The northeasternmost station on the London Underground isn't in London and it isn't underground. It's at Epping, in Essex, and you have to travel to the farthest tip of the Central line to reach it. There used to be three stations even further out, at North Weald, BlakeHall and Ongar, but this section of the line was woefullyunder-used and closed down in 1994. A bunch of diesel-friendly volunteers are working on reopening the extra bit, for weekend pleasure rides at least, but for the time being Epping's as far as you can get.
Epping remains a popularstation, not least with commuters across several square miles of surrounding countryside, which is why alongside platform 1 is the second largest station car park on the entire network. Drive up the hill and turn left, past a selection of leafy suburban retreats, and you can be in the main HighStreet in a couple of minutes. It's a broad and pleasant thoroughfare all told, dominated by the tall Gothic tower of St John's parish church, and with enough grassy interludes to give the place a bit of character. There are perhaps too many coffee shops, I thought, but the orange-fronted bakery looked rather inviting, and the independent EppingBookshop added extra literary appeal. The local butchers sell Epping sausages, which are famous apparently, although I can't say I've ever tasted any. At the southern end of the High Street stands the town's brick Victorian water tower, now topped off by a collection of mobile phone transmitters. And beyond that is the edge ofEppingForest. It's easy to see why people might want to live here.
That's Epping, Essex, population eleven thousand. But there are several other Eppings around the world, including twosuburbs in Australia each with a population greater than the English town, plus another in Cape Town, South Africa. There's even an Epping in Maine, in the easternmost county of the easternmost state of the USA, although that Epping's rather smaller. It's not so much a two-horse town as a one-dog street corner, home to a few far-flung neighbours spread out along a wooded backroad. The nearest small town has a population of 459, that's how small the American Epping is. Not somewhere I'd ever dream of visiting, let alone blogging about, because I suspect there wouldn't be much to say.
But that's not going to stop Geoff. He's visiting Epping ME today, at the start of a madcap ten-week hurtle around the good old US of A. You may remember Geoff as the former holder of the Guinness World Record for visiting all the stations on the London Underground in the shortest possible time. Five years ago he and his friend Neil visited all 275 stations (including Epping) in 18 hours, 35 minutes and 43 seconds, and earned themselves a cheap-looking certificate for their troubles. Their record lasted only a couple of years before being snatched away, by which time Geoff had moved to America and the opportunity to grab it back had slipped away.
So now Geoff's trying something similar, and yet completely different, on the other side of the Atlantic. He's attempting to visit 48 American locations with the same name as an underground station, one in each of the 48 contiguous states. A ridiculous idea, obviously, but one for which I bear considerable responsibility as I suggested it to him in the first place. Sorry Geoff.
His grand tube tour is entitled Underground : USA, and he's hoping to complete it all by the end of August. He's driving all umpteen thousand miles in a borrowed automobile, and he's blogging the entire journey with video, text, progress maps and copiousTwitterage. There might even be a film documentary later, you never know. Geoff's first stop is today in Epping, then second stop Putney, then careering onwards through Plaistow, White City and Watford, to name but a few.
It's the sort of bonkers thing I'd love to try, if only I could drive and had three months spare and didn't mind sleeping in motels or endless camping or eating appallingly. But no, I shall have to observe Geoff's tube journey virtually, as can you if you'd like to follow how his road trip pans out. Facebookers can tag along here, I believe, or else the main webpage is on Geoff's usual site here. I'm not sure how anyone could ever make Epping, Maine, sound interesting, but I'm sure he'll manage...
One of the downsides to moving house ten years ago was that I had to replace my driving licence. New address, new document required. Bad timing, as it turned out, because I became one of the first mainstream UK drivers to require an EU-approved photocard licence. Not fun, given that I was up to my knees in packing boxes and didn't really have the time for this additional level of hassle. I eventually managed to find a photo booth in Small Local Town, decided I could semi-tolerate the image it churned out, then sent everything off and waited eagerly for all the necessary documentation to be returned. Sorted, I thought. Hassle over.
But no. The smaller-than-usual smallprint on the back of my new driving licence hid a nasty surprise, which was that my photocard driving licence is only vaild for 10 years. Far from being a document for life, it actually expires within the next month, at "midnight precisely", after which time I could be landed with a £1000 fine if I attempt to use it. Ouch.
I was alerted to this unfortunate state of affairs when the DVLA sent me a reminder letter, which informed me that there were three things I must do to renew my licence, or else I'd have to surrender it. First I had to get myself a new photo, then I had to post back all my existing documents, and then I had to pay for the privilege. Damn. And grrr.
The rules for acceptable photographs appear to have been tightened up since 1999 and now match the draconian requirements required for a new passport. No redeye, no grinning, no teeth. Look natural, but not too natural. No hats, no burkhas, no sunglasses. Whatever you do don't blink. No blur, no shadow, no coloured backgrounds. Must be taken "in the last month", annoyingly, so no retrieving those three spare photos I had left over from a similar request last year, they won't do. And finally the bureaucratically precise demand that the head (from top to chin) must fill "at least 29mm and no more than 34mm" of the 45mm frame. Rulers at the ready.
There's no chance of meeting this list of requirements whilst sat in a photo booth, not without wasting huge amounts of money on not-quite-acceptable attempts. Equally, even though almost everyone has a digital camera these days, few of us would be able to take and print out a perfectly proportioned photo that'd keep the DVLA pedants happy. Sigh.
So I had to hunt down of those professional studio places where someone takes your photo for you. They're not easy to find, even in the middle of a large capital city, so goodness knows how much harder it'd be if I were still living in Small Local Town. I eventually found a bloke in a tiny shop in the subway arcade above Charing Cross tube station (opposite entrance number 9, if you ever need something similar). He sat me in precisely the right place, and did a test shot first to ensure my face was the right height, and made certain I was looking straight at the camera in an appropriate manner, and printed out everything in five minutes flat, and only charged me just under a fiver for the lot. OK, so I still look like a swivel-eyed loon in the photo, and I have seven spare copies I shall almost certainly never need, but the DVLA will be satisfied and I shall have ten years of quiet.
Having attached my mugshot to the form, I now have to enclose a processing fee. And blimey, it's a bit steep. The DVLA are charging £20 for this update, and it's pay up every ten years or else lose out. They're also insisting that payment be made either by cheque or postal order, which sounds like they haven't moved on financially since 1999. I can barely remember the last time I used my cheque book - indeed it's taken me quite a while to work out where it was.
And now I have to entrust my old driving licence to the ultra-secure couldn't-possibly-go-missing Royal Mail, and I mustn't forget to stick a stamp on the envelope provided. Alternatively there's the option to deliver the form by hand direct to a DVLA local office, but there are only three of those in London (in Wimbledon, Borehamwood and Sidcup), one of which isn't even in London, none of which is in any way convenient. And then, fingers crossed, all that remains is to await the return of upgraded identity documents by return of post. Total cost £25.25.
