The world record for visiting all 270 stations on the London Underground is 15 hours, 45 minutes and 38 seconds. But as yet there's no official record for the fastest time to visit every station on the Night Tube, because the system's only been up and running since this morning, so I'd like to claim the crown. I've been out overnight travelling the entire network, from Ealing Broadway to Hainault via Walthamstow and Brixton. And the time the rest of you have to beat is 3 hours, 24 minutes and 7 seconds. Here's how.
Ealing Broadway
It's just after midnight on Saturday 20th August 2016, and what little nightlife exists on Ealing Broadway is about to be transformed. No longer need drinkers at The Shanakee rush to finish their last beer, nor clubbers at the Red Room leave before the last dance, not if they're heading back into the centre of town. The last tube used to leave at two minutes past midnight, but now the service runs all night and a new dawn of weekend freedom can begin. At the station the ticket gates are wide open, which may be a sign of things to come, or may simply be because this is a National Rail hub (last train to Paddington, five to two). While hundreds flood out through the barriers and a line of taxis awaits, only a trickle follows me down to the platforms for departure. The District line train alongside is already Not In Service, as we brave few board the inaugural Night Tube service, and my stopwatch clicks into action.
Ealing Broadway → Oxford Circus [24 minutes]
Last Saturday this Central line train would have wound up a few stops down the line at White City, but tonight it's going all the way to Hainault via Newbury Park. I'm in a clean carriage, stripped of leftover Standards, with only one other passenger deeply absorbed in her phone. At North Acton three beer-soaked groups board, one with Polish lager in hand, another yawning loudly, and the most sozzled opening the end door repeatedly before slumping into a seat. By Notting Hill Gate there are twenty of us, several openly flouting the byelaw on drinking alcohol, but the atmosphere remains jolly and convivial. The vibe is very much "heading home" or "party on" rather than "night shift", and beyond Marble Arch it's standing room only.
Oxford Circus [stopwatch 0h24m]
Last week the platforms here would have been empty, the final train of the evening having departed, but now they're as busy as a normal late evening with a bustle of travellers waiting to board. My first interchange of the night is a long one but goes smoothly, because when trains run this far apart there's generally time to spare. It's here that I spot my first extra police officers, one in the subways and one wandering the Victoria line platform, which is again fairly congested.
Oxford Circus → Walthamstow Central [19 minutes]
Trains are still eight minutes apart, not ten, as the timetable slips over the cusp of additional Night Tube provision. Our northbound service is helping to evacuate the West End, with some carriages rammed, but mine thankfully quite civilised. Passengers are more muted than on the Central, and no alcohol is evident, probably because this bunch are mostly heading home. A dreadlocked man in a pinstripe suit devours a lemon before alighting with a trolley. Meanwhile the lady beside me types "Today is first night train service and I'm in it" into her phone, before adding a smiley and seven unnecessary emoji, and changing the text colour to pink. Passengers thin out gradually from Kings Cross onwards, while a family fresh from Heathrow boards at Finsbury Park having successfully avoided the taxi option. In this carriage ten of us stay on to the end - across the entire train considerably more.
Walthamstow Central [stopwatch 0h51m]
I needn't have got off. Only one platform is in use and our train will be going almost straight back again. A TV crew are on the platform, interviewing the (surprisingly) young driver as he walks back down the train. A group of Underground staff in pink t-shirts and orange hi-vis follow on behind - they've presumably already been spoken to - then step aboard and hold court in the adjacent carriage.
Walthamstow Central → Brixton [29 minutes]
On the outward journey the train's on-board messaging system was very much in daytime mode ("change here for...", even when that line was no longer running). But on the inbound journey something has clearly flipped, as the system starts to reel off a lengthy but incomplete list of overnight closures. "The Northern line is suspended. The Bakerloo line is suspended. The Jubilee line is suspended. The Metropolitan line is part-suspended. National Rail lines from Vauxhall are suspended." Which particular lines get mentioned isn't consistent, and their number gradually increases the closer to zone 1 we get, as if the disembodied voice is going slowly mad. This ever-changing litany is reeled off twice at every station, which proves a highly infuriating quirk and is presumably not what the train's programmers originally intended. Oxford Circus isn't quite so busy by the time I return, this time picking up the returning south London posse as we pass through. Passengers are still politeness personified, and either chatting or subdued, or in one case lost in a good book. At Stockwell plastic tapes block off the Northern line platforms, lest anyone be tempted to wait, and at Brixton two people have to be nudged awake.
Brixton [stopwatch 1h25m]
It's especially hectic here, the flood strongest from the carriages by the Way Out, where regular travellers know to sit. A team of litter pickers dash in to pick up bottles, papers and KFC cartons, while one reveller slouches on a bench before being carried off semi-comatose by his friends. And again all I needed to do was stay on the train, because once the driver's changed ends we'll be going straight back.
Brixton → Oxford Circus [11 minutes]
"I wish there was a kebab right here," jokes one lad to a temporary friend he's never met before, as our Victoria line train heads back beneath the river. A decent amount of demand is evident even now, which is coming up to two o'clock in the morning, as refugees from nightbuses and Ubers enjoy the opportunity for a swift ride. Yawns are common, stoic stares somewhat more so, and the average age of those aboard is somewhere in the mid-twenties.
Oxford Circus [stopwatch 1h44m]
Because of a quirk in the Night Tube's timetables, all the trains at Oxford Circus pass through "on the 9s", so there's no hope of dashing through the subway in time to make a fast connection. I have a ten minute wait, although I'm still bang on schedule, a lucky break which doesn't normally happen on these Tube Challenge attempts. A small mouse scuttles by before the platform fills, the human contingent eventually over a hundred strong. A girl in a pink furry tiara announces that BBC Three are filming upstairs, and hopes very much she won't appear.
