Random borough (16): Time yet again for me to take another random trip to one of London's 33boroughs. As I write I have no idea which one of the 18 remaining borough names will be revealed when I unfold the slip of paper I'm about to pick from my "special jamjar". I could pick any of London's other boroughs - inner or outer, urban or suburban, small or large, fascinating or dull. I just know it won't be Merton, Islington, Enfield, Sutton, Lewisham, Southwark, Kensington & Chelsea, Hackney, Hillingdon, the City, Bromley, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Haringey or Hounslow because they're the fifteen (dark grey) boroughs I've picked out already. What London delights will I get to inflict upon to my new international audience of Bloggie-voting readers? Will they be treated to the cultural highlights of somewhere central and important, like Westminster or Camden? Or will I be dispatched somewhere rather more peripheral and off-radar, like Harrow or Havering? Watch this space.
Once I've researched my randomly-chosen borough online then I'll head off and visit some of its most interesting places (assuming it has any). As usual I hope to visit somewhere famous, somewhere historic, somewhere pretty, somewhere retail, somewhere sporty and somewhere random. I might even take lots of photographs while I'm at it, if the borough's photogenic enough. Then after I've made my grand tour I'll come back tomorrow and tell you all about it. Let's see where I'm going this time...
Random borough (18): Time yet again for me to take another random trip to one of London's 33boroughs. As I write I have no idea which one of the 16 remaining borough names will be revealed when I unfold the slip of paper I'm about to pick from my legendary (and as-yet unseen) "special jamjar". I could pick any of London's other boroughs - inner or outer, urban or suburban, small or large, Boris or Ken, fascinating or dull. I just know it won't be Merton, Islington, Enfield, Sutton, Lewisham, Southwark, Kensington & Chelsea, Hackney, Hillingdon, the City, Bromley, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Hounslow, Brent or Redbridge because they're the seventeen (dark grey) boroughs I've picked out already.
I'm now embarking upon the second half of my haphazard capital odyssey. There's a fair chunk of East London still to visit, and a few stragglers in southwest London, and a ring of untouched boroughs surrounding Brent, but that's all. Which of these leftovers will be my destination for the day? Will I be treated to the cultural highlights of somewhere central and important, like Westminster or Camden? Or will I be dispatched somewhere rather more peripheral and off-radar, like Harrow or Havering? And will I need to make use of my TfL tube closures leaflet? Watch this space.
Once I've researched my randomly-chosen borough online then I'll head off and visit some of its most interesting places (assuming it has any). As usual I hope to visit somewhere famous, somewhere historic, somewhere pretty, somewhere retail, somewhere sporty and somewhere random. I might even take lots of photographs while I'm at it, if the borough's photogenic enough. Then after I've made my grand tour I'll come back tomorrow and tell you all about it. Let's see where I'm going this time...
It had to happen sooner or later. I spent Saturday trawling around my own backyard, in the historic borough of Tower Hamlets. This is the traditional East End of London, stretching from the City to the River Lea and from the Regent's Canal down to the Thames. It's been the slum end of town for several centuries - where the poor have always lived and where immigrants have always settled. Much of this multicultural borough remains locked in relative poverty, although there are also several pockets of great wealth, especially in the modern financial powerhouse of Docklands. Tower Hamlets may no longer be full of Cockneys, Pearly Queens and people who go round saying "cor blimey guv'nor" all the time, but at least there's still room for a diamond geezer. Ahh, there's no place like home.
Somewhere historic: The Tower of London Despite what you may have thought, the Tower of London isn't in the City of London, it's in Tower Hamlets. How else did you think the borough got its name? William the Conqueror built his great White Tower just outside the walls of the City, in a defensive position beside the Thames. This was London's first highrise building, standing nearly 30 metres tall, and dominating the medieval skyline. Over subsequent centuries the scale of the castle was enlarged, first with one high surrounding wall and then another, until eventually the structure contained a full 20 towers encircled by a deep protective moat [photo]. In Tudor times the Tower became less of a fortress and royal residence and more of a prison and armoury. But only seven prisoners were ever executed here - two of them wives of Henry VIII, and another the unfortunate nine-day queen Lady Jane Grey. Other, less high-profile, prisoners were executed in full public view up on the grassy hump of Tower Hill. And yes, that's (just) in Tower Hamlets too.
Visiting the Tower used to be a one-way ticket - shipped in at high tide through Traitors Gate and locked away in a dingy castle turret to await your fate. Now they let you out again afterwards, but you have to pay £16 for the privilege. Unless you're a Tower Hamlets resident, that is. We're allowed in for a quid, but only during the winter months and only on production of a library or leisure centre card. I didn't have time to go in yesterday, but I did pay up and venture inside 18 months ago if you're interested, and I enjoyed my visit far more than I was expecting. [top tip: arrive early and go straight to the Crown Jewels display - you won't have to queue]
For the cheapskates amongst us, the only way to see the Tower is from the outside. Start on the new sloping concrete plaza leading down to the entrance, where you can watch a genial Beefeater conducting bag searches and rifling through French schoolkids' rucksacks. The souvenir shop is probably best avoided, unless you have a burning desire to own a Beefeater Toby Jug or a Crown Jewels tea towel. You can walk along the riverside cobbles right beside the Tower, peering up at the paying customers on the ramparts inside, although you do at least get to see Traitors Gate for nothing [photo]. Nip up onto Tower Bridge but don't expect a decent view from the centre, not once the riverside avenue of trees is in full leaf. Instead head away from the river and join the hordes of tourists taking photographs from the raised pavement, across the moat to the castellated rooftops beyond. And don't forget to look down into the moat itself, where you should see the Tower seesaw, the Tower roundabout, the Tower climbing frame and the Tower swings [photo]. There's even a neglected Tower tennis court down there, presumably used by the Beefeaters and their families when they think nobody's looking [photo]. Those who've paid £16 don't get to see these gems, oh no, they just get eight ravens with clipped wings, some armour and a few big diamonds.
Plan in advance and it's even possible to visit the Tower for free. There's a catch - you have to arrive at 9:30pm and you can only stay for 35 minutes. But you do get to see the famous Ceremony of the Keys, performed nightly every single day for the last 700 years, before gruff Yeoman Warders eject you from the premises. One day I really must send in my name (and a stamped addressed envelope) and see if they'll allow me to attend. After all, I am local. by train: Tower Hill by bus: 15
Brent, at the heart of northwest London, is the only local authority in the UK to have a majority of its residents born overseas. Communities and high streets around Wembley and beyond now boast a diverse mix of cultures, religions and cuisines. It wasn't always this way. A century ago Metro-land carved a genteel domestic swathe through the heart of the area, where once were only fields and villages. Suburban semis still rule, but the place is changing fast. Yesterday I attempted to catch up.