So be warned, if you've got a photo card driving licence, your ten-year expiry date may come round sooner than you expect. Check the smallprint on the back of your card, or await the reminder letter from the DVLA, and be prepared to get your photo taken. Don't smile please.
Mile End update Story so far: weekend engineering works, ticket hall shut, platforms open. Early attempts at information dissemination: poor (occasionally very poor)
1)Saturday morning, outside Mile End station: Entrance closed, apart from a small gap through which ladders and paint and stuff could be seen in the stairwell down to the ticket hall. » Crowd of lost souls outside station: small, but steady
Sign immediately to right of station entrance: "Station closed" (& big no entry sign) (WIN) Further instructions on sign: "Nearest alternative stations Bow Road, Bow Church, Stepney Green" (& instructions on how to get to these stations on the 25 bus) (WIN?) » Mention that it might/would be quicker to walk: nil (FAIL) » Mention of 425 bus for getting to Bow Road and Bow Church: nil (FAIL)
Sign immediately to left of entrance: "No entry to station on 6/7, 13/14 and 27/28 June. See red banners for alternative routes." » Number of red banners visible from outside station: 0 (FAIL) » Number of red banners previously on wall just inside station entrance but which had been taken down so that the wall could be redecorated: 1 (ÜBER-FAIL)
Conversation with member of staff standing outside station entrance: "So, where's the red banners then?" "Sorry, they took those down. That makes me the red banner, I guess. You want to walk to Bow Road, it's five minutes that way." (BIG WIN)
2)Saturday morning, inside Mile End station: lots of workmen in sealed-off ticket hall wearing helmets with Mickey Mouse-sized ear defenders, ticket gates covered over, walls covered over, activity level high. » Crowd of lost souls on platform: none
Sign on platform at foot of stairs: "No exit to street" (& big red crossed-out pedestrian) (WIN) Further instructions on sign: "Take any train to the next station and use local bus services to return to Mile End" (LAZY FAIL)
Time taken to take train to next station and use local bus services to return to Mile End... ...to Stratford: 3m (train) + 3m (interchange) + 6m (average wait) + 17m (bus) = 29 mins ...to Bethnal Green: 2m (train) + 3m (interchange) + 4m (average wait) + 8m (bus) = 17 mins ...to Stepney Green: 2m (train) + 1m (interchange) + 3m (average wait) + 4m (bus) = 10 mins ...to Bow Road: 1m (train) + 1m (interchange) + 3m (average wait) + 3m (bus) = 8 mins
» Number of minutes potentially wasted by following advice on poster: 21 (FAIL)
Announcement by man on platform as train pulls in: "Customers for Mile End should take an eastbound District line train to Bow Road and return to Mile End at street level" (WIN)
3)Attempt to use online journey planner to plan journey from Bethnal Green to Mile End... » Start: Bethnal Green Underground Station » Take: the Central Line » Average journey time: 2 minutes » End: Mile End Underground station » MILE END STATION: Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 June, open for interchange, only. Passengers are not able to exit or enter the station. (TOTAL FAIL)
4)Announcements on trains approaching Mile End: word perfect (WIN)
Moral of story: don't trust anything you read on the Underground, just listen to the staff.
For the second part of my stroll through "bits of Bow that didn't exist eight summers ago", I'm crossing the A12 and heading back down the eastern side. There are five more photos, which you can see a bit bigger by clicking on them. And I will of course be ending up somewhere rather famous.
The EastCrossRoute sliced through Bow in the early 1970s, and the community's been trying to join up the two sides ever since. Here in Old Ford is one of the few crossings, a 21st century footbridge designed to make Fish Island a slightly more accessible outpost to reach. It's a simple yet elegant hump, passing through a twisted ring of steel at its highest point, with separate (disregarded) lanes for pedestrians and bikes. To the west there's a grid of terraced houses plus corner shops and kids on bikes, while to the east there's a big yellow warehouse and a converted chapel and industrial bleakness. And viewable from the top, the steady stream of through traffic that created this social chasm in the first place. The first minor battle has been won. [map]
I fear that, one day, everybody in London will live in a tiny compartment on the site of something more interesting. Here's a case in point. This is Wick Lane, until recently a sidelined industrial outpost, before property developers deduced that high-rise living was worth far more than low-profit manufacturing. This pink-based block (on the site of a former dyeworks) was first to arise five years ago, its early residents isolated in the middle of social nowhere. The brochure for 417 Riverside (still available) promised "urban riverside living" (conveniently ignoring the sewer nextdoor) and offered "an attractive and accessible location" (maybe one day, definitely not yet). The neighbouring block appeared last year on the site ofa newspaper ink factory - the end result a blandgrey cuboid. Nah, sooner you than me. [map]
And the upgrade continues. The southern half of FishIsland, the chunk where the streets aren't named after dace, roach or bream, is (very) slowly evolving from grimy backwater to residential bubble. Making stuff is so very 20th century, so all the local jobs and places of employment are gradually shifting elsewhere. Come back in a few years and the JCBs will have moved on, the van hire yard will have disappeared and that boarded-up warehouse will have realised the potential of its residential footprint. Tomorrow's Islanders will be happiest working from home in their broadband-enabled studios, but they'll have to get their cars fixed somewhere else. Pack 'em in, pile 'em high, and erase all the stuff that made the area interesting in the first place. [map]
The northern half of Fish Island retains a little more character. Tower Hamlets recently slapped a conservation area around Dace Road, so this enclave of artist-packed warehouses and old factories (mmm, Percy's peanuts) should survive relatively unscathed. This photo shows the more modern Ironworks building, tightly squeezed into the courtyard of the feature it replaced. It's built right up close to the Greenway, access to which ought to be a simple hop off a balcony, but the site's single gated front entrance forces residents to make an unexpectedly lengthy detour. Expect the BBC or some other international TV company to take over the penthouse suite in three years time, because it's probably the very closest viewpoint to the final stop on my journey. [map]
A short stroll along the Greenway and there it is, the building that's acting as a catalyst for all this change in the surrounding borderlands. The newly-sprung Olympic Stadium is proving to be an irresistible magnet not just for sport but also for investment. There'll even be new homes erected right here, immediately in front of the stadium, come the post-Games legacy phase. As London's population grows, an even greater proportion of us are going to end up living in buildings that didn't exist at the turn of the century. Most of the new architecture I've passed on my walk would have sprung up anyway, but 2012 means that far more will follow in its wake. Olympic ripples are changing my neighbourhood, almost beyond recognition. [map]
[Part 1, up the western side of the A12, was yesterday]
I went for a walk around the block yesterday. Quite a big block, from my home in Bow up one side of the A12 and down the other. And I was struck by quite how much new stuff there was. Things that weren't there when I moved to London eight years ago, but are now an integral part of the landscape. So I took some photos of some of the new stuff, which you can see a bit bigger by clicking on them, and I've written down a few thoughts. London's a-changing, some parts faster than others.
