diamond geezer

Monday, May 26, 2008

Bus 135: Crossharbour (Asda) - Old Street
Location: London east
Length of journey: 7 miles, 50 minutes

A new bus to link Canary Wharf to the City. It's amazing there hasn't been one before. So they launched it on a Saturday on a bank holiday weekend, presumably to give the drivers three days to get the hang of the route before the passengers turned up. Everything should be working fine by Tuesday.

I stood for nearly half an hour outside the Asda superstore on the Isle of Dogs, waiting for a 135 to whisk me away. Lots of 135s arrived and proceeded to circle the car park, but none ready for the beleaguered shoppers of E14 to board. Most of Asda's bus-bound customers were either old or obese, struggling from the entrance laden with carrier bags filled with toilet rolls or pushing a tartan trolley piled high with 3 for 2 tins. Not all of Docklands goes to Waitrose. Time passed. A 135 stopped by the bus stop so that an inspector could push a rubber strip back beneath the door-opening mechanism. They're brand new these buses, which is why the vehicle I eventually boarded smelt like fresh rubber rather than sweat and chips.

And straight into a stretch of roadworks, and off on diversion. The 135 will normally be scheduled to run round half of the Isle of Dogs, but my bus managed to tour the lot. All the way round the Thames loop from top right to top left, with barely a river view in sight. Passengers waiting in Manchester Road were perplexed. Not only was our 135 an unknown quantity, it wasn't supposed to be passing their stop anyway. The on-board audio description service also failed to cope with the change of route. Rather than announcing the next stop, a disembodied female voice repeatedly declared <This bus terminates here> until, thankfully, the driver switched her off.

An aside: Is it just me, or does anybody else find these "route-related service information" announcements really annoying? <135... to... Old Street> I don't mind being told what the next stop is, that's rather useful. <West India Avenue> But I am pig sick of being told, every single time the bus stops, what number it is <135... to... Old Street> and where it's going. <135... to... Old Street> Yes, I know it's a bloody 135 to Old Street, I wouldn't have got on board otherwise. <135... to... Old Street> Shut up! Some of these audio systems even operate in persistent nagging mode, repeating a limited repertoire of nannying announcements inbetween every stop. <Please take all litter with you when you exit the bus> <If you see an unattended bag, please tell the driver> <Closed circuit television is in operation on this bus> <Vandalism on London buses is a criminal offence> <135... to... Old Street> And TfL think this is a good thing? I am increasingly tired of being treated like an ignorant criminal every time I travel. <135... to... Old Street> Please, somebody make it stop.
The first part of my 135 journey was a mind-numbing waste of time. It's only half a mile, direct, from Crossharbour to Canada Square, but we took 20 minutes via the indirect not-quite scenic route. It would have been far quicker to walk. Even threading between the gleaming towers at Canary Wharf seemed to take forever, not helped by having to pause at jobsworth security barriers while private vehicles ahead of us were lightly scrutinised. Only when we escaped out onto the Commercial Road did our progress finally quicken.

In Limehouse I spotted someone I'd always believed existed but had never previously seen - the Bus Stop Route Number Updater. He was a cropped tanned bloke with a fag in his mouth, sitting in the back of a scruffy truck by the roadside. In his lap was the "Exmouth Estate" bus stop information board, and in his left hand a plastic bag full of fresh shiny "135" tiles. As I watched he shuffled the existing numbers around, a bit like one of those 4×4 plastic puzzles you find inside crackers, until the top row read "15 115 135". Jackpot. His handiwork can now be seen at bus stops all along the route - each with one gleaming new tile amongst a stack of weatherbeaten old squares.

And so to the City, whose highrise ostentation came in sharp contrast to the mean streets of Shadwell. Beneath the iconic Gherkin, round a gaping hole which will one day support 36 floors of world class office space, and past the fresh-spiked peak of the Broadgate Tower. What with Docklands earlier, TfL could market this bus to hard-pushed tourists as "the skyscraper tour". Or maybe not. There wasn't much towering above the end of the route, skirting the edge of Shoreditch to pull up outside Old Street station. Unsuprisingly, I don't believe that any of those Asda shoppers followed me this far.

posted 01:35 :

Tuesday, October 01, 2024

30 unblogged things I did in September

Sun 1: My new laptop is on quite the sightseeing tour. Yesterday it was in Shanghai, today it's in Köln and tomorrow it'll be in Stanford le Hope.

Mon 2: At Gipsy Hill station I spotted a cat on the Oyster reader, and quite frankly this is Instagram gold.
Tue 3: The Old Ford Waste Water Recycling Facility in the Olympic Park, much lauded in 2012 as the UK's largest community wastewater recycling scheme, is being converted into a Park Operations Centre comprising office space, security rooms and equipment storage for QEOP employees. So much for green credentials and long-term sustainability.
Wed 4: The Walled Garden at Eastcote Manor is very pleasant and the cafe is a magnet for local pensioners, but I don't think anyone else was there specifically to see the UK's first pair of mini-roundabouts.

Thu 5: The former Showcase Cinema beside the Roding in Beckton (closed 2022) has been reborn as four very large architecturally anonymous warehousing units, and that's another cluster of joy entirely erased.
Fri 6: I checked what everyone else in my train carriage was looking at, and it was "phone phone phone window phone phone phone phone phone Richard Osman book phone phone phone phone phone".
Sat 7: For Heritage Open Days I went on a tour of Woolwich Works, the converted arts venue in the former Royal Arsenal, and it was a lot bigger than I expected. Our guide Nicholas gave us a properly theatric walkround, inside and out, perhaps tipping the focus more towards events than heritage but definitely eye-opening. Free tours run every Sunday morning if you're interested.