Somewhere to begin: Brent Museum I doubt that the old Brent Museum had many visitors. It was situated in a converted stable block in the middle of an extremely busy roundabout, just off the North Circular, in the middle of Neasden. Not a location especially conducive to major tourist influx. So the council moved the entire collection, a couple of years ago, and plonked it inside the brand new Willesden Green Library. And what do you know, when I visited on Saturday morning, I was the only person there. Not one other visitor, nor even a single member of staff on duty. Now that's my kind of museum. And I was unexpectedly impressed by the contents. It's not an enormous gallery, but the curators have crammed in all sorts of aspects of Brent-ian life, as it was lived then and as it's lived now. Enough to get you interested, if not deeply satisfied. Read about the world's first speaking clock, and the old Guinness brewery, and Graham Young the schoolboy "Teacup Poisoner". See Neasden FC's Cup Final appearance commemorated on the front cover of Private Eye, and learn about the politicalhomeland of Rhodes Boyson and Ken Livingstone. There's quite a bit about the history of Wembley Stadium, as you might expect, including an actual Olympic torch from 1948. Oh, and in the "special exhibition" room nextdoor, a special exhibition about saris. No really, it was a lot more interesting than it sounds. As I would have told the curator on the way out, had they existed. by tube: Willesden Green by bus: 52, 302
Somewhere random: Chamberlayne Road Few natural events are more random than a tornado. One minute you're sitting at home in your dead ordinary terraced house, and the next the wind is ripping your roof off and hurling tiles through your bedroom window. That's what happened to the residents of Chamberlayne Road in Kensal Rise on the morning of 7th December 2006. You must remember, it was bignews, and surely not only because the tornado touched down within two miles of BBC Television Centre. So how are the residents coping now, just over a year later. Very well, by the looks of it. Most of the damaged houses look completely back to normal, although there are still a well-above-average number of roof repairs being carried out along the western side of one short section of the street. For at least the next few months the path of the tornado is still just about traceable, in scaffolding [photo]. And take a closer look at the side of the house at the junction with Whitmore Gardens [photo]. The exterior wall appears to change from new brick to old brick two-thirds of the way down, because this is the house that had its side completely ripped off by the T4 twister. The poor owner returned home after work that fateful Thursday to find a gaping hole in the side of her largest investment. But time, and insurance, heals all. A very ordinary wind whipped down Chamberlayne Road yesterday, and nobody seemed particularly concerned. by train: Kensal Rise by bus: 6, 52, 302
Somewhere pretty: Kingsbury The great majority of modern-designed homes are routine identikit boxes with limited character. But in Kingsbury, to the north of the borough, a couple of architects once went out of their way to give local residents somewhere really special to live. The aircraft industry came to this part of rural northwest London during World War 1, and workers had nowhere to live. Sir Francis Baines was commissioned to rectify the situation. He designed a compact "garden village" of 270 flats and houses, just over the road from the de Havilland works on Stag Lane, and Roe Green Village was the result. There are a variety of charming buildings, some timber-faced and others plastered, each divided up into two, three or more dwellings [photo]. The homes were cutting edge at the time, though perhaps a little small by later standards. Roads on the estate are narrow and homely, clearly not designed for the motor car, and a sense of rural community still remains. The aircraft industry has long since moved away, of course, but these houses remain an aspirational enclave for those who want to live somewhere with real character.
And then there are Ernest Trobridge's houses on Buck Lane. Oh boy. Whatever was he thinking when he created this handful of eccentric residences? Up on the hilltop, around a single crossroads, are a small cluster of striking individual castellated follies. Some merely have round towers and gothic staircases [photo], but one is a full-on white-painted castle with battlements [photo]. John Betjeman came to pay homage to Highfort Court in his Metro-land documentary, you may remember. These bizarre creations all look like they've seen slightly better days, but it must be a joy to live in one of these houses or maisonettes today. Trobridge's other fascination was grand detached cottages, and there are a fair few of these dotted around the area too. He was a firm believer in the importance of social housing, as was Sir Francis down the road, and in modern Kingsbury it's easy to see where their special influence stops and the "ordinary" interwar semis begin. by tube: Kingsbury by bus: 204, 302
Barnet's big. In terms of population it's the biggest borough in London, and in terms of area, top five. You'll find it beyond Camden, strung out along the two northern branches of the Northern line. Closer in it's quite built up, very suburban, but further out it's hilly and rural, possibly the closest proper countryside to central London. It may be a tightwadborough, well known for slashing spending and cutting services, but that doesn't make Barnet a joyless place. Lots to see, much to do...
Somewhere to begin: Barnet Museum There's been a museum in Wood Street, Barnet, since the 1930s. Back then the town was in Hertfordshire, on a peculiar spur of the Home Counties poking into the heart of Middlesex. The town's more properly known as Chipping Barnet, to distinguish it from all the other Barnets such as East and Friern, and might still be called that had not the tube station been called High. The station was built on the site of the famous annual Barnet Fair, once known for its livestock and horse racing, but now better as rhyming slang for hair. You'll find information about all of this, and lots more besides, inside an early Georgian house just opposite St John's church.
While some local museums are bland, some archaic and others over-modern, Barnet Museum is a veritable hotbed of history. Three floors of rooms are packed with "stuff", more likely unlabelled than not, in a way that genuinely conjures up the way life used to be round these parts. On the ground floor there's an old hearth plus various kitcheny bits in the front room, and full details of the Battle of Barnet in the rear. Downstairs is very girly, all Victorian costumes, lacy hats and samplers. The real meat's upstairs, with a series of thematic displays based around topics such as "light", "truncheons" and "the local bowls club". One cabinet's devoted to the Watson Barnet microscope, another to the Barnet ventilator (a portable "iron lung" which once saved the life of borough-born actor Elizabeth Taylor). Someone here takes collecting royal crockery very seriously, including a century of commemorative cups and mugs, even a 1977 Silver Jubilee paper plate. There's a complete Victorian salon in the room over the stairs, because that's what gets schoolchildren visiting, plus a rather lovely collection of vintage High Street receipts.
