THE NORTH CIRCULAR BY BUS(part 4)
Route 123: Walthamstow - Gants Hill Length of journey: 5 miles, 20 minutes [map]
The 123 runs for twelve miles, all the way from Wood Green to Ilford. Only about a mile of that is along the North Circular, but that's the best I've got, so that's the bus I'm going to take. Plus it follows the original route of the A406 eastwards from the point where the North Circular branches off, all the way down Woodford Avenue to Gants Hill. Before the motorway-standard extension down to Beckton opened in 1987, this was the way to go. Easy as 123.
From the Bell in Walthamstow, very close to the William Morris Gallery, it takes a while to get back to the North Circular. Visual respite is provided by Waltham ForestTown Hall, one of the finer mid 20th century civic centres, in competition-winning Nordic Classical style. Next up is Waltham Forest College, more classically housed, and holding an Open Day on Saturday when I passed by. Not a big hit, if the half-empty suite of food and entertainment stalls outside is anything to go by - the headline appearance by Griminal clearly wasn't quite a big enough draw. I get a top deck performance of my own when a young girl travelling unaccompanied bursts into song, far sweeter than any grime performance, but equally unidentifiable.
The same recorded message has played on all my previous buses too, but the 123 is the first route so descriptively thin I've felt the need to mention it. I'm on the upper deck so I have no idea how many, or how few, of the passengers boarding downstairs are paying for their ride in coins. But if you're a fairly regular traveller then you should have heard this message at least once before the withdrawal date, probably several times, and had the opportunity to consider whether to use Oyster or go contactless. It's the occasional users, who are far more likely to use cash than the rest of us, who are most likely to be caught out come 6th July: "oh, really... so I can't get on the bus at all?"
On past Wood Street Library, on across the Greenwich Meridian, and up to Waterworks Corner. The North Circular used to curve south down Beacontree Avenue, but now carves straight ahead through the trees to a major roundabout. This was built in the late 1960s alongside an existing underground reservoir belonging to the Metropolitan Water Board, and the roadworks also allowed for the construction of a second larger reservoir alongside. You might spot both from the bus, or one from the main road.
The 123 only skims the North Circular, but it's picked one of the road's mostbrutal urban sections. What used to be the main road was scoured out, widened and sunk into a cutting ten lanes wide through the heart of Woodford. Ten.Lanes.Wide. To catch the bus at one stop requires stepping down a zigzag ramp in a brick wall to road level, which is perhaps why nobody had ventured that far on my journey. The sole road bridge carries the former A11, now innocently renumbered A1199 in the hope that no satnav will spot it.
Approaching the Central line the carriageway splits, and splits again. Bear right to follow the new North Circular on equally mega-roads down to Beckton. Keep to the centre to whoosh up the fledgling M11 into the very heart of Essex. Or bear left down to Charlie Brown's Roundabout, named after the pub the gyratory destroyed in the 1970s, from which more local options are possible. The junction was built in the immediate floodplain of the river Roding, providing space for a triangle of interlinked concrete viaducts that soar over, or scar, the landscape depending on your view.
To be clear, I'm no longer following the North Circular, because that veers down towards Redbridge and no TfL services go that way. Instead I'm travelling onwards to Gants Hill along the old arterial road, once the A406, now the less inspiring A1400.
Widthwise we're back to a more comfortable two lanes each way, running past more familiar sights like a Tesco and a Toby Carvery. We also have a fair few passengers on board, the 123 being one of the few buses to cross the residential heart of the Hainault loop. Clayhall is quintessential Forgotten London, or indeed Never Even Heard Of It Before London, which is what happens when the Central line circles but misses you out. The area is tightly packed with broad avenues, gabled homes and lush gardens - the very epitome of suburbia but too disconnected to be widely desirable.
The section of road past Clayhall Park was once a rural lane, but the final stretch of Woodford Avenue is a deliberate interwar cut-through. The age of the two churches gives the game away - both have copper spires - and the local shops are called Spurway Parade, presumably in honour of the motor car's brave new world. I like that the central reservation has a line of short trees, in sharp contrast to the impenetrable barriers found elsewhere back along the route.
And the Gants Hill roundabout is where this round London journey terminates, beside a tiny plaque unveiled byBoris Johnson in October 2010 "to celebrate the regeneration of the local area". Closer study of the smallprint reveals that the plaque refers only to the creation of a "regeneration contract", not the upgrade of the roundabout, although the subways have scrubbed up well, and the underground station is as lip-licking as ever. To drive on, join the A12 Eastern Avenue (by bus that's the legendary Route 66). And to follow the North Circular... oh hang on, that never came this far, so I'd best go back and try another way. 101>>
An aside: What is it with the low-digit-ness of buses on the North Circular? I've just ridden the 112, 232, 34 and 123, and there's not a single digit there higher than four (and only one higher than three). The 102 on the Palmers Green section fits the same pattern, and the 444 through Edmonton, and where I'm heading tomorrow is low-digit too. A coincidence, obviously, rather than anything planned, but hey.
THE NORTH CIRCULAR BY BUS(part 3)
Route 34: Arnos Grove - Walthamstow Length of journey: 7 miles, 35 minutes [map]
One of the joys of TfL's Live Bus Arrivals service is that you know not just when the next bus is coming, but also the bus after that. So when the first 34 turned up at ArnosGrovestation, heaving, I checked ahead and let it pass. Another bus was only three minutes behind, and as it turned out almost empty, allowing me to grab the prime observation seat on the upper deck. Sometimes it pays to wait.
A proper low-numbered bus for once, the 34 only follows the North Circular for about half its length, so that's the half I'm going to ride. And sorry, but I'm starting at the rubbish bit of the A406, the narrow four lane stretch round Bounds Green that clogs and clogs and clogs. No buses traverse Telford Road, possibly the worst bit, where houses await demolition should a long-term widening scheme ever come to pass. At the next traffic lights cars actually have to turn right to stay on the main road, hence delays, and it's at this point that the 34 arrives and slips into the flow. A new curvaceous footbridge helps schoolchildren get home, beyond which Bowes Road isn't especially wide either. Various residential roads feed in on both sides, and the central reservation (where it exists) is more flowerbed than barrier.
A strip of brownfield land opens up on the left hand side, with those few houses that remain "under protection" and ready for demolition. Is road-widening planned, or will fresh flats spring forth forever constraining opportunities for future expansion? Behind suburban rooftops runs the Pymmes Brook, a minor north London waterway, but significant enough that the North Circular's engineers chose to track its gentle valley all the way down to the Lea. A wholly manmade channel cuts across at right angles just past the railway bridge, this the 400-year-old New River. Nobody seems to be out walking it today, they all seem to be driving instead.
And suddenly we have four lanes travelling east again, one of them a bus lane, this on the approach to the Clockhouse Junction. These are the last traffic lights before Barking, which can only mean the North Circular's about to get a whole lot better (or, if you're going in the opposite direction, a whole lot worse). The next section is long and straight and a textbook example of ribbon development, with a run of sturdy semis facing bravely into the traffic. Three bedroom freehold, Palmers Green fringe, £250000 ono, would suit petrolhead.
The road then widens further, and the houses step further back, on the run-up to the Great Cambridge Road. Just when it looks like our bus might descend into the underpass it banks off up the slip road to connect with a roundabout that driving instructors probably avoid negotiating with their students on a first lesson. The next stretch of the A406 is called Sterling Way, wittily named because it acts as a bypass for parallel Silver Street. And Silver Street is where the 34 is heading, to serve an arts centre, a Post Office and hundreds of houses... which must be a better transport decision than stopping off beside some allotments.