Sun 8: Dad tells me he was very pleased that his knobbly carrot won first prize at the village produce and handicraft show.
Mon 9: I'm enjoying Word Grid, a daily game where you have to fill in a 3×3 grid with words fitting certain letter-based criteria, the aim being to pick words picked by as few other people as possible. I like to get all pinks (and maybe some unicorns) every day.
Tue 10: Today I received a phone call from Wilmslow, and I'm expecting this to be a unique experience in my life.
Wed 11: Mince pies are back in the supermarket at the same price as last year (which was 51% more than the year before).
Thu 12: The latest authors in my A-Z library book challenge have been Anthony Quinn (I would read again), Philip Roth (I unintentionally picked his serious musings on mortality) and Zadie Smith (the NW postcode fizzed to life). I'm not sure how Colm Tóibín is going to go.

Fri 13: Three places in Redditch I didn't blog about: 1) Bob & Hazel's Hot & Cold Food Bar (bacon & sausage rolls for £3.80), 2) the Palace Theatre (its dressing rooms were formerly part of Shrimptons Needle Factory), 3) the Headless Cross water towers (one brick, one concrete).
Sat 14: Received one of those phone calls that starts "He's absolutely fine but...". I still regret phoning my parents in November 1999 and forgetting to start with "I'm absolutely fine but...".
Sun 15: The Open House venue in Cavendish Square may have been a huge disappointment, but on the walk back to the station I passed Melvyn Hayes stepping out of a cab carrying a Morrisons bag, and that made my visit enormously worthwhile.
Mon 16: I got away with taking lots and lots of photos of Canary Wharf station, somewhat suspiciously, but it only took one photograph of a skyscraper at Wood Wharf for a security guard to walk over and ask what I was doing and demand to see it. Perhaps I shouldn't have taken it right in front of her.

Tue 17: My upcoming hospital appointment appears in my online patient record with a seriously (seriously) unnerving title. Later I'll discover this is the name of the clinic I'm attending, not a diagnosis, and perhaps they could have made that clearer.
Wed 18: Jim Waterson, formerly of the Guardian, formerly of Buzzfeed, has launched a new London-based news Substack called London Centric. It looks it'll be properly in-depth rather than frothy so will help fill a gap in the capital's news bubble post-Standard, but I'm not sure £80 a year puts it within the reach of many.
Thu 19: Today I walked the back lanes between Shirley and Addiscombe, and you might be pleased these didn't form the basis of another 'Underwhelming London' post.
Fri 20: I finally mucked up my Wordle streak because I failed to boot up my old laptop soon enough before midnight. I still haven't found a way to transfer cookies from my old machine to my new machine.
Sat 21: I've been playing Threes on my phone for ten years and today I swiped through my 20,000th game. I still haven't unlocked a 3072 tile, but I did score 29091 points so it wasn't a shabby milestone.

Sun 22: The other Open House event I partook in was TfL's Jubilee Line Treasure Hunt celebrating the 25th anniversary of the line's extension in 1999. You started at Stratford, picked up a 16 page full colour clue sheet and then had to solve clues at seven successive stations. All the answers were in plain sight so a keen eight year-old could have solved it but it was still challenging. A lot of staff time was spent letting participants in and out of ticket gates without swiping, so perhaps it was just as well not many people were taking part. I ended up at Southwark after 90 minutes to claim my prize which turned out to be a silvery JLE25 tote bag. It didn't look like many had been claimed, the box was still almost full. What's more there was another unopened box underneath and that was labelled "21 of 25", so I suspect there are hundreds and hundreds of these bags elsewhere and I hope they find a decent way to distribute them.
Mon 23: I had to wait at the self-checkout while the couple in front of me attempted to buy 24 tubs of Celebrations. They were firmly told that the maximum sale was 10, so eventually left with 20 tubs between them.
Tue 24: All six episodes of The High Life, the classic camp 1995 Air Scotia comedy, are showing again on BBC Four. Dearie dearie me.
Wed 25: One of the signs inside the Royal London Hospital said 'Training in Progress - Please Bare With Us', and I was glad that wasn't the department I was visiting.

Thu 26: Such is the decline of newsprint that the News Box kiosk on the Waterloo & City line platform at Bank no longer sells any printed material, not even fortnightly copies of Private Eye (but it does have a lot of mints, vapes and chocolate).
Fri 27: I broke a Pyrex dish and needed a replacement, but from where? I would have gone to Wilko, and was actually heading to Argos, but instead dropped first into John Lewis and was chuffed to discover they had a sale on (20% off until 10th October). The saleslady wrapped my purchase in three sheets of paper and a further sheet of bubblewrap, all secured with five strips of sellotape, and you don't get that kind of service in Lakeland.
Sat 28: I thought the DVLA withheld rude or offensive numberplates, but I saw PU55E OL on a Mercedes in Neasden and they certainly slipped up there.
Sun 29: I didn't have 'Pass under Tower Bridge on the bridge of a ship' on my bucketlist, but I ticked it off tonight and it was magical.

Mon 30: The Bow Roundabout roadworks were finally due to start today. There is no evidence that anything happened.

posted 07:00 :

Saturday, August 06, 2011

My Open House London programme arrived in the post yesterday. That's the annual architectural weekend where 750 London buildings open their doors for free, this year taking place on 17th and 18th September. Pay up front and the organisers send you the full brochure in advance, giving one full weekend to plan where you'd like to visit before the booking system goes live on Monday. As usual there's a mix of "turn up on the day" and "pre-booking essential" tours, and tickets for some of the latter disappear like hot cakes the minute the website opens. That's 10am on Monday morning - or indeed a couple of minutes before, as I discovered last year when many of the prime tickets had already been snapped up by the time the official starting gun fired. It pays to be ready, mouse-finger primed, if you don't want to miss out.

I shall be missing out this year. Even though I've got my £6.50 programme in advance, I shall be in a terribly important meeting on Monday at 10am where it won't be possible to say "oh excuse me, could I pop out and book a tour up an iconic London skyscraper?" Bugger. Still, you might appreciate knowing a few highlights to look out for, so that you can nip in and swipe the top tickets hours before I can get near a computer. I hate you all already, obviously.