The special atmosphere at the museum is primarily due to the number of volunteers bustling about. They're in the entrance hall to welcome you, and maybe sell you a book or postcard from the extremely well-stocked local stash. They're lurking in the office out the back, doing the filing, occasionally popping out with tea. And they're even sitting amongst you, doing real historical work like cataloguing old parish magazines. Budgetary concerns mean there's still a fight ahead to keep the place open. Poor old Church Farmhouse Museum was closed by the council last year, and the building and surrounding gardens are currently up for grabs to the highest bidder ("Grade II* Listed Building For Disposal Freehold/Leasehold"). Barnet Museum survives, for now, because there's some doubt over who precisely owns the lease. But councillors would surely be glad to be rid of the place, because Barnet councillors prefer ready money to heritage, and they probably can't see the point of a collection of old gloves, school registers and tins of powdered egg. But when it's gone, it's gone. And at the moment, up Wood Street, it's decidedly still there. by tube: High Barnet by bus: 107, 184, 263, 307
Somewhere historic: Monken Hadley You can add Monken Hadley to your list of Great London Place Names. The toppermost settlement in Barnet is a delightful village, medieval in origin, with more than its fair share of historic importance. There are winding lanes and duckponds [photo], and a rolling common surrounded by grand houses, but most of all there's a battlefield. One of the most decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses was the Battle of Barnet, fought here on Easter Sunday 1471, which helped to secure the throne for Edward IV. Leading the Lancastrian army was the Earl of Warwick, Richard Neville, erstwhile known as the Kingmaker. He set up camp near Monken Hadley on the Saturday, with Yorkist Edward arriving alongside under cover of darkness. Battle lines were drawn in the early morning, amid fog which made targets uncertain, and the resulting chaos meant the entire conflict was over before breakfast. The Lancastrians lost heavily, and in the ensuing retreat the Earl of Warwick was captured, stabbed and his body mutilated. With opposition crushed, here and at the later Battle of Tewkesbury, Edward would rule England for the next twelve years.
An obelisk to commemorate the Battle of Barnet stands on the main road through Monken Hadley, on a triangular green at Hadley Highstone. It was erected in 1740, and is supposed to mark the spot where Warwick died. Fat chance. It was originally placed 200 metres to the south, but later moved to a convenient space between two rows of cottages, and that was more wishful thinking than fact [photo]. An Ordnance Survey map shows the battle site on private land beyond Dury Road, but even that turns out to be the subject of some conjecture. The true battle was rather more spread out, and current thinking puts the main action a few hundred yards further north... which is just beyond the London border in Hertfordshire. Sssh, let's ignore that awkward possibility, else my random borough visit was entirely unfounded.
But I loved thevillage, even if I didn't stay long. The church is almost as old as the battle, in the perpendicular style, with a reputed "Armada beacon" at the top of the tower [photo]. A gate in the road leads through to Monken Hadley Common - long and thin, and apparently the only surviving remnant of the ancient woodland of Enfield Chase. On Saturday morning the grass was part-covered with frost, most poignantly the bench where My Dearest Bob's wife left a potted bouquet back on Christmas Day [photo]. The pond at the top end of the common, one of the sources of the Pymmes Brook, was swimming with fragments of ice, while a few dogs and joggers braved the cold amongst the occasional patch of sandy gorse. I didn't have time to fully inspect the Georgian mansions hereabouts, at one time home to David Livingstone, Kingsley Amis and Anthony Trollope's mother Fanny. But I reckon this place deserves a summer return visit, and London Loop section 16 looks like a pretty good excuse. by bus: 84, 399
I hate to go on about buses again, quite so soon after my trans-capital epic, but Monken Hadley's two services deserve a mention. On my way there I caught the 84, which is that special bus north to St Albans, the one where you can use Oyster as far as Potters Bar. Except you can't any more. As of two weeks ago the 84 no longer accepts TfL tickets, it's had its Local Service Agreement withdrawn, so I had to stump up hard cash. As a special offer to Oyster holders the fare is only £1.35, although as a Travelcard holder I'd previously paid nothing. So on the way back from Monken Hadley I caught the TfL service instead, the elusive 399, which is one of the most infrequent bus routes in London. Only six buses a day run this way, none before ten and none after three, so I was damned lucky to spot one. I flagged it down by the church (it's Hail & Ride), then rode a handful of stops to The Spires shopping mall... where the driver flipped the blind to become a 389. And that's an even less frequent bus, part of a daily off-peak switcheroo, which I could have caught to one of tomorrow's reports...
» For those fascinated by Barnet, Paul Baker runs historic walks round the town and the surrounding area. Today's guided walk is all about The Battle of Barnet, highly appropriately, and starts at 11am up near Monken Hadley. If you miss it, Paul repeats approximately monthly, or maybe try his ghost walk or Dickensian walk instead.
Somewhere un-famous: Sudbury & Harrow Road station London's most useless railway station is in Brent. It has fewer paying passengers than any of the other 300-or-so stations in the capital. According to official statistics it's used by only 2500 passengers a year. It's no remote halt in the middle of a field, it's in a proper urban location on a busy high street. It's served by trains only during the weekday rush hour, and then only in one direction at a time. It has just nine trains a day - four into town in the morning and five back again in the evening. It is a sorry apology for a station and owners Chiltern Railways clearly treat it with complete indifference. It is Sudbury & Harrow Road. And yes, of course I had to pay a visit.
I wonder if it's a coincidence that the number 18 bendy bus terminates on the Harrow Road precisely outside the entrance to this forlorn station [photo]. Catch the nasty evil articulated bus from here and you could be in Marylebone in less than an hour. Wait for a train and you could be waiting for up to three days. A lone British Rail sign and a tiny purple nameplate mark the station entrance for any would-be passengers. There's no ticket office, just a "Permit to Travel" machine and a pair of freshly-installed Oyster readers [photo]. I suspect that just the one reader would have been sufficient. The bike rack has just four spaces (don't all fight at once). Turn left to enter the dark concrete passage beneath the railway embankment. In a busier station this might smell of urine and sicked-up curry, but not at Sudbury & Harrow Road. I stepped inside, and headed up the central staircase to the station proper [photo].
There are two parallel platforms, a few metres apart, with the top of the stairs forming a small island between the two. If it's raining you can hide beneath the red arched plastic roof, or maybe take a seat on the single central bench. There's room for two, maybe three if you squeeze up close. To the right I spotted a padlocked cupboard containing "Adverse Weather Equipment", and to the left a yellow box labelled "Passenger Help Point" (singular, not plural). Oh, and also a couple of TV display screens transmitting flickering information from Chiltern HQ. These informed me that, not only were there no trains stopping today, there were also no trains running due to planned engineering work. Fantastic, I had this entire remote outpost completely to myself, with no interruptions.