The Bow Flyover used to be the one of the tallest things around here, but not any more. A whopping great apartment block's been erected alongside, one of a chain along the Olympic borderline into Stratford, and still they come. This tower was only due to have nine storeys when the original planning permission went through, but greed and speculation raised it higher, and now there's a semi-let village hanging in the sky. In its shadow lurks a drive-in greasemonger selling stodge and fries, not an option eight years ago, but more than popular today. Rumour has it the local Baptist church may soon be reinstated alongside, no doubt slightly richer than before. Round here red and silver has replaced brown and grey, and there's no going back. [map]
Grove Hall Park's my local greenspace. It's nothing special, but its handful of grassy acres are more than pleasant all the same. The council's poured a load of money into the park over the last couple of years, sprucing up the memorial garden and adding a decent (and well-used) playground. There are tumbly slides for toddlers, geometric frames for kids and twin hoops for teens - a big improvement on the lacklustre selection on site before. Even the brightly painted garden wall has so far resisted the attention of the E3 spray-tagger posse. With fresh tower blocks poking up above a leafy canopy, this is the photo that most looks like it's an illustration from a town planner's brochure. I still can't quite believe it's real. [map]
Where did that shop come from? I'm sure last time I walked up Fairfield Road this was just an industrial unit awaiting rebirth, and suddenly it's a brand new convenience store. The people of BowQuarter used to cope perfectly well with their own internal mini-market, but now there's another huge estate on the opposite side of the road it seems an additional shop can be supported. Its shelves are piled not-quite-high with lowest common denominator comestibles, with alcohol and fizzy drinks ranking higher in importance on the boards outside than fruit, bread and vegetables. Don't expect organic splendour, this is still the East End after all, and a packet of Haribo and some Lucozade will do quite well enough for many. [map]
Here's change in action. A nine-storey "contemporary development" is in the ascendant, but for now all you can do is pop into the sales centre and look at some pictures. Disappointingly the sales centre is based in a proper brick house (once the offices of HF Bates recycling yard), now hidden away behind enormous advertising banners, and a building with far more character than the pile of shiny boxes that'll replace it. Even worse, some marketing guru has labelled the entire project "Mojo", and has written some of the most complete tosh I've ever read to try and promote it. "Mojo is right where you want to be", apparently. Alas this end of Bow isn't "vibrant, full of contrasts and distinctly cosmopolitan", but is instead rapidly losing its soul to heritage-free building sites such as this. [map]
Not all redevelopment is bad. The area east of Parnell Road used to be covered by Soviet-style council blocks, and then the demolition teams moved in, and then the showhomes went up, and now there's an entire new community on site. At the heart is a long oblong green, with two giant poppies spouting in the centre, beneath which two- and four-legged friends hang out. Medium-sized flats surround the perimeter, each named after a god or goddess, and each with their respective cartoon image beaming down from the front wall. It's not quite so delightful beyond, where a solid ¼-mile wall of apartments flanks a roaring dual carriageway, dotted with tiny east-facing windows to keep the traffic noise at bay. The estate's brand new road network is considerably quieter. E3's local map is never static. [map]
[And tomorrow, back down the other side of the A12]
Forgive me, while there's a tube strike on, for looking ahead to next weekend's network closures. But I'd like to focus today on my nearly-local station, Mile End, which is a transport node in sore need of interior upgrade. The station's a real mess inside, and has been for a couple of years, because all the tiles were ripped down immediately before Metronet went bust. There's been no money to replace the tiles since, and the end result is pig-uglyplatforms and grim-looking passageways. But a few tentative tiles have now materialised on various boarded-up pillars, and this month work has finally begun on renovating the ticket hall. It's this latter activity which requires part of the station to be closed over several weekends.
So, the situation is this. The entrance to Mile End station will be closed over the weekends 6/7 June, 13/14 June and 27/28 June. Down below, the station will still be open to allow passengers to change lines.
Simple, you'd have thought. But not to TfL, who've been busy hiding away different chunks of this information like a jigsaw in the hope that passengers might be able to piece them all together and work out what's going on. Where shall we start?
1) Let's start on the TfL live travel news webpage. Check the tab for planned engineering works this weekend and see if you can spot anything. Central line good service, District line good service. Nothing obvious there. But click on the 'tube stations' tab to the left of the map and you might deduce that something's up. Mile End's not on the list of closed stations, but it is there under 'station maintenance'. Normally this list is ignorable, detailing nothing more serious than out-of-work escalators and reduced lift services. This time, however, it bears essential news for the residents of western E3:
Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 June, open for interchange, only. Passengers are not able to exit or enter the station. The nearest alternative stations are Bow Road, Stepney Green, Bethnal Green and Stratford. The ticket office is closed.
That's very useful information, but it's incredibly well hidden and took three clicks to find. So let's assume that nobody's going to notice it.
2) Secondly then, TfL's weekly Weekend line and station closures email. It comes round every Wednesday, to subscribers only, and this week's has full details of the Mile End closure. Doesn't it?
Central line: Mile End station is available to change between the District and Hammersmith & City lines only. There is no entry or exit from the station. For further details and alternative routes, please click here.
Sounds good, but the first sentence is actually wrong, as this subsequent entry indicates.
Hammersmith & City line: There is no service on the entire line due to track replacement work. For further details and alternative routes, please click here.
The Hammersmith and City line is one of two to be completely closed this weekend, so all that talk of Mile End being "available to change between the District and Hammersmith & City lines only" was untrue. Here's the mistake repeated for good measure.
District line: Mile End station is available to change between the Central and Hammersmith & City lines only. There is no entry or exit from the station. For further details and alternative routes, please click here.
And what happens if you click on the link for further details and alternative routes. Nothing in any way helpful, as it turns out. You get a whopping great page of pdf, but all it actually says is this:
Mile End station is undergoing improvement work. No entry or exit. The station is open for interchange between lines only. Please use alternative bus and walking routes where possible. Your journey could take up to 15 minutes extra.
I'm not sure which of those five sentences is supposed to provide "further details". Maybe the 15 minutes bit. And there's absolutely nothing useful about alternative routes to help you replan your journey either. If you're standing outside a closed Mile End station this weekend, what is the best way to get yourself on a District or Central line train. No clues here. Sorry, that's pretty rubbish.
3) So, finally, what about the information being presented at Mile End station itself. Well, there's a big red banner hung above the steps just inside the station entrance, and here's what it says:
Now that looks like lots of useful detail, including all the relevant buses needed to reach to the nextdoor stations. But what's not mentioned is how far away the stations are, nor that walking might be a sensible alternative. On the District line, for example, Bow Road's twice as close as Stepney Green, and can be reached on foot in six minutes flat. As for the two Central line alternatives, the suggested bus journey to each station takes is timetabled to take more than 15 minutes. You might even find it quicker to walk up to Bow Road and tube back to Mile End to change to the Central line there. So why are they insisting that you take the bus?
