Britain's oldest theme park sits at the southern point of the Isle of Wight, somewhat precariously, on the edge of a crumbly clay cliff. It's been here since the 1840s, when the island first became a holiday destination, and is still run by descendants of the same family. The scenic ravine which gives the area its name has long since disappeared over the edge, as have a number of the older attractions therein. But there's plenty left to enjoy on a family day out, at this low-key fantastical and delightfully quirky pleasure ground.
There can't be many theme parks where you enter between the legs of a giant fibreglass pirate. Getting any further costs the best part of twenty quid, not helped if you turn up on the first day of peak season prices, but for that you can come back any day for the next week (which if you're holidaying here is a bargain). I had two hours between buses, which required a dash around to sample the majority of the site including most of its weirder corners. [10 photos]
I last visited Blackgang Chine in the early 1970s as part of a family summer holiday, and for some reason my abiding memory is of the Crooked House and a hall of mirrors. There was no sign of the latter, but the Crooked House is still there, overlooking the clifftop close to the park entrance. You walk in expecting mechanically shaking walls and floors but oh no, Blackgang isn't like that. Instead this is an exercise in oblique carpentry, with walls and narrow passageways at non-orthogonal angles, and scenes from the rhyme "There was a crooked man" incorporated in tableaux along the way. The crooked man sleeps under a seventies brown duvet, cooks breakfast in a depressingly retro kitchen and watches the test card on his ancient TV set with an IoW-shaped aerial. Most of the children larking through in the wrong direction must have wondered what the hell the point was, but those who 'got' it might well be bringing their kids here in thirty years time.
Down a twisty track is the Smugglers Cave, a tale of derring do and shipwreck on the rocks below, and a licorice allsort cottage, and the home of the Weather Wizard who (no, sorry, I'm on a tight schedule). The Triassic Club is gobsmackingly not what you expect, spoilers, as an animatronic dino-butler ushers you through to a hungry smoking-jacketed allosaurus accompanied by an ostrich on the piano. I walked out having to pinch myself that this actually happened. Rumpus Mansion is similarly semi-mechanical, as various spirits and goblins almost run riot at the press of a button, while in the Valley of the Dodos a colony of big extinct birds gyrate to the BeeGees hit Staying Alive. And yet today's kids seemed much happier elsewhere, clambering over anything they could climb on, or running amok in Cowboy Town, a facsimile Wild West main street laid out beneath towering cliffs which may one day erase it.
It's not all old stuff. One of the latest attractions is Restricted Area 5, a lengthy boardwalk down the cliff face where scout packs can come face to face with giant moving dinosaurs, including a T-Rex that had one small visitor fleeing in terror. It's brilliantly done, including witty takes on warning signs and a section where you'll likely get wet. The park's recently bowed to modern tastes and introduced a rollercoaster called Cliffhanger, whose 35mph curves I spun round twice, but which is also portable should the land nearby ever crumble. I also braved the water slides, where you climb into a dinghy and speed down a bumpy chute, but so did several five year-olds so it's nothing to be especially proud of. But the centre-less hedge maze I had pretty much to myself, and as for Nurseryland (which brings various seminal rhymes 'to life') not one target audience visitor could be seen. Alas Old Mother Hubbard and The House That Jack Built aren't the crowdpleasers they once were, if ever.
As part of the park's unstated ambition to inform, educate and entertain, the sheds containing World of Timber are just as exciting as you might expect. Rather better is an indoor exhibit based on the BBC's Coast, in which Dick Strawbridge tells the tale of repeated local cliff falls, and invites you to stand on a shaking platform to experience the same. Nextdoor the Wight Experience offers a 15 minute cinematic overview of the island (not ideal if there are only 14 minutes left before your bus goes). But if you want to see the model village you really are too late, because that toppled over in the great collapse of 1994. Indeed there are several old paths at Blackgang Chine that have had to be fenced off because they end in slumped clay cliffs. There's a particularly good view of the collapse from the edge of the Water Gardens, an extensive gouged-out splurge of Lower Greensand with the remainder of the island's cliffs strung out behind. Best visit soon. by bus: 6
IoW postcard: Godshill Model Village
A few miles inland, in the picture postcard village of Godshill, is the Isle of Wight's modelmaking hotspot. A minor model village exists in the gardens round the back of The Old Smithy, centred around a giant map of the island edged by a shallow blue channel. They like their giant maps in Wight, indeed I remember wandering around a similar but larger one back when I was but small. But the Smithy's is merely the aperitif, for across the lane lies the proper Godshill Model Village, and this is both main meal and dessert rolled into one. The top of the gardens is the oldest, dating back to the early Fifties, and based on the seaside streets of nearby Shanklin. From the parish church down to the shore, past a complete hotel and high street, the buildings are enlivened by the most wonderful array of characters each with a charm of their own. From punks to nuns and morris dancers to bandsmen, each has been lovingly created with a spark that'll make you smile... look, a streaker on the football pitch, and why are there dinosaurs on the train, and isn't that Santa atop the 1:10 scale wind turbine? [11 photos]
Lower down the focus switches to Godshill itself, with the model medieval church atop on a mound in front of the real thing. The owners have taken this approach to its logical extreme, and the model of Godshill village contains a model of the model village itself, within which can just be seen a model of the model village in the model village. The other thing that sets this place apart are the trees, sculpted to appropriately scaled dimensions, and at this time of year beautifully arrayed across a spectrum of vibrant greens. Nobody said the place had to be a perfect representation of anything so there are bright Montgolfier balloons hanging in several corners, just because. But it's the variety of mini-people that tips Godshill from good to great, of a quality you'd flock to in London were they displayed as "art". Both humorous and photogenic, there's so much here for the model village aficionado to adore. by train: Shanklin, then by bus: 2, 3
Yes, I have opened my package now, but blimey don't new computers take a long time to set up. I've got most of the connections attached, and tried to remember all the passwords I last entered years ago, and ditched the pre-loaded security trial in favour of a free service, and tweaked various other settings to make things as familiar as possible, but I haven't got round to switching email or transferring photos, and loads of other finicky things, so I still haven't had time to write about Saturday's day trip, sorry. Have four more photos instead.
If you believe TfL's Cycle Superhighway 2 upgrade page, major roadworks on Bow Road begin in August and end in February. Not so, officially they begin today, with the start of the phased tearing-up of roadway, pavements and street furniture between Harley Grove and the Bow roundabout. And they'll end in January, not February, by which time cyclists will have two long-longed-for segregated lanes, and cars and pedestrians will have less space to get around. The first phase of roadworks have been causing merry hell up near Mile End station, and now it's our turn to bear the brunt at the flyover end. If you drive or catch a bus along Bow Road then expect slower journeys, if you walk then expect to find pedestrian crossings temporarily closed, and if you cycle then expect to have to negotiate narrower lanes and unsafer traffic before the whole thing's complete.
As a very-local resident, TfL have just sent me a letter warning of imminent disruption, which contains the following information about the closure of bus stops. Given that they haven't seen fit to share the same information online (or if they have, it's bloody well hidden), I thought I'd post it here.