10 interesting-looking pre-book-only Open House London tours (now clickable)
» Underground Bunker, Neasden (Sat): Tours of Churchill's secret suburban concrete hideaway (I've been)
» BT Tower (Sat, Sun): Dead rare chance to visit the rotating restaurant at the top (good news, this one's a ballot)
» King's Cross station (Sun): Tours of the newly-restored Eastern Range buildings (75 tickets only)
» London Bridge station (Sat, Sun): Tours of the mid-18thC vaults, before they're restored and opened to the public (60 tickets only)
» St Pancras Renaissance Hotel (Sat): Get inside the famous Midland Grand, recently restored and reopened (120 tickets only)
» Tower 42 (Sat): When it opened, the Nat West Tower was London's tallest skyscraper (ridiculously exclusive - 40 tickets only)
» Boat Tours from Greenwich Pier (Sat, Sun, 2pm): Two engineering-led river tours, one into town, the other out to Tilbury (100-ish seats per Clipper)
» Trellick Tower (Sun): Erno Goldfinger's monumental social housing block (112 tickets only)
» BBC Television Centre (Sun): Go look round the 50-year-old telly crucible before Auntie sells it (I've been)
» 55 Broadway (Sat, Sun): Go look round the Art Deco home of London Transport before TfL sells it (I went last year)
(booking opens Monday 8th August, 10am)

Ian has the complete pre-booking list available here. (thanks Ian)

My Open House reports: Sept 2010 [photos], Sept 2009 [photos], Sept 2008 [photos], Sept 2007 [photos], Sept 2006, Sept 2005 [photos], Sept 2004 [gherkin photos], Sept 2003, Sept 2002

posted 09:00 :

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Ten ways to do London Open House (which is today and tomorrow, don't you know)
1) Log into the website at 10am on Monday, six weeks ago, and snap up all the really rare buildings (which I didn't do, alas, because I was in a life-changing meeting at the time)
2) Scan the guide and sign up for lots of interesting pre-book tours, then pray they don't overrun so you miss the next one (you're too late to do this because the list closed on Thursday, which means about 30% of the weekend's events are now closed to you)
3) Pick one very-popular building and get there first thing, at least 30 minutes before it opens, because arriving later in the day means you'll spend hours queueing before you get inside) (which is my plan for this morning, somewhere out west)
4) Plan nothing, then sort of amble around trying to find places, then discover they're very busy so give up, then go somewhere else (and repeat, and repeat, and see not much)
5) Pick one corner of town and stick to it, visiting as many places as possible (like I did a couple of years ago in Haringey and Southwark)
6) Try to visit buildings nobody else would dream of going to, because the queues will be non-existent (especially places on the Update & Amendments list, because nobody ever reads that)
7) Do the Gherkin, because the Gherkin's amazing (except it hasn't been open for Open House since 2006, sorry)
8) Head for the suburbs, because they'll be empty (or head for the City of London, because the City of London is compact and brilliant)
9) What do you mean you've never been to the Foreign Office & India Office? It's splendid, so go there immediately (ditto Lloyds of London, Portcullis House, the Royal Courts of Justice)
10) Go shopping at Westfield instead (Open House? What's Open House? Stuff culture - I so need some new clothes)

Ten places you could visit this weekend for London Open House
a) St Anne's Tower (Sat): Victorian church in Wardour Street - (M@ assures me that the rickety climb up the spire is unforgettable)
b) Village Underground (Sat): A couple of tube carriages used as artists studios, on top of a viaduct in Shoreditch, where else?
c) Drapers Hall (Sat): It's not in the printed guidebook, but this old City livery hall is most definitely open.
d) Broadgate Tower (Sat, Sun): A proper City skyscraper, with access to the 17th floor.
e) Lansbury Festival of Britain Walk (Sat, Sun): Lengthy guided walk around Poplar's housing stock built for a 1951 architecture exhibition.
f) City Hall (Sat, Sun): Ever since Boris scrapped monthly weekend openings, this is your only opportunity to see London's seat of government from top to bottom.
g) Shri Swaminarayan Mandir (Sat, Sun): If you've never been inside a Hindu temple, start with the very best, in Neasden.
h) W Plumb Family Butchers (Sat, Sun): Edwardian meatshop on Hornsey Road, small but beautifully preserved.
i) Becontree Estate Bus Tour (Sun 10am): There are only 45 seats on this 4-hour council estate tour in Dagenham, but I bet they're not all full.
j) 67 Grange Walk (Sun): Queen Anne house, out Bermondsey way, now a delightful (and none-too scrubbed up) family home.

posted 00:30 :

Friday, September 17, 2010

It's London Open House weekend! OK, so it kicks off tomorrow, but today's your last chance to plan and plot which fascinating buildings to visit this year. There are more than 700 to choose from, and you haven't got a hope of visiting more than a couple of percent of them. Better select your handful with care.

It used to be easier, because the event didn't used to be so popular. You could turn up on the day, even at the more specialist locations like the Cabinet Office or St Pancras Midland Hotel, and still be pretty certain of getting inside. No longer. The queues at some buildings are ridiculous, and unless you arrive first thing in the morning you face the choice of queueing for hours or giving up and walking away. Several institutions have raised the drawbridge and become "pre-book only". You have to ring or email in advance (it's almost certainly too late now), and hope that you're fast enough or lucky enough to get a ticket. At some of the 'biggie' locations, it's almost farcical. Tower 42 (ex Nat West Tower) is open for a measly four tours this weekend, each accepting only ten people. The forty tickets went up for grabs on the Open House website at 9:57am on Monday 9th August. By the time I'd typed in all the necessary details and clicked underneath, the site informed me that sorry all four tours were fully booked. I immediately switched to Centre Point, only to discover after typing everything in that all 180 places there had been snapped up too. And all this before the official 10am kickoff. Ah well. I did get my third place special, which I'll tell you all about later.