Ooh, PymmesPark is pretty, especially at this time of year with flowerbeds ablaze, and the Brook of the same name wiggling through. Keep looking and you'll miss that the North Circular is descending into its longest subway - the Fore Street Tunnel. This was built in the late 90s to ease a terrible bottleneck through Edmonton, but has proved unexpectedly leaky, so TfL have just started closing it overnight for a mammoth series of drainage repairs due to run until late next year. Those of us at ground level get to cross Angel Corner at the Angel Edmonton, both named after a 17th century coaching inn on Fore Street long since demolished.
One of the joys of a frequent bus service is that sometimes you catch up with the bus in front. So it's a pleasure to catch up with the 34 I refrained from riding earlier, and then to overtake it. There are so many passengers aboard that at every stop someone wants to alight, whereas the handful on our bus rarely do, so we speed ahead and stay permanently in the lead. Sometimes it pays to have waited.
There's a feeling of acceleration as the North Circular careers headlong towards the Lea. It's four lanes each way now, speeding through lowrise suburbia in the shadow of a single lemon-coloured tower block. The 34 takes every opportunity to bear off onto slip roads and back again, grabbing an additional view of the viaduct's supporting concrete pillars each time. The elevated view hits a lowpoint above Angel Road, which is probably the crappiest station in London. A panorama of waste metal proliferates, and there's a terrible smell that might have something to do with the chimneys of the EcoPark Energy Centre alongside. The Mayor and the Chancellor were here last week to plug Enfield Meridian Water, a massive redevelopment plan that aims to turn the entire surrounding area into space for 5000 homes, office space and a retail park. It looks a hard sell today, but at least the road links will be good.
We cross the Lea, and its associated artificial channels, at least four times before finally touching down in the East. The first stop is outside the South Chingford Cafe, its exterior festooned with a flapping Union Jack and a pictorial menu of priced platters. The lady beside me on the bus has brought her own food, a slab of unnamed meat in a plastic tub which I fear she's going to eat, but merely prods and reseals. Nobody alights on Walthamstow Avenue, indeed there are barely any stops because crossing to the other side of the six lane highway looks like hell. In fact hell is WalthamstowStadium, the much-loved dog track whose listed frontage still stands beside the Crooked Billet Roundabout, but the cranes behind tell a much sadder story.
And the Crooked Billet is the end of the 34's dalliance with the North Circular. No buses serve the next mile, an urban clearway that rises gently ahead to carve briefly through a bit of Epping Forest. Instead our destination is Walthamstow, a considerably less speedy prospect, down residential streets past the converted Tramway Offices. Everyone else is going to the bus station, or thereabouts, but I hop off at The Bell (which thankfully does still exist, and is looking for a junior sous chef). One more bus should do it, or maybe two. 123>>
One of the joys of a lengthy bus ride is that sometimes you catch up with the bus in front of the bus in front. As we pull in at The Bell, bingo. Sometimes he who waits wins the jackpot.
THE NORTH CIRCULAR BY BUS(part 2)
Route 232: Brent Cross - Arnos Grove Length of journey: 6 miles, 30 minutes [map]
Like the 112 before it, the 232 is a mostly North Circular bus. That's risky if you want to catch it, because you could end up in a jam anywhere and might be late for whatever at the other end. I have no such deadlines so board in good faith, and wonder how long my journey through south Barnet might take. The bus itself is busy, pulling into the Brent Crossshopping mall to disgorge one set of passengers and then pausing to welcome more. It's also the only single decker I get to ride on my entire journey, which is bad news for today's report because it restricts my view. Travel at the front on the upper deck and you really feel like you've experienced a place - travel at the back on a lower deck and you've only scratched the surface. Still, bear with me.
Welcome to Brent Cross Private Property, reads the sign we pass on the way out, which is a less than friendly welcome in my book. We take a dip through the A41 viaduct to escape, essentially following a sliproad to follow another sliproad to rejoin the A406. It's a much easier route than many other buses hereabouts get to follow, for which I am duly thankful. We are again following the river Brent, here forced into a demeaning concrete culvert lest it get in the way of the modern motor car. A run of bungalows follows, most with paved front gardens from which residents have to reverse extremely carefully to enter the traffic. One such dwelling has been painted grey and renamed Wentworth College, along with a similarly drab semi nextdoor, which probably explains why no photos of the building appear anywhere on the college's website.
I recognise the next stretch from my walks along the Capital Ring, or rather I remember walking past shady lakes while a six lane highway thundered behind the trees. Ahead is the North Circular's flatshare moment, as the A1 swings in from the left and shares carriageways for a while. Unusually there's plenty of open greenspace alongside which could be reappropriated by tarmac, but hasn't been, even after TfL's recent mega-upgrade of the junction at Henlys Corner. Instead local residents can choose to stroll along the Mutton Brook, if they don't mind inhaling exhaust fumes, past the traffic lights where we stop and start before veering off solo again.
Ever since we left Brent Cross I've been trying to work out where the voices are coming from. They're too soft to be iBus announcements, and too regular to be passengers talking. The answer comes suddenly with a doof doof... somebody in one of the front seats is streaming EastEnders! I can't see whether it's on their smartphone or tablet, but what I do know is that the brazen bastard is watching without the aid of headphones. Please God let that be it, thinks the on-board collective, but immediately after the theme tune's faded away it kicks back in again as our miscreant starts to watch the next episode. Where is the real Phil Mitchell when you need him?
The North Circular descends into cutting as it skirts the edge of Finchley, a sleek modern cutting lined by patterned brickwork, denying sight of the cemetery above. No pedestrians may pass this way, the A406 has finally gone wheels only, with only the occasional bus stop on the traffic's edge granted temporary access. The next main road we rise up and over, now more disassociated from our surroundings, past the façade of Finchley Fire Station, FFS. A curving double spur links to the A1000, formerly the A1, where the North Circular at last attains a motorway vibe. As we speed through I'm increasingly aware that I don't know this part of London at all, it's like a black hole in my decade's exploration of the capital, and I wonder if my absence is at least partly due to the North Circular scything through.
It's at this point that the A406 goes green, on both sides, with a nature reserve to the left and the vast St Pancras and Islington Cemetery to the right. I'm assuming all is set fair for the journey ahead when suddenly the next stop is brimming with passengers wanting to crowd on. Half are laden with bags from Tesco, and the rest are sweaty in sportskit after a Powerleague kickabout on the other side of the arterial stream. Somewhat appropriately the sliproad we're now on is called Bobby Moore Way, although my research has been unable to dig up any geographical reason why the great footballer is commemorated here at Colney Hatch and not, say, further round the North Circular where he lived and played.
The onboard teammates jostle, banter and swig Lucozade, like you do after a match. There is to be plenty of swigging time. Ahead is the unloved part of the North Circular where the number of eastbound lanes slims from three to two, and traffic duly queues to merge in turn. It could be worse, indeed I suspect it oftentimes is, but there's no immediate scope for any useful widening hereabouts. The immediate obstacle is the East Coast mainline, more specifically the low brick arch that threads beneath, where capacity just has to grin and bear it. On the opposite side is a huge gasometer and a BP garage, and then a set of traffic lights where the 232 does something unthinkable, it turns left.