I took a silent stroll from one end of the station [photo] to the other [photo]. Each platform was little more than a long wooden boardwalk, about a metre off the ground, with a spiky slatted fence rising up behind. Between the two lay a forgotten grassy trench, littered with discarded bottles, cans and the odd deflated football. A handful of thin blue lampposts broke the emptiness, on which were stuck scrappy stickers warning the occasional patron not to smoke [photo]. From Platform 1 I had a fine view down into the back gardens of Sudbury, towards rickety sheds and washing lines pegged out with damp undergarments. And down in Harrow Road were scores of people rushing around, buying this and that, rushing hither and thither, and queueing to catch a bus to somewhere else.
It's a shame that so few local residents look up to the embankment for a means of escape, but perhaps not surprising given that this station merits such a pitifully irregular service. 45 trains a week is no way to build up a regular clientèle, and so the vicious underfunded circle of transport decline continues. "The next train to London Marylebone will depart in 2500 minutes." I headed back down the stairs to the bus stop, and the station returned to timetabled hibernation. by tube: Sudbury Town[photo] by bus: 18, 92, 182, 245
After a long hiatus for redevelopment, it was good to stride up Wembley Way on Saturday afternoon amidst a crowd of expectant spectators. They poured from the tube station, past the hot dog stalls and the ice cream van, heading south towards the epicentre of English football. But quite a strange crowd to be attending a big match, I thought. Almost all female (with just the odd bewildered husband tagging along), most over 50 or under 15, and not a stripy scarf in sight. So I wasn't entirely surprised when we reached the twin ramps up to the stadium and they continued onward at ground level and around the corner towards Wembley Arena. To attend the matinée performance of Strictly Come Dancing Live, as it turned out. The strictly macho stadium remained mostly untroubled by visitors, bar a few of us curious souls keen to view the arched wonder up close.
The wind whipped round the elevated concrete promenade. Up on level two the bronze figure of BobbyMoore stood watching over the stadium approach, a large St George's flag fluttering limply behind behind his right shoulder [photo]. Every 15 minutes or so a group of paid-up tourists emerged from the glass doors of "Club Wembley" to stand at his feet as their guide related the tale of our glorious 1966 World Cup victory. I understand that the rest of their £15 tour included rather more exclusive locations such as the Royal Box, the changing rooms and the Wembley Stadium Tour Cafe. Plus, of course, the official shop where you can purchase a souvenir tankard, a teddy bear or a patch of turf to remember your visit. Not for me. I held back for a few minutes to attempt to take a photograph that didn't contain a shaven-headed fan gawping in excited adulation [photo]. And then I continued on my free circumnavigation of the giant glass bowl. Which was closed.
The stadium has several entrances, all of them securely fastened with impregnable shiny metal doors when no event is underway. A long list of regulations informs spectators what they can and can't bring inside [photo]. No darts, air horns or explosives (obviously). No cameras, radios or umbrellas (good grief, I wonder how many unwitting visitors get those confiscated when they attempt to attend a concert or match). And no balls. One hopes that the England football team aren't required to abide by that last one.
What you can see from the outside of the stadium is the curved glass wall that rises up several storeys into the sky [photo], and the great white arch above. Ahh, the Wembley Arch, a simple enough idea but so magnificently realised. It rises out of the walkway on opposite sides of the stadium, bolted into the ground with a big concrete plug, and launches into the sky in a sweeping white-piped curve [photo]. You don't really get a sense of its enormity from up close, but you do get some excellent arch-y reflections in the building as you walk round the perimeter [photo][photo]. And you get some mighty fine views out across the surrounding area, just as they can see right back towards the arch even from several miles away [photo].
Time your visit right and you might end up sharing most of your walk only with a couple of bored-looking security guards. Or time your visit right and you might end being swept along by a crowd of jubilant spectators celebrating a glorious national victory. It's all or nothing at the New Wembley. by tube: Wembley Park by bus: 92, PR2
Somewhere random: Norbiton/Surbiton Two 1970s BBC sitcoms sealed this area's reputation as quintessential suburbia. Both featured stuck-in-a-rut locals turning their back on the rat race, much to the amazement of friends and family. In one the main protagonist faked his own suicide, and in the other a middle-aged couple ploughed up their garden to go self sufficient. I wonder how many Reggies, Toms and Barbaras there are around Kingston today.
Reggie Perrin lived in the fictional suburb of Climthorpe. Its location was never specifically stated, but the opening minutes of episode 1 show Reggie walking through through a succession of residential streets to board the 8:16 at Norbiton station. There was always some reason why his train was 11 minutes late, and the offending disruption was usually at some local station like New Malden or Berrylands, so that's evidence enough. Not that the BBC filmed any of the rest of the series round here. Shots of Coleridge Close, from which Reggie set out every morning, were actually filmed in Beaufort Close in Ealing. His routine walk through the avenues of the Poets Estate was filmed in W5 too, but I guess ending up at Park Royal tube station was never an option.
Norbiton station is a fairly ordinary halt on the Kingston loop, boasting little more than two platforms and a pedestrian subway underneath. One one side of the tracks the residential avenues start straight away, while on the other side there's a car park, a newsagent and a funeral directors. Here too is Hanover House - a squat brown office block that's ugly enough to be a modern Sunshine Desserts. The whole station area is overshadowed by the backside of Kingston Hospital. I discovered later that David Cameron had been inside visiting the maternity unit at precisely the same time I'd been walking by, but all I saw was a lone medical underling sneaked out for a quick fag.
Tom and Barbara Good, meanwhile, very definitely lived in Surbiton. Even the name screams "suburbia", in this the last London outpost before the Thames slips quietly into Surrey. Their house was supposedly in The Avenue, although again the BBC used artistic licence and did all the filming outside a house in Northwood. But a few local scenes were slipped in, notably of Surbiton's unmistakeable station, plus use of a number 71 bus when Lenin the chicken attempted to escape.
Surbiton may have a stereotypical reputation, but I was pleasantly surprised by the place. Independent shopping retains its niche here, from a proper florists by the station to the Regency Bookshop at the foot of Victoria Road. Peering in through the coffee shop windows I spotted several well-to-do couples - modern-day Margo and Jerrys - perhaps preparing to head off to Dollie Mountshaft's Music Society or Mrs Dooms-Patterson's Pony Club. It's easy to see why people might settle here, tempted by near-river terraces or sweeping exclusive drives. But I also noted that the old Woolworths had been taken over by a lowly 99p store, so presumably there are still plenty of Tom and Barbara types ekeing out a less than good life hereabouts. by train: a) Norbiton; b) Surbiton
Somewhere sporty: AFC Wimbledon, Kingsmeadow No, of course Wimbledon football club don't play in Wimbledon. The original team upped sticks to Milton Keynes (where the money was better), while a fresh club continuing the old south London spirit attempted to continue nearby. With no home of their own they crossed into the neighbouring borough and entered a ground-sharing deal with Kingstonian. Several seasons, and promotions, later they're riding high in the Blue Square Premier League and on their way to maybe overtaking their upstart Midlands impostors. But not yet.