One of the tricks in working out where to go for Open House is not to waste your time going to places that are normally open anyway. Another is to check precisely where you're going on a map before you get there, because it's not always easy to find the building with the big green banner if all you have is the street name. And another is to pick places fairly close to one another, because you don't want to waste half your day on trains or even worse on bloody rail replacement buses.

So here are a few suggestions for you. Some central biggies, in case these are places you've never visited before. And some enjoyable locations further out, because not all of London's most amazing buildings are in the centre.

• Royal Courts of Justice (Sat): behind the scenes of this vast Gothic building, including courts and cells (a great couple of hours)
• Broadgate Tower (Sat, Sun): the new skyscraper north of Liverpool St station (the view from the 17th floor's pretty good)
• Foreign Office & India Office (Sat, Sun): opulent Whitehall building, paid for by the fruits of empire (queues likely)
• Freemasons Hall (Sat): ornamental inner temple in Holborn, and HQ of the rolled-up trouser brigade (trowel not essential)
• Village Underground (Sat): tube carriages on top of a viaduct in Shoreditch (now used as artists studios)
• City Hall (Sat, Sun): Boris doesn't allow the public in as often as Ken (but you can do roof and ramp this weekend)
• Marlborough House (Sat): Edward VII's stately pile on Pall Mall is now HQ to the Commonwealth Secretariat (I went in 2008)
• St Anne's Tower (Sat): I've not been up this Soho church belltower, but M@ from Londonist's swears that the climb to the top is the one of the scariest ascents he's ever made (here's M@'s pick of science-based OH venues)
• One Bishops Square (Sun): a not-quite-in-the-City office block (been open a couple of years now)
• Roof Gardens (Sun): unlikely horticultural hideaway above Kensington High Street (arrive very early!)

• No 1 Croydon (Sat, Sun): otherwise known as the 50p building (because it looks like a pile of coins)
• Barnardo's Village (Sat, Sun): charitable village for poor Victorian urchins (get the tube to Barkingside)
• Slice of Reality (Sun): that sliced ship moored just north of the Dome (yes, you can go aboard)
• Becontree Estate Bus Tour (Sun): I went on one of Barking & Dagenham's Open House minibus tours once. I was the only person who turned up (Hopefully this four hour Sunday tour will be a little better attended)
• Shri Swaminarayan Mandir (Sat, Sun): 2000 tonnes of Hindu temple in Neasden (insight into a completely different world)
• Alton Estate: East and West (Sat): anyone fancy a guided walk of Roehampton's Modernist council estate? (I'm tempted)
• Peckham Library (Sat, Sun): go behind the scenes of South London's most radical bookstack (one of my many Southwark visits last year)
• Linear House (Sat, Sun): there are some smart domestic homes to explore in the suburbs (one of my many Haringey visits last year)
• Trinity Buoy Wharf (Sat, Sun): London's only lighthouse plus the Container City studios (plus Fatboys Diner, yum)
• Balfron Tower (Sat, Sun): Trellick Tower is already fully booked, so try the Poplar alternative (getting to the 27th floor may involve queuing)

posted 07:00 :

Sunday, January 08, 2017

diamond geezer event: North of England Caucus
(this year, Leeds - meet by the Black Prince statue in City Square, 10am)

The annual North of England readership meet-up took place yesterday in the city of Leeds. The weather was overcast but with a couple of outbreaks of low sunshine to brighten the mood. A splendid time was had by all.

As the clock on the Old Post Office ticked towards ten o'clock, those gathered in City Square made themselves known to the organiser and were crossed off on the official attendance list. Though outnumbered by the pigeons roosting on the Black Prince's plinth, the meeting was deemed quorate, and the business of the day got underway.

Members were very keen to visit Leeds Art Gallery and enjoy its collection of national importance. Renowned works by William Holman Hunt and Barbara Hepworth are amongst the many treasures inside the listed Victorian building. Unfortunately the gallery is closed for roof repairs and will not be reopening before October. The Tiled Hall Cafe is magnificent, but it was felt to be too early in the day for a coffee stop, so the party moved on.

St John the Evangelist's is the oldest church in Leeds, dating to just before the Civil War, and has been highly praised by Pevsner. Made redundant in 1975, its marvellous interior is now in the hands of the Churches Conservation Trust. Unfortunately it was closed on arrival, and members were not willing to wait around for a couple of hours before the nice volunteers opened it up.

The ruins of Kirkstall Abbey lies three miles from the city centre along the Aire Valley, and have previously been blogged. All eyes were therefore on the neighbouring Abbey House Museum, with its famous recreation of a Victorian street. Alas the museum is currently closed for a fortnight for the replacement of a fire alarm, so we did not attend.

A highlight of the day's activities was to be a ride on the Middleton Railway, the world's oldest continuously working public railway. In 1812 Matthew Murray designed and put into operation the very first successful commercial steam locomotive, operated by the world's first professional train driver. Although the colliery has long since closed, volunteers run regular passenger services on the mile-long line at weekends... except in the winter months.

It was not possible to visit Lumiere, the tallest residential skyscraper in Western Europe, because this was cancelled in 2008. A subsequent replacement was also cancelled, and the intended 14 storey office block has not yet materialised, so the tour enjoyed looking at the car park on the levelled site instead.

Harewood House is a magnificent country mansion, now almost 250 years old, on the outskirts of the city. Still home to the Lascelles family, outdoor shots for ITV soap opera Emmerdale are filmed in a purpose-built 'village' on the estate. Tours of the house and grounds are available, but the place doesn't reopen for another ten weeks, so it wasn't worth going there either.

By now the group had built up quite an appetite, so lunch was taken in Kirkgate Market. This is the largest covered market in Europe, and site of the original Penny Bazaar that gave birth to Marks and Spencer. A recreation of the groundbreaking stall exists in the gorgeously ornate 1904 hall, and sells souvenirs and confectionery.