And there's one really important word missing on that banner, and that's "closed". Reading through all this lot it's not immediately obvious that passengers won't be able to enter the station from the street, it's all inferred. There are some text-lite posters within the station itself which announce the "No entry" news, but this isn't a terribly joined-up campaign.
Ticket hall shut, platforms open, it shouldn't be rocket science to explain. I hope that Mile Enders manage to decipher the message for themselves this weekend.
When the Olympics arrive in town, organising officials are going to try to persuade you to arrive at the stadium via West Ham station. Don't listen to them. They need to spread the spectator load over across many stations as possible, so well-connected West Ham's a major part of the 2012 transport plan. According to some wildly optimistic forecast, as many as 18% of spectators are expected to enter the park this way. But gullible attendees expecting a nice short stroll to the Olympic Park are in for an unpleasant surprise. It's more than a mile from West Ham station to the Olympic Stadium, and the intervening walk is via a whiffy Victorian sewer. Don't say I didn't warn you.
There's not a lot that 2012 bosses can do to move West Ham nearer to the stadium, but they are busy attempting to make the intervening walk as pleasant as possible. The path follows the Greenway, the northeastern outfall of London's 150-year-old sewage system, which is already cunningly disguised by having a big broad footpath on top. Not the loveliest of footpaths, admittedly, more a rough tarmac strip with a featureless edging of bland grass. But a pleasant enough way of getting from Ato B (especially if B is Bow or Beckton), and an ideal cycling route with fine views across surrounding Newham. Functional certainly, but world-class definitely not.
So an upgrade is called for. The plans are to lay two adjacent parallel paths with differing surfaces, one for bikes and one for pedestrians. Materials recycled from building on the site of the Olympic Park will be used, such as bricks, manhole covers, bollards and granite cobbles. Think of these paths as doubling up as some sort of industrial heritage collage. Try not to think of them as the crushed remnants of former businesses destined to be forever trampled underfoot. Whatever, they'll only take up about half of the Greenway's width, leaving plenty of space on either side for transplanted environmental greenspace. We're promised plenty of wildflower meadows along the way, as well as pockets of maple, hawthorn and hazel. It may not be quite so endearingly bland as the current surface, but it should give trudging Olympic spectators something rather lovelier to look at.
And the upgrade is already underway. All along the Greenway from Stratford High Street to West Ham, half of the sewertop carriageway has been fenced off and contractors are busy removing the grass and other vegetation. Some of the plants will be harder to remove than others. Printed signs attached to orange netting reveal several clusters of Japanese knotweed along the railings, and there's also a big clump of offensive giant hogweed close to the sewage pumping station. Best they're removed before they strangle any future planting, and before any Japanese tourists pass by in 2012 with a disapproving look. There's quite a lot of stripping still to go, and then presumably the other half of the carriageway will have to receive the same treatment.
It seems strange seeing workmen and portakabins on the Greenway, so long a forgotten backwater track used by not many to get nowhere special. And it's a shame to see the path's previous infrastructure uprooted and discarded in an undignified heap [photo]. The Greenway's signposts used to be chunky vandalproof ironwork with all the names carved out in holey lettering. This wouldn't have passed muster in any design competition, but it was bold and resilient, and above all very green. Maybe they'll carve up all the old signs and benches and then recycle recognisable chunks amongst the new footpath, but somehow I doubt it. At least the replacement signs appear to have a bit of character about them too, whenever they finally appear.
Nobody would be spending any money on the Greenway were it not for the Olympics and the need to funnel spectators securely to and from distant transport links. Indeed, anybody living down at the Plaistow or Beckton end of the Greenway will see no difference whatsoever for the foreseeable future because that's not an Olympic priority. But I'm hopeful that the end result from West Ham northwards will be rather lovelier, not least because it'll considerably enhance my regular walk from home to BestMate's house.
Just don't any of you lot make an inadvertent visit to the upgraded scenic Greenway during the 2012 Games, else you'll face a surprisingly lengthy walk to get from the station to the perimeter of the Park. The wild flowers will be pretty, but the trudge to your security friskdown may be interminable. Remember to travel to the Olympics via Stratford, never via West Ham. You'll thank me for that piece of advice one day.
LONDON A-Z An alphabetical journey through the capital's museums Kew Bridge Steam Museum
Location: Green Dragon Lane, Brentford, TW8 0EN [map] Open: 11am-4pm (closed Mondays) Admission: £9.50 Brief summary: steam, water and grease Website:www.kbsm.org Time to set aside: at least half a day
Every now and then my alphabetical journey throws up a museum I can't believe I haven't been to before. This is one of those. Formerly one of London's most important pumping stations, the Kew Bridge Steam Museum is now a hybridhotchpotch of industrial heritage, machine room and engine shed. It's located by the Thames between Brentford and Chiswick, beneath a giant standpipetower visible for miles around. And hidden within are some absolutely whacking great steam engines. The Industrial Revolution wasn't powered by electricity, oh no, it was much harder work than that.
Quick bit of historical background. The Grand Junction Waterworks Company was formed 200 years ago to supply London with canal-sourced drinking water. This proved somewhat unhygienic so they soon switched their sights to the Thames, constructing a waterworks in Chelsea near the mouth of the Westbourne sewer. Not much better, obviously, so in 1838 they upped sticks to Kew Bridge and piped in cleaner water from midstream. When the building was decommissioned after WW2 the old engines were preserved in case anybody ever raised enough money to turn them into a museum. And they did, so they are.
The museum smells of grease and old rags, which is perhaps not surprising because they're what keep the place together. Every now and then a boiler-suitedvolunteer will scuttle in through one door and out through another, maybe to give some flange somewhere a good oil, or maybe for a well-deserved cup of tea. If you're lucky he's here to fire up one of the engines, so be patient, it could take a while to build up sufficient head of steam. Listen carefully to his enthusiastic commentary and you might learn a fair amount about rotative motion, crankshafts and piston rods. And the threeoldmachines in the central Steam Hall may look large and impressive, but they're some of the smaller beasts that run on site.
Nextdoor are three muchbigger machines, sufficiently tall that you can climb various sets of stairs to view them at beam, cylinder or engine level. On the day of my visit only the Boulton & Wattengine, an 1820 survivor transplanted from Chelsea, was being demonstrated. While one volunteer gave us a rundown of the museum's history, his colleague flipped various levers with rhythmicprecision until the mechanism ran steadily without human intervention. Above our heads a 15 ton beam rose, tripped and fell, forcing several gallons of water into a pondlike sump below. Such majestic power once helped to keep parts of London's water supply cholera-free.