Bus stops (eastbound)
• Bus stop A (Bow Church Station) will be temporarily suspended from mid-September for around six weeks[that's going to cause chaos, what with this busy stop being the location of driver changeovers on route 25]
• Bus stop E (Bow Church) will be relocated 50m east and combined with bus stop G (Bow Church)permanently from late October[i.e. the bus stop outside the hairdressers closes, and routes 8 and 488 will then stop (along with the other four buses) opposite the church instead]
• Bus stop Y (Bow Road Station) will be temporarily suspended from early December for around six weeks[this'll be the last bus stop closure, ending mid-January]
• Bus stop M (Bow Flyover) will be closed permanently from from late December[thank you cyclists, you've killed this bus stop off] [we should cope]
Bus stops (westbound)
• Bus stop Z (Bow Road station) will be temporarily suspended from late October for around three weeks[it won't take so long to install a bus stop bypass on the wide pavement outside the Magistrates' Court]
• Bus stops J, K and L (Bow Church) will be temporarily suspended from late October for around three weeks[that's the same three weeks as above, so expect the bus stop outside the DLR to be very busy]
• Bus stop B (Bow Church Station) will be temporarily suspended from early November for around three weeks[the westbound bus stops seem to need a lot less re-engineering than the eastbound]
Yesterday at eleven twenty-eight precisely, Delivery Company arrived outside my house to deliver my laptop. Unfortunately, as I'd told them twice already, I wasn't in.
I told them over the phone on Thursday morning that I wouldn't be in on Friday, and they told me I could come and collect my package from the depot instead. When that failed at the depot on Thursday evening I told them again, and they told me I could come and collect it tonight from a different depot instead. But what the hell, it was On The Van, so the driver drove out of his way to deliver it anyway, only to find I wasn't in, like I'd told them. He left me a little note. I didn't read it, because I wasn't at home.
Instead I went to the second depot after work, like they'd told me, because what could possibly go wrong a second time? This was a long way out of the city centre, because delivery companies like to cluster where there's a lot of space and a lot of roads, in this case on a bleak industrial estate of the highest order. More to the point this depot was in the red zone, over a mile from a station, so getting there from work took ages. I joined the rammed crowds on the bus, my office shirt standing out somewhat in contrast to local apparel, and we queued to cross the arterial out of town.
I eventually found the depot past where the council estate faded out, deep in lorry country, where Delivery Company's vans were arriving back from their daytime runs. Their gatehouse doubles up as the customer entrance, with a seemingly cramped counter space, but in fact merely a portal into the building beyond. Three swing doors and a set of steps followed, so the bloke behind me carrying a large parcel was delighted I was there to hold things open. Eventually we reached an unmarked desk beside two further doors - with no signs, no staff, no nothing. But there was a bell, which wasn't labelled, so I pushed that. Nothing happened.
After a few minutes, and another push, and another minute, a man appeared. I said I'd been told I could come and collect a package, and was it here? "I hope they booked it in!" he said, I thought getting in his excuses rather on the premature side. So he typed in my 18 character tracking number (a system with enough combinations to allow the entire population of the earth to send 6 packages a day for a million years) and then exclaimed "Oh, they didn't book it in." Surprise.
Further well-worn excuses followed. "I hope the driver's not come back early," he said, as if this ocurrence would have set in train further unpleasant consequences. "Ah no, good, it's still on the van. I'll go and ring the driver and see when he might be coming back." And that was the last I saw of him for ten minutes. Two other blokes were waiting, seemingly had been for a while, and they shuffled up on the Sofa of Purgatory to make room for me. Thankfully there were no spiders on this one.
Further customers arrived, some with packages to drop off, others with packages to collect. They pressed the bell and hung around, not quite forming a queue because they weren't sure whether the rest of us were still waiting to be served or merely bored. "Is anybody working here?" one asked, which we didn't really know how to answer based on fifteen minutes' experience, but we suspected not. Vans pulled in outside the window, occasionally wafting diesel our way, and so the Friday evening assembly grew.
Eventually the employee returned, joined intermittently by a female colleague, and set about attempting to deal with a few of us. They didn't necessarily do this in the right order, because nobody had made any attempt at a queue, indeed I hope nobody ever employs these two as bar staff! Customer drop offs were quickly dealt with, but collections took longer, especially when "I hope you booked it in" proved negative. A couple of weekends were ruined while I watched thanks to incomplete bureaucracy.
Some fortunate folk discovered that their packages were waiting in an adjacent room, a bit like they'd turned up at Argos, though with looks of surprise/horror when the box turned out to be too large/heavy to easily transport home. Others discovered that their packages were still in "the warehouse", which took rather longer for staff to find time to get to, and during their absence the crowd even grew larger. Meanwhile the particularly unlucky discovered that their packages were still out On The Van, in one case on the slowest van of the day and could they hang around a lot longer?
The two blokes who'd arrived ahead of me, ten and five minutes respectively, ended up waiting three quarters of an hour before they received their bounty. I was looking to top that. My Friday evening was ebbing slowly away, and several text messages from BestMate enjoying beers in the West End didn't help. The assembled collectees stared deeper into their phones, occasionally being summoned for processing, all of them looking like they'd far rather be somewhere else with a new toy to play with, or simply somewhere else.
"Right, you," said the man to me at last (his female colleague having by now vanished into thin air). "Your driver should be back around seven, so hang on." My package magically appeared seconds later, and then it was finally my turn to look smug in front of the throng. I could have showered vitriol at the guy for the way his company had treated me, but he at least had been the one person who'd delivered so I decided against. Instead I waved my photo ID, signed the electronic box and headed for the door... which I had to be buzzed out of, because they're paranoid like that.
It had taken a whole hour to get there, then a whole hour waiting, then a whole hour to get home, which is the magic of mishandled parcel delivery. I'd now finally lugged my three kilograms of laptop back to where the man in the van had attempted to deliver it several hours earlier. Also waiting in my letterbox was a letter from Delivery Company welcoming me to their customer service programme, and containing the activation code I needed to authenticate my address, which is what they'd insisted I do before they'd allow me to reschedule a delivery, which is the main reason I'd ended up in this mess in the first place. I went online and typed in the profile cancellation code instead because, like I'm ever going to want to use UPS again.
Based on your advice, and because it's about time, I thought I'd buy a new laptop.
I didn't buy it off the shelf, I thought I'd invest in a decent personalised machine. I use my laptop rather a lot, and the current one's lasted over five years, so I don't mind forking out over the odds. I went back to Laptop Company, based abroad, who allowed me to pick and choose the appropriate components for my machine. I hope I got it right, it's always difficult not to accidentally tick the wrong box somewhere, especially late on a Sunday evening. But I double-checked the list, and added my product to the shopping basket, and then proceeded to the checkout. Name, address, debit card details, everything, and then I pressed the button.