Preferring something a little more substantial than a packet of Percy Pigs, delegates descended on Crawshaws in Butchers Row and picked up a Large Leeds Pork Pie for just £2. This culinary behemoth consists of a disc of finely chopped meat, one inch thick and almost three inches in diameter, surrounded by a moist pastry case and topped off with a layer of mushy peas. "With or without mint sauce?" asked the lady behind the counter, and on discovering it was the former, duly double wrapped the confection to prevent leakage.

The pie proved somewhat of a challenge to eat, not least because the acidic mint leaves got everywhere and stuck to the fingers, but also because that really is a lot of pork. Nevertheless at least half of the pie was consumed, including all of the vegetable topping, and next time a regular £1 pie would surely suffice. Londoners really do pay over the odds for their baked goods, although maybe their arteries are less congealed.

Members of the tour party with other commitments then took their leave. It really had been a marvellous morning, they agreed, and many interesting places had been almost seen. Readers of diamond geezer are urged to keep a close watch on the Facebook group for further communal events.

If this trip to Leeds has whetted your appetite for a visit, Ian has details of a special Virgin East Coast rail offer with half price tickets (for the period 30 January - 31 March) available from 10am tomorrow morning. London delegates at yesterday's meet-up paid only £5 each way for their train tickets, thanks to a similar (but even better) offer a couple of months ago.

posted 07:00 :

Thursday, September 24, 2015

My Open House gallery

There are 67 photos altogether [slideshow]

Sorry, you didn't think I'd finished writing about Open House, did you? Seven down, six more to go...

Open House: Trinity Hospital
The oldest building in Greenwich, Trinity Hospital can be found on the riverside past the Old Royal Naval College and the Trafalgar Tavern, beneath the tall chimneys of Greenwich Power Station. Opened in 1617 as almshouses - a function it still performs - those who've lived in Greenwich for a certain time and are of a certain age might one day be allowed to move in. But you won't be allowed through its locked gate unless you happen to be passing on Open House Saturday, which is the only day of the year that a top-hatted warden stands and positively urges you inside. Do not pass by, take him up on his offer, to view the gorgeous enclave beyond the clocktower and the suite of rooms that surround. A fountain gushes placidly at the centre of the courtyard, florally bedecked and with golden fish wriggling within. To one side is a large gothic chapel, still used by residents every Thursday when the vicar of St Alfege's comes to lead a service. Upstairs is a wood panelled courtroom that's only unlocked twice a year, the other occasion being the Monday after Trinity Sunday when the City's Mercers cloak up and pay a ceremonial visit. The most fortunate residents live in ten refitted apartments surrounding the courtyard, but there are also thirty flats more in a more modern building alongside, surrounding larger gardens. With so much life experience in one place it's no surprise that residents bake a great cake, and you should use this fact as an excuse to stop for tea and linger longer. And then next time you pass the bright castellated frontage on the Thames Path you'll know the secrets of what lies behind, and probably be more than a little jealous. [7 photos]

Open House: The Seager Distillery Tower
It didn't look like the most exciting venue in the Open House brochure. A housing development beside Deptford Bridge DLR, built on the site of something historic, including refurbished 19th century buildings you'd not be able to get inside. But there was one key phrase which piqued my interest, which was the identity of the only part of the development on the tour. "Entry: 27th floor viewing gallery." And I couldn't turn that down. The developers, Galliard Homes, hadn't gone out of their way to advertise their two-day opening to anybody local, so it took a while to find the right way in. But yes, the concierge confirmed that this was the place, and one lengthy lift ride later I was in a glass box in the sky. Not a big box, more like two small chambers linked by a brief passage, but with high glass windows affording a most excellent view. To one side the City, viewed across lowrise Southwark, swinging round to the surprisingly prominent heights of Dulwich. And from the other side Greenwich (and its observatory) up close, and the end of Deptford Creek, and the Docklands skyscraper wall. Various families who'd come to visit were trying to spot their home ("oh my, there's our washing!") and determine which of the verdant lumps to the south was Hilly Fields. I love a lofty panorama, and Open House always delivers what I most crave, but even so I hung around far longer than I'd expected. I was particularly thrilled by the unobstructedness of the view, because normally when you go up something there's another tall building in the way. Instead the Distillery Tower stands alone, which is great for penthouse residents but not for low level local people who hate this lone eyesore for sticking out like a sore thumb. On any other weekend of the year I'd side with them. [7 views]

Open House: Limehouse Town Hall
Local government reorganisation hit this grand civic building hard. Opened in 1881, Limehouse Town Hall lasted as an administrative hub for less than 20 years before the Borough of Stepney absorbed Limehouse Vestry, and since then it's muddled on the best it can. Edwardian East End families came for weddings, bazaars and ‘cinematograph’ showings, after which the building's been an Infant Welfare Centre, a doctor's surgery and even (from 1975 to 1986) the National Museum of Labour History. Harold Wilson turned up specially to open the latter, and I'd like to imagine that Margaret Thatcher turned up to close it down. A deeply communal vibe remains, overseen by the Limehouse Town Hall Consortium Trust who welcome all sorts of hands-on projects and charities to thrive under their roof. On my visit the Tower Hamlets Wheelers were holding their monthly bike surgery in the main hall, tending to spokes and upturned chains while the occasional OH visitor wandered through. I took the opportunity to enjoy the Town Hall's audio tour, which was more atmosphere than fact, but brought the crumbling fabric of this great survivor to life. Long may it thrive, and all those who inspire from within. [2 photos]