Along another corridor, crammed within a pair of narrow yet lofty brick chambers, stand the museum's CornishEngines. One of these is the world's largest surviving single cylinder beam engine, and the other is the largest working beam engine in the world. Not bad for suburban Brentford. Again there's up-close access on three floors (but this time climbing to the top deck alongside the twin beams gave me an unexpected attack of vertigo). They're both monstrous and magnificent, even when stationary, with pipes and cylinders agleam. Add in venting steam and thrusting rods, on the rare occasions the 90 inch engine is actually fired up, and the experience is one to remember.
Follow the right path downstairs in this maze of a building and you'll find the Water For Life Gallery - a relatively modern display which details the history of water supply and usage in London. Not the sort of attraction you'd normally travel miles to see, and not quite the "fascinating story" the museum's literature promises, but interesting enough if you've ever wondered why the stuff that gushes out of your household tap doesn't kill you. I liked the lengthy wall collage comprising a century of domestic appliances, from hip bath via washing machine to foot spa. There were also special interactive bits for kids, including a robot sewercam and a twirly filtration jar, although nothing that could complete with the steaming whirring engines elsewhere.
And there's more. A 400 yard steam railway operates around the edge of the site (the only fully operational steam railway in London) and visitors can hop on the back for a lightchug through the backyard. I was hoping for a ride on the last train before lunch, but the rear carriages were 90% full of excited families who didn't look like they'd appreciate an obvious non-Dad squeezing in. Instead I made do looking at a stationary waterwheel, and nosing into some deserted workshops, and listening to the history of the standpipe tower via an old telephone.
Time your visit carefully. Not all of the old engines are in steam every day, indeed many are open on special occasions only. Weekdays tend to be quiet, and Sundays tend to have more going on than Saturdays. The last weekend of the month is usually the best time to visit, although watch out for various extra events at other times (model railway shows, wartime reconstructions, Meccano rallies, that sort of thing).
And keep your ticket. Entrance may be fairly pricey but admission lasts for twelve months, so if one particular engine's not running you can come back on another day when it is. Who knows, you might even decide you like the place so much that you sign up as a volunteer, and then you can come back and get your hands greasy whenever you like. I won't be going quite that far, but I'll certainly be giving my ticket another outing. by train: Kew Bridgeby tube: Gunnersburyby bus: 65, 237, 267, 391
The first "big weekend" of the Story of London festival concludes today. It's the Walking Weekend, during which Londoners are invited to "discover the city on foot to uncover the secret histories of the capital's streets, with over 100 guided walks". [walking weekend walks][Sunday events]
I'm sure that many people have been out enjoying Boris's "glorious celebration of London's past, present and future", although perhaps the threat of rain is deterring some from attending as many events as planned. So I'm continuing to invite my readers to tell me all about their SoL exploits. If you go on a festival walk or attend any festival event, or if you've already been, please write me a brief report and I'll publish it here on the blog. 150 words max, preferably emailed, and if you want to attach a photo all the better. Updates throughout the weekend, just as soon as they start flooding in.
1)Caroline attended a walk with Blue Badge Tourist Guide Jackie Stater The guided walk around Deptford, 'Sovereigns, Sailors, Shipwrights and Skulls', was excellent. Genuinely a special event for the festival, it was led by a Blue Badge guide who really knows the area and conveyed the rich history of the place as well as its current artistic activity. Ranging from the Creek to the High Street, from a thirteenth-century church tower to Herzog & De Meuron's Laban Centre, this was the perfect riposte to those (Daily Mail, I'm looking at you) who insist that Deptford is nothing but a crime-ridden slum. Best of all, the rain stayed away!
2)Martin attended the 'Heart of Hackney' walk with Blue Badge Tourist Guide Mary Sewell It seems that Hackney has more stories than you'd realise. I pass through the area often, but don't often stop to consider them. Blue Badge guide Mary took us around buildings we knew well around the centre of Hackney and Lower Clapton - the Town Hall, the Hackney Empire, St John's Church and the Round Chapel, telling us about the history behind them. She also pointed out details you might not normally spot, and well-hidden plaques revealing the old Manor House on what's now Mare Street, and the home of Joseph Priestly, who discovered Oxygen. Finishing off at Sutton House (a Tudor mansion that the National Trust seem unsure what to do with) she revealed that it was named after the founder of the Charterhouse School, Thomas Sutton - before it was discovered that he never lived there. Not all is as it seems round these parts. Martin adds "only me and my girlfriend turned up for the 4.30 tour, and there was only one taker for the earlier one"
3) John attended the 'HQS Wellington Open Day' on the Thames 1pm on Sunday found me standing on the gangplank leading to the ship Wellington, permanently moored on the Thames Embankment, near Temple tube station. Having gone past this ship hundreds of time since 1947 when she arrived in London, I looked forward to seeing inside. You can read about the ships history on its website, so I'll shall just write about the visit experience. Once on board you sign in (health and safety). The tours are led by experts in their field, (one guide worked for Cunard). You go along many corridors and there are plenty of stairs. The view of London from the decks is great (it was high tide, that helped). You can try your hand to turn the ships wheel, signal the engine room etc. At the location of the ship's bell we were told that when you are on a ship and see the bell then run your fingers inside it, if a child is Christened at sea they use the bell to hold the water and engrave the name inside the bell. (Bet you didn’t know that!)
I'm sure that many of you will be out enjoying Boris's "glorious celebration of London’s past, present and future", so this weekend I'm inviting my readers to tell me all about it. If you go on a festival walk or attend any festival event, either today or tomorrow, please write me a brief report and I'll publish it here on the blog. 150 words max, preferably emailed, and if you want to attach a photo all the better. Updates throughout the weekend as your reports come in.