AFC Wimbledon's stadium is a non-photogenic arena on the banks of the Hogsmill River. Accessed beneath an arch on Jack Goodchild Way, the outer shell has the look of a row of cheap warehouses on a trading estate. The main stand is sponsored by a roofing company, not that it looks especially sturdy. Far more unlikely a sponsor is the independent record label who've conspired to name this The Cherry Red Records Fans' Stadium. Thankfully 'Kingsmeadow' will do for most users. Not that there were any users when I turned up on Saturday morning. Four hours from kick-off (although admittedly for lesser partners Kingstonian), there wasn't a soul in sight. Nobody tweaking the pitch, nobody firing up the hotdogs and absolutely nobody practising a few last minute ball skills. It'll no doubt be busier on Tuesday night when AFCW host an end-of-season battle against the not-so mighty Grays Athletic. And one day, who knows, even those blessed MK Dons might find their team coach pulling in here. London can but hope. by train: Norbiton by bus: 131, K5
This was going to be my post on 9th September, the day after this blog's 20th anniversary, but the Queen put paid to that. Better late than never.
20 years of blogging takes a lot of filling. Since 2002 I've published 9496 different posts, which is at least one a day for over 1000 weeks (bar a few Christmas breaks in the early days). That's acres of screenspace to pack with maybe six million words, several thousand photos and a ridiculously high number of weblinks. It's fortunate I live in London which is possibly the world's most interesting city, but filling the blog has required an eclectic spread of content, indeed a non-stop torrent of inspiration because an empty template doesn't fill itself.
Here then are 20 of my biggest content-fillers over the last 20 years, i.e. themed series that went on for ages or came back time after time, presented as a clickable index. Maybe bookmark it for a future rainy day.
1) Open House(2002-2022)
London's finest architectural showcase has appeared on this blog every September since 2002 because it's the ideal opportunity to look at, and more importantly inside, hundreds of fascinating buildings. I usually get several posts out of it - the total must be approaching 100 by now - although I've been less enamoured with it of late. The absence of a detailed printed guide and a revamped website with a search facility resembling a brantub has made it much harder to spot this year's bighitters and one-offs, not to mention trickier to knock up an itinerary, plus I've been to a lot of the good ones already and blimey they were great.
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2) Single Life(2002-2019)
This was my first 'hit', a paean to the pros and cons of being coupled up. I wrote it three years after jettisoning from a long-term relationship, and came back and posted a slightly longer version (with added misbehaviour) every year thereafter. I paused after 10 years, having healed a bit, and I post it a lot less often these days. But unless one of you finally gets it on with me in the near future expect to read it again in 2024 for my (sob) 25th anniversary.
3) Quizzes and puzzles(2003-2022)
A recurring theme on this blog is that I like to throw in a quiz or a puzzle every now and then, usually when you're least expecting it. I enjoy how my readership come together to generate a full solution, one guess at a time, sometimes in minutes and occasionally over several hours. There are far too many of these one-off posts to catalogue here, but you can always track them down by going to my annual index post (see sidebar →) where I list all those from each year.
4) The Count(2003-2022)
This was just me countingthings, nothing interesting, although by describing the final tally as 'The Mystery Count' I unintentionally unleashed a beast which continues to bemuse and baffle. It also elevated the humble bottle of Becks to cultural significance, and basically everyone should try counting things for a month every year otherwise how on earth do you discover how your life is evolving?
5) Local History Month(2003-2019)
This is possibly the longstanding series I'm most proud of. A new theme every summer in multiple parts involving a relentless focus on somewhere local, and all without trying to scare the audience away. I particularly enjoyed the long walks following boundaries or lines of latitude and the really long walks following certain rivers. One series which might have helped cement this blog's reputation was my travelogue along the River Fleet, especially because this was back in 2005 when historic internet content was hard to source so it was tricky to be definitive, but I still got a monthsworth out of it. Go local, go deep.
» August 2003:Where I live(famous places within 15 minutes of my house)
» August 2004:Piccadilly(a walk down Mayfair's most famous street)
» August 2005:the River Fleet(tracking the subterranean river)[photos]
» August 2006:Betjeman's Metro-land(Baker Street to Verney Junction)[photos]
» August 2007:Walk London(following bits of London's six strategic walks)[photos]
» August 2008:High Street 2012(the Olympic highway from Aldgate to Stratford)[photos]
» August 2009:Walking the Lea Valley(50 miles from Luton to Leamouth)[photos]
» August 2010:Not-London 2012(Exploring Olympic venues outside the capital)[photos]
» July/August 2012:The OlympicGames(at the end of my street)[photos]
» September 2013:Walking the New River(a 400th birthday stroll)[photos]
» August 2014:London Borough Tops(the highest point in 33 boroughs)[photos]
» August 2015:Round Tower(a walk round the edge of Tower Hamlets)[photos]
» August 2018:51½°N(crossing London on a line of latitude)[photos]
» August 2019:Ten false starts(a clutch of single-post series)
6) Tube Week(2003-2012)
Here's where I started letting my nerdy side run riot. A whole week of tube-related content including reportage, facts and a daily quiz, and then somehow the same again for nine more years. I threw in an Overground Week in 2017 but haven't been back to this feature since, and maybe I should given that some of you would simply salivate at the thought. There must be more alphabetical challenges, quirky gatelines and Next Train Indicators installed by cretins out there by now.
» 2003200420052006200720082009201020112012
7) Riding a bus route(2003-2022)
I spotted early that a great way to blog about London was to describe what you could see from a bus (and the characters aboard it too). I started with a week of Cube Routes (1, 8, 27, 64, 125, 216, N343), followed that up with Square Routes and Prime Movers, then tackled chains of buses across and around the capital. I've also featured an alphabetof buses, London's ten shortest routes, even a trek along the North Circular, but the really fun one is my 'birthday bus ride' which I started at 42 and most recently reached the 57 to Kingston. London's bus routes offer an endless stream of potential content that's nowhere near exhausted.
9) Bow Road Update(2004-2005)
When Metronet arrived to upgrade my local tube station I got somewhat obsessive in recording what they were doing. This soon turned into recording what they weren't doing, because Bow Road was a guinea pig station and Metronet proved to be an entirely incompetent infraco. So slow and substandard was their transformation that I blogged about if relentlessly and eventually Evening Standard journalist Andrew Gilligan rang me up to get the full story. His subsequent expose was dismissed by the Chairman of Metronet thus: "Articles which refer to an unnamed passenger's account having travelled through a station quite frankly are not worthy of any detailed examination", so that told me. But Metronet went bust shortly afterwards so I'm claiming the last laugh there.