Oxford Circus → Loughton [38 minutes]
One eastern arm to go, but it's the tricky one with a split at the end, so I'm nowhere near finished yet. Every seat in the carriage is taken, and a TfL manager (with name badge, suit and shiny shoes) is hanging by the door with radiophone in hand. We are the inaugural guinea pigs to be observed, and fed back on, although as yet with no high jinks to report. "How's it going?" he asks the platform staff at Bank, and "So far so good" is the reply. By Bethnal Green rather more passengers are alighting than boarding, a pattern which accelerates as we head east. At Stratford the Night Manager kindly rouses a sleeping passenger who doesn't want to get off yet, then alights to continue his inspection elsewhere. All the Burger King and McDonalds bags filled in the West End are long exhausted, as we divert off up the line to Loughton, still with dozens aboard the train. Even at Woodford a number of fresh passengers board, escapees from some social event somewhere, with only a couple of stations to go as we cross the border into Essex.
Loughton [stopwatch 2h34m]
Council cuts mean they turn off the street lights in Loughton at 1am, although thankfully those outside the station still appear to be working. A sizeable crowd departs down the double staircase before the train is thoroughly checked for sleepers and is driven away. The next southbound train is Not In Service, then Check Destination, then finally Ealing Broadway. As various doors open and announcements play, there is a sense that the driver is experimenting with the controls, but never fear, we depart right on time.
Loughton → Leytonstone [11 minutes]
This time there are barely a dozen of us on board, but that's not bad for three in the morning at the Night Tube's most far flung station. There were severe delays on this stretch of line earlier due to a signal failure, how typical is that, but I've been fortunate enough to arrive after they've been cleared up. We rattle south through the darkness, returning into London, and picking up a dapper retired gent who travels only one stop.
Leytonstone [stopwatch 2h59m]
The train I've just left is unexpectedly held in the platform for seven minutes while a cleaner is fetched, to mop up something that presumably isn't vegetable soup. Thankfully the delay doesn't affect my journey as I cross to the northbound for my final train, past a policeman watching over the gateline and a steady stream of mouthy clubbers. These excitable teens are highly peeved to face a near-20 minute wait, the longest interval on the Night Tube, but my last train is arriving ten minutes sooner (and means I'll avoid travelling with them, hurrah).
Leytonstone → Hainault [15 minutes]
There's nearly 100 of us aboard this Central line train, I'd say, some excitedly making friends and others nodding off. My final seven stations lie ahead around the Hainault loop, which help to make Redbridge the very best served Night Tube borough. It seems insane that lowly Fairlop gets a 24 hour service, but that's what happens when the depot's just beyond, and the stop is not entirely wasted. I note that nobody's getting onto the train now, only off, entirely as suburban nightlife would suggest. And as Hainault approaches I'm checking my watch for the record breaking time, still very much on schedule, the entire journey having gone as planned.
Hainault [stopwatch 3h24m]
Guinness's pernickety rules don't allow a single challenger with incomplete evidence to claim the world record, so my time of 3 hours, 24 minutes and 7 seconds won't be officially ratified. It's also true that the Night Tube network is as yet incomplete, so all I've done is visit every station on the first two lines, which isn't anywhere near the final tally. But when all five lines are running it'll be totally impossible to cover the entire Night Tube in one night, so I've grabbed the record while someone can, and now it's mine. At least until tomorrow, that is, should any of you want to take me on.
I must conclude by saying it's been an impressive opening night. Not flawless, but smooth and good-natured throughout, and with passenger numbers evidently justifying the decision to launch. At no time did I feel at risk or threatened by another traveller, and everyone from cleaning staff to drivers appeared well-trained and professional. You probably slept through it all, indeed it's likely you'll have little or no need for the service as it rolls on, week in week out. But for those who work or play in the early hours, and happen to live in the right part of town, the Night Tube will make a genuine and positive difference. And that's a matter of record.
The TfL website has a special Facts and Figures page for data-lovers, with a definitive list of superlatives and trivia on the London Underground network.
But as of tonight London has a brand new railway system - the Night Tube. It's got its own mascot, namely Becky, the Night Tube owl. It's got its own map, including a paper version you can pick up in stations. And it's got its very own set of superlatives and trivia.
As far as I'm aware TfL doesn't have a special Facts and Figures page for the Night Tube, so I've had a go at coming up with one for myself. I've attempted to match TfL's original list, and added three more facts of my own. Please note that the data only refers to the initial Night Tube on the Central and Victoria lines, not the full five-line system due later in the year. The list may not be 100% accurate, sorry, but I have attempted to be.
The Tube
The Night Tube
Date opened
1863
2016
Annual passenger numbers
1.34 billion
0 (so far)
Length of network
402km
68km
Number of stations
270
51
Busiest station
Waterloo - 95.1 million passengers per year
Oxford Circus
Annual train km travelled
82.5 million km
0.36 million km
Average train speed
33kmh
38kmh
Proportion of network in tunnels
45%
69%
Longest continuous tunnel
East Finchley to Morden (via Bank) - 27.8km
Brixton to Walthamstow - 21.3km
Total number of escalators
423
100 (estimate)
Station with most escalators
Waterloo - 23
tbc (Oxford Circus?)
Longest escalator
Angel - 27.4 metres (vertical rise)
Holborn - 23.4 metres (vertical rise)
Shortest escalator
Stratford - 4.1 metres
Stratford - 4.1 metres
Total number of lifts on the network
196
20 (estimate)
Number of moving walkways
Four, two each at Waterloo and Bank
0
Deepest lift shaft
Hampstead - 55.2 metres
Green Park - 22.8 metres
Shortest lift shaft
King's Cross St. Pancras - 2.3 metres
King's Cross St. Pancras - 2.3 metres
Step-free stations
68
7
Station with most platforms
Baker Street - 10
Oxford Circus - 4
Highest station above mean sea level
Amersham (Metropolitan line) - 147 metres
Buckhurst Hill (Central line) - 135 metres
Stations south of the Thames
28 (10%)
3 (6%)
Stations outside London
16
2
Furthest station from central London
Chesham (Metropolitan line) - 47km to Aldgate
Loughton (Central line) - 17km to Liverpool Street
Longest distance between stations
Chesham to Chalfont & Latimer (Metropolitan line) - 6.3km
Finsbury Park to Seven Sisters (Victoria line) - 3.1km
Shortest distance between stations
Leicester Square to Covent Garden (Piccadilly line) - 0.3km
Holborn to Chancery Lane (Central line) - 0.4km
Longest direct journey
Epping to West Ruislip (Central line) - 54.9km
Hainault to Ealing Broadway (Central line) - 37.6km
Something to mull over next time you catch the 0352 from South Woodford to East Acton.