Big Brother (10) • Freddie: How Jamiroquai might have turned out if he'd been born into money (grinning twat potential = high) • Lisa: bouncy cropped anti-goddess with scarlet mohawk (collective lesbopunk potential = high) • Sophie: blonde double-F wannabe-Page-Three stunna, with teeth brighter than her IQ (cheap stiletto centrefold potential = high) • Kris: egocentric slim-suited Manc beardylad (likelihood of tantrums over lack of hair straighteners = low) • Noirin: leggy down-to-earth chatterbox with face/accent mismatch (handbag circulatory dancer potential = high) • Cairon: transatlantic primary-colored street-stalking bro knowwhatimsayin (ghetto skank potential = high) • Angel: Russian six-pack-rippled Sportacus, lost in misguided artistic fantasy (mime-related trauma potential = high) • Karly: Fearne Cotton, but with longer hair and Scottisher accent (WAG potential = not as high as she hopes) • Marcus: muttonchop goth-hobbit (job offer as pony-tailed roadie = likely) • Beinazir: sturdy over-tressed gold-tower (ease with which she can be heard jangling at fifty paces = high) • Sophia: fierce little hair-straightened screecher (might've been cast in Diff'rent Strokes if the script had called for Arnold to be female) • Rodrigo: annoyingly optimistic Brazilian grinny penpal (are yellow check shirts back in fashion? = unlikely) • Charlie: token gelled-and pumped callcentre smileygay (vodka-swigging addiction potential = high) • Saffia: abrasive mememe mother with a right trashmouth on her (after two minutes I can already guess why her last two relationships failed) • Sree: focused over-keen Indian studentdrone (likelihood of doing whatever other people tell him = high) • Siavash: lovechild of Jack Sparrow and John Lennon circa 1970, but without the talent (punchintheface potential = high)
Big Loser (Number 10) • Gordon: dour beancounter billynomates evolved into national failmagnet (survival prospects = well ropey) • Hazel: small chirping mammal felled by blind taxgreed oversight (return to grassroots = overdue) • James: off-radar stalking horse firing bloodlust starting pistol (household name potential = minimal) • Jacqui: discredited governess waddling back into Redditch shadows (cost of failure = bathplug + porn) • Alan: inoffensive nicebloke who might lead to Labour to only slightly crushing defeat (historical significance = mere footnote) • Mandy: Machiavellian schemer enjoying one last spell oiling wheels of government (number of nine lives used = at least seven) • Alistair: tax-raising gloom-monger doomed to impotence by global collapse (financial sparkle = non-existent) • Tony: retired NuLab colossus smirking from international sidelines (departure from political stage = perfectly timed) • Nick: faceless political bystander wielding cloak of media invisibility (recognition by average UK punter = minimal) • David: smarmy landed gentry in Right place at Right time (UK-ruling potential = inevitable)
Elections worry me. They're popularity contests, generally won by the party that appears more competent, not necessarily the party that is. Don't bother to engage with the big questions, just decide which party leader you'd rather invite round for dinner.
Politics worries me. It ought to be based on policies, but too often it's based on personality. He's nice, she looks like a cow, I don't like the way his eyebrows meet in the middle, she's a bit posh. Cross-party debate too often descends into a bitter slanging match, more destructive than constructive, and the fundamentals are overlooked. It's important to engage, but this is all terribly superficial.
Campaigns worry me. They're targeted at the lowest common denominator, reducing key concepts to mere soundbites. Dripfeed some vague promises, smear your opponent's reputation, but never commit your party to anything that might prove awkward later. The key aim appears to be to say absolutely nothing wrong, rather than attempting to put forward policies that are right.
Voters worry me. Much of the electorate has only the haziest idea about what politicians have pledged to do, except what their over-simplified newspaper has spoonfed them. Voters will put their cross next to anyone if they look clean and trustworthy, without a thought to the longer-term consequences for their future finances and freedom. Some people are so easily led.
Public opinion worries me. The voice of the majority isn't always the voice of common sense, especially when there's an emotive issue afoot. See that MP, she must be a criminal she must, well she's an MP, stands to reason. Put the electorate in charge of the country and you'd soon end up with a Minister of Repatriation And Hanging. The mob mentality in full effect is a very scary thing.
European Elections worry me. People are going out to vote today on things that affect all our futures, most of them without the slightest understanding of what they're voting for. All they're interested in are national issues and giving national figures a bloody nose, rather than considering the broader continental dimension. The ballot box can be so very parochial.
European Election results worry me. The MEPs elected this week will be deciding legislation until 2013, but we're picking them whilst obsessed by petty 2009 irregularities. As a result the UK risks sending bigots, zealots and racists to Brussels, and so allowing these fanatics a platform for their offensive views. And that's why I'm off to my local polling station on the way into work, to ensure that it's not my fault if they get in.
So, anyway, back to the Story of London festival website. It's changed a bit since Monday. For the better. And for the worse.
The biggest change is to the website's main search engine, specifically to how you "Find Your Nearest Event". On Monday you had to enter a postcode, and then a map appeared showing the surrounding events. Great if you wanted to search around your own home, but not much use elsewhere in London if you didn't know the postcode. It was also possible to view the results of your search as a list... except that the list showed every event in London, not just those on the map. And now that's changed.
Now you don't have to type in your postcode. Now you only have to type in a "location" of some sort, be it a place name, street name, postcode or neighbourhood. That's a major improvement, or so it would seem. Now it's possible to discover events around Great Portland Street, or along Highgate Hill, or out in Richmond, much more easily. You can even search for the middle of Regent's Park, and so discover this Sunday's Camden Green Fair (...ah, except the event's been cancelled, and the SoL website hasn't realised). Better news - search for Crossness and you'll now be able to discover precisely when the Engines are open, which is a big improvement on Monday.
But there's a downside. Search for Hendon and a event-less map appears. Sorry, announces the website, but "There are no events in your area. Please enter another area or use the events calendar..." Untrue. There is a big Story of London event in Hendon - the Hendon Pageant at RAF Hendon - but the museum's off the edge of the map so it isn't recorded. You might hope that scrolling the Google map, or zooming out, would reveal more, but no. If the event's not within a mile or so or your search point it won't appear, either on the map or on the shortlist generated underneath. Search for Muswell Hill - no events listed. Search for Ealing - nothing, even though there are events elsewhere in the borough. Search for Havering - a blank map, because the goat-related event at Havering Library isn't close enough to the designated pinpoint. I'm guessing many Outer London residents will have given up by now.
The other big difference since Monday is that location is now a "required" field, even in the Advanced Search. If you don't type in the part of London that interests you, no search is possible. Want to see all the Living History Weekend events across London on a map? Not allowed. Want to see all the events being organised by English Heritage. No can do without a location. Want to find the Alfred Hitchcock event? Sorry, you can't type "Alfred Hitchcock" into the search engine because it's not that sort of search engine.
Still, at least there's the opportunity to search by date in the Events Calendar. What's on today, 3rd June? 26 different events, apparently, although onlytwo of these are one-offs. Almost all of the rest are long-term opportunities rather than proper events, available most days this month. This list of "Art" events should give you a flavour of what I mean. But Dave Hill got caught out on Monday when he turned up at the supposedly-open Whitechapel Gallery only to find it was closed, as it is every Monday. I see that this particular date-related error's now been fixed.
But there's an event in Leyton with the opposite problem. It's the M11 Link Road "Linked" walk, an absolutely brilliant social history concept involving radio transmitters hung from lampposts. This is listed on the SoL website as being open "for one afternoon only" but has in fact been open every day since 2003. The walk requires you to hire headphones from local libraries, and only functions because lots of people don't all try to use them at the same time. Watch that system go horribly wrong on Saturday.
If you want a more useful way to find Story of London events, the themed lists in the website's sidebar are the way to go. Museums, social heritage, lectures, that sort of thing. But not the eight themed lists in the textbox at the top of the SoL homepage. Click on any the links for art, architecture, fashion, film, history, literature, music or theatre, and you only get themed events occurring today, not a complete list of all themed events. Seemingly there are no "music" events today, but when are the others? No idea, the website's a blank.