Yes, the next quarter-mile of the A406 is entirely bus-free. I suspect that's partly to avoid its unfriendly two-lane-ness, but more likely to give the 232 the chance to serve some proper communities for a change. First up is New Southgate, the newly-proposed terminus of Crossrail 2, which'd no doubt mean the clearing out of the builders merchants decamped on a disused viaduct. Then there's Friern Barnet, easternmost of the family of Barnets, where it feels strange to be back on a single carriageway road passing chip shops and nail bars. And finally Arnos Grove station, where I decide to decamp the 232 before it continues off piste to Turnpike Road. Brief arterial respite follows, outside architecturalheaven. 34>>
THE NORTH CIRCULAR BY BUS(part 1)
Route 112: Ealing Common - Brent Cross Length of journey: 7 miles, 35 minutes [map]
I had my doubts about riding the A406 by bus on a Saturday afternoon. I've seen sections of the North Circular jammed solid, particularly along the next stretch, so I brought a book in case things got too bad. Thankfully I hit lucky on my journey to Brent Cross, and also in getting a double decker ride because most 112s are single. I missed out on the upper front seat, so got to sit behind a woman wolfing down a filet-o-fish and black coffee. The road north from Ealing Common is Hanger Lane, long has been, but now a four lane arterial rather than obscure rural backwater. It vaults the Great Western railway, then rises to a high point on Hanger Hill from which a panorama across Brent and Harrow can be seen. It's best seen from the top deck, so truck drivers probably have the edge over car drivers, and is pleasingly lowrise bar Wembley's foreground arch.
Once a lowly crossroads, the Hanger Lane Gyratory is the squarest mega-roundabout in London. It came into being in the 1980s in response to the sheer volume of traffic interchanging between Western Avenue and the North Circular, and has been mostly overwhelmed ever since. The A40 passes beneath in a too-narrow underpass, but everything on the A406 must stop and join the multi-lane maelstrom. Our bus pauses beside a shop specialising in Eastern European accident claims, then ducks out into the melee past several outcrops of ill-advised office architecture. Our driver's clearly a pro, negotiating four lanes, then five, then six, before spinning off northeast along the Brent valley.
From this point on, the North Circular is a substantially better road than before, from a motorist's point of view that is, rather than in terms of scenery. Various commercial premises occupy the left hand side, including the underwhelming (and non-orange) HQ of EasyBus and EasyOffice, while somewhere in the trees to the right is what's left of TwyfordAbbey. Immediately ahead, passing over via aqueduct, is the Grand Union Canal - damaged by bombing at the start of WW2, but a flooding calamity was thankfully averted. And if you look carefully you'll spot that the bus has slipped off the main road onto a parallel suburban feeder, this in order to better serve its neighbouring community, and not for the last time.
Here's a legendary location - the famous Ace Cafe. It opened in 1938 to cater for passing roadside trade, but very soon upgraded to the Ace Service Station. The current building's a postwar rebuild, made popular then famous, then infamous as a Mecca for bikers and rock'n'rollers. The last fried breakfast was served in 1969, that is until a 2001 reboot that saw the Ace reborn for an older generation. Our bus paused at the stop alongside for longer than seemed absolutely necessary, but that was great to get an unusual birds eye view of action on the forecourt. A variety of bikes were lined up proudly at the roadside while their owners sat inside in full leathers with a nice cup of coffee, or rested their helmets outside on a row of black plastic chairs. Others in civvies had come simply to admire, or had tagged along to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Mini Moke, three of which were parked outside. Ace indeed.
There are at least half a dozen railway bridges ahead (one stillFerodo!), these carrying a) the West Coast mainline b) tracks to sidings and c) the Bakerloo line. Our sideroad dips through a series of brick arches to pass Stonebridge Park station, and a small cluster of contrasting office blocks. Immediately to the left is the refitted 21 storey Wembley Point, a triangular-prism-ish tower whose deluded owners have deemed it "the true landmark of Wembley", ignoring the conspicuous national stadium nearby. Opposite are the Unisys Buildings, a pair of concrete curves left empty anddecaying in 1996, fit only for squatters. It's destined to become "at least 5% affordable housing", but in the meantime hosts Wembley's famous SundayMarket which was forced to decamp here earlier this year.
Thus far any housing immediately alongside the North Circular has tended to be fairly Metroland in style, but as Neasden approaches comes a run of lowly council homes, roughly hewn and scrappily daubed. Somewhere behind is the Shree Swaminarayan Mandir, the largest traditionally-built Hindu temple outside India, although a far more visible place of worship is coming up on the left. That'd be the Wembley IKEA, one of the main reasons this road gets so clogged up hereabouts, as the size of the car park (and that of neighbouring Tesco) bears witness. A flatpack football stands outside the entrance this month, which I suspect might have been less underwhelming had Sweden actually qualified for the World Cup this year.
The 112 then does a brave thing and turns off the A406 at the Neasden Underpass. It does this to serve a bus stop in the mock Tudor shopping parade, but in doing so risks entering one traffic jam leading to another leading back to a third. Few urban centres have been blighted by the North Circular quite so badly as poor Neasden, but my journey escapes relatively quickly and I'm not forced to look for too long. Neither do I get the opportunity, on the next stretch, to enjoy a lengthy view over the Welsh Harp Reservoir. I catch glimpses of yachts behind the treeline, but a more protracted spell of light industrial tedium in the immediate vicinity.
One more mega-important mega-junction follows, this being StaplesCorner. Yes, there is a branch of Staples office supplies on the corner, but that's not the origin of the name, which was the Staples Mattress Factory, extant here until 1986. One linked roundabout joins to the A5, formerly Watling Street, while the other more complex beast is the very first junction on the M1 motorway. It's bad enough to negotiate in a car but pedestrians are sent instead via a series of labyrinthine suspendedwalkways, fenced off to keep two legs and four wheels safely separate. And finally, assuming the traffic's not too heavy, the 112 delivers its cargo of shoppers to the mall at BrentCross. There are far worse places to pause, but also far better. 232>>
THE NORTH CIRCULAR BY BUS(prologue)
Gunnersbury - Ealing Common Length of journey: 2 miles, 40 minutes
The North Circular Road was conceived by the Greater London Arterial Roads Conferences of 1913-16, a decision-making body from which also sprang the Great West Road and Eastern Avenue. While the South Circular never really took off, being little more than some ordinary roads with a special label, the North was built mostly from scratch. Most of the new road was laid out in the 1920s, and ran from Hanger Lane to Gants Hill via Finchley and Edmonton to create a useful by-pass around the edge of Victorian London. There were plans in the 1940s for the entire A406 to be upgraded to a six-lane highway as part of the mostly-aborted Ringway scheme (ofwhichmorehere). But while several sections of the North Circular are now at motorway standard, for example the eastern extension from the M11 down to Beckton, others still have a much more constricted feel.
I've decided to ride the North Circular by bus. At 25 miles it's a bit long to walk, plus parts of it aren't entirely suitable for pedestrians. Some of it isn't entirely suitable for buses either, there being nobody living alongside, so TfL don't route services that way. But they route buses directly along the rest of the North Circular, so the great majority of this arterial road can be covered in just four buses. Or maybe five, let's see how it all pans out, shall we...
Nowadays the North Circular Road begins at the Chiswick Roundabout. As evidence for this, the road sign on the approach shows five roads radiating outwards, only one of which is appropriately designated. Another points to the South Circular, which might seem unlikely given that we're north of the river, but the A205 really does start here before crossing Kew Bridge and heading round towards Woolwich. This is a seriously important road junction, it's where the M4 begins and continues hundreds of miles west to Swansea and beyond. But by this point the motorway is already in the air, soaring above the roundabout via the legendary ChiswickFlyover. For those of us at ground level the environment is a little more mundane, with walls and garages and other buildings around the not inconsiderable perimeter.