MidlandMetro, the light rail system connecting Wolverhampton to Birmingham, first opened to passengers in 1999. Three months ago the line was extended through Birmingham city centre so that trams now run all the way to the freshly-refurbished New Street station, and the shinyshoppingcentre perched on top.
But what if you're not in the West Midlands for retail, what if you're after some culture? Fear not, I've taken a ride along the entire 13 mile route seeking out galleries, heritage and museums for tram-travellers to enjoy.
[I know I know, probably not the article you were expecting]
It's a city now, Wolverhampton, and has been since the millennium. A ring road wraps round the former town centre, with an Anglo-Saxon-founded church on the highest ground and a cluster of civic buildings close by. One of these is the Wolverhampton Art Gallery, a late-Victorian confection, and a symbol of how seriously the local authority has always taken the aggregation of art. Upstairs are the Victorian and Georgian Rooms, high gabled galleries with a distinctly retro feel, showcasing a series of old masters and locally-crafted artefacts. Downstairs the art is more temporary and rather newer, including at present that perennial favourite - chocolate bars, crisp packets and ketchup brands stitched out of fabric. The WAG has long embraced the modern, indeed in the 1970s it was regularly vilified by the national press for forking out hundreds of pounds of taxpayers money on Pop Art trash. But now the Gallery's having the last laugh, as its collectionof works by Warhol, Caulfield, Paolozzi, Blake et al has attained national importance. I thoroughly enjoyed the current exhibition in the ground floor extension, showcasing several of these Pop Art acquisitions along with their critical reaction at the time, including a packet of cigarettes (disgraceful!), a (baffling!) sculpture with teeth and a gorilla maquette. [free] [5 photos]
Bilston's in the Black Country, the coalfield that helped bring the West Midlands to industrial prominence. The Bilston Craft Gallery exists to celebrate the region's creative flair, in particular the decorative enamels for which the town was famous in the late 18th century. Economics now dictate that the gallery shares its two-storey premises with the local library, but the mosaic floor at the foot of the stairs by the lending desk is a beautiful reminder of times past. Out back is a long gallery where a succession of temporary exhibitions are hosted, at present focusing on Wolverhampton's motorbike heritage (ooh, a Norton, a Diamond and a Wolf) and an eye-opening look at the acrimonious demise of the local steel industry (which survived 200 years until British Steel shut the smelters down). But I was really hunting for the Craftsensegallery - BCG's pride and joy, according to its website and Wikipedia. I looked everywhere but found no trace, eventually deducing that the cases have been permanently whisked away to make space for a Craft Cafe, where children come to make and paint while their parents enjoy tea. It's a brilliant idea, especially during the summer holidays, but when every table is empty and the two staff on duty entirely untroubled, simultaneously a crying shame. [free] [3 photos]
↓ 7 minutes
Wednesbury:Wednesbury Museum and Art Gallery
Doubling up as Sandwell's museum, this purpose built Victorian gallery has one of the world's largest collections of Ruskin pottery. It's also closed four days a week, so I missed out, but it is, obviously, open on Wednesdays. [free]
Sometimes you arrive too late. The Public was West Bromwich's attempt to jump on a post-millennial bandwagon, an architecturally striking arts centre to place the town firmly on the cultural map. But where Margate, Hastings and Eastbourne succeeded, West Bromwich fell flat on its face with an expensive 'digital arts centre' nobody wanted. By the time it opened its doors in 2008 both the architects and the charitable foundation in charge had gone bust, and the interactive galleries weren't properly up and running. Visitors came and were bewildered, following a twisty ramp through the cavernous space, staring at mysterious lights and pressing intermittent buttons. In 2013 the council gave up and shut the place down, ripping out the exhibits and transforming the interior into a much-needed sixth form college. What remains is a monolithic black box with cloudlike pink-edged windows, looming invasively over the shopping centre, accessible only to students. Simultaneously amazing and disastrous, I wish I'd been earlier, while the taxpayers of Sandwell wish it had never been built. [free] [4 photos]
Handsworth gets a bad press, whereas it was once the very model of Staffordshire respectability, and arguably the cradle of industrial Enlightenment. The resident who helped change the world was entrepreneur Matthew Boulton, who lived at Soho House from 1766 to 1809. Across the fields his Manufactory churned out buttons, buckles and boxes, and it was here that Boulton teamed up with James Watt to build the first economically viable steam engine. The West Midlands was home to several other great thinkers at the time, including Joseph Priestley and Josiah Wedgwood, a group of whom met socially once a month on the night of the full moon and called themselves the Lunar Society. One of the venues was Soho House, in the 1990s rescued from use as a police hostel and restored to full Georgian glory. Visitors are now shown around a building miraculously fitted out with most of Bolton's original furniture and fittings, including the very table around which the Lunar Society met, and some rather fantastic ornaments made from Blue John. My guide was excellent, and really made the house come alive, but also expressed regret that not enough people seem to make the effort to visit. I must say the initial trudge up from the tram stop hadn't looked promising, but the leafy neighbourhood at the top of the hill was charming, Soho House an unexpected pleasure, and they do tea and cakes too. [£7] [3 photos]
↓ 2 minutes
Jewellery Quarter:The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter
I visited this mothballed workshop last year, and loved it, so won't repeat myself except to say that it's an evocative insight into how craftsmanship used to be, and if you're in Birmingham you should go. [£7] [photo]
↓ 8 minutes
Grand Central:The Birmingham Back to Backs
The National Trust's only property in Birmingham, a rare survivor of cramped working class housing, lies a short walk south of New Street station. How the city's architecture changes along the journey, from thrusting gleam to decorated terracotta to plaintive brick. An example of the latter, I also visited the Back to Backs last year, and can also recommend. [£7.85]
Midland Metro's due to be extended again next year, nudging through the civic centre of the city to terminate in front of the Library of Birmingham. Now three years old, this glittering bookstack is already much loved, even if the council's already had to cut its opening hours through lack of funding. But the real casualty is the old Birmingham Central Library, a brutalist concrete ziggurat which divided opinion, but has now been almost completely demolished. A single grey-stepped section remains, smashed open to the elements, due to be replaced by a modern mixed-use urban centrepiece laughably named Paradise. [free/dead] [photo]
It may be 2023 before Midland Metro reaches out to Edgbaston, and even then not especially close to the University, but hey, I needed an excuse to nudge these last two attractions onto the list. Birmingham's campus is huge, centred around a sweeping Albertopolis-esque court with a thrusting brick clocktower at its heart. To one side is the Barber, an arts complex with a first floor cloistered gallery, and a collection of paintings that punches well above its weight. One circuit passes several treasures, and feels all so terribly refined and enriching, if somewhat dated. Much more up-to-date is the the Lapworth Museum of Geology, in the listed Aston Webb building, a Victorian collection reopened barely a month ago in a strikingly updated space. A sequence of fossil displays tells the Earth's history era by era, while carefully classified stacks of rocks and minerals should satisfy casual visitors and querulous students alike. I spotted a number of degree-educated dads attempting to inspire their offspring with scientific fervour, with varying degrees of success, and with just enough to push and poke in the Active Earth gallery to keep everyone happy. [free, free] [7 photos]
It's not a bad place to wait for a train, except in one respect, which is knowing what train is coming next.