Or you could buy this week's Time Out, which has a pullout Story of London section in the middle. It's not comprehensive, but the map and listings are considerably easier to follow than the official website. For example, I'd never have spotted that the Wandle Festival was on this weekend if I hadn't seen it in print, nor noticed that Tate Britain was doing something big on Friday evening.
The Story of London could have been told so much better. But, this weekend in particular, why not try to make the best of what's available?
The northeasternmost station on the London Underground isn't in London and it isn't underground. It's at Epping, in Essex, and you have to travel to the farthest tip of the Central line to reach it. There used to be three stations even further out, at North Weald, Blake Hall and Ongar, but this section of the line was woefully under-used and closed down in 1994. A bunch of diesel-friendly volunteers are working on reopening the extra bit, for weekend pleasure rides at least, but for the time being Epping's as far as you can get.
Epping remains a popular station, not least with commuters across several square miles of surrounding countryside, which is why alongside platform 1 is the second largest station car park on the entire network. Drive up the hill and turn left, past a selection of leafy suburban retreats, and you can be in the main High Street in a couple of minutes. It's a broad and pleasant thoroughfare all told, dominated by the tall Gothic tower of St John's parish church, and with enough grassy interludes to give the place a bit of character. There are perhaps too many coffee shops, I thought, but the orange-fronted bakery looked rather inviting, and the independent Epping Bookshop added extra literary appeal. The local butchers sell Epping sausages, which are famous apparently, although I can't say I've ever tasted any. At the southern end of the High Street stands the town's brick Victorian water tower, now topped off by a collection of mobile phone transmitters. And beyond that is the edge of Epping Forest. It's easy to see why people might want to live here.
That's Epping, Essex, population eleven thousand. But there are several other Eppings around the world, including two suburbs in Australia each with a population greater than the English town, plus another in Cape Town, South Africa. There's even an Epping in Maine, in the easternmost county of the easternmost state of the USA, although that Epping's rather smaller. It's not so much a two-horse town as a one-dog street corner, home to a few far-flung neighbours spread out along a wooded backroad. The nearest small town has a population of 459, that's how small the American Epping is. Not somewhere I'd ever dream of visiting, let alone blogging about, because I suspect there wouldn't be much to say.
Mile End update
Sign immediately to left of entrance: "No entry to station on 6/7, 13/14 and 27/28 June. See red banners for alternative routes."
Sign on platform at foot of stairs: "No exit to street" (& big red crossed-out pedestrian) (WIN)
The East Cross Route sliced through Bow in the early 1970s, and the community's been trying to join up the two sides ever since. Here in Old Ford is one of the few crossings, a 21st century footbridge designed to make Fish Island a slightly more accessible outpost to reach. It's a simple yet elegant hump, passing through a twisted ring of steel at its highest point, with separate (disregarded) lanes for pedestrians and bikes. To the west there's a grid of terraced houses plus corner shops and kids on bikes, while to the east there's a big yellow warehouse and a converted chapel and industrial bleakness. And viewable from the top, the steady stream of through traffic that created this social chasm in the first place. The first minor battle has been won. [map]
I fear that, one day, everybody in London will live in a tiny compartment on the site of something more interesting. Here's a case in point. This is Wick Lane, until recently a sidelined industrial outpost, before property developers deduced that high-rise living was worth far more than low-profit manufacturing. This pink-based block (on the site of a former dyeworks) was first to arise five years ago, its early residents isolated in the middle of social nowhere. The brochure for 417 Riverside (still available) promised "urban riverside living" (conveniently ignoring the sewer nextdoor) and offered "an attractive and accessible location" (maybe one day, definitely not yet). The neighbouring block appeared last year on the site of a newspaper ink factory - the end result a bland grey cuboid. Nah, sooner you than me. [map]
And the upgrade continues. The southern half of Fish Island, the chunk where the streets aren't named after dace, roach or bream, is (very) slowly evolving from grimy backwater to residential bubble. Making stuff is so very 20th century, so all the local jobs and places of employment are gradually shifting elsewhere. Come back in a few years and the JCBs will have moved on, the van hire yard will have disappeared and that boarded-up warehouse will have realised the potential of its residential footprint. Tomorrow's Islanders will be happiest working from home in their broadband-enabled studios, but they'll have to get their cars fixed somewhere else. Pack 'em in, pile 'em high, and erase all the stuff that made the area interesting in the first place. [map]
The northern half of Fish Island retains a little more character. Tower Hamlets recently slapped a conservation area around Dace Road, so this enclave of artist-packed warehouses and old factories (mmm, Percy's peanuts) should survive relatively unscathed. This photo shows the more modern Ironworks building, tightly squeezed into the courtyard of the feature it replaced. It's built right up close to the Greenway, access to which ought to be a simple hop off a balcony, but the site's single gated front entrance forces residents to make an unexpectedly lengthy detour. Expect the BBC or some other international TV company to take over the penthouse suite in three years time, because it's probably the very closest viewpoint to the final stop on my journey. [map]
A short stroll along the Greenway and there it is, the building that's acting as a catalyst for all this change in the surrounding borderlands. The newly-sprung Olympic Stadium is proving to be an irresistible magnet not just for sport but also for investment. There'll even be new homes erected right here, immediately in front of the stadium, come the post-Games legacy phase. As London's population grows, an even greater proportion of us are going to end up living in buildings that didn't exist at the turn of the century. Most of the new architecture I've passed on my walk would have sprung up anyway, but 2012 means that far more will follow in its wake. Olympic ripples are changing my neighbourhood, almost beyond recognition. [map]
The Bow Flyover used to be the one of the tallest things around here, but not any more. A whopping great apartment block's been erected alongside, one of a chain along the Olympic borderline into Stratford, and still they come. This tower was only due to have nine storeys when the original planning permission went through, but greed and speculation raised it higher, and now there's a semi-let village hanging in the sky. In its shadow lurks a drive-in greasemonger selling stodge and fries, not an option eight years ago, but more than popular today. Rumour has it the local Baptist church may soon be reinstated alongside, no doubt slightly richer than before. Round here red and silver has replaced brown and grey, and there's no going back. [map]
Grove Hall Park's my local greenspace. It's nothing special, but its handful of grassy acres are more than pleasant all the same. The council's poured a load of money into the park over the last couple of years, sprucing up the memorial garden and adding a decent (and well-used) playground. There are tumbly slides for toddlers, geometric frames for kids and twin hoops for teens - a big improvement on the lacklustre selection on site before. Even the brightly painted garden wall has so far resisted the attention of the E3 spray-tagger posse. With fresh tower blocks poking up above a leafy canopy, this is the photo that most looks like it's an illustration from a town planner's brochure. I still can't quite believe it's real. [map]