Given the roundabout's size, pedestrians are courteously offered the option of walking straight across the middle. I was pleased to see an attempt's been made to make the route more appealing by lining the path with wild flowers and small trees, plus some stumpy brushed metal lamps to light the way after dark. Someone's even tried to brighten the section beneath the flyover with the inclusion of some girder-like arboreal sculptures, but instead the concrete arches dominate, and this is still more somewhere you'd come to doss down for the night. The Chiswick Flyover was officially opened in 1959 by actress Jayne Mansfield, and her words "It's a sweet little flyover" are printed on an unlikely commemorative sign positioned so that only those on foot will see it. There are also two other giant metal towers, which at first I thought were art but turned out to be supporting electronic adverts for the benefit of passing motorway drivers. On Saturday they were blaring out news of a "Free Flag With The Sun Tomorrow", which should in fact have read "Free Flag With The Sun Today", so maybe the newspaper should ask for their money back.
But these garish signs are nothing compared to what's planned for the empty brownfield site on the northern corner of the roundabout between the motorway and the start of the North Circular. This is the proposed home of the London Octopus, an asymmetric office block that's soon to become the capital's ugliestbuilding. Its exterior will be covered by the largest digital advertising screen in Europe, some 50m tall, with the express intention of providing "an infinite opportunity to express branding in as bold or as subliminal a fashion as can be imagined." Global marketing barons will no doubt salivate at the opportunity to directly engage with high volume traffic flows at "a strategic location with exceptional prominence". But I dare you to explore the Octopus's website without feeling queasy or watch the publicity film without being aghast.
The first two miles of the North Circular follow Gunnersbury Avenue, all the way from the Chiswick Roundabout to the Uxbridge Road. This is a major artery and a mostly-residential road, so it's surprising to find that no London buses head this way. And that meant I had to walk, starting beside the Peugeot garage and striding north past the big B&Q. Traffic going my way was flowing freely, but in the opposite direction was a long tailback of frustrated drivers and the occasional flapping England flag. The road's a four lane highway at this point as it passes the entrance to Gunnersbury Cemetery and runs along the edge of Gunnersbury Park. Should residents on the opposite side of the road choose to visit their local recreational amenity they've been afforded a lofty footbridge, the first of very many I'll be passing before East London is finally reached.
I nipped into the park and its museum at this point, as you'll remember I told you yesterday. Good timing, because the heavens opened while I was inside, and when I returned to the road it was awash with puddles. Indeed exceptionally good timing, because as I reached the junction with Gunnersbury Drive I heard a loud droning noise behind me and turned to see the half the Queen's Birthday flypast approaching. These planes had delighted crowds on The Mall two minutes earlier, and now here they were flying low over Gunnersbury on their way towards RAF Northolt. A lumbering Globemaster III took the lead, ahead of an Air Force Voyager flanked by three Typhoons and three Tornados, the procession aligned precisely overhead. The few of us walking in the right place at the right time grinned in awe, which extended when the Red Arrows appeared and sped across semi-detached rooftops, before normality swiftly returned.
Ahead lies the narrowest section of the A406, a single carriageway with only one lane in each direction. It seems barely worthy of the North Circular brand name, but there's no easy way to widen the road without swallowing up the front gardens, and maybe the homes, of those living to either side. One of those used to be comedian Sid James, he of the Carry On films, commemorated at number 35 by a blue plaque from the British Comedy Society. By now the road is edging into Ealing, and soon runs along the edge of Ealing Common, a very pleasant open expanse. And it's in the far corner, just past the Uxbridge Road, where TfL finally deigns to send a bus along the North Circular. The next seven miles will be rather quicker. 112>>
Update: A surprising inhabitant of Gunnersbury Avenue that I overlooked (thanks Daniel) is the NorthKoreanEmbassy, based in a semi-detached house at 73. Or at least I thought I'd missed it until I looked up where number 73 is, and it turns out I was standing outside when the Queen's Birthday Flypast thundered over. That's it beneath the fighter planes in one of the photos I took, and in the bottom left hand corner of the montage above... what are the chances?
On the border between Ealing and Hounslow, and acting as a repository for both, lies Gunnersbury Park Museum. It's a peculiar place, simultaneously very grand and rather down at heel, but it and the surrounding parkland have a fascinating past. And, if the planned Heritage Lottery grant is finally approved, a more promising future.
In 1760 a Palladian mansion set a mile back from the Thames, a little beyond Chiswick, was bought by George II for his favourite daughter Princess Amelia. She used it as her summer retreat and landscaped the estate, only for the main house to be demolished soon after her death. In its place were built the unimaginatively titled Small Mansion and Large Mansion, the second of which was purchased in 1835 by the financier Nathan Mayer Rothschild. The family lived here at Gunnersbury for the next ninety years, extending the estate and inviting the political establishment and nobility and round to grand parties. They added stables and an Orangery, built a gothic tower by the lake to act as a boathouse, and laid out Japanese and Italian gardens to impress guests. Then in 1925, after the death of the third generation, the Rothschilds moved out. They sold up to Ealing and Acton councils, which helped to protect the estate from being turned into streets of residential housing, and a 200 acre public park was created. Neville Chamberlain came to open it, and in 1929 the Large Mansion was duly reimagined as a museum. It's still going, if not still going strong, and still very much under civic control.
It must have been a grand sight in its time, rather grander than it looks now. The carriage drive out front is now a stretch of tarmac where the museum volunteers park their cars. The paint on the stucco frontage is cracked and peeling, especially on the upper storey. And the letters MUS and EUM are pasted individually in the windows on the ground floor, in case you haven't spotted them above the pillared porch above the front door - anything to encourage visitors inside.
Sorry, the upstairs rooms are all out of bounds at present, so don't try heading up there. Instead step through the arch in front, and ahead again, to read a bit about the history of the Rothschilds. The room's full of carriages, including the Victorian version of a luxury coach, and the family's in-town model for riding to Parliament, and the actual very last hansom cab to drive the streets of London. That's not a Rothschild original, but part of the collection that Ealing and Hounslow councils have stashed in the building and partly on display. If you want to see the L and Z from the Lucozade sign on the Great West Road, and a Robots of Death mask from Dr Who (as made for Ealing Studios), they're in the old Library. Or there's an exhibition elsewhere of items made in the two boroughs, of which there are a phenomenal number, from Brylcreem to Routemasters and Hoovers to Guinness. It was supposed to be a temporary exhibition, but the proposed end date rolled round in 2011 and the exhibits show no sign of replacement.
But actually, for a twin borough museum, there's not very much to see. Two other rooms are filled with general Victoriana, such as cookware and household goods, this with a general eye on educating local primary school children. Another houses two dozen information boards regarding the transformation the Friends of the Museum hope the Lottery will bring, ideally both house and grounds, and so thorough it'll take until 2026 to complete. But what you should be doing in the meantime is staring not at the contents but at the rooms themselves. They've faded a bit, but some of the ostentatious decoration shines through, for example in the painted ceilings, the gilded columns and the sort-of original wallpaper.
And there is one treat normally hidden from view, located down the servants' corridor on the other side of a keypad-locked door. You'll need to get the volunteers to open it up for you, or hope they mention to you it exists... that's the Victorian Kitchen Wing. This has survived pretty much intact because park staff used to use it for indoor maintenance, hence the tiles and shelves and grates were left pretty much alone. A good scrub-up has created a splendid set of rooms, including a 27-burner gas range which is the sort of thing you had in the 1840s if you were rich, and a scullery full of irons, mangles and washboards. Again you can see the education angle coming through strong, but the kitchens also validate a visit for adults too. Come at the weekend rather than on a weekday if you'd like to look inside.