10) My new Z470xi mobile (2007)
Oh this was fun. I suddenly accelerated my blogposts by a week, claiming I had a mysterious new phone, and then unfolded an increasingly-desperate tale of impending apocalypse on and under the streets of London. I never told you what I was doing, just left you to work out I'd gone full-on fictional, and at the very end of the month went totally silent as if the worst had come to pass. I'm not sure I could get away with anything like this again, but it was very enjoyable to write.
11) London Loop(2007-2017)/Capital Ring(2011)
I walked both of these walks in short bursts, not necessarily in order, and spread my rambles over a number of years. My reports on each section are therefore all over the place, and the older ones are also much less detailed than the newer ones because I've ramped up the amount I write over the years. What's been useful is that a lot of you have walked these paths too so mentioning 'London Loop section X' provides a useful hook on which to hang many blogposts from the suburbs. Hurry up Ramblers, I'm ready to walk your new routes.
12) AnorakCorner(2007-2022)
I first started taking an interest in Underground and National Rail passenger numbers in 2007, knocking up lists of most- and (more excitingly) least-used stations on each network. Back then these statistics often went unnoticed for days, even weeks, whereas now the release of the annual National Rail passenger count is a full-on bandwagon-rolling press jamboree. I'd like to think that interest in "the least used station in administrative area X" might have started here, but I may just be deluding myself. Latest versions are here (each with links back to all the older versions): [rail][tube][bus]
13) PR emails I have received(2009-2022)
Even though I don't reprocess press releases or pump out sponsored posts, marketing minions still send me emails hoping that I might. I then delight in summarising their weasel phrases, with all brand names withdrawn, and totally ripping the piss. I don't receive as many as I did, thank god, but even last week I received a missive from Gene which ended "Reply something if you're interested. We're humans and love to help each other, don't we?". No Gene, not when they're as lickspittly mercenary as you.
14) Lost Rivers(2010)/Unlost Rivers(2015-2019)
After I totally failed to write a book on lost rivers for Penguin Random House I went ahead and wrote it anyway, but published it in monthly chunks on this blog instead. "Look," I said to myself, "I could have researched and catalogued the Tyburn, Neckinger and Bollo Brook with full pictorial evidence after all." Since then I've also gone on to walk many an unlost unculverted river, from the Dollis Brook to the River Shuttle, and in good news I still have several more to go. London blogging doesn't get much more quintessentially psychogeographical than this.
15) Beyond London(2014-2017)
After I'd emptied my jamjar I went on to explore the 17 local authority areas immediately outside Greater London. I started in Dartford and ended in Thurrock, heading out on a Saturday to visit four sites of interest and then forcing myself to write about them. Travelling was sometimes hard because transport's less good beyond London, but my explorations really helped in knitting together a mental picture of what the inner Home Counties look like. Also I don't think I'd ever have thought to go to Lowewood Museum, Stoke Poges and Titsey Hall otherwise.
2014: Dartford, Sevenoaks, Tandridge, Reigate & Banstead, Epsom & Ewell
2015: Mole Valley, Elmbridge, Spelthorne, Slough, South Bucks
2016: Three Rivers, Hertsmere, Welwyn Hatfield, Broxbourne, Epping Forest
2017: Brentwood, Thurrock
16) Bus Stop M(2015-2017)
My local bus stop should never have reached legendary status, but a chain of muck-ups during the installation of a segregated cycle superhighway lane brought it to unexpected prominence. If only they hadn't closed a bus stop by moving its pole 200m up the road and then forgetting to update all the electronic data that went along with it, maybe 20% of the debacle could have been avoided. I'm pleased to say Bus Stop M's a lot more stable now - it even has its own Countdown display - although nobody's ever replaced the spider map someone removed in 2020, and I'd be much obliged if someone at TfL could print one out and slap it back up.
19) Unblogged(2018-2022)
I've now brought you four years of these snippety summary posts, one per month, listing one thing per day I never told you about at the time. Sometimes it's quite trivial, sometimes it's something that would never have deserved a post of its own and sometimes it's deliberately obtuse because I have no intention of telling you what it really is. A special hello to the misguided optimists who, having read the phrase "questions will not be answered", go ahead and ask one anyway. One day I will learn to write these unblogged posts as the month progresses, but I always seem to end up rushing it all at the end.
20) The Olympics(2002-2022)
I can't finish without mentioning the Olympics, an ultra-local project which tentativelyemerged at the start of my blog, peaked in the middle with the Gamesthemselves and is still reverberating through the Lower Lea Valley today. The 2012 Olympics has undoubtedly generated more column inches on this blog than any other single topic, thanks to the simple accident of me unintentionally living nextdoor, so brace yourself for a lot more. The five-ring circus never goes away.
Random borough (16): Time yet again for me to take another random trip to one of London's 33 boroughs. As I write I have no idea which one of the 18 remaining borough names will be revealed when I unfold the slip of paper I'm about to pick from my "special jamjar". I could pick any of London's other boroughs - inner or outer, urban or suburban, small or large, fascinating or dull. I just know it won't be Merton, Islington, Enfield, Sutton, Lewisham, Southwark, Kensington & Chelsea, Hackney, Hillingdon, the City, Bromley, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Haringey or Hounslow because they're the fifteen (dark grey) boroughs I've picked out already. What London delights will I get to inflict upon to my new international audience of Bloggie-voting readers? Will they be treated to the cultural highlights of somewhere central and important, like Westminster or Camden? Or will I be dispatched somewhere rather more peripheral and off-radar, like Harrow or Havering? Watch this space.
Random borough (18): Time yet again for me to take another random trip to one of London's 33 boroughs. As I write I have no idea which one of the 16 remaining borough names will be revealed when I unfold the slip of paper I'm about to pick from my legendary (and as-yet unseen) "special jamjar". I could pick any of London's other boroughs - inner or outer, urban or suburban, small or large, Boris or Ken, fascinating or dull. I just know it won't be Merton, Islington, Enfield, Sutton, Lewisham, Southwark, Kensington & Chelsea, Hackney, Hillingdon, the City, Bromley, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Hounslow, Brent or Redbridge because they're the seventeen (dark grey) boroughs I've picked out already.