Transaction declined. Dammit. Normally when this happens, High Street Bank sends me an email and/or rings my phone, to confirm that I really am trying to buy something expensive. With Laptop Company being thousands of miles away in another land, this caution was understandable, even sensible... but no communication came. I checked my online account, and no payment appeared to have been made, so I thought I'd press the button again. Transaction declined. This happened five times, by which time I'd either bought five laptops and was deep in overdraft, or my bank was refusing to let me spend my own money and not telling me that.
It turned out to be the latter. I couldn't ring High Street Bank's customer service team because it was Sunday evening, and they didn't try ringing me until ten o'clock on Monday morning by which time I was at work. You're useless, I told them, what is the point of Verified by Visa if you're not going to believe it, and then not be around when I need to talk to you? They lifted the block, but I still had to go back to the Laptop Company website and attempt the purchase again, and to try to remember all the correct boxes to tick, so I waited until I got home before risking it. And this time everything worked, but by now it was almost a day later than my first attempt, which meant a slightly later delivery.
Delivery will be within X to Y working days, said the Laptop Company website, which was good because I was actually intending to be at home during most of that time. I know you're supposed to send your packages to work, or to that collection point round the corner, but naively I'd assumed that directing this particular delivery to my home address was the best idea. Yeah right.
Day X passed, as did day X+1, and eventually day Y arrived. It was only at this point that Laptop Company sent me an email introducing me to Delivery Company, into whose care my completed machine had finally been delivered. I learned that my package was currently only in Shanghai, and wasn't due to arrive with me in London until two days time. And this was somewhat awkward because I wouldn't be at home on Thursday, I'd be at work, which threatened entrance into The Great Non-Delivery Charade - a fate to be avoided at all costs.
Perhaps I can get the package rescheduled, I thought. There was a big yellow Amend Delivery button on the Delivery Company tracking page, so I clicked on that and hoped it would solve my problem. Instead it created a new one. Delivery Company would only allow me to amend a delivery if I created a personal profile on their website, which meant filling in a shedload of necessary (and seemingly unnecessary) personal information. We've all struggled with these forms, but Delivery Company's requirements were some of the worst I've ever had to endure; repeatedly refusing seemingly rational data, demanding an unnecessarily complicated password, preventing me from ticking a crucial box until I scrolled down through its legal disclaimer, and sorry, no, back to the top again. I only want to change a delivery date from Thursday to Friday, I screamed, how difficult can it be?
Impossible, as it turned out. Once equipped with my new username I attempted to Amend Delivery again, but was directed instead to attend to a problem on some submenu of some hidden tab before I could proceed. I eventually worked out where it was, only to discover that I couldn't amend my delivery day until I'd authenticated my delivery address. And I couldn't authenticate my delivery address until I'd entered my activation code. And I couldn't enter my activation code until they'd sent it to me. Apparently they were sending my activation code by post, to arrive in 2-5 days. And their letter would be arriving after my package was due, so there was no way to Amend this particular Delivery, so I gave up and arranged to take Thursday off.
Over Tuesday and Wednesday I watched transfixed as my package progressed from China to Korea to Kazakhstan to Poland to Germany to a depot in East London. Wow this is impressive tracking I thought, so I went to bed happy. By breakfast it had inexplicably been taken to Stansted and thence to somewhere else in London, but I wasn't unduly concerned. Not, that is, until a new message flashed up at half past eight.
Incomplete address information may delay delivery. We are attempting to update this information.
It appears that Laptop Company failed to write the whole of my address on the label, and so Delivery Company didn't know where to take it. They could have worked it out, indeed they could have checked the customer profile I'd so diligently entered two days previously, but instead my package was added to the daily pile of Too Hard, Didn't Deliver. I learned this when I rang up customer service, but only after I'd jumped through all the necessary hoops. First an automated voice required me to enter my 18 character tracking number, after which I got to talk to a human being, who immediately asked me for my 18 character tracking number again. He was then sort of helpful, at least in explaining what had happened, but indicated that once a package was On The Van there was bugger all could be done about it. They'd deliver it tomorrow, if that was OK... except it wasn't, because I didn't have Friday off.
I agreed instead to go and collect my package from their depot, except this couldn't be until after 6pm because The Van Cannot Be Halted. And of course their depot was nowhere near where I lived, because that would be too easy. The operator read out the street name using a pronunciation which suggested he hadn't been speaking English very long, and promised to warn them I was coming. I then completely reorganised my day, in the absence of the unpacking activity I'd been expecting, and made tracks to an estate in north London late in the afternoon.
"Oh no, we don't have your package here," said the man behind the desk, "who told you that?" Somebody had finally worked out my full address and relabelled my package, and now it was back on the van ready for Friday delivery. "It was loaded early so it's right at the back," said the man with an air of practised mendacity. "But hang on and I'll see what I can do." I waited for ten minutes on a tumbledown sofa, discovering a small-ish spider crawling over my trousers halfway through. "Ah sorry, the van just left for the East London depot," was the eventual response, again prompting a raised eyebrow from the weary customer.
Having wasted a large part of my evening I arrived home to find a small spider scuttling down my shirt, so at least I'd brought something back with me even if it wasn't my intended laptop. That's continuing its world tour for another day, maybe even turning up at my front door when Delivery Company know I'm not in. And when I arrive at the designated godforsaken trading estate this evening I'm hoping to be served up with the product I ordered days ago, and not yet another litany of excuses. It's a wonder our online economy works at all, to be honest, if this is the level of competence and disregard that our courier companies display.
If you're fortunate enough to be in government in a year ending in '6' you can do whatever you like to the BBC. The Corporation's charter comes up for renewal every ten years, and negotiations with ministers shape its future path over the coming decade. Amendments to governance can be tricky, and a focus on efficiencies uncomfortable, but the nation's broadcaster has tended to come out of these negotiations relatively unscathed. Until now. Our new majority Tory government, unencumbered by their coalition partners, has recognised it has a one-off chance to cut what it sees as a biased unjustly-financed public service down to size. And, alas, they're making a damned good job of it.
The attack began at the start of the last parliament with the freezing of the licence fee for six years. The Chancellor fixed the annual payment from 2010 to 2016 at £145.50, silently diminishing the corporation's revenue in real terms with each passing year. At the same time he passed on responsibility for funding the World Service and part of S4C, essentially kicking the BBC twice, while blaming austerity for his "need" to do this. And that was just the start.
The latest war kicked off in May with the appointment of John Whittingdale to the role of Culture Secretary. This free-marketeer and former backbencher had previously been chairman of the Media Select Committee, and has made clear his long-term opposition to the licence fee and to certain "anti-commercial" BBC activities. He's already revelling in his new position, and by being in charge during the Charter Renewal period he has free rein to impose his Thatcherite ideals. If you want to carve a piece of meat well, put an expert butcher in charge.
2015's first big assault came in the budget (or rather a few days before, in the now traditional leakage of every political announcement that might be a bit controversial). The Chancellor had railroaded the BBC into taking on the payment of free TV licences for the over-75s, deftly cutting his own outgoings whilst dumping the financial responsibility elsewhere. At a stroke he's reduced the BBC's income by another 20%, an amount equivalent to the Corporation's entire annual spending on radio, and probably received a congratulatory telephone call from Rupert Murdoch in the process. Most of the national press cheered loudly in response, because they hate the BBC too and have no impartiality rules preventing themselves from saying so.