Open House: Thames River Police Museum
Where is the world's oldest police force based? On the waterfront at Wapping, of course, where a band of lawmen was assembled at the end of the 18th century to reduce crime on London's lifeblood river. It made sense to merge them into the early Metropolitan Police, eventually becoming the Marine Support Unit, who continue to patrol the Thames in search of wrongdoers. They have a boathouse and private pier, complete with blue lamp, and also a small but excellent museum. This is housed in a former carpenter's workshop, its benches now piled with display cases and its walls hung with pictures and ephemera. There was a time when the Thames Police wielded cutlasses, or cracked pistols, and some of the older handcuffs don't look entirely kind. Here too are old charts and notebooks, and model ships and ensigns, and caps and epaulettes. But the main emphasis is on individual police officers and their deeds, from everyday service to something special, like rescuing passengers from the Princess Alice or the Marchioness. A stalwart group of volunteers oversee the museum and can tell you more, not just on Open House Weekend but (by appointment, in writing) throughout the year. In the absence of a proper Met Police museum, as yet, this packed heritage repository is a proper treasure. [4 photos]

Open House: London Dock - Pennington Street Warehouses
200 years ago much of the land between Wapping and Shadwell was carved out to create the London Docks, a network of deep basins for trading high-value commodities. They survived in business until the 1960s, eventually ending up in the hands of the London Docklands Development Corporation who filled in the huge Western Docks to create a non-council housing estate. Along the northern edge Rupert Murdoch built Fortress Wapping as News International's HQ, but now they've moved out there's a huge demolition site awaiting redevelopment. What's not being removed is a (very) long chain of brick vaults, these once used to store rum and spices (and more recently printer's ink), stretching most of the length of one side of Pennington Street. Site developers St George allowed access at the weekend, allowing the curious a) to stare from one end to the other b) to read lots of information boards about what's planned. And what's planned is stacks of flats, which if you believed the architect's hyped excitement on the video will be nothing short of amazing, but I was wholly unimpressed. The artist's impressions he was enthusing over could have been built anywhere, and all his spiel about how they reflect the site's maritime history seemed little more than empty bluster. Instead this is yet another exercise in cramming in as much luxury housing as possible, while the dock vaults will at least be restored for use as boutiques, bars and creative arts spaces. You'll like those, when they open, but perhaps give the rest of the "world class public realm" a miss. [photo]

Open House: St Georgs Deutsche Lutherische Kirche
It wasn't in the Open House Guide and it wasn't on the website, indeed it's possible they simply stuck a leftover poster outside the door and hoped passers-by would notice. And I'd never have noticed if the Overground was running, but there I was walking up to Aldgate, and there they were, so in I went. St George's is the oldest German church in the UK, opened 250 years ago by a community of expat sugar-boilers, this being a key local industry at the time. A place of worship until 1996, it was subsequently rescued and restored by the Historic Chapels Trust, and is now used mostly for recitals, concerts and lectures. Very few box-pew chapels survive, let alone double-decker pulpits, and its Georgian altar decorations are also a sight to see. Visit on the first Tuesday lunchtime of the month to enjoy an organ recital on the restored Walcker. What shone through here, even more than at other venues over the weekend, was the dedication of a band of volunteers who've striven to keep the place alive, and really wanted you to stay for tea and biscuits so they could tell you more. And if that's the true spirit of Open House, long may it remain.

posted 07:00 :

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Open House weekend is my one annual opportunity to go up things. So I've been up five. Five big tall buildings, each somewhere between 14 and 23 storeys high, to enjoy the view from the top of each [lots of photos]. It's only in the last three quarters of a century that Londoners have had the opportunity to view their city from above, and even then it's a rare treat. Two of my five were in the heart of Westminster, and I'll tell you about those later. But the other three were across suburban south London, where the rooftop panorama is very different, and the BT Tower is but a tiny spike on the horizon. All this plus a tour of an estate of tower blocks, although this time from ground level. Open House day 1, a day in the sky... (as posted from my mobile, and tidied up later)

No 1 Croydon: Croydon is south London's skyscraper capital, so I've come to town to go up a couple. First No 1 Croydon, or the Threepenny Bit building as it's more widely known, which looks like a stack of white-painted polygonal coins [photo]. All very informal - I took the lift to the 21st floor unsupervised and all by myself. Half this octagonal floor was open, and empty of furniture bar a table of planning staff hoping to harvest opinion on the town's future masterplan [photo]. The view from the windows was more interesting, even with the Central London aspect obscured. It's still very green, Croydon, once you look beyond the upstanding inner core. Tiny trams plied the streets below like caterpillars, carrying a cargo of weary shoppers back to the semi-detached avenues beyond [photo]. It was a shame the building's owners hadn't cleaned the windows though, as all the photographs being snapped up top are likely to be heavily dirt-specked. If the council gets their way there'll be a lot more multi-storey development to come in Croydon, which they'll be plotting from their eyrie atop nearby Taberner House. Been up there too [photo] [photo]. Nineteen floors this time, to two of the viewing galleries building into the top corners of the building. There's even a 19½th floor, up a mini spiral staircase to a tiny mezzanine staring out towards the Addington Hills. The northern view is much better than the Threepenny Bit's, apart from a Nestlé advert at tower-top height [photo]. There's the City, and then Docklands, in the far distance, their high-rent clusters glinting in the sunlight. Croydon's towers hope one day to steal some of their business away.
posted 16:15

Merton Civic Centre: The London borough of Merton there's only one major highrise building. That's the council offices at the top of Morden High Street, a curved tower with two symmetrical wings erected in the mid 1960s when the borough was created [photo]. Not an especially popular Open House venue, so a mere handful of souls got to be taken up to the roof by a senior member of the building's staff. We were not disappointed. The view from the 15th floor rooftop terrace was excellent, stretching round from Wembley's arch to Croydon's distant-ish metropolis. No haze, so the West End and City were pinpoint sharp, especially when viewed through a pair of municipal binoculars. Lovers of modern architecture could enjoy a tiny Gherkin close to a mini Strata immediately beside an emerging Shard. And in the foreground lay the almost-autumnal hues of Morden Hall Park surrounded by a sea of toytown suburbia [photo]. London's skyline rarely looks so complete [photo]. A warning should you ever drive into the car park below, however, that the curved shape of the building amplifies gusts of wind creating vicious mini-tornadoes with the strength to lift old ladies off the ground! As payback for our rooftop treat, we were then taken down to see a floor of refurbished offices - part of a long-term plan to squeeze in twice as many desks and save lots of money. And finally to the council chamber, where the borough's flip-flop red/blue council meets not many times a year to rubberstamp decisions with due pomp and ceremony. Understated municipal panelling, lush leather seats, and available to hire at very reasonable rates. Me, I'd much rather hold court on the roof.
posted 14:08