For several decades an analogue lightbox revealed the destination of the next train approximately 45 seconds before it arrived. In 2005 this was replaced by a modern electronic display, but this is dependent on the same signalling feed so gives no additional information, nor any better advance warning of the next train's arrival. The second and third trains are never revealed, only the first, neither does a time ever appear alongside. In this we're not particularly special - there are still many other stations on the Underground with similarly minimal displays, and some with nothing at all.
Then in early spring we got nothing at all.
Over the course of a weekend TfL took the welcome step of replacing the glass in the roof above the two staircases and the two platforms. It'd got terribly mucky over the years, and the replacement panes brightened up the station no end. Unfortunately their temporary removal also allowed the rain to get in, and the next train indicator boxes promptly steamed up and stopped working.
So for the last few months we've been hearing this message over the loudspeakers at semi-regular intervals.
Ladies and gentlemen. Due to condensation, and for health and safety, the train describers on both platforms have been switched off. Please check the front of the train for the correct destination.
Checking the front of the train is of course the obvious solution when all else fails. But until it rumbled round the corner and into the platform we had no idea where it was going, and absolutely no clue what might be following and how many minutes behind. And this has carried on for weeks and weeks.
Would we be waiting ages for the next District line train or was it imminent? Was the next Hammersmith & City line train one minute away or nine, or worse? We didn't know, we just stood on the platform and waited, sometimes more in hope than expectation.
It wasn't the end of the world. When you're used to getting only 45 seconds notice, getting none doesn't make a lot of difference. But when TfL's technology can now list every bus expected at a particular bus stop over the next 30 minutes, its inability to reveal the next train here at Bow Road does seem a bit feeble.
And even though our screens had gone blank the station staff didn't step in to advise us what was on its way, even though they probably knew, they just played the apologetic message again and left us in the dark.
Almost anywhere else on the tube you can whip your phone out and check online. Wi-fi makes this easy even underground, and TfL's open data policy feeds comprehensive 'next train' data to many a smartphone app.
But Bow Road has no data, we are a total data blackspot. Check your app for 'Bow Road' departures and you'll draw a complete blank, even though Bromley-by-Bow (one up the line) has a full and complete list. And sure, it is possible to check adjacent stations and try to extrapolate, but that's not ideal, indeed you might just have missed a train that's departed and is on its way.
I'm not sure whether Bow Road's unique on the Underground in having no real-time data feed, but I do know that whipping out Citymapper doesn't help, and checking the TfL website is no use whatsoever.
The only thing we had left was a small 'next train' display in the ticket hall, the catch here being that it too gives minimal warning, so by the time you've passed through the gates and reached the platform there's a good chance that the train you saw displayed has already closed its doors or left.
It's baffled me for years why it's proven impossible to provide proper 'next train' information at Bow Road, when passengers one stop down the line at Mile End can be told the next three trains up to five minutes away. And it baffles me why there's no live data feed for Bow Road, and never has been, when TfL surely know where all their trains are.
But I was once told by somebody important that the signalling system in the Bow Road area is held together 'by string', which might explain a lot, and might mean the black hole will continue until the long-delayed signalling upgrade programme finally bears fruit.
Anyway, the good news is that yesterday somebody finally fixed the problem with the steamed up box on the westbound platform and switched it back on. We now have our 45 second warning again, so can shuffle forward into position once we know the train we want is expected. The eastbound display still isn't showing anything useful, but that's been blank or hopelessly wrong for years, so we're pretty much used to that.
Maybe by 2023 we'll know what the second and third trains are, or even the next ten, using whatever passes for a smartphone app by then. But for now, if contractors just could avoid taking the roof off again for a while, that'd be appreciated.
If you've not been through Nine Elms recently, you may be surprised how much the area has changed.
That's not how Battersea Power Station looks now, that was how it looked in 2009, but I could have shown you a photo from 2013 and it would have looked much the same. Not today.
A forest of cranes has shot up, rising from the foundations of the latest phase of development, fed by daily convoys of lorries carting supplies in and taking rubble away. The first phase is already up, squeezing in 800 luxury apartments beside the railway and screening the entire western side of the power station. The interior of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s elemental masterpiece is next, a much more mixed-use development, transforming the interior into on-brand retail units, entertainment spaces and premium penthouses. The upper lateral walls have already been removed to ease the changeover, and of course the chimneys have come down too. Sulphur damage had made them dangerously unstable, and the developers were forced to replace one before removing the other three to prove they had the building's heritage in trust. I'd say these replacement chimneys are going to be utterly key to the success of the final project, because nothing else of the original power station is going to be visible once the surrounding apartment complex is complete.