There's a considerable amount to explore in the park outside too, including a 'temple' by a pond and several semi-ruined garden features. The far side of the park is Hounslow's answer to Hackney Marshes, with umpteen football pitches crammed in for simultaneous league matches, plus there's a nine hole pitch and putt course, which might keep many clubbers happy. If you want to wander round and discover the history by yourself, a local group have put together a 15 minute podcast which you can listen to and read about here. And whilst there's always a feeling that this once grand park is undergoing underfunded decline, there''s always hope it'll rise again, and the whole package still retains considerable charm.
What do you call that area of London between the West End and the City? Sort of north of Covent Garden and south of King's Cross. I bet you don't call it Midtown. But there's still an organisation out there hoping desperately that you will. I don't rate their chances.
Four years ago 560 local companies in the East West End/West City area grouped together and created inmidtown, a Business Improvement District they hoped would bring greater prosperity. Their plan was to make the area better for "investors, residents and visitors", and key to that was creating a finer sense of place. Bloomsbury wasn't good enough for them, Holborn wasn't suitably wide-ranging, and St Giles wasn't sufficiently well-known. So they plumped for an umbrella name, of the kind a particularly uninspired focus group might dream up. They decided on Midtown. And the rest of London shrugged their shoulders, walked away and carried on with the rest of their lives.
Two years ago they set up a different website for visitors to the area, called gotomidtown.co.uk. This takes a rather more promotional tack, based on luring in potential punters who might spend dosh on restaurants, a museum visit or spa treatment. It won't surprise you to hear that Midtown is a great place to drink, and to eat, and to shop, and to relax, because anywhere that's ever had a PR-driven website is exactly the same. But good luck trying to locate any of the delights on the website, because gotomidtown.co.uk has one of the worst online directories I've ever seen. They have a map but refuse to list anything on it until you enter something into the search box, so you almost need to know what you're looking for in advance and serendipitous discovery is unlikely.
Wander around core Midtown, say between Bloomsbury Street and Holborn station, and you'll likely see big Midtown banners hung from the lampposts. I think they're designed to create a sense of community cohesion and to promote the key values that those in the business improvement district share. But it's hard to get excited about green rooftops you can't see, and power generation schemes that collectively cut carbon emissions, so I'm not convinced many people engage. Plus these giant banners don't include the inmidtown.org or gotomidtown.com address, oh no. They include a shortcut URL you're supposed to remember and type in instead, for example mid.bz/midtownfuture. The only problem is that they're entirely unmemorable, especially that peculiar bz suffix, and if you only type in mid.bz you don't end up anywhere relevant at all.
To promote this geographical concept in the flesh, inmidtown boast two physical drop-in presences. One is a bright orange kiosk immediately outside Holborn tube station, where a uniformed guide waits patiently to tell fresh-faced visitors emerging from the tube where to go, and maybe dishes out a (useful) area map. The poor lady in the newspaper kiosk alongside is clearly sick of being asked similar questions, and has stuck numerous paper signs on her magazine racks urging lost souls to go and ask somebody who cares.
And then, perhaps more surprisingly, there's a Midtown tourist information centre in a shop on New Oxford Street. I've managed to walk past several times over the past few years without spotting it, lurking smack between a computer shop and an Italian restaurant. The unit appears to be called Hotels Tickets Sightseeing Travel, with gotomidtown.co.uk written in rather smaller letters underneath, but that's because they want people to go inside and book something like a taxi or a ticket for the Heathrow Express. The shop window contains a variety of Midtown merchandise, should you be particularly proud of your local neighbourhood, including mugs, matches, pens and umbrellas. Most of these are emblazoned with Midtown's mascot, that's BuzzBee, which also explains why you can buy honey, honey sweets, honey dippers and even a mini bee hotel if the fancy strikes.
Poor old BuzzBee must have felt like such a good idea when the marketing team thought him up, embodying eco-credentials and sustainability in an efficient collaborative manner, and he even has his own Twitter account. But it seems his creators have finally realised they're on a hiding to nothing and thrown in the towel, because BuzzBee tweeted for the final time last week, pleading with any lingering followers to go and follow @gotomidtown instead. If they're the sort of person who likes corporate retweets for pancake deals and spa open days, who knows, perhaps they did.
If you live or work locally, or have a penchant for history, the best thing about gotomidtown is undoubtedly its series of guided walks. These run several times a week, almost daily in the summer, and cover such diverse subjects as suffragettes, Dr Crippen, rock stars and Sir Edwin Lutyens. They're also free, so long as you don't mind wandering around behind a man in a bright orange shirt for up to two hours. But I doubt that historians of the future will be calling this area Midtown, because existing names like Bloomsbury and Holborn are too strong, and because nobody likes an artificially bland imposition. Still, don't expect that to stop this business consortium from promoting Midtown as WC1's go-to destination of choice. And please, don't even get me started on The Northbank...
So this evening, on the Jubilee line, Darryl saw this.
And this afternoon on the Central line I saw the same game referred to as
"...spain v hollond..."
Which suggests that whoever's running ESPNFC's World Cup feed for TfL can't spell.
And can't even misspell consistently.
And isn't being checked by anyone who can spell.
TfL earned only £100,000 for five weeks of this.
The future's not looking brihgt.
Commuters will see news, results and score updates from ESPNFC’s team of global football experts in Brazil displayed in more than 140 stations across the London Underground network
Yes that's right, as well as telling you where the next trains are going, for the next five weeks electronic displays in tube stations are also going to tell you who just scored for Cameroon, and what the result was yesterday in the Switzerland v Ecuador game. I'm sure some people will be pleased.
I must say I'd never heard of ESPNFC before. That's probably because they're a long-standing American company, for whom 'football' doesn't usually mean soccer, and have only recently gone global. But I guess I have heard of them now, which is the whole point of their sponsorship. I may have heard too much about them by mid-July.
TfL's press release writers do love a spelt-out acronym (although apparently ESPNFC isn't one). The inclusion of ESUBs as well as DMIs brings confirmation that World Cup updates won't just be on platforms, they'll be front of house too. But with wi-fi being all over the Underground these days, it seems that ESPNFC's updates will be scrolling past in locations where anyone could have used their smartphone to check the football results if they were interested, which isn't quite so groundbreaking.
Platform level updates will only be available at around half of Underground stations, and this is because some tube lines have better DMIs than others. Indeed at many stations on many of the other lines the Next Train Indicators aren't even capable of telling you where the next train's going, so it would be taking the piss if they were suddenly able to announce that a man 6000 miles away had pulled his hamstring.
That's 33 days that TfL's electronic displays will be telling us the football results rather than whatever they'd normally be showing on the bottom line. ESPNFC have apparently paid £100000 for the privilege of their sponsorship, which works out at about £3000 per day, or £21 per station per day, or £5.60 per electronic indicator per day.
The travelling public will no doubt be especially interested in live updates on England's football matches, but these will probably take up no more than six hours of the next five weeks. Sorry to anyone hoping to watch a recording of any match at home later without discovering the result, because TfL will be delivering whopping spoilers for every match in the tournament. But it'll only be the equivalent of watching football on Ceefax... an occasional update of names and numbers, so don't expect excitement.
Do we really need recaps throughout the day, when it's nothing but repeats and speculation? I know a number of people who sit near me at work would say yes - they could prattle on and on about goal scorers and injury worries all day. But they're also exactly the kind of people who'd already know the result of the Iran Nigeria game, so wouldn't need to "discover" it on their morning commute as if it were some ESPNFC-dispensed secret.