There is a financial sweetener in Osborne's deal, which is to bring the licence fee into the modern age and extend its coverage to those who "only watch catch-up" on the iPlayer. So how's that going to work? At present you can watch the iPlayer from anywhere inside the UK, with the assumption that it's a service for all citizens. In future you'll need to prove you've paid the licence fee, which'll no doubt mean some kind of password-protected BBC account applicable to everyone in your household on whatever device they happen to be using. Demanding payment for catch-up will bring more revenue, but it's also a devious and deliberate step away from universal access, and perfectly set up to permit a move to an all-subscription BBC later when conditions permit.
And there's worse to come, because that 20% cut in funding is solely a Treasury deal and has nothing to do with Charter Renewal. John Whittingdale is still waiting for his chance to dig his teeth in, and has delighted in saying as much in the press. What follows over the next few months is a review of "the purposes and scope of the BBC", and only if these remain unchanged will the Chancellor's financial deal be honoured in full. There's not much hope of that. The Culture Secretary thinks the BBC should do less, cutting back on populist programmes and focusing more on public service, because that gives commercial competition a fighting chance. He'd love to snuff out big entertainment shows, he's more than keen on culling specialist radio stations, and he's already expressed a desire to shrink the BBC News website. The purposes and scope of the BBC will be reduced, and with them a further assault on the BBC's budget.
To help decide the BBC's future the Culture Secretary has assembled a panel of eight independent, but unbalanced, experts. One is a fervent believer that the Corporation shouldn't compete with commercial channels, another is an executive at a Murdoch company, and another supports top-slicing the licence fee to hand round to other companies. There's no room here for public opinion, which is far less anti-BBC than certain newspapers would like you to believe. But any free-marketeer would likely do the same if they were the minister in charge of Charter Renewal, they'd bring in a chorus that reflects their own personal preferences, and move inexorably towards an enforced reining-in.
There are further devious tricks in the wings, such as the possibility of shortening the Charter period from ten years to five. That would keep Auntie permanently on her toes, and speed up the rate of change, for example allowing the licence fee to be scrapped in 2022 rather than 2027. There's also the likelihood of a vicious circle whereby the BBC is forced to cut back on popular programmes so becomes less popular with the public, which justifies further cutbacks and greater unpopularity, until what's left is a marginal rump the shadow of its former self. The BBC's not perfect, it's too creative an organisation for that, but we shouldn't exploit its imperfections as an excuse to make it worse.
I do not understand how so many people can be against a broadcasting service that delivers so much for just 40p a day, but will merrily pay far more for a Sky subscription that's mostly repeats. I see no logic in eroding a national broadcaster whose output is the envy of the rest of the world, in particular in countries dominated by the commercial media our Culture Secretary is trying to emulate. I despair that the government seems hellbent on dismantling the BBC purely for ideological reasons, and not because it's what the general public actually wants. But most of all I'd really like somebody somewhere to stand up and lead a proper national protest against what these evil bastards are doing, rather than the entire country simply rolling over and letting them get away with it. As we're starting to learn to our cost, a universal public service lost can never be regained.
Today's question:Where in London is over one mile from a station?
Last week I identified the handful of areas in London that are over two miles from a station. But that's quite a long way, indeed few people would dream of walking that far to start a commute. So a much more practical consideration is to identify areas over one mile from a station, that's about a twenty minute walk, because Londoners might potentially go that far on foot to catch a train.
• I'm allowing any type of station - tube, rail, DLR, whatever.
• I've decided to count Tramlink stops as stations, because trams run on rails and deliver you to places according to a set timetable.
• I'm measuring a mile in a straight line, even though there might not be a direct route. If this concerns you, please read this CityMetric post.
• The distance is from one designated point at each station, which may not actually be the entrance.
Courtesy of one of my readers (thanks Geo_rich!) I can show you precisely where those regions are. He's plotted the location of every station in (and just outside) Greater London on a Google map, and coloured in red all the areas more than one mile from any of them. You can see that map here, in glorious accurate detail.
The summary map below is my rough approximation.
What immediately stands out is how few 'inaccessible' locations there are in the centre of London - just the one. Indeed there are eight boroughs (Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster, Lambeth, Islington, City of London, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham) in which no point is more than a mile from a station.
The sole central blackspot is in Southwark, specifically between Walworth and Camberwell (and if you can't quite picture where Walworth and Camberwell are, that's probably because neither of them have stations, QED). It's here.
Most of the dead zone is within the eastern half of Burgess Park, which you might not think too great a problem because it's only a park. But parts of Albany Road, Bagshot Street and Coubourg Road fall within the red border, along with Couborg Community Primary School, which can't be good. Plus there are thousands of people living very close by, specifically on the Aylesbury Estate, who get to be the only community in Zones 1&2 to have to live almost a mile from a station. There was once a station at Walworth Road on the line south of Elephant & Castle, which would have closed the gap, but that closed as a 'temporary measure' in 1916 and has long since disappeared.
It's no coincidence that two recent transport infrastructure projects have targeted the Walworth Gap in an attempt to improve its accessibility and prosperity. The first of the these was the Cross River Tram, a proposed link from Camden Town to Peckham, which fell foul of lack of funding and was scrapped by the incoming Mayor in 2008. The second is the Bakerloo lineextension, pencilled in to serve either Camberwell or the Old Kent Road, with the latter likely to receive the nod after consultation. And while that might do wonders for connectivity hereabouts, it won't be happening before the early 2030s (whereas the CRT might have opened as early as next year). The Walworth Gap won't, alas, be disappearing any time soon.
Here's a summary rundown of all the other not-spots, starting in Enfield at the top of the map and working round clockwise.