Except from the other side of the river, that is. Only from the Thames, or from the embankment at Pimlico, will the majestic profile of the power station be unblocked. Something has to pay for the redevelopment of the site, and even ridiculously expensive apartments won't fill the coffers unless there are as many of them as possible. It's also essential to extend the Northern line, because the new residents would never stoop to taking the bus, and work on the station is now very much underway. You won't yet see much above ground level, only the stack of portakabins where the engineering types hang out, but that big gap in the wall in the second photograph above is the gate all the delivery lorries rumble through. There have been 'issues' recently after the height of the building the station was due to be constructed underneath was increased, but if all goes to plan you'll be able to ride the tube to do your Christmas window shopping at Battersea's designer mall in four years time.
Several other housing developments are planned nearby, crammed into every corner of brownfield space, and the Nine Elms area has more than most. First to be completed is Riverlight, a spectrum of crystalline blocks in prime position on the Thames. Their residents live privileged lives on the upper levels, with a coffee shop and 'tavern' on the ground floor, plus pristine flowerbeds and lawns on which dogs are absolutely not allowed. Their buildings are at least distinctive, which is more than can be said for the much larger cluster arising across Nine Elms Lane. The lift shafts I saw last time I was here have blossomed into mundane blocks of New London Vernacular, nothing architecturally special, indeed standing in the midst of them I could almost have been in Barking. But this is Embassy Gardens, the development that'll have the sky pool, the elevated glass-bottomed swimming pool that got everyone worked up when plans were first announced last year. And the supermarket on the ground floor is a Waitrose, obviously, because the target residents wouldn't be seen walking into anywhere else.
Alongside is the other flagship project in the Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Opportunity Area, specifically the new American Embassy. Amazingly it's nearly complete, a giant glass cube encased in a rippling metal lattice, with additional silvery undulations attached for good measure. Security when it opens next year will be extra-tight, hence the construction of a landscaped 'moat' outside, this as yet unseen. But for the time being you can wander up almost to the perimeter of the site unchallenged, to read the numerous safety-is-really-important notices and watch the dangling workmen perform aerial ballet. Spreading out beyond are a number of almost-ready apartment blocks, and liftshafts about to become apartment blocks, and demolished depots preparing to sprout liftshafts, and further depots awaiting demolition. The residential potential of these tightly-packed acres is phenomenal, not that anyone expecting anything loosely termed 'affordable' should get their hopes up.
On the opposite side of the railway viaduct is the only other station on the Northern line extension - Nine Elms. Sainsbury's generously sacrificed their car park, and their supermarket, to allow construction of the new station and are now reaping the rewards. The same footprint of land now contains a sealed-off plot of underground workings, a stack of highrise buildings reaching up to 20 storeys, and a gleaming orange-paned supermarket receiving its finishing touches inside and out, with staff preparing to open next week. It's an astonishing change of land use in barely three years, and stands in sharp contrast to the much lowlier council estates on the adjacent roads. Their residents are about to get a direct tube service to the West End, which will either strengthen and boost the local community or turbo-charge its downfall. By the look of the half-shuttered parade of Portuguese shops on Wilcox Road, commercial prospects are already weak even before the new hypermarket opens its doors.
Nine Elms remains very much a neighbourhood in flux, bearing only the first fruits of what's yet to come. The western rim of the power station and the blocks near Waitrose may be complete, but the next five years will see almost unimaginable levels of further redevelopment as Concierge City finally takes form. If you're planning to move in, well done, and I hope you enjoy your shoebox with its view of the balcony of the flat opposite. [14 photos]
9 Places in London that Londoners never go (even though visitors think we do)
We might have been there once, maybe when we were small, or had friends from out of town in tow. But these are places we try very hard to avoid, firstly because they're rammed with tourists and secondly because there are far, far better places to enjoy. Still, don't let us disillusion you. Do please continue to throng to these tourist honeytraps, not just because your money keeps our capital going but mostly because it keeps you well out of our way.
The M&Ms store
No Londoner ever walked into the M&Ms abomination in Leicester Square and felt at ease. Instead they grimaced at the bare-faced commercialbravado of the enterprise, a feeling which only intensified as they descended into further levels of hellish confectionery. Who are these grinning candy shell figures, why are all the staff hyperactive, and how come everything costs at least five times what it's worth? Had Joseph Rowntree ventured down from York to London and opened Smarties World, a celebration of cardboard tubes and alphabetised lids, then we might have been interested. As it is, we see you carrying your bright yellow carrier bags on the tube and we judge you to be fools.
Madame Tussauds
Marie's waxwork emporium rose from humble beginnings, but now has ideas way above its station. That station is Baker Street, out of which thousands of keen visitors stream daily to wait for hours, unless they've stumped up extra to beat the queue. Inside they find hordes of celebrities they can take selfies with, because that's now the entire point of visiting, from catwalk stars to bedsit vloggers and from future queens to Bollywood royalty. Alas the London Planetarium was terminated ten years ago and now houses a dubious 4D superhero experience, while even the famous Chamber of Horrors closed indefinitely this spring and will no doubt be reborn as something even more horrible. Keep your £29 and stay away.
The London Eye
We all came here years ago, and the Westminster skyline hasn't changed so much that we've ever felt the need to rush back. Sure we loved looking down on the little buses and Big Ben, and the broadening vistas across the Royal Parks, but been there done that, so we're happy to leave the place to tourists now. It's bad enough walking through the queues when we're on the South Bank, let alone joining them, and those 'hilarious' silver-painted gravity-defying beggars only ever make the congestion worse. Plus we didn't really enjoy being herded into the Eye's pods with random strangers who might include screaming children, and the souvenir photo opportunity on the way down left us cold.