Note the brandspeak there in the word "ambassador", which really means that John has been paid lots of money to tell people how good ESPNFC is. John then goes on to tell people how good ESPNFC is. And sorry John, but I'd very much like to disagree with your last comment, because I can assure you that not everyone thinks this use of technology is a good one.
It's not something you can ever imagine TfL saying before, "we must keep our passengers up to date on the football." But this time there's money in it, as Mike says, all of which can be invested in improving the network. Just not very much money. £100,000 is only enough to buy one tenth of a new S Stock carriage, or a mere 28% of a Routemaster bus. £100,000 would also be too small to pay the salaries of 366 of TfL and Crossrail's executives, because they earn more than that. £100,000 is less than what you'd get if every Londoner threw a 2p coin into a bucket. £100,000 is essentially a drop in the ocean, but for that we get advertising where none has been before.
Look at the huge difference between the £100,000 ESPNFC have stumped up and the £3.5bn TfL needs to earn from commercial activity in the future. This World Cup sponsorship contributes a mere 0.003% of what's needed to make up the balance from government funding cuts. It's also an early skirmish in the battle to monetise London's transport network, a mission which is about to become increasingly intrusive. And sure there have always been adverts on the tube, and our fares would be rather higher without them. But ESPNFC's success in feeding sponsored advertorial through a public information feed is a first, and I fear the very thin end of a very large wedge.
COUNTRY WALKS (Book One, 1971 edition) Walk 10:Heath and Hill Tattenham Corner to Walton-on-the-Hill (11 miles)
For my second walk from a 1970s copy of London Transport's Country Walks (30p from all good Underground stations), I've jumped ahead through the book to walk number 10. This time I'm in Surrey, exploring the countryside to the south of Epsom and east of Box Hill. It's not somewhere I'd considered walking before, indeed I'd never even heard of Mogador, but the rural experience turned out to be really rather pleasant. Better still the trip proved fully accessible by Oyster, and therefore cheap, what with the whole of the Tattenham Corner line being in Zone 6. But in 1971 that was British Rail's domain, so instead LT's book directed ramblers to travel by Northern line to Morden and thence by 164A bus, a service long since extinct. I was pleased to discover that the remainder of the instructions remained almost word perfect, which is quite some achievement after 43 years. If you'd like to follow along, I've traced out the route for you on this map.[12 new-camera photos]
Tattenham Corner is the closest station to Epsom racecourse, so close that if you step across to the grassy slope alongside there's a really good view of the whole thing. It is a really good view, from the final bend on the track across the Downs to the futuristic grandstand plonked brazenly beside the finishing line. And on Sunday it was a particularly strange view, this being the day after the Derby was run, and the detritus of thousands of racegoers still scattered around the course. A huge flock of seagulls had descended, and were wheeling around the sky attempting to make off with anything the human litter pickers hadn't yet removed. Piles of bottles, black plastic bags and discarded Racing Posts remained, even the occasional fold-up chair, so there were easy pickings. And my walk headed straight across the racecourse, through the middle of the lot.
Yes, a public footpath crosses Epsom racecouse, that is so long as racing's not taking place. It sets off from the refreshment kiosk, and very soon you find yourself passing through a gap in the rails and onto the hallowed turf. It was a surreal experience to stand here less than 24 hours after the Derby had trampled through, and 101 years since Emily Davison lost her life just round the corner. I had to dodge the lorries come to collect the remaining portaloos, and step around the occasional Totepool prefab hut, as still the gulls swooped down for easy pickings. Climbing to the far side of the horseshoe the grandstand grew gradually smaller, and the panorama from Woking round to Wembley more distinct. And on the far side, this time generally unobserved, I got a second opportunity to stand in the path of one of the greatest races on the planet. All in all, a great start.
This is horsey country, so what lay ahead was a landscape I can best describe as paddocks and gallops. A sign on the next hillside warned walkers to keep an eye out for oncoming hooves, and right on cue a rider on a white charger came thundering through. The next mile was a treat, gently ascending an enclosed footpath between fields, the hedgerow bursting with verdant life. I met a pair of cyclists treating this narrow track as a minor assault course, and loving it, but other than that it was just me all the way. On Hurst Road I bumped into what seemed like the entire Mid Surrey branch of the Pony Club, hosting a trials event in fields either side of the footpath. A commentator cheered on Harriet and Araminta in the showjumping, numerous proud Dads strode by, and the Red Cross sat around in case any rider had a nasty fall in the cross country.
My book described the next section of the walk as "uninterrupted track", except that sometime after 1971 civil engineers came along and laid the M25. On my last Country Walk this proved problematic, but here they'd threaded the bridleway through a concrete tunnel under the motorway and the only significant intrusion was aural. My book also alerted me to St Mary's Church, its oak spire currently awaiting refurbishment after coming under attack from woodpeckers, which is the sort of thing a Heritage lottery grant helps with these days. And the text then advised me to turn left at the 'Cock', although this 17th century tavern has recently been transformed into the Headley Hills bar and restaurant, because austerity hasn't damaged the stockbroker belt and one needs a damned good dining establishment more than a boozer.
The Surrey Hills have some of the most challenging gradients close to London, and so my walk soon stumbled upon the highest part of 2012 road race circuit. Olympic cyclists sped through Headley village several times on the Box Hill loop, rising up via the legendary Zig Zag Road, then wheeling back via the incline of Lodgebottom Road. I took a slight detour down Tot Hill to watch the weekend contingent of Sky-clad lycranauts pedalling through, testing their stamina and sweating somewhat. And here I was very nearly witness to a potentially nasty accident. A knackered cyclist pulled out, without looking, across the stop line in front of a van descending Leech Lane. The van driver (and the cyclist's partner) looked on aghast as she blundered on, oblivious to imminent danger. But thankfully the vehicle swerved and braked in time, its driver more shocked than angry, and only the woman's pride was damaged.
My Country Walk offered a two mile shortcut at this point, but stuff that I thought, I'm walking all the way round Headley Heath. Good choice. These 500 acres of downland were saved for the nation by the National Trust in 1956, and are a wonderfully diverse (and hilly) habitat for umpteen animals. Squirrels in particular, and butterflies, and the occasional toasted sunbather. I took the wrong path at one point, making a steep climb immediately after a steep descent, although the view across the chalk dip was glorious and no doubt better than the route I was meant to follow. I was less impressed by the muddy path along the southern edge of the Heath, but north and west were lovely... so if you're ever up Box Hill and feeling energetic, do definitely consider the NT's Box Hill Hike.
Next stop, the scarp of the North Downs. A minor footpath led to a lane which tipped down over the edge and into woodland, where I disturbed a roe deer. There followed a wildlife bonanza, including a fox, a particularly pretty orchid and a slowworm, wriggling ineffectively in the middle of the path. I'd taken the wrong route again by this point, failing to convince myself that steep steps up the escarpment were those described in my book, which meant a significant detour, and a particularly tiring sheer ascent later. But I didn't mind because the lower path traced through a magical natural environment, rightly now part of the North Downs Way, should you ever be passing.
The lane ahead suddenly crossed a different London pseudo-boundary, the M25, this time via a bridge with two entirely unnecessary pavements. Straight ahead was the hamlet of Mogador, which sounds like it ought to be part of Middle Earth, but is instead one of the highest settlements in southeast England. My book told me not to go to the pub, so I ignored it and went to the Sportsman for an extremely welcome pint. I was not alone, although it looked like everyone else had driven in and brought their dogs. Their canine presence was entirely appropriate as the pub building was once one of Henry VIII's hunting lodges, although I can't say I enjoyed the close presence of two Weimaraners as I drank, nor the empty prattle of their owners.