Enfield: a large (but mostly empty) sector along The Ridgeway north of Trent Park Enfield: from the foot of Forty Hill through unpopulated Whitewebbs Park Enfield/Haringey: a tiny fragment of Devonshire Hill Lane Enfield/Waltham Forest: Picketts Lock, and a sizeable chunk of Chingford overlooking the reservoirs, and some streets to the west of the Crooked Billet roundabout Waltham Forest/Hackney: around the railway sidings on Orient Way (it's no coincidence that LeaBridge railway station is due to reopen - as soon as the freight companies stop bickering - to plug this rare mid-London accessibility hole) Redbridge: a mini-hole on Hatch Plain, near Woodford Golf Course Redbridge: the heart of the Hainault Loop, from Clayhall up to Repton Park Redbridge/Barking & Dagenham/Havering: the largest area of red on the map, starting at the far end of Hainault, hanging down to Marks Gate and (unexpectedly) Becontree Heath, then spreading west to cover Collier Row, Chase Cross and most of Harold Hill, then spreading south through mostly unpopulated fields and forest, but also taking in some of Cranham, the east end of Rainham and a lot of South Hornchurch. Almost a hundred thousand people live in this section and they rely on buses and cars to get around. The clean white circle on my map surrounds Rainham - the only station in London that's over two miles from any other station. One day a new station may be built at Beam Park on c2c to plug the Thames-side gap east of Dagenham. Alas no Crossrail station is planned to the west of Romford Stadium, in a rare hole that's actually on a railway line. Barking & Dagenham: A tiny triangle near the Lidl at the foot of Becontree Avenue Barking & Dagenham/Newham: Beckton Sewage Works, Creekmouth and much of the Thames View Estate (and this is precisely why TfL wants to extend the Overground to Barking Riverside)
Greenwich/Bexley: Most of Thamesmead. Poor Thamesmead, it missed out on the Jubilee line, it doesn't quite get Crossrail, Boris scrapped the Greenwich Waterfront Transit, and the London Overground might extend under the river from Barking after most of us are dead. Still, at least this isolation makes Thamesmead affordable. Greenwich: A long strip to the north of Eltham Common, from Woolwich Common to Shooters Hill Greenwich/Bexley: A trio of small not-spots, in the vicinity of Plumstead Common, East Wickham and West Heath Bexley: the Darent Industrial Park Bexley/Bromley: Chislehurst (east), then Foots Cray, Ruxley, Kevingtown, the eastern suburbs of Orpington (and a lot of rural lanes) Bromley: the other big red area on the map, this covers almost the entire southern half of the borough, the main centres of population being Keston Mark, Locksbottom and Biggin Hill, plus umpteen small villages in this most pastoral corner of the capital Croydon: a fair patch of Shirley, along and to the south of Wickham Road Croydon: Selsdon, Sanderstead church, and the road down to Hamsey Green Croydon: Old Coulsdon and the surrounding downs Sutton: a strip from Roundshaw round to Little Woodcote Sutton: a few acres along Thornton Road on the St Helier Estate Sutton/Merton: London Road, from North Cheam to St Anthony's Hospital Kingston: Malden Rushett, and the fields to the south Kingston: an irrelevant fraction of a sports ground in Hook Kingston/Merton/Wandsworth/Richmond: almost all of Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common lie in this large stationless void on the edge of inner London, but it also includes much of Ham, north Kingston, Kingston Vale, Putney Vale and the whole of (modern) Roehampton
Richmond/Hounslow: a thin (but not insignificant) sliver from Hounslow Heath down to Hanworth Hounslow: Lower Feltham and much of Bedfont Lakes Hillingdon: the Heathrow Cargo Terminal Hillingdon/Ealing/Hounslow: this is one of the more heavily populated holes, covering most of central Hillingdon apart from a few punched-out circles around a string of future Crossrail stations. The hiatus includes Harmondsworth, Harlington and Heston services to the south, and Cowley, Hayes, Hillingdon, Yeading and the western side of Greenford to the north. The West London Tram, scrapped in 2007 for being unfavourably impractical, would have filled some of this. Hillingdon: most of the northwest of the borough, all very lightly populated apart from Harefield and Ruislip Common Harrow: the top end of Pinner Hill Golf Club (no houses here) Harrow: a green swathe from Grim's Dyke and Bentley Priory down to built-up Harrow Weald Brent: a narrow band from Church Lane, Kingsbury-ish, to the Welsh Harp Barnet: a smidgeon of Sunny Hill Park, Holders Hill Barnet: a large mostly-rural area covering a lot of the north of the borough, including the top of Edgware, villages round Arkley and the ridge end of Totteridge Barnet/Haringey: from Coppetts Wood across the North Circular to (perhaps not surprisingly) Muswell Hill Camden/Haringey: and finally, the western half of the grounds of Kenwood House at the top of Hampstead Heath. Bull andBush station on the Northern line would have cleared this one, but it was never built.
It's been a while since the Dangleway ran a faintly desperate promotion, indeed there's seemingly been a moratorium since a flurry of romantic Night Flight interest back in the spring.
No definition of 'recent' is given in the terms and conditions, so if you've ever flown across the Thames by cablecar your snaps will probably do. But TfL are obviously hoping you'll go back, because that's the point of the competition.
TfL think that these are some of the top reasons why the average Londoner might ride the cablecar. Not because it goes anywhere important, but because it's fun.
I hope you weren't expecting a proper competition. Being in some way professional won't help you here, it's more about whether you can capture a photo that the judges like. A night flight photo would be 'interesting', because night flights are on the Dangleway's promotional list. A romantic summer sunset or a family day out would be 'interesting', because the photo will contain people enjoying themselves, and that's bang on brand. And a silly selfie with friends would be 'interesting', because oh god selfies are a thing these days aren't they shallow shallow shallow Like Like Fave woo look at us!! sadface.
Good news, there's not just one set of prizes, there are four, to be won every Friday from this week until the start of August. Get in this week and you might have the best chance because there are only four days not seven, and nobody rides the cablecar before the weekend.
Powershot N2 cameras retail at around £200, so that's £1600 of electronic goods on offer over the summer. If TfL are paying then it'll take almost 200 round trips to pay for the prizes, well within the extra ridership numbers the competition might generate. Or perhaps Canon donated the eight cameras in return for getting a mention, in which case I've just given them even more publicity, sorry.
And yes they did say "a pair of cameras". I don't know about you but I only ever use one camera at a time, but then I'm a single person and therefore not exactly target audience. The competition appears to be aimed at couples and families, which is fine, but also cunning because when couples and families visit the cablecar they spend a lot more on tickets than I do.
See, I told you it wasn't a serious competition, just a bit of fun. Enter every photo in your Dangleway camera roll if you fancy, because one might just have the golden touch.
See, I told you it wasn't a serious competition. Photos with people in are what the judges really want, like this grinning selfie or this kid in a Spiderman hoodie yawning, as featured on the competition page.
That sounds fairly standard. Your photo stays yours, but TfL would like to splash it all over their social media channels, because by 'interesting' photo what they really hope is 'viral'.
Yes, I'm sure they would. Every tagged photo you release into the real world is another bit of free advertising for the cablecar, and this saves paying PR folk and marketing drones to do the same. But tagged photos won't win you the competition, the smallprint says your entry must be emailed.
So what are you waiting for. Grab a partner, and a small baby, and maybe gran, and ideally a cute puppy, and fly off from North Greenwich at dusk for the ultimate dangleselfie opportunity. And either you'll win two cameras, if you're interesting enough, or you'll have handed over nearly twenty quid for nothing.
Seaside postcard: Westcliff
Your interactive instructions delivered me to Westcliff, one stop from Southend, at the height of a non-summer's day. I sped ahead of the elderly couple and the vaping teen, crossed the railway and headed up to the built-up clifftop. This is the western end of the Southend Cliff Gardens, a municipal escarpment of floral beds and tumbling grass, plus the occasional sealed-off landslip. In one shelter I found two well-wrapped old ladies sharing lunch from a Tupperware box, in another four of the resort's younger and less conventional residents sharing beers while their dog performed. That large black building down on the esplanade is the second largest casino in Britain, built on the site of an open air swimming pool, and doubling up as a not especially inviting restaurant and club. More to my liking was Rossi's ice cream parlour on the inner side of the road, with trademark blue and white striped awnings and a selection of customers tackling coffee and sundaes at table out front. Lemon sorbet cornet for me, every time, thanks.