The Cable Car
Yes, this too. Those of us who were ever going to Fly Across The Thames have already done it, and none of us genuinely come this way as part of our commute. There is no latent passenger demand between an entertainment hub and an exhibition centre, although anyone who had Olympic tickets at both sites four years ago may have found it genuinely useful. Instead the Dangleway is the exclusive preserve of families from out of town, inspired by the opportunity of a genuinely cheap thrill, and part of the must-see trail for foreign visitors too. How politely they pay over the odds, not realising that their contactless card allows immediate entrance and a lower fare. May the sight of the Silvertown scrapyards live long in their memory.
Tower Bridge/Tower of London
Nothing quite says London like a Gothic bridge which occasionally lifts up, its stirring profile famous around the world. So the world always comes to take a look, damn them, completely overfilling Tower Hill station before clogging up the middle of the bridge to grab the perfect Snapchat frame. Then there's the Tower itself, an amazing medieval fortress and raven sanctuary, which foreign visitors dash round in double quick time for fear of missing out. Laugh at the beefy men telling jokes in a language you almost comprehend, stand on the conveyor belt to glide past the Queen's pretty jewels, and ravage the gift shops for a heritage-shaped souvenir.
Buckingham Palace
Because of the special way the heart of our capital is laid out, no Londoner ever has any need to go anywhere near the front of Buckingham Palace. So we've turned over the ceremonial centre to our foreign guests, and at eleven o'clock they swarm like bees to a honeypot to watch The Soldier Thing. Some music starts up over the heads of the people in front, before some men in furry hats approach from somewhere out of sight, then some shouting takes place, and eventually everyone marches off again. Nobody's quite sure what they've seen, but it was absolutely world-beating, and that's your morning sorted.
The Shard
Regular chaos at London Bridge station means Londoners throng around the base of the Shard all day. What they don't do is walk in off the street and decide to pop up to the viewing gallery at the top, mainly because they have better things to do with £31, for example using it to pay a few hours rent. Instead the upper echelons are half-full with anniversary couples from Essex, who pre-booked ages ago before they knew the view would be grey, and foreign travellers for whom the entrance fee is peanuts ever since the referendum dragged our currency down. "But where is Twickenham?" they cry, distressed, and drown their sorrows with another prosecco.
The River Thames
It's madness, but Londoners rarely give their river the time it deserves. A fleet of small boats plies its silver thread, following an ideal uncongested commuter route. But the city's residents cram onto trains and buses in preference, leaving the catamarans and clippers to carry tourists past the landmarks of their dreams. Here is Tate Modern, here is St Paul's, here is Hays Galleria shopping centre, and soon we arrive in Greenwich. It beats the view from the top of the open-topped £20 sightseeing bus, another form of tourist transport shunned by Londoners because they know the the streets look much the same from the upper deck of the 11 or 23.
Planet Hollywood
When dining out, no Londoner would ever consider stepping through the doors of this particular restaurant. We know there are better places for burgers, cheaper places for cocktails, and less exuberant places to be wowed by memorabilia. Similarly we snub the Hard Rock Cafe, we avoid anywhere offering 'genuine British fish and chips', and we never take over-priced afternoon tea in a hotel. But it's the Angus and Aberdeen Steak Houses which we know to avoid at all costs, their home-grown reputation at rock bottom, whereas visitors continue to file inside wide-eyed, before having their plastic emptied and their opinions of UK cuisine reinforced.
(article includes several gross generalisations, but sssh, that's modern journalism for you)
Tube tunnels and cellars excepted, rarely do we know what lies underground beneath our feet, and even more rarely do we get the chance to go down and have a look. In this respect the town of Reigate in Surrey is somewhat of a special case. At the foot of the North Downs, on the Greensand Ridge, Reigate's unusual geology bequeathed the town a mineral fortune. Just below the surface is a layer of sand, the finest silver sand much coveted by glassmakers, and pretty much perfect for gardening, scouring and sandcastle-making too. Over the centuries many hundreds of tons of this sand have been excavated from the centre of Reigate, specifically the area around the castle, creating a considerable network of mine workings. And five times a year these 'Reigate Caves' are opened up to the public for a nose around. I went yesterday, and spent more than two hours underground for under a fiver, and you can visit next month for even less. [photo report from Ian Visits]
Oldest of the Reigate workings is the Barons'Cave, named after the French knight who had a castle built here after the Norman conquest. A compact hump of land just north of what's now the High Street provided an ideal defensive location, and the sand beneath offered intriguing subterranean possibilities. A long tunnel was built from the heart of the castle to the west bank of the moat, the chance to slip out unnoticed providing both offensive and defensive opportunities. This kind of feature was called a sally port, and Reigate's still exists, even though the top of the shaft now lies in a municipal garden and has been topped off with a stone pyramid to prevent unwanted access. Instead visitors enter from a steep staircase in the moat, past a lady selling guide books and postcards, and pick up a lantern before exploring.
A guide from the Wealden Cave & Mine Society takes you round - they're the august body who keep these treasures ticking over. The cave heads upwards into the mound, ascending uneven steps covered in fine sand. Visitors are urged not to touch the walls because they can potentially crumble, and because you can't stick the grains back after they've sprinkled off. Other visitors over the centuries haven't been as well behaved, and there's graffiti dating back to the 1900s, 1800s, 1700s and even in one place the 1640s, along with scratched names and attempts at cartoonish art. One branching passage leads to the Barons Chamber, a long and tall curving passage which ends suddenly in a solid wall, and whose unknown purpose might have been as a meeting space or simply somewhere to keep the wine. Look out too for 'Hector', the WCMS's model dinosaur, disposed of by the BBC after appearing in Doctor Who and now lurking in an intermediate cavern.
A rather larger cave system can be accessed from Tunnel Road - the UK's oldest road tunnel, dating back to the 1820s. Most days this is simply a pedestrianised cut-through from the High Street, but on Open Days the WCMS set up a small marquee and exhibition under the castle mound and await visitors. There were loads of these yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to see, but thankfully the guides can take down thirty at a time so everybody got their turn. Tickets are £3 for the Tunnel Road caves, £2 for the Barons' Cave, or £4.50 for both, which is an absolute and total experiential bargain. The guide on my tour was excellent, adding a dash of dry humour to the factual delivery and storytelling throughout. Just try not to end up in a group with an unimpressed baby, because their wailing echoes persistently underground and, as embarrassed dads soon discover, there is nowhere to hide.