Alton Estate: I've never previously found it this difficult to plan where to go on Open House weekend. Maybe I've been to too many. And maybe that's why I've kicked off somewhere underwhelming, somewhere that's always open, somewhere I've been before. This time, however, with an expert guide to tell me (and 30 others) more. Up the far end of Roehampton are the Alton Estates, one West and one East, thrown up in the 1950s for South London's displaced slum-dwellers. We've been round both, along with an infectiously enthusiastic speaker from English Heritage and copious handouts. The West is le Corbusian, with mixed development bungalows and tower blocks set among rolling Capability Brown-landscaped grassy slopes [photo] [photo]. Tucked away in unexpected corners are Georgian mansions, whose grounds these once were until the London County Council stole them away. This unlikely combination looks impressive in bright sunshine, although I can't help thinking that none of our very middle class crocodile of visitors would ever choose to live here [photo]. Alton East is a little older, with a more Scandinavian outlook, but also with 10-storey highrises of pioneering postwar design. I've learnt a lot more than I ever would wandering around on my own, and heard disquiet that the council plan to replace the central shopping area with that 21st century curse - the supermarket with flats on top [photo]. This tour was scheduled for an hour but actually took two, so I slunk off 90% of the way round (sorry) and am now nipping across Wimbledon Common to save a bit of precious time. I wonder if the Pope's up yet.

posted 12:23 :

Friday, November 25, 2011

  Walk London
  CAPITAL RING [section 14]
  Hackney Wick to Beckton (5 miles)

After encircling most of London, I've reached my home patch. A bit of river, a burst of Olympics, then a very long walk along the top of a sewer. To Beckton which, quite frankly, is never going to be of the capital's beauty spots. The best of the Ring may be behind me, but keep the faith.

From White Post Lane, the Ring enters the heart of the Olympic Park [photo]. Down a slippery ramp to the newly rejigged towpath, watching the diggers and workmen making the final tweaks to the 2012 backroom zone. It's a busy stretch, with joggers and cyclists jostling with dogwalkers and tour groups. That pink building's a salmon-smokery-cum-art-gallery, which isn't something you see every day, and that cottage is the former Big Breakfast house. A Water Bus stop has sprung up beneath Old Ford Lock, although as yet there's no sign of Water Chariots' scheduled pleasure cruises "starting in mid summer 2011". And then first sight of something the Ring'll be following for miles - the Northern Outfall Sewer. Here's a rare chance to view it from underneath - four hooped metal tubes of human slurry, reflecting the dappled dancing waters of the Lea.

Up on the Greenway, the Olympic Stadium looms large [photo]. It still amazes me how close this public footpath comes to high security areas, even if the razorwire fences and ubiquitous cameras never let you forget who's boss. To the left, the Orbit's twisty-red coils now support a split-level viewing platform [photo], while to the right the athletes' practice circuit is nearing completion. "Look at that mess," says an old man gesturing toward the extensive construction works, "all that for just two weeks." He's not technically correct, but it is a remarkable amount of effort to give a few thousand runners a brief somewhere to jog. If you fancy a cup of coffee the View Tube is your last chance - my auntie heartily recommends them, you'll be pleased to hear.

Beyond the railway the Ring is on diversion. You won't get anywhere near this bit of the Greenway until Crossrail's finished digging stuff, which'll be "late 2014", apart from a brief spell in summer next year when Games entry trumps trains. Today's ramblers must instead pass the southern entrance to the Olympic Park, and the layby where provincial coach drivers disgorge their eager cargo, and a forlorn-looking VIP-facing shrubbery, all the way down to Stratford High Street. This is as close as the Ring gets to my house - give me a wave as you go by.

There's a lot of Greenway ahead. The first straight's been tarmacked by contractors in readiness for thousands of Games spectators being frogmarched from West Ham station, and quite frankly it's a bit ugly. I remember going to a planning consultation which claimed that the Greenway here would be beautifully transformed, all wild flowers and intricate paving [photo], but I can only assume that almost all of the money ran out. Even Abbey Mills pumping station, which ought to be a visual highlight, now lurks behind an obstructive metal security fence. Only past the new Olympic exit ramp do things improve, by which I mean the Greenway reverts to the familiarly mundane one-third path, two-thirds grass. The view opens up too, walking now at rooftop level [photo], with the City's skyscraper cluster bursting from the western horizon beyond the rugby ground.

Traversing the top of the sewer allows the Ring to carve straight through Plaistow without ever pausing to peer down its terraced backstreets. Some of its residents pop up to the Greenway to walk their 'playful' Staffies, others nip from intersecting road to intersecting road carrying carrier bags of inexpensive groceries. Newham General Hospital goes on and on and on, not exactly the architectural highlight of any capital circumnavigation. And all the time there's a nagging sickly whiff, reminding you that you're walking atop four tubes of effluent that have sourced in bathrooms across a wide swathe of central London. I'm not selling this well, am I? It's no match for the sylvan delights of Richmond or Highgate, that's for sure, but those of us who live out on this side of town are used to making the best of what we have. [photo]

At last a sign pointing down off the sewertop, which means a brief stroll past ultra-ordinary houses and a hop over the roaring A13. And then, good news, a park. It's only Beckton District Park, but round here any patch of green is a welcome bolthole from residential sprawl. The Ring summarily avoids the rather lovely lake to the north of the park [photo], which is a shame, preferring to cut direct to the adventure playground and the closed-down leisure centre. A nice touch is the circuit of unusual trees, each labelled 'hornbeam' or 'Indian bean' or whatever, which in Beckton is what passes for an arboretum. It's a long thin park, this, veering from ornamental to woodland to meadow to blighted-by-pylons. Newham Council have put up several signs warning against the exercising of horses here, signs which appear to be summarily ignored by all and sundry. But hey, that did mean I got to meet a hyperactive horse lying on its back waving its hooves in the air [photo], which just goes to show that the Ring is never dull. Only one final runt-end section to go.