At Westcliff's highest point stands the Cliffs Pavilion, a 30s theatre revamped as a broader entertainment venue in the 60s, and it looks it. The central box has a grey castellated brick motif, the foyer has a tall curving lobby more like an ocean liner, and the whole design is topped off with what looks like a school canteen tacked to the side. It has seaside style, in spades, although wouldn't look anywhere near so appropriate to its setting a few miles inland. I wandered through the foyer and bar rather early in the day, before the afternoon tea set dropped in, and found the interior somewhat gloomy. That won't have been the case by yesterday evening, however, as Ken Dodd was stopping by to deliver his famously interminable Happiness Show. The venue's booking team rely on vintage musical acts to reel the punters in, be that Buddy Holly impersonators or the Judy Garland Songbook, but some bigger comics and West End plays drop by on their national tours, and even Paul McCartney and Oasis played once. Retirement entertainment par excellence, by the looks of things. [7 photos]
Seaside postcard: Southend Pier
I've been before, and I've blogged before, and if you're particular interested you'll want to read that particular description. Yesterday's weather was less good, indeed grey and blowy, and the photographs less sparkly. But you can't beat a trek down the boardwalk for a constitutional, not least because there's nowhere else you can stand one-third of the way across the Thames Estuary surrounded by an expanse of rushing river. I arrived in time to take the trainto the end, which was good because there's a 29 minute wait if you miss it, in which time you can just about walk the 1.3 miles instead. Far more people alighted from the incoming service than were waiting to head out, which I took to be an indication of inclement weather mid-channel. The raindrops dotting the windows suggested the same, although I was pleased to watch them clear as we sped (or rather rattled) across the water. The tide was mostly in, hiding the mudflats a few inches below, with few points of reference to be seen other than the silver horizon and the occasional passing shelter. And at the far station even more congregated to board, while a few of us topped up the numbers at the pier head.
The cafe that Jamie Oliver's mate Jimmy opened was closed, but the new-ish Royal Pavilion was buzzing. It was being used as the hospitality suite for the end of the British Heart Foundation's London to Southend-on-Sea trek, a 100km walk from Fulham Palace that had kicked off the previous morning! Occasionally another group of tired walkers hobbled in, resting on their poles rather more than when they'd started out, these the last stragglers trying to meet the 3pm deadline. Ambulance workers waited in case anyone succumbed to conditions the charity exists to prevent, and the remainder of the public sat segregated in the adjacent small cafe. What very few did, however, was cross to the lifeboat station (already with a wide range of Christmas cards on sale) and climb up to the so-called'Sundeck'. The weather might have put some off but wasn't that bad, and yet only I and a resolute old lady sat up top and stared across to Southend in one direction and the chimneys of the Isle of Grain on the other. Give some people a drink and a shelter and they're happy, rather than risk experiencing the mid-Thames environment up close. [7 photos]
Seaside postcard: Adventure Island
Formerly Peter Pan's Playground, this amusement park smothers the seafront either side of Southend Pier. It's been going since 1976, now with 32 rides, and unusually is free to enter. Paying for the rides is another matter, however, with all-access blue wristbands currently going for £27 each. They sell enough though, mostly to non-middle class families who come for a day of escapist jollity and chips. Littl'uns have their own rides and coasters, but the big event for screaming teens is Rage, a short but intense spin with a 97° drop and three inversions. And the whole thing has a Radio Essex backtrack, they being the main sponsor, hence Chesney Hawkes and Kylie were banging out over the general hubbub, which felt about right.
Seaside postcard: Leigh-on-Sea
Three stops before Southend Central, and the western tip of the estuary conurbation, lies the former fishing village of Leigh-on-Sea. When the port's deep water access silted up its industry waned, and the railway driving through managed to remove much of the old town in one swoop. There are now two Leighs, the extensive commuter town on the clifftop and the much quainter Old Leigh cut off by themudflats' edge. Only one street remains, wiggly and partly cobbled, lined mostly by cottage-y outlets that sell fish, art or beer. Not surprisingly this combination draws the crowds, and several pubs and restaurants were doing a fine trade on Sunday, with tattoos old and new on full display. I arrived late enough that Simply Seafood was closing up, hence had no fish to go with my chips, which I then had to keep from the mouths of greedy gulls. The cockle huts were closed too, where in the week the remaining shellfishermen prepare their bounty for plates and plastic trays up the road and across this part of Essex. If you're looking for a seafront getaway less than an hour from London, remember Old Leigh. [4 photos]
After a five mile walk from the tip of Southend Pier I've finally reached Leigh-on-Sea and am sitting beside the big green buoy overlooking the mudflats eating a lot of chips (they'd sold out of fish!). Even the sun's finally come out. I'm going to make my own way home from here, eventually, but that was lovely, thanks. Maybe we should do it again sometime?
I've arrived at Westcliff, looked round the Cliffs Pavilion, walked down the seafront, investigated the funfair, and now I'm aboard the rain-splattered train chugging out to the end of the pier. It's a long walk back! And then I may pop down to Leigh on Sea afterwards... 6) ...unless you have any other ideas.
You could have sent me to Westminster, Marble Arch, Gospel Oak, Woolwich, Epping, Ware, Harold Wood, Ipswich or Clacton. But instead you chose to send me to Southend. (well, technically Westcliff, but Southend's only a short walk)
Train then, OK. But the five stations nearest home are either closed this weekend (District/H&C) or services are hugely shortened by engineering works (DLR), so I'm going to walk to Stratford or West Ham instead.
4) I'm going ten stops. Which line from Stratford/West Ham shall I take?
a) Central
b) Jubilee
c) DLR
d) Overground
e) TfL Rail
f) Greater Anglia g) c2c
I did most of the hoovering in the time it took you to decide that, thanks.
3) OK, I'm going out. But how?
a) walk for two miles in a randomly-assigned compass direction
b) catch the next bus from outside the house and ride it to the end of the route c) ride ten stops on a local train that isn't a rail replacement bus this weekend
The local greasy spoon opens every morning except Sunday, dammit, so instead I went to the supermarket at the garage nextdoor and bought some croissants. They were how much? I'm not convinced they were fresh-baked this morning, but with jam they're very tasty anyway.
2) It's not lovely out there. Should I stay in for now?
a) stay in and finish yesterday's paper
b) stay in and do the hoovering (I really need to do the hoovering) c) housework is for losers, go out
It's expensive, the shop at the London Transport Museum, isn't it?
But now there's another way to source a tube mug, tube t-shirt or tube poster thanks to FoI.
TfL must hate Freedom of Information requests, as various awkward members of the public demand the revelation of key data they'd otherwise never disclose. Occasionally they refuse to comply, where the law permits, but usually they have no choice but to reply politely and reveal all.
I would be grateful for copies of the latest Car Line Diagrams (CLD) for all London Underground Lines, if possible in pdf format.