The Tunnel Road caves were originally sand mines, commercially driven, expanding over the 18th and early 19th centuries. You can still see the pickaxe marks in the ceiling, thousands of them along the warren of passages that leads back and down and beyond. Peculiarly the first part of the complex belongs to the local shooting club, and has done since 1905, and they're very sniffy about the taking of photographs. Nevertheless you'll get to wander down the odd range and across the occasional gallery, down tunnels that provided Reigate with a capacious underground shelter during World War Two. At other times concerts have been held in one of the larger chambers, and a wine bar on the High Street extended back into the system, but mostly it's been the extraction of sand that's kept the place buzzing.
After over half an hour of the tour, by which time you think you must have seen the lot, a low passageway (added later) leads off into a completely different mine system altogether. This better looks the part, all deep and cavernous, dug out on an orthogonal grid to extract the maximum volume without the roof falling in. One huge section did collapse in 1858, now a sunken garden in the park above and securely bricked off down below. Another level or two alas had to be filled in when larger juggernauts took to the UK's roads, for fear of the road collapsing beneath their weight. But what's left is still extensive and highly atmospheric, and absolutely not what you'd expect to lurk beyond the backs of the shops on Reigate High Street.
And there's more. A separate complex lurks behind a door on the opposite side of Tunnel Road, this developed more for storage than extraction. This makes it technically safer than the former mine across the way, but visitors are now required to don safety helmets, presumably because certain bits of ceiling are much lower. As well as a couple of extensive wine cellars, the tunnels were also used as a public air raid shelter during the Second World War, and as a potential emergency control centre in the event of a Third. A veritable hotchpotch of displays and exhibitions touch on these aspects, and on geology, railways and anything else the volunteers think interesting and/or relevant. Plus the tunnels just stretch on, round one sandy corner after another, and this time you have free rein to explore.
Reigate Caves generally open to the public on the second Saturday of the month from May to September, so you've missed four out of five of this year's opportunities. The next (on September 10th) coincides with Heritage Open Days across the UK, so entrance to the Barons' Cave is free, though is likely to be extremely popular. For a quieter trip, it's not confirmed but I'll bet 2017's dates are 13th May, 10th June, 8th July, 12th August and 9th September, in case you want to add a reminder in your electronic calendar now. Plus Reigate's rather interesting anyway, as I mentioned last time I was here, and as the town's Heritage Trail attests. Or join the WCMS, they go underground well beyond north Surrey, and then you'll not have so long to wait.
Q: When the Night Tube starts next weekend, how many step-free journeys will be possible? A: Nine.
Here's the complete list.
Victoria line
Central line
King's Cross ←→ Green Park
King's Cross ←→ Brixton
King's Cross ←→ Tottenham Hale
Green Park ←→ Brixton
Green Park ←→ Tottenham Hale
Brixton ←→ Tottenham Hale
Q: When the rest of the Night Tube starts later this year, hopefully, how many step-free journeys will be possible? A: 493
That's the 9 journeys above...
...plus 28 journeys between the 8 step-free stations on the Northern line
...plus 55 journeys between the 11 step-free stations on the Piccadilly line
...plus 120 journeys between the 16 step-free stations on the Jubilee line
...plus 45 journeys between the Victoria and Jubilee lines (changing at Green Park)
...plus 150 journeys between the Piccadilly and Jubilee lines (changing at Green Park)
...plus 30 journeys between the Victoria and Piccadilly lines (changing at Green Park or King's Cross)
...plus 30 journeys between the Central and Jubilee lines (changing at Stratford)
...plus 6 journeys between the Central and Victoria lines (changing at Stratford and Green Park)
...plus 20 journeys between the Central and Piccadilly lines (changing at Stratford and Green Park)
A couple of weeks ago I pointed out some of the things that weren't quite right about some of my local bus stops.
I was pleased to report that the tiles at Bus Stop A had been shuffled into the correct order, but noted that they were still wrongly ordered at Bus Stop B across the road.
The correct order is supposed to be
• Numbered TfL buses
• Lettered TfL buses
• Night buses
• Numbered non-TfL buses
• Lettered non-TfL buses
• Generic National Express
And what do you know, now it is.
The tile shufflers have been out in the last couple of days, and the D8 has been restored to its proper position. Hurrah!
There'll be a further shuffle in October when the D8 and 108 swap routes north of Docklands, but surely nobody can get that wrong.
THE UNLOST RIVERS OF LONDON Pymmes Brook Monken Hadley → Arnos Grove → Tottenham Hale (6½ miles)
[Pymmes Brook → Lea → Thames]
I'm following the Pymmes Brook along the Pymmes Brook Trail, a ten mile waymarked path through the outer suburbs of North London. And I've already walked the best bit, so if you choose to follow my footsteps in what follows, don't say you weren't warned.
At the far end of Arnos Park, Pymmes Brook disappears down a concrete channel with walls much higher than we've seen thus far. At the same point the Pymmes Brook Trail heads off at right angles, out of the gate and up a busy avenue, and it'll be three quarters of an hour before we see the river again. The next destination is Broomfield Park, deemed more interesting than a backstreet yomp, and rightly so. The park started out as the garden of a 16th century house, much altered and enlarged over the years until 1984 when disaster struck. A fire took out the roof and some of the top floor, allowing a further fire in 1994 to make the entire structure unsafe. The decaying remains now sit beneath a protective roof, but money for renovation has alas not proved forthcoming and demolition looks the most likely outcome. But the walled garden at the heart of the park is a delight, with lush borders and ducky ponds, and crowds of locals flock to enjoy the play area and the minigolf, if not the rather bleak looking summer funfair.
We've reached Palmers Green, and a run of middleclass shops leading up to the station. This again would be a fine place to end the walk, because what follows is more of a trudge. After all that's come before it feels odd walking through what's essentially a town centre, but it is a useful place to pause for provisions (if not a pack of biros, because WH Smith closed down last month). Don't get your hopes up on Oakthorpe Lane because that welcoming waterway's not Pymmes Brook, it's the New River, their crossing point unseen downstream.