And finally, a hike up the side of the Walton Heath Golf Course. Keeping to the edge of the fairway made navigation easy, as did the over-supply of coal tax posts every few hundred metres or so. It struck me that I'd spent most of my day watching Surrey at play, first on horseback, then riding bikes and now with clubs. I was pleased to reach the end of the walk beside the big village pond in Walton-on-the-Hill, where a heron perched motionless watching for prey. Here I was told to catch the 80A bus back to Morden, but that no longer runs either, so an extra half mile on to Tadworth station sufficed. And if you're still reading about this walk you will never do, thankyou, as I thank whoever compiled the London Transport book of Country Walks back when I was six.
The decisions are about two things - connectivity and saving money.
Connectivity is important because Crossrail 2 is planned to ease congestion.
And saving money is important because we only dream within budget nowadays.
One of the possible tweaks to the originally-proposed route is in Chelsea.
The line might not stop on the King's Road at the site safeguarded for decades.
It might instead stop further west, more in line with Battersea Bridge than Albert Bridge. Chelsea West would be nearer the centre of the rail desert Crossrail 2 was meant to ease.
It would also be nearer to "new developments", a phrase which always makes me nervous.
Or Crossrail 2 might not stop in Chelsea at all.
Who cares that locals have some of the worst access to rail transport in Zone 1?
Who cares that there are already non-stop trains from Clapham Junction to Victoria?
Bypassing Chelsea would speed up journeys for commuters from Tooting, Wimbledon and beyond.
It would also save in the order of £1bn by ironing out a big kink in the route.
But the most complicated new "what if" is to the northeast of town.
Previously it was suggested that the new line would split just beyond Angel.
Previously it was suggested that one branch would go to Dalston and the other to Hackney.
But the new suggestion is that maybe instead the new line should split later.
And then only one of Dalston Junction or Hackney Central would be connected, not both.
This map may or may not make things clear.
I fear not.
So the original plan was
→ Angel → Dalston Junction → Seven Sisters →
→ Angel → Hackney Central → Tottenham Hale →
This would have connected up to all sorts of tube and railway lines in all sorts of directions.
But we might instead get
→ Angel → Dalston Junction → Seven Sisters →
→ Angel → Dalston Junction → Tottenham Hale →
This would mean no direct link from Hackney to the West End.
It would also mean no connection between Crossrail 2 and the east/west Overground.
Or we might get
→ Angel → Hackney Central → Seven Sisters →
→ Angel → Hackney Central → Tottenham Hale →
This would mean no direct link from Dalston to the West End.
It would also mean no connection between Crossrail 2 and the north/south Overground.
Both of these would save another £1bn compared to the original plans.
It's either a better use of available resources, or a failure to think big enough.
Meanwhile, deep in the consultation smallprint are two more sub-options (subject to feasibility).
The first of these adds an extra station to the Dalston-only option
→ Angel → Dalston Junction → Stoke Newington → Seven Sisters →
→ Angel → Dalston Junction → Stoke Newington → Tottenham Hale →
That'd transform connectivity and house prices in north Hackney.
And the second adds an extra station to the Hackney-only option
→ Angel → Hackney Central → Clapton → Seven Sisters →
→ Angel → Hackney Central → Clapton → Tottenham Hale →
That'd transform northeast Hackney, and be a useful connection to the Chingford line.
One of the five options above will get chosen, according to logistics and available budget.
Some parts of Hackney will hit the jackpot, and others will lose out to their neighbours.
Which makes this consultation really quite important in the grand scheme of things.
Or else Crossrail 2 will sit on the drawing board, as it has done for decades, until after you're dead.
Let's hope not, eh?
If you've ever used the Overground station at Shoreditch High Street, you may have wondered why it's a concrete box in the sky. The stations at Hoxton and Haggerston have a view of the skyline, whereas Shoreditch High Street seals you in allowing sight of precisely nothing, the same as if you were underground. And there is a reason, which is that TfL were planning ahead when they built it, and the whole thing will one day be encased within office development.
The development site is enormous, for central London, and covers the site of the Bishopsgate Goods Yard. Originally this was Bishopsgate station, the terminus for trains arriving into London from East Anglia. Its days were numbered when Liverpool Street station opened in 1874, at which point Bishopsgate closed to passenger traffic and was given over to freight. This was a three-level monster, with as many as ten tracks on the upper deck used for the unloading of wagons full of fish, fruit and vegetables. It served London well until 1964 when it was substantially consumed by fire, and then lay derelict until 2003 when it was substantially demolished.
Two sections remain, both of them Grade II listed. The first is the frontage to the goods yard's general offices, which is the brick façade you can see facing onto Shoreditch High Street. And the second is the Braithwaite Viaduct, begun in 1839, originally two tracks wide and supporting a succession of arches on Gothic cross-vaulted piers. 260 metres of the viaduct survives, that's the section from Shoreditch High Street to Brick Lane, making this one of the oldest surviving bits of railway structure anywhere in the world. A major legalbattle kicked off when the Overground extension was proposed, because it looked like the new Shoreditch station would require the viaduct's demolition. But a solution was found where the line swung round to the north, leaving the Victorian structure intact, and the new Shoreditch High Street station running parallel alongside.
And now the developers are moving in. This was always the plan, indeed it's amazing it's taken this long. But a lengthy public consultation for The Goodsyard is now underway, with the masterplan almost complete, and then the area will then start changing utterly. The site's unusual in that it spans two London boroughs, that's Hackney to the west (with the station) and Tower Hamlets to the east. They've been working with developers Hammerson and Ballymore to agree plans for a multi-modal office/retail/residential development, and those plans have been evolving over a couple of iterations as stakeholders explore and interact.
The latest round of consultations is currently underway, with a small marquee set up opposite the entrance to Shoreditch High Street station. It was open on Friday and Saturday, although went almost entirely ignored by the bright young things emerging to shop at Boxpark, and the streetsmart heading to play football with the Powerleague. And then it's open again tomorrow from 2pm to 8pm, if you're interested and want to tell the consultants what you think. You needn't bother, but then don't complain later when some whopping great skyscraper forest emerges and you hate it.
What number comes next?
9, 15, 17, 24, 29, 33, 42, ?
It's 46, obviously. These are the number of storeys in the Goodsyard's planned sequence of residential buildings running east to west. At the Brick Lane end the first block will be 9 storeys high, increasing gradually to a 33 storey giant on Braithwaite Street. The station itself will be swallowed up by two office blocks a mere dozen floors tall. But the next residential building alongside will have 42 storeys, and the final block overlooking Shoreditch High Street will have 46. It'll be the same height as the Broadgate Tower, a little way to the southwest, because what's happening here is the creation of a Shoreditch skyscraper cluster, and the Goodsyard development will be substantially to blame.
The masterplan has had to squeeze in buildings where it can because two-thirds of the site is unsuitable for deep foundations. The 1839 viaduct and the 2008 viaduct are mostly to blame, but the third cuplrit is the Central line which scores a direct hit on Shoreditch High Street station without stopping. Approximately 1400 new homes will be built, an as-yet undetermined number of them to be 'affordable', although I doubt Tower Hamlets will be moving too many families off its waiting list as a result. And then there'll be half a million square feet of office space, as Hackney council rakes in some much needed business rates, and 180,000 square feet of retail space, which'll more than make up for the termination of Boxpark.
But what the developers hope you'll be most excited about are their plans for the Braithwaite Viaduct. They plan to stick a park on top, a full 2.5 acres in size because there's a lot of space up there, complete with trees and grass and a variety of vegetation. It won't be London's answer to New York's High Line, I was told, it's too wide for that, and also too short. But it will be open to the public, not locked away for residents only, and there should be some excellent views up there looking south across the Liverpool Street cutting.