Yours faithfully,
...and this week TfL responded.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we hold the information you require.
Attached are the 2012 Car Line Diagrams for the London Underground network. Also included are the updated overlay stickers, which inform passengers of changes to a station’s status, for example ‘Covent Garden station will be exit only from late February until early November 2015’.
They've kindly provided a zip file, and it contains all the current line diagrams that appear in tube carriages, plus all the stickers that TfL have used in the last three years, and they're all freely accessible.
If you've ever wanted a Waterloo and City line map poster for your bedroom wall, now is the time.
Or if you're feeling ambitious you could print out the whole of the Piccadilly line, or the entire Metropolitan, or the full extent of the Central. You might want to check your printer's got enough ink in it first, or use the colour photocopier at work while nobody's looking, and you might need to divide it up into several sheets, but imagine how fabulous a line diagram would look across your desk, kitchen or hallway.
The overlay stickers are possibly even more fun.
Who wouldn't like to swan around town in a Tottenham Court Road Crossrail Engineering Works Station Closure t-shirt?
Or to drink their morning cuppa from a Victoria Line Stations Now On The Overground mug?
Of course you'd need to find a suitable way of transferring the pdf image onto the necessary cotton or ceramic, preferably not relying on scissors and sticky tape as this tends to run in the first wash. I'm sure you're resourceful enough to think of an appropriate way to use this newly-released treasure trove of diagrams to enhance the material environment in which you live.
But be careful!
Any copyright in the material provided with this response is owned by TfL or one of its subsidiary companies unless otherwise stated. The disclosure of information does not give the person or organisation who receives it an automatic right to re-use it in a way that would otherwise infringe copyright (for example, by making copies, publishing it, or issuing copies to the public). Brief extracts of the material may be reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of research for non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review and news reporting. In respect of use for criticism, review and news reporting, any reproduction must be accompanied by an acknowledgement that TfL or one of its subsidiary companies is the copyright owner.
So don't even think of flogging off a supply of Bakerloo line teapots, or a run of Hendon Central Step-free Access badges, or a collection of Covent Garden Will Be Exit Only placemats, because that's not on. And think twice before you take the Hainault Loop down to a t-shirt printer and demand a dozen copies, because they'll tell you where to go.
But a Jubilee line diagram printed out above your desk, that'd look pretty cool, yes?
OK, so of course I diverted off my London Loop walk to visit Bentley Priory. But it took a while to get there. At one point the path passes the front of the estate, with the mansion part-resplendent through a screen of trees. But to gain access to the former RAF station requires a mile-long diversion around the perimeter because there's only one entrance and it's completely round the other side. Life's easier if you arrive by bus, with the 142 dropping off at the top of the hill (ten minutes out from Stanmore station) or of course you could drive. But whichever way you get here you'll have to pass security, because the building that helped win freedom in the skies during World War Two now lies within a housing estate for the incredibly rich.
The original Bentley Priory was medieval, replaced in 1775 by this grand house higher up the hill. It was designed by the great Sir John Soane, who also oversaw more lavish later refurbishment on behalf of the Marquis of Abercorn. Located in rural surroundings several miles from what was then London, the house attracted many famous visitors including prime ministers, Sir Walter Scott and Lady Hamilton. Its most famous resident was Queen Adelaide, widow of King William IV, who lived only on the ground floor and essentially came here to die. After a spell as a girls' boarding school Bentley Priory came to the attention of the RAF who used it for training purposes, until in 1936 the reorganisation of Britain's air defences brought about its finest hour.
RAF Fighter Command was established with the intention of preparing successful strategies for modern aerial combat. It drew on the the input of the Royal Observer Corps, also based here at Bentley Priory, and on newfangled radar, then in its infancy. Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding established a groundbreaking system combining observation and communication, setting up a central Filter Room at Bentley Priory and a control network to disseminate decisions to airbases across the country. When the Battle of Britain began (75 years ago today!) Dowding's system came into its own, while Germany had nothing close, and the intelligence differential was crucial to ensuring that the Luftwaffe were ultimately defeated. And all this from a hilltop above Stanmore.
I wasn't expecting to be stopped at the top of Mansion House Drive, I thought the security notice applied only to cars. But no, the security lady popped out to check I was heading down to the museum, and not a random miscreant here to intrude on the lives of Barratts' wealthy homeowners. They're massive homes down the main drive, and each sealed further behind an electronic gate suggesting high levels of privacy paranoia. Further into the estate the buildings are less beautiful, though I suspect not much less expensive, resembling pristine brick prison blocks with double garages attached. Signs warn mere visitors that certain paths are for Residents only, so best continue down the intermittent pavement and past a Spitfire to the Priory itself.
The main entrance hall below the clocktower is beautiful, enhanced by various stained glass windows to commemorate the building's wartime heritage. The most recent of these is the Dowding System Tactical Control Window, unveiled in the last month, and featuring an rarely-seen combination of radar masts, protractor and triangulation. Look up too to enjoy the lofty decorated ceilings, and don't head off in the wrong direction else you'll end up in one of the privately rented corridors, and that would never do. This is also why you'll be asked to wear a sticker during your visit, not just to show you've paid but to make clear that you're an official non-resident.
There are eight rooms to see in this two-year-oldmuseum, the first being the Abercorn Room which tells the story of the site. The desks of typewriters are expertly presented, and the interactive mirror is ingenious, but information is relatively thin on the ground. The audio-visual nextdoor is excellent however, as what appears to be a small room with a screen illuminates to reveal a key wartime hub, as Sir Hugh Dowding's role in leading Fighter Command is rightly celebrated. Out in the main corridor the Inner Hall boasts a gorgeous sweeping staircase (for residents only, and you're not, remember?), and beyond is Queen Adelaide's sitting room where she might have received her niece Queen Victoria on a visit to the country.
Bentley Priory's most impressive public room is The Rotunda, a circular space topped by a high dome, around whose walls are information, medals and memorabilia relating to The Few. This is the room with the most to see, and read, adding a roundly human dimension to your visit. Through the Music Room Corridor, where a tiny fraction of John Soane's original work remains, is a timber reconstruction of the original Filter Room complete with map table and figurines. And finally there's the Ballroom, which is ornate but echoingly empty, as if the trustees ran out of things to display. This used to be the main Operations Room until Ops were relocated to a bunker in the grounds - Churchill, Eisenhower and King George VI spent D-Day here - but alas the historic underground space no longer exists.
Which leaves the gardens, and these are magnificent. You'd expect no less because they're not for your benefit, they're for residents of the flats surrounding the limited museum space, because this is their gaff after all. Feel free to wander the borders and around the fountain, and to admire the mansion's grand facade, but please don't go beyond the official signs or cross the ha-ha into the rest of the grounds. Instead head for the cafe in the basement, it's daintily fitted out, and although the menu appears limited it serves a decent cup of tea and slice of cake. The Spitfire-branded parasols on the patio outside are a particularly thoughtful touch.