Despite what you may have thought, the Tower of London isn't in the City of London, it's in Tower Hamlets. How else did you think the borough got its name? William the Conqueror built his great White Tower just outside the walls of the City, in a defensive position beside the Thames. This was London's first highrise building, standing nearly 30 metres tall, and dominating the medieval skyline. Over subsequent centuries the scale of the castle was enlarged, first with one high surrounding wall and then another, until eventually the structure contained a full 20 towers encircled by a deep protective moat [photo]. In Tudor times the Tower became less of a fortress and royal residence and more of a prison and armoury. But only seven prisoners were ever executed here - two of them wives of Henry VIII, and another the unfortunate nine-day queen Lady Jane Grey. Other, less high-profile, prisoners were executed in full public view up on the grassy hump of Tower Hill. And yes, that's (just) in Tower Hamlets too.
For the cheapskates amongst us, the only way to see the Tower is from the outside. Start on the new sloping concrete plaza leading down to the entrance, where you can watch a genial Beefeater conducting bag searches and rifling through French schoolkids' rucksacks. The souvenir shop is probably best avoided, unless you have a burning desire to own a Beefeater Toby Jug or a Crown Jewels tea towel. You can walk along the riverside cobbles right beside the Tower, peering up at the paying customers on the ramparts inside, although you do at least get to see Traitors Gate for nothing [photo]. Nip up onto Tower Bridge but don't expect a decent view from the centre, not once the riverside avenue of trees is in full leaf. Instead head away from the river and join the hordes of tourists taking photographs from the raised pavement, across the moat to the castellated rooftops beyond. And don't forget to look down into the moat itself, where you should see the Tower seesaw, the Tower roundabout, the Tower climbing frame and the Tower swings [photo]. There's even a neglected Tower tennis court down there, presumably used by the Beefeaters and their families when they think nobody's looking [photo]. Those who've paid £16 don't get to see these gems, oh no, they just get eight ravens with clipped wings, some armour and a few big diamonds.
I doubt that the old Brent Museum had many visitors. It was situated in a converted stable block in the middle of an extremely busy roundabout, just off the North Circular, in the middle of Neasden. Not a location especially conducive to major tourist influx. So the council moved the entire collection, a couple of years ago, and plonked it inside the brand new Willesden Green Library. And what do you know, when I visited on Saturday morning, I was the only person there. Not one other visitor, nor even a single member of staff on duty. Now that's my kind of museum. And I was unexpectedly impressed by the contents. It's not an enormous gallery, but the curators have crammed in all sorts of aspects of Brent-ian life, as it was lived then and as it's lived now. Enough to get you interested, if not deeply satisfied. Read about the world's first speaking clock, and the old Guinness brewery, and Graham Young the schoolboy "Teacup Poisoner". See Neasden FC's Cup Final appearance commemorated on the front cover of Private Eye, and learn about the political homeland of Rhodes Boyson and Ken Livingstone. There's quite a bit about the history of Wembley Stadium, as you might expect, including an actual Olympic torch from 1948. Oh, and in the "special exhibition" room nextdoor, a special exhibition about saris. No really, it was a lot more interesting than it sounds. As I would have told the curator on the way out, had they existed.
Few natural events are more random than a tornado. One minute you're sitting at home in your dead ordinary terraced house, and the next the wind is ripping your roof off and hurling tiles through your bedroom window. That's what happened to the residents of Chamberlayne Road in Kensal Rise on the morning of 7th December 2006. You must remember, it was big news, and surely not only because the tornado touched down within two miles of BBC Television Centre. So how are the residents coping now, just over a year later. Very well, by the looks of it. Most of the damaged houses look completely back to normal, although there are still a well-above-average number of roof repairs being carried out along the western side of one short section of the street. For at least the next few months the path of the tornado is still just about traceable, in scaffolding [photo]. And take a closer look at the side of the house at the junction with Whitmore Gardens [photo]. The exterior wall appears to change from new brick to old brick two-thirds of the way down, because this is the house that had its side completely ripped off by the T4 twister. The poor owner returned home after work that fateful Thursday to find a gaping hole in the side of her largest investment. But time, and insurance, heals all. A very ordinary wind whipped down Chamberlayne Road yesterday, and nobody seemed particularly concerned.
The great majority of modern-designed homes are routine identikit boxes with limited character. But in Kingsbury, to the north of the borough, a couple of architects once went out of their way to give local residents somewhere really special to live. The aircraft industry came to this part of rural northwest London during World War 1, and workers had nowhere to live. Sir Francis Baines was commissioned to rectify the situation. He designed a compact "garden village" of 270 flats and houses, just over the road from the de Havilland works on Stag Lane, and Roe Green Village was the result. There are a variety of charming buildings, some timber-faced and others plastered, each divided up into two, three or more dwellings [photo]. The homes were cutting edge at the time, though perhaps a little small by later standards. Roads on the estate are narrow and homely, clearly not designed for the motor car, and a sense of rural community still remains. The aircraft industry has long since moved away, of course, but these houses remain an aspirational enclave for those who want to live somewhere with real character.
And then there are Ernest Trobridge's houses on Buck Lane. Oh boy. Whatever was he thinking when he created this handful of eccentric residences? Up on the hilltop, around a single crossroads, are a small cluster of striking individual castellated follies. Some merely have round towers and gothic staircases [photo], but one is a full-on white-painted castle with battlements [photo]. John Betjeman came to pay homage to Highfort Court in his Metro-land documentary, you may remember. These bizarre creations all look like they've seen slightly better days, but it must be a joy to live in one of these houses or maisonettes today. Trobridge's other fascination was grand detached cottages, and there are a fair few of these dotted around the area too. He was a firm believer in the importance of social housing, as was Sir Francis down the road, and in modern Kingsbury it's easy to see where their special influence stops and the "ordinary" interwar semis begin.
There's been a museum in Wood Street, Barnet, since the 1930s. Back then the town was in Hertfordshire, on a peculiar spur of the Home Counties poking into the heart of Middlesex. The town's more properly known as Chipping Barnet, to distinguish it from all the other Barnets such as East and Friern, and might still be called that had not the tube station been called High. The station was built on the site of the famous annual Barnet Fair, once known for its livestock and horse racing, but now better as rhyming slang for hair. You'll find information about all of this, and lots more besides, inside an early Georgian house just opposite St John's church.