» Capital Ring section 14: official map and directions
» Who else has walked it? Mark, Darryl, Tim, Paul, Stephen, Tetramesh, Richard
» Today's eight photos; all 107 Capital Ring photos (so far)
» On to section 15 (or back to section 13)

posted 00:14 :

Monday, September 18, 2017

Open House: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners at The Leadenhall Building

Many London skyscrapers have a dull name and a nickname. The Leadenhall Building is dull-ly titled because it's on Leadenhall Street, but is better known as the Cheesegrater because of its distinctive wedge-like shape. Here it is in Lego, in case you need reminding.

The Cheesegrater is the second tallest building in the City of London (or the tallest if you think the Heron Tower's 92ft mast is a cheat). It's the shape it is to protect views of St Paul's Cathedral from Fleet Street - the upper storeys taper back to keep out of the way of Wren's dome. Its planning application was approved in 2005, but construction was held back by the economic downturn and so final completion took place only two years ago. It's unusual in that the building's spine is at the rear, with a 'cassette' of liftshafts and utilities bolted onto the back, allowing the floors to cantilever forwards in open plan style for maximum office flexibility. 48 floors, 225 metres high, if you're counting.

The architects were Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, better known as "the agency Richard Rogers started", but since renamed to reflect new talent rising up through the ranks. Although it was never intended, the company needed new premises a couple of years ago and the 14th floor of the Leadenhall Building was available, so they now run their international practice from a building they designed. They were also the ones providing guides for the Open House tours, which meant visitors were particularly well informed.

The Cheesegrater squeezes a significant amount of public space into its small footprint because there's a gap where the ground and first floors ought to be. Bring your table tennis bat and you can even have a game of ping pong underneath the overhang in this outdoor atrium. Two sets of escalators swoop up through the void, on weekdays delivering a suited insurance salesforce to the main lobby on the second floor. Head through the security barriers and, surprise, you're already pretty much at the back of the building. Three sets of glass lifts shoot up from a lofty corridor fringed in geometric yellow, with (whoa!) an all round view if you stand at the rear.

What does a top-rank architectural practice have just inside its entrance? Security, obviously, and then a long rack of scale models of some of the more famous buildings they've designed. Lloyd's of London (1978-86) is there in wood at 1:500, while the Pompidou Centre (1971-77) is a colourful burst of perspex at 1:1000. Several far flung global landmarks are included - the practice has a particular penchant for airport terminals - but the Cheesegrater itself doesn't fit on the shelf and gets to stand elsewhere. Some modern clients now prefer to see a digital blueprint, but all the physical models are still cut, carved and stuck together in a glass-fronted workshop located in the room behind.

This being expensive real estate the RHSP workforce are tightly packed in, but there are also meeting spaces and a cafe area, plus breakout tables with a rather distracting view. The dome of St Paul's is clearly seen to the west, while other buildings the practice has designed are picked out by stickers on the glass. It doesn't take a sticker to identify the Lloyd's Building, whose metallic Grade I bulk rises immediately opposite, extruded service shafts and all. It must help for getting work done that this is only the 14th floor, not up in the forties, although the amount of floor space does get considerably narrower up there.

The guide for our group had worked on designing the unsexy part of the building - the basement - rather than the cheaper visible stuff in the sky. He therefore knew his stuff, in considerable depth, without cramming a few key facts the night before or having to read the salient points off a cribsheet. Maybe that's why he also ended up apologising for talking too much at each of the stopping-off points and making our tour much longer than everyone else's. When you're up a special skyscraper for a one-off visit, hell yes, these are the kind of guides you want. [7 photos]

Open House: Watermark House

Not every Open House building with a lofty view is a pre-book. Some are turn-up-and-walk-in, capacious enough to cope without a queue, and offering a perspective only employees normally see. This year Watermark House was one such venue, the employee base for a Japanese bank previously sited out in Docklands and now tucked in by the Thames adjacent to Cannon Street station. Their office block is built partly on the site of a Roman wharf and partly on the site of a key medieval trading post, which sounds dreadfully destructive except that several centuries of later development had already destroyed what was previously here, and all Nomura's tenancy replaced was a 1970s telephone exchange.

For Open House, all visitors got to see was the lobby and the 6th floor, but the 6th floor is home to the City of London's largest roof terrace, so that's all good. Open decking surrounds various bits of garden, some shrubby, some floral and one raised section used to grow vegetables. With a beehive or two, a row of deckchairs and a reflective pool, it all feels appropriately zen. The lack of pigeons is also a bonus, which is thanks to the two year-old Harris Hawk which handler Laura wields on site two days a week. Bumping into a falconry display in an elevated Japanese garden is one of the delights which helps keep Open House fresh.

I don't know how many of the employees bring their coffee or lunch out from the cafe inside, but what a great resource, and what splendid views. The twin brick towers of Cannon Street station dominate, but one's eye will more likely turn to the thread of the Thames. Immediately opposite lie Pickfords Wharf and the Golden Hind, while the Shard is unmissable further downstream, and then an unobstructed view of Tower Bridge. Pick your City employer carefully and every day can have a scenic interlude to balance out the hours of slog. [6 photos]

posted 07:00 :

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