Meanwhile down below, the unique Gothic arches are to be given a different kind of makeover. The future is to be retail, with a variety of boutiques and chains moved in, and a new thoroughfare opened up along the southern edge of the site to link up with Brick Lane. The old basement store rooms are ideally configured for such use, although it will be a bit sad if the only way to admire the Victorian brickwork is to buy a coffee, have a meal or go browsing for designer clothes.
A park on some shops, a lot of offices and some very tall flats - that's the proposed future for the Bishopsgate Goodsyard. Or it is unless the latest round of consultation suggests otherwise, and the developers choose to act. It does sometimes work. Two-thirds of those consulted last time either disliked or really disliked the proposed heights of the buildings, and so the tallest blocks have had eight or twelve storeys lopped off the top in the latest version. They'll still be massive, but not as wilfully oversized as they would have been had not the public spoken up. You can speak up tomorrow. Or you can just wait and go shopping and maybe laze in the park in ten years time.
The 123 runs for twelve miles, all the way from Wood Green to Ilford. Only about a mile of that is along the North Circular, but that's the best I've got, so that's the bus I'm going to take. Plus it follows the original route of the A406 eastwards from the point where the North Circular branches off, all the way down Woodford Avenue to Gants Hill. Before the motorway-standard extension down to Beckton opened in 1987, this was the way to go. Easy as 123.
A proper low-numbered bus for once, the 34 only follows the North Circular for about half its length, so that's the half I'm going to ride. And sorry, but I'm starting at the rubbish bit of the A406, the narrow four lane stretch round Bounds Green that clogs and clogs and clogs. No buses traverse Telford Road, possibly the worst bit, where houses await demolition should a long-term widening scheme ever come to pass. At the next traffic lights cars actually have to turn right to stay on the main road, hence delays, and it's at this point that the 34 arrives and slips into the flow. A new curvaceous footbridge helps schoolchildren get home, beyond which Bowes Road isn't especially wide either. Various residential roads feed in on both sides, and the central reservation (where it exists) is more flowerbed than barrier.
The road then widens further, and the houses step further back, on the run-up to the Great Cambridge Road. Just when it looks like our bus might descend into the underpass it banks off up the slip road to connect with a roundabout that driving instructors probably avoid negotiating with their students on a first lesson. The next stretch of the A406 is called Sterling Way, wittily named because it acts as a bypass for parallel Silver Street. And Silver Street is where the 34 is heading, to serve an arts centre, a Post Office and hundreds of houses... which must be a better transport decision than stopping off beside some allotments.
Like the 112 before it, the 232 is a mostly North Circular bus. That's risky if you want to catch it, because you could end up in a jam anywhere and might be late for whatever at the other end. I have no such deadlines so board in good faith, and wonder how long my journey through south Barnet might take. The bus itself is busy, pulling into the Brent Cross shopping mall to disgorge one set of passengers and then pausing to welcome more. It's also the only single decker I get to ride on my entire journey, which is bad news for today's report because it restricts my view. Travel at the front on the upper deck and you really feel like you've experienced a place - travel at the back on a lower deck and you've only scratched the surface. Still, bear with me.
I had my doubts about riding the A406 by bus on a Saturday afternoon. I've seen sections of the North Circular jammed solid, particularly along the next stretch, so I brought a book in case things got too bad. Thankfully I hit lucky on my journey to Brent Cross, and also in getting a double decker ride because most 112s are single. I missed out on the upper front seat, so got to sit behind a woman wolfing down a filet-o-fish and black coffee. The road north from Ealing Common is Hanger Lane, long has been, but now a four lane arterial rather than obscure rural backwater. It vaults the Great Western railway, then rises to a high point on Hanger Hill from which a panorama across Brent and Harrow can be seen. It's best seen from the top deck, so truck drivers probably have the edge over car drivers, and is pleasingly lowrise bar Wembley's foreground arch.
Here's a legendary location - the famous Ace Cafe. It opened in 1938 to cater for passing roadside trade, but very soon upgraded to the Ace Service Station. The current building's a postwar rebuild, made popular then famous, then infamous as a Mecca for bikers and rock'n'rollers. The last fried breakfast was served in 1969, that is until a 2001 reboot that saw the Ace reborn for an older generation. Our bus paused at the stop alongside for longer than seemed absolutely necessary, but that was great to get an unusual birds eye view of action on the forecourt. A variety of bikes were lined up proudly at the roadside while their owners sat inside in full leathers with a nice cup of coffee, or rested their helmets outside on a row of black plastic chairs. Others in civvies had come simply to admire, or had tagged along to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Mini Moke, three of which were parked outside. Ace indeed.
In 1760 a Palladian mansion set a mile back from the Thames, a little beyond Chiswick, was bought by George II for his favourite daughter Princess Amelia. She used it as her summer retreat and landscaped the estate, only for the main house to be demolished soon after her death. In its place were built the unimaginatively titled Small Mansion and Large Mansion, the second of which was purchased in 1835 by the financier Nathan Mayer Rothschild. The family lived here at Gunnersbury for the next ninety years, extending the estate and inviting the political establishment and nobility and round to grand parties. They added stables and an Orangery, built a gothic tower by the lake to act as a boathouse, and laid out Japanese and Italian gardens to impress guests. Then in 1925, after the death of the third generation, the Rothschilds moved out. They sold up to Ealing and Acton councils, which helped to protect the estate from being turned into streets of residential housing, and a 200 acre public park was created. Neville Chamberlain came to open it, and in 1929 the Large Mansion was duly reimagined as a museum. It's still going, if not still going strong, and still very much under civic control.
Undaunted they set up a website called inmidtown.org, rather than inmidtown.com or inmidtown.co.uk, because they seem to have a delight for offbeat URLs. This is their site for businesses and investors, which crows about worthy things like landfill, sustainability and collective bargaining power, because such are the high tenets of corporate responsibility. They last updated their news page (with details of an air quality monitoring project) way back in March, so they're not exactly a cutting edge concern. They're also just a little bit over-optimistic about the Midtown name. "The creation and roll-out of a distinct and identifiable brand for Bloomsbury, Holborn and St Giles... is vital to the area’s success as an area to work in, shop in and explore", they say, which can only suggest that the area's vitality is doomed.
And then, perhaps more surprisingly, there's a Midtown tourist information centre in a shop on New Oxford Street. I've managed to walk past several times over the past few years without spotting it, lurking smack between a computer shop and an Italian restaurant. The unit appears to be called Hotels Tickets Sightseeing Travel, with gotomidtown.co.uk written in rather smaller letters underneath, but that's because they want people to go inside and book something like a taxi or a ticket for the Heathrow Express. The shop window contains a variety of Midtown merchandise, should you be particularly proud of your local neighbourhood, including mugs, matches, pens and umbrellas. Most of these are emblazoned with Midtown's mascot, that's BuzzBee, which also explains why you can buy honey, honey sweets, honey dippers and even a mini bee hotel if the fancy strikes.
The latest round of consultations is currently underway, with a small marquee set up opposite the entrance to Shoreditch High Street station. It was open on Friday and Saturday, although went almost entirely ignored by the bright young things emerging to shop at Boxpark, and the streetsmart heading to play football with the Powerleague. And then it's open again tomorrow from 2pm to 8pm, if you're interested and want to tell the consultants what you think. You needn't bother, but then don't complain later when some whopping great skyscraper forest emerges and you hate it.