The special atmosphere at the museum is primarily due to the number of volunteers bustling about. They're in the entrance hall to welcome you, and maybe sell you a book or postcard from the extremely well-stocked local stash. They're lurking in the office out the back, doing the filing, occasionally popping out with tea. And they're even sitting amongst you, doing real historical work like cataloguing old parish magazines. Budgetary concerns mean there's still a fight ahead to keep the place open. Poor old Church Farmhouse Museum was closed by the council last year, and the building and surrounding gardens are currently up for grabs to the highest bidder ("Grade II* Listed Building For Disposal Freehold/Leasehold"). Barnet Museum survives, for now, because there's some doubt over who precisely owns the lease. But councillors would surely be glad to be rid of the place, because Barnet councillors prefer ready money to heritage, and they probably can't see the point of a collection of old gloves, school registers and tins of powdered egg. But when it's gone, it's gone. And at the moment, up Wood Street, it's decidedly still there.
You can add Monken Hadley to your list of Great London Place Names. The toppermost settlement in Barnet is a delightful village, medieval in origin, with more than its fair share of historic importance. There are winding lanes and duckponds [photo], and a rolling common surrounded by grand houses, but most of all there's a battlefield. One of the most decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses was the Battle of Barnet, fought here on Easter Sunday 1471, which helped to secure the throne for Edward IV. Leading the Lancastrian army was the Earl of Warwick, Richard Neville, erstwhile known as the Kingmaker. He set up camp near Monken Hadley on the Saturday, with Yorkist Edward arriving alongside under cover of darkness. Battle lines were drawn in the early morning, amid fog which made targets uncertain, and the resulting chaos meant the entire conflict was over before breakfast. The Lancastrians lost heavily, and in the ensuing retreat the Earl of Warwick was captured, stabbed and his body mutilated. With opposition crushed, here and at the later Battle of Tewkesbury, Edward would rule England for the next twelve years.
But I loved the village, even if I didn't stay long. The church is almost as old as the battle, in the perpendicular style, with a reputed "Armada beacon" at the top of the tower [photo]. A gate in the road leads through to Monken Hadley Common - long and thin, and apparently the only surviving remnant of the ancient woodland of Enfield Chase. On Saturday morning the grass was part-covered with frost, most poignantly the bench where My Dearest Bob's wife left a potted bouquet back on Christmas Day [photo]. The pond at the top end of the common, one of the sources of the Pymmes Brook, was swimming with fragments of ice, while a few dogs and joggers braved the cold amongst the occasional patch of sandy gorse. I didn't have time to fully inspect the Georgian mansions hereabouts, at one time home to David Livingstone, Kingsley Amis and Anthony Trollope's mother Fanny. But I reckon this place deserves a summer return visit, and London Loop section 16 looks like a pretty good excuse.
London's most useless railway station is in Brent. It has fewer paying passengers than any of the other 300-or-so stations in the capital. According to official statistics it's used by only 2500 passengers a year. It's no remote halt in the middle of a field, it's in a proper urban location on a busy high street. It's served by trains only during the weekday rush hour, and then only in one direction at a time. It has just nine trains a day - four into town in the morning and five back again in the evening. It is a sorry apology for a station and owners Chiltern Railways clearly treat it with complete indifference. It is Sudbury & Harrow Road. And yes, of course I had to pay a visit.
There are two parallel platforms, a few metres apart, with the top of the stairs forming a small island between the two. If it's raining you can hide beneath the red arched plastic roof, or maybe take a seat on the single central bench. There's room for two, maybe three if you squeeze up close. To the right I spotted a padlocked cupboard containing "Adverse Weather Equipment", and to the left a yellow box labelled "Passenger Help Point" (singular, not plural). Oh, and also a couple of TV display screens transmitting flickering information from Chiltern HQ. These informed me that, not only were there no trains stopping today, there were also no trains running due to planned engineering work. Fantastic, I had this entire remote outpost completely to myself, with no interruptions.
Obviously. Where else. But I've written about Wembley Stadium several times on this blog before. Of Watkin's folly (1896), and the Empire Exhibition (1924), and the Olympic Games (1948). But I've never yet written about the revamped rebuilt stadium (2007). So here goes.
The wind whipped round the elevated concrete promenade. Up on level two the bronze figure of Bobby Moore stood watching over the stadium approach, a large St George's flag fluttering limply behind behind his right shoulder [photo]. Every 15 minutes or so a group of paid-up tourists emerged from the glass doors of "Club Wembley" to stand at his feet as their guide related the tale of our glorious 1966 World Cup victory. I understand that the rest of their £15 tour included rather more exclusive locations such as the Royal Box, the changing rooms and the Wembley Stadium Tour Cafe. Plus, of course, the official shop where you can purchase a souvenir tankard, a teddy bear or a patch of turf to remember your visit. Not for me. I held back for a few minutes to attempt to take a photograph that didn't contain a shaven-headed fan gawping in excited adulation [photo]. And then I continued on my free circumnavigation of the giant glass bowl. Which was closed.
What you can see from the outside of the stadium is the curved glass wall that rises up several storeys into the sky [photo], and the great white arch above. Ahh, the Wembley Arch, a simple enough idea but so magnificently realised. It rises out of the walkway on opposite sides of the stadium, bolted into the ground with a big concrete plug, and launches into the sky in a sweeping white-piped curve [photo]. You don't really get a sense of its enormity from up close, but you do get some excellent arch-y reflections in the building as you walk round the perimeter [photo][photo]. And you get some mighty fine views out across the surrounding area, just as they can see right back towards the arch even from several miles away [photo].
Reggie Perrin lived in the fictional suburb of Climthorpe. Its location was never specifically stated, but the opening minutes of episode 1 show Reggie walking through through a succession of residential streets to board the 8:16 at Norbiton station. There was always some reason why his train was 11 minutes late, and the offending disruption was usually at some local station like New Malden or Berrylands, so that's evidence enough. Not that the BBC filmed any of the rest of the series round here. Shots of Coleridge Close, from which Reggie set out every morning, were actually filmed in Beaufort Close in Ealing. His routine walk through the avenues of the Poets Estate was filmed in W5 too, but I guess ending up at Park Royal tube station was never an option.
Tom and Barbara Good, meanwhile, very definitely lived in Surbiton. Even the name screams "suburbia", in this the last London outpost before the Thames slips quietly into Surrey. Their house was supposedly in The Avenue, although again the BBC used artistic licence and did all the filming outside a house in Northwood. But a few local scenes were slipped in, notably of Surbiton's unmistakeable station, plus use of a number 71 bus when Lenin the chicken attempted to escape.
No, of course Wimbledon football club don't play in Wimbledon. The original team upped sticks to Milton Keynes (where the money was better), while a fresh club continuing the old south London spirit attempted to continue nearby. With no home of their own they crossed into the neighbouring borough and entered a ground-sharing deal with Kingstonian. Several seasons, and promotions, later they're riding high in the Blue Square Premier League and on their way to maybe overtaking their upstart Midlands impostors. But not yet.
