Walked less than a mile to visit them. I'd like to apologise to the pastor for pointing out that the church's Easter Garden was still on display. Mon 21: Now that a new bridge has been swung into place over the Lea, two fresh roads have opened in the Olympic Park - Bassett Lane and Sweetwater Place. At present all they do is force drivers to drive a fraction further than before, but by the end of the year Marshgate Lane should be complete all the way through to Waterden Road.
Tue 22: Returned to the library for the first time since March. Booked an appointment before turning up. This turned out not to be necessary. The long queue at the door was for people demanding recycling bags. Sanitiser and Test'n'Trace were required on entry. Only a tiny corner of the library was actually open. Looked at a few shelves without touching the books. Ended up walking away with a sealed bag of six staff-chosen picks. Good choices, thanks. Wed 23: Went to Ryman and bought myself a 2021 diary, just in case non-essential shops become no-go zones later in the year and I end up with nowhere to write down my daily thoughts regarding the ongoing apocalypse. Thu 24: Walked up the narrow staircase from Shad Thames to the southern deck of Tower Bridge and, for the first time in my life, there was nobody else on it. Tourism in central London really is screwed. Fri 25: I'd love to go back to FarthingDowns and Happy Valley down Croydon way, but the next best thing is to listen to the audio trail the Friends have just launched including narration by Martin Jarvis, Joanna Lumley, Benjamin Zephaniah, Miriam Margolyes and Noddy Holder. Sat 26: Hell yes, I just got the balance between gravy granules and boiling water spot on. Sun 27: The Sunday street market in Chatsworth Road is up and running again, with stallholders attempting to flog artisan bread, bijou soap and ethnic concoctions to not enough people. Mon 28: Especially for the four of you who chipped in to tell us that T registrations were used in Scotland in 2007 when TN07 was used in place of SN07 "because nobody wants a numberplate that reads SNOT", I'm delighted to bring you this photo of an authentic TN07 numberplate I spotted today in a Stratford backstreet.
Tue 29: Walking in Victoria Park I had a choice of walking on the left- or right-hand side of a tree-lined avenue. I picked left. Shortly afterwards a large branch fell to the ground on the right, precisely where I'd have been walking. It wouldn't have made a full-on Casualty episode, but it was no twig either. Wed 30: The Google StreetView car drove past me this morning, not so far from home. I look forward to trying to spot myself in a few months time... although I wish I'd worn a nicer shirt.
My trip to the Isle of Thanet two weeks ago began in Ramsgate, continued to Broadstairs and ended up in Margate. It's a favouritewalk, overlooking the sea atop chalk cliffs, doable in four hours and with a convenient station at each end. Here are some snapshots taken after turning the corner at North Foreland to complete my seaside reportage.
✉ Kingsgate Bay brings your geography textbook to life. That is indeed an arch at the end of the beach, and here too are examples of the previous stage in the coastal erosion cycle (a cave) and the subsequent stage (a stack). Thanet council would rather you didn't walk through the middle for fear of falling chalk, but if the tide's in (which it was) that'd stop you anyway. The angle of my photo is deceptive, the arch is no longer attached to the cliffs due to the collapse of a previous arch, which also cut off footpath access to the top of the headland. If geomorphology isn't your thing there's always the Captain Digby, a pub-stroke-restaurant in the shape of a not entirely convincing castle, who overcharge for their car park safe in the knowledge that drivers have nowhere else to go.
✉ Here's a typical bit of north Thanet coastline... rough grassland above not especially high chalk cliffs above a broad concrete promenade above a sweep of beach. This is Palm Bay below Cliftonville, less visited than Walpole Bay to the west and less impressive than BotanyBay to the east. Access from up top to down below is intermittent at best, either via long sloping ramps cutting underneath the clifftop path or down tottering staircases sufficient to deter the casual beachgoer. In livelier seasons, or in normal years, the Jet Ski Cafe dispenses thrills and tea to fans of watersports. The headland in the distance is Foreness Point, home to a water treatment plant whose unsavoury function can be detected as a pungent whiff, so perhaps don't rush to hit the surf.
✉ This bench made me do a double-take. Who is (or was) Hayden, and why would a sarky plaque of this ilk end up affixed to a sea-facing seat? A bout of later Googling confirmed that Hayden Kays is a Margate-based artist, so I suspect he made the plaque as some kind of self-mocking statement... but his website is so comprehensively empty I can't be certain. A little further up the coast I found another memorial bench labelled In Memory Of The Football Season, H Kays 2020, one of a lockdown trio by the same artist (also including In Memory Of Festival Season and In Memory Of Rush Hour Travel). Works for me.
✉ If you fancy swimming in the sea with minimal risk, the Walpole Bay Tidal Pool is for you. Opened in 1937, and designed by the Borough Engineer, it's a huge concrete-edgedenclosure on the foreshore replenished twice a day at high tide with fresh seawater. The two longest sides are 450 feet long and the seaward end 300 feet wide with a maximum water depth of 6 foot 6, according to its Grade II listing. I walked round it once when the tide was out, which was unnerving enough, but didn't fancy risking it with an easterly wind whipping waves towards the outer wall. One family were undertaking some very limited fishing from the breakwater, while a plastic hat bobbed up and down in the water further out as part of a regime of bracing exercise.
✉ There used to be another bathing pool just along the coast at CliftonvilleLido. You can still see the depression where the water isn't, and walk through the complex of decaying buildings onshore where only the Cliff Bar and snooker hall struggle on. What really stands out is the 'Lido' beacon on the roof, a bright orange pillar it's very hard not to photograph, so I did. Another nigh-subterranean building is the Winter Gardens, tucked low behind the esplanade, where Jason Donovan has had to cancel next month but Paul Weller still hopes to play in March. On a windswept weekday afternoon I was more preoccupied by dodging bags of dog poo blown from missed bins and accumulating beside the promenade wall.
✉ Hurrah it's Margate proper, and the tide's out, and the beach is almost empty because it's Thursday afternoon. Normally I'd nip inside the Turner Contemporary for some art, but they've just closed for several months for "a series of capital enhancements" (including improved visitor facilities, redesign of the retail area and enhancements to the digital infrastructure). Dreamland too was very much closed. Instead I got to walk out along the harbourarm past the micro pub to disturb courting teenagers skulking behind the shell lady statue, and to stride unhindered across an enormous crescent of sand. Up on Marine Drive dozens of daytrippers downed pints and guzzled fish and chips at carefully spaced tables, while one Jack the Lad inspected his new leg tattoo as blood slowly dripped through his sterile dressing onto the pavement.
✉ The first building you see as you arrive in Margate, or the last you notice as you head back to the station, is ArlingtonHouse. This 18-storey Brutalist block was completed in 1964, its rippling facade affording residents panoramic views of both countryside and sea. At its base was a 52-store shopping mall, a pub, a filling station and a first floor parking deck. The base has not aged well, its shops now terminallydepleted after a long decline and the car park hired out for visitors to Dreamland. But a 2-bed flat is currently on the market for £140,000, so if you were planning to flee to the seaside for a concrete skyloft here's your chance.