The museum's website recommends allowing 1.5-2.5 hours for your visit, although I'm not sure how you could ever extend your presence here to the latter, even if you eat your toasted roll really slowly. The museum's beautifully realised, and very welcoming, and unexpectedly evocative, but in reality no more than a handful of lightly-filled rooms surrounded by extortionately-priced apartments. Uxbridge has a better bunker, Hendon a better museum and Neatishead far more on radar. So you should come to Bentley Priory not because of what it is but because of what it was - one of the most important places in our island's history.
WALK LONDON The London Loop[section 15]
Hatch End to Elstree & Borehamwood (9 miles)
Section 15 is one of the longest sections of the London Loop, and a relatively green stretch too. It wiggles out into Hertfordshire and back, then strikes out for good ending up well beyond the border. Along the way are plentiful fields and woodland, one great view and slightly too many golf courses, plus one of the most underused footpaths I've battled through for some time. Set course for the far edge of Harrow, and expect to get repeatedly lost. [map][7 photos]
The lasttwo times I've found myself in this field outside Hatch End it's been a mudbath. This time, thankfully, it's bone dry underfoot, with hay waving in the meadow and butterflies on the wing. It's a lovely way to begin. Less good is the lack of a London Loop sign pointing in the right direction, the first of dozens that will be absent or indistinct along the way. And I'm not alone on my journey. Two dozen older ramblers have wandered up from the station, poles in hand, and are already consulting their map to work out which way to go. I stride off first, and they follow a minute behind, pursuing me along the hedge. The next missing sign is at the far end, past the pylon, and it takes me a while to work out that I really am supposed to squeeze past a fallen trunk and switch to an adjacent field. The rambling party observes and follows to continue the chase.
At the next gate the Loop crosses into Hertfordshire, specifically Carpenders Park, shadowing and then crossing the West Coast mainline via a latticed footbridge. Again the Loop sign is missing, and the next bleached so much it's barely readable, and the next missing altogether. I'm starting to wonder who's to blame for this waymarking collapse - the council, local vandals or TfL and their increasingly insignificant budget. By now the walking group have fallen behind again, and I wonder if they'll be able to work out which way to go. The route used to follow Oxhey Lane back into Middlesex, but now it skips the clubhouse and rises through littered scrub to join the local golf course near the 6th hole's green. I am eyed suspiciously by those preparing to putt, the path here marked only by a row of white posts ascending the hillside, and affording no protection whatsoever from withering stares.
Beyond the 5th tee the path bears off then disappears into some woods, but only if you notice the word LOOP scratched into a wooden post above a faded yellow arrow. At least that's better than the non-existent sign at the next junction where I accidentally continue along the fence and then have to retrace my steps. I'm now following Grim'sDitch, a three mile prehistoric earthwork, imperceptibly undulating as a rooty ridge beneath the trees. I'm also within the grounds of the Grim'sDykeHotel, which you may remember celebrated by Betjeman in his Metro-land documentary as the abode of "beautifully behatted" ladies. It was also formerly the home of librettist W.S. Gilbert, who died here of a heart attack in the lake after attempting to rescue a young swimmer. I'm keen to take a look, but when I arrive a devil dog is standing haunch-deep in the algae-topped water, so I have to creep silently past.
The twisty path emerges onto Old Redding, a high point above Harrow Weald, which I visited recently as it's the start of the River Pinn. The view's great, from Harrow-on-the-Hill round to aeroplanes landing in the distance at Heathrow, and is being admired by various parked-up drivers across a storm-puddled car park. But the Loop only nips briefly out of the woods, returning on the other side of the hotel to enter Harrow Weald Common. This is dark and peaceful, and inadequately signposted. It takes five minutes to spot a marker convincing me I'm on the right route, seven minutes to realise I've not passed a soul along the way, and ten minutes to stop worrying unnecessarily about a pack of wolves stalking out of the ferny undergrowth.
There's nobody in Bentley Priory Nature Reserve either. This is a delightful open space on almost the highest point in Middlesex, a rough and tumble of grass and trees and thistly pools with occasional views across the City. I'm indebted to the Harrow Nature Conservation Forum who've compiled a truly excellent leaflet to accompany their 25-stop nature trail. These are freely available from dispensers by the entrance (which I initially mistook for dogpoo bags), and provide a wonderfully comprehensive guide to the flora, fauna and geology of this charming SSSI. At the top of the slope a thick fence seals off Bentley Priory, home to Fighter Command during WW2, now a luxury housing development. It'd take ages to walk round to the security-approved entrance, but I must venture inside for a look at their museum soon.
The Loop then takes an unnecessarily long meander around Stanmore Common, for reasons best known to those who created it. TfL's six-page printable guide for Section 15 includes a close-up map of this area so you don't get lost, which I did, twice, because the signage was familiarly appalling. And I'd walked this before - goodness knows how people who haven't cope. The walk round Brewery Pond would have been nicer had a large family group not set up a barbecue and picnic by the waterside, with a great deal of their fast-reddening flesh on view, and a volleyball net draped provocatively across the footpath. By this time I'm almost ready to give up and escape via Stanmore station down the hill, but no, four more sweaty miles remain.
Blimey. The footpath north from Stanmore Common looked ordinary on the map but in real life appears very lightly trod. It squeezes between a dog grooming hut and the back of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, which is as tumbledown a corner of the NHS as you could ever hope to meet. Through here the nettles are out of control, so I'm well pleased not to be wearing shorts, then brambles cross the path, so I have to bat them carefully out of the way, then the ferns reach neck high, which is no fun, and finally the path emerges from behind a dumped pile of clinker, as if the local farmer didn't really want anyone coming this way. Which is a shame because there follows an easy lane past grazing horses, then a delightful swish across a hayfield alongside the M1 motorway, the grass alive with hundreds of dancing butterflies. I must be back in Hertfordshire again.
To reach Aldenham Reservoir requires careful negotiation of a busy roundabout (once intended as the Bushey Heath terminus of the Northern line) (damn, why did I only realise that after I got home?) and a long pavement slog past a bland business park estate (formerly the Danziger Brothers New Elstree Studios). Annoyingly there's no immediate access to the waterside from the Watford Road, until an opening in the fence on a blind bend permits a way through. Even then the Loop's route never quite manages to reach the waterside, blocked by woodland and a sailing club, with official directions suggesting a diversion to see the 18th century dam (ah yes, much prettier) before the path all-too-quickly veers off. There's much more to explore here, and I need to come back.
Are we still not at the end yet? A cracked path leads across a field of rape, with a cluster of yurts visible in a neighbouring field, rising to what used to be Watling Street at the foot of Elstree village. And that's not it either. The Loop chooses to pursue an indirect route up a further hill, a delightfully pastoral ascent (littered with warning signs about watching out for horses), before stepping out onto the section's last golf course. Here I get lost yet again, broken by the combination of pisspoor signage and indistinct written instructions, before finally deducing the correct path. One final spinney leads back to Allum Lane, and the first shop I've passed since Hatch End, which gives you some idea of how pleasingly peripheral this walk has been. And before long I am the sweaty mess on the train at Elstree and Borehamwood station, speeding back to the heart of town.