Where did that shop come from? I'm sure last time I walked up Fairfield Road this was just an industrial unit awaiting rebirth, and suddenly it's a brand new convenience store. The people of Bow Quarter used to cope perfectly well with their own internal mini-market, but now there's another huge estate on the opposite side of the road it seems an additional shop can be supported. Its shelves are piled not-quite-high with lowest common denominator comestibles, with alcohol and fizzy drinks ranking higher in importance on the boards outside than fruit, bread and vegetables. Don't expect organic splendour, this is still the East End after all, and a packet of Haribo and some Lucozade will do quite well enough for many. [map]
Here's change in action. A nine-storey "contemporary development" is in the ascendant, but for now all you can do is pop into the sales centre and look at some pictures. Disappointingly the sales centre is based in a proper brick house (once the offices of HF Bates recycling yard), now hidden away behind enormous advertising banners, and a building with far more character than the pile of shiny boxes that'll replace it. Even worse, some marketing guru has labelled the entire project "Mojo", and has written some of the most complete tosh I've ever read to try and promote it. "Mojo is right where you want to be", apparently. Alas this end of Bow isn't "vibrant, full of contrasts and distinctly cosmopolitan", but is instead rapidly losing its soul to heritage-free building sites such as this. [map]
Not all redevelopment is bad. The area east of Parnell Road used to be covered by Soviet-style council blocks, and then the demolition teams moved in, and then the showhomes went up, and now there's an entire new community on site. At the heart is a long oblong green, with two giant poppies spouting in the centre, beneath which two- and four-legged friends hang out. Medium-sized flats surround the perimeter, each named after a god or goddess, and each with their respective cartoon image beaming down from the front wall. It's not quite so delightful beyond, where a solid ¼-mile wall of apartments flanks a roaring dual carriageway, dotted with tiny east-facing windows to keep the traffic noise at bay. The estate's brand new road network is considerably quieter. E3's local map is never static. [map]
Forgive me, while there's a tube strike on, for looking ahead to next weekend's network closures. But I'd like to focus today on my nearly-local station, Mile End, which is a transport node in sore need of interior upgrade. The station's a real mess inside, and has been for a couple of years, because all the tiles were ripped down immediately before Metronet went bust. There's been no money to replace the tiles since, and the end result is pig-ugly platforms and grim-looking passageways. But a few tentative tiles have now materialised on various boarded-up pillars, and this month work has finally begun on renovating the ticket hall. It's this latter activity which requires part of the station to be closed over several weekends.
Olympic update
When the Olympics arrive in town, organising officials are going to try to persuade you to arrive at the stadium via West Ham station. Don't listen to them. They need to spread the spectator load over across many stations as possible, so well-connected West Ham's a major part of the 2012 transport plan. According to some wildly optimistic forecast, as many as 18% of spectators are expected to enter the park this way. But gullible attendees expecting a nice short stroll to the Olympic Park are in for an unpleasant surprise. It's more than a mile from West Ham station to the Olympic Stadium, and the intervening walk is via a whiffy Victorian sewer. Don't say I didn't warn you.
So an upgrade is called for. The plans are to lay two adjacent parallel paths with differing surfaces, one for bikes and one for pedestrians. Materials recycled from building on the site of the Olympic Park will be used, such as bricks, manhole covers, bollards and granite cobbles. Think of these paths as doubling up as some sort of industrial heritage collage. Try not to think of them as the crushed remnants of former businesses destined to be forever trampled underfoot. Whatever, they'll only take up about half of the Greenway's width, leaving plenty of space on either side for transplanted environmental greenspace. We're promised plenty of wildflower meadows along the way, as well as pockets of maple, hawthorn and hazel. It may not be quite so endearingly bland as the current surface, but it should give trudging Olympic spectators something rather lovelier to look at.
It seems strange seeing workmen and portakabins on the Greenway, so long a forgotten backwater track used by not many to get nowhere special. And it's a shame to see the path's previous infrastructure uprooted and discarded in an undignified heap [photo]. The Greenway's signposts used to be chunky vandalproof ironwork with all the names carved out in holey lettering. This wouldn't have passed muster in any design competition, but it was bold and resilient, and above all very green. Maybe they'll carve up all the old signs and benches and then recycle recognisable chunks amongst the new footpath, but somehow I doubt it. At least the replacement signs appear to have a bit of character about them too, whenever they finally appear.
Every now and then my alphabetical journey throws up a museum I can't believe I haven't been to before. This is one of those. Formerly one of London's most important pumping stations, the Kew Bridge Steam Museum is now a hybrid hotchpotch of industrial heritage, machine room and engine shed. It's located by the Thames between Brentford and Chiswick, beneath a giant standpipe tower visible for miles around. And hidden within are some absolutely whacking great steam engines. The Industrial Revolution wasn't powered by electricity, oh no, it was much harder work than that.
The museum smells of grease and old rags, which is perhaps not surprising because they're what keep the place together. Every now and then a boiler-suited volunteer will scuttle in through one door and out through another, maybe to give some flange somewhere a good oil, or maybe for a well-deserved cup of tea. If you're lucky he's here to fire up one of the engines, so be patient, it could take a while to build up sufficient head of steam. Listen carefully to his enthusiastic commentary and you might learn a fair amount about rotative motion, crankshafts and piston rods. And the three old machines in the central Steam Hall may look large and impressive, but they're some of the smaller beasts that run on site.
Along another corridor, crammed within a pair of narrow yet lofty brick chambers, stand the museum's Cornish Engines. One of these is the world's largest surviving single cylinder beam engine, and the other is the largest working beam engine in the world. Not bad for suburban Brentford. Again there's up-close access on three floors (but this time climbing to the top deck alongside the twin beams gave me an unexpected attack of vertigo). They're both monstrous and magnificent, even when stationary, with pipes and cylinders agleam. Add in venting steam and thrusting rods, on the rare occasions the 90 inch engine is actually fired up, and the experience is one to remember.
And there's more. A 400 yard steam railway operates around the edge of the site (the only fully operational steam railway in London) and visitors can hop on the back for a light chug through the backyard. I was hoping for a ride on the last train before lunch, but the rear carriages were 90% full of excited families who didn't look like they'd appreciate an obvious non-Dad squeezing in. Instead I made do looking at a stationary waterwheel, and nosing into some deserted workshops, and listening to the history of the standpipe tower via an old telephone.
The first "big weekend" of the Story of London festival concludes today. It's the Walking Weekend, during which Londoners are invited to "discover the city on foot to uncover the secret histories of the capital's streets, with over 100 guided walks". [walking weekend walks] [Sunday events]
2) Martin attended the 'Heart of Hackney' walk with Blue Badge Tourist Guide Mary Sewell
3) John attended the 'HQS Wellington Open Day' on the Thames
Big Brother (10)
Big Loser (Number 10)
Elections worry me. They're popularity contests, generally won by the party that appears more competent, not necessarily the party that is. Don't bother to engage with the big questions, just decide which party leader you'd rather invite round for dinner.