What's about to become clear is that one of London's busiest roads exploited the natural line of Pymmes Brook in its construction, for several miles, specifically the North Circular. The river ducked underneath a short way back, but for pedestrians crossing points are rare, so an exhaust-fumed hike is required to reach the next subway at Chequers Way. How swiftly the environment, and local house prices, change. From florists to coin-op launderette, and from smart garden to light industrial hub. The dairy silos of Arla Foods dominate Tile Kiln Lane, a dead end where employees park up out of the way of incoming lorries, leading to the rundown home of Edmonton Rangers Youth FC. The riverside path at the far end is technically a nature reserve, not just a lager-littered gap between fence and water, but not even four environmental information boards and an outdoor classroom site can raise the tone.
Which brief respite leads straight back to the North Circular, specifically the Great Cambridge Roundabout, where a complex web of brown cycleways and pavements weaves above the heart of the traffic. The brickwork's almost attractive, if Eighties chic is your thing, but must make living round here somewhat of a trial. And once you've found the correct exit, which is not well signposted, we reach a road with a much longer heritage, namely Silver Street. Here the trail looks like it might enter the grounds of the Millfield Arts Centre, or else walking across the lawn past the big house might be trespass, it's hard to tell. The look the groundsman gave me suggested the latter, but an unexpected sign on the far side at the water's edge confirmed this was indeed the way.
The brook emerges from culvert beneath the A406 and passes a lowly council outhouse, before dividing the backs of flats from tightly-hedged allotments. The waterside path is isolated and somewhat fly-tipped, even a fraction scary, emerging past a rundown bakery and a pile of empty cooking oil canisters. And then a one-off for the Pymmes, a couple of bends of angled apartments looking down over a deep brick-lined channel overhanging with vegetation, which much have been a real selling point when the development was built, though thirty years later rather less so. Still, at least the river's visible, which it won't be shortly, as a sudden split into two divided conduits strongly hints.
Hurrah, here's PymmesPark, home in 1327 to landowner William Pymme who gave his name to the brook passing through his estate. I bet you've been wondering. The mansion's most famous owner was William Cecil, chief advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, but none of the buildings survived the last war and these days the grounds belong to the council. They've done a good job of restoring the Victorian walled garden, and the enormous central lake is a delight too, although it's not actually on the line of the original river. This now scuttles beneath the North Circular, resurfacing only briefly in the far corner before wending off underneath the platforms of Silver Street Overground station.
The Pymmes Brook Trail has already given up on Pymmes Brook by this point, preferring to cross the more scenic parts of the park and then heading defiantly north rather than east. It's aiming for a brief cemetery-side stretch of a completely different river, Salmon's Brook, and then abandoning that to reach the River Lea at Picketts Lock. You can walk that way if you like, it's the official route, and I'll recommend Londonist's authoritative account of the entire Trail if you want to do it properly. But I noted that Pymmes Brook actually enters the Lea more than two miles south of Picketts Lock, so decided to head there instead. I was making a rod for my own back, truly.
There is no Pymmes Brook for the next mile, only the throbbing North Circular, until the river pops out again close to Mothercare on the Ravenside Trading Estate. From here it heads round the back of IKEA's car park, and then the back of IKEA itself, all on private inaccessible land, so there was no point in attempting to walk that way. Instead I trudged south and east and south and east to Leeside Avenue, one of those Upper Lea Valley streets where light industry is still very much the order of the day, and which occasionally smells like it. Crossing the railway I looked down over the vast brownfield site which Enfield Council desperately wants to turn into Meridian Water, a mixed use mega-development with ten thousand Barratt Homes, but somehow the start of the project has never yet quite materialised. And at the dead-end of the lane, just when I was giving up hope, the river again.
When you hear the word 'brook' you generally think of reeds and ripples, but here Pymmes Brook is simply a risk management minimisation strategy, a broad deep concrete channel to prevent the local populace from occasionally drowning. Sometimes it overtops with vegetation, sometimes the walls drop bare, and later a spiky metal fence will rise up entwined with convolvulus. We're on the Tottenham Marshes, a relatively inaccessible strip of grassland beneath chains of pylons, along the side of the Lea where the towpath isn't. For a mile and a half Pymmes Brook runs close but parallel, and mostly just out of sight behind a thick green veil.
Footfall only picks up at Stonebridge Lock, because there's a car park, and because the towpath switches sides. Again most stay by the Lea, but choose carefully and you'll remain marshside for big open skies - the ceramic map by the car park will explain. Only when the allotments kick in do the two watery threads really squish together, Pymmes Brook deliberately kept separate until just after Tottenham Lock at Ferry Lane. You might have walked or cycled across the low cobbled bridge several times without realising it's the outflow of a river which rose on a Barnet battlefield almost ten miles distant. It's not really worth following the brook from source to mouth, but keep an eye out for its passing, and the string of parkland pearls along the way.
THE UNLOST RIVERS OF LONDON Pymmes Brook Monken Hadley → Arnos Grove → Tottenham Hale (4½ miles)
[Pymmes Brook → Lea → Thames]
Pymmes Brook is one of North London's longer rivers, though not especially well known. It flows mostly through Barnet and Enfield, for the most part above ground, then somewhere around Edmonton heads underground before emerging as a tamed brutalist channel. A ten mile waymarked route follows the brook downstream - the Pymmes Brook Trail - the first half quite pleasant and the second part rather less so. Today I'll write about the half of the walk you might actually enjoy. Should you fancy following along, Barnet Council alas no longer publish their free trail leaflet, so walkers have to make do with a slowly decaying set of signs and some onlinemaps which aren't 100% accurate. I got by well enough.
The source of Pymmes Brook is at Monken Hadley, a hilltop village on the very northern edge of London. Officially this first tributary is called the Monken Mead Brook, a minor streamlet which rises on private land and then curves east through the commuter suburb of Hadley Wood. The Pymmes Brook Trail ignores all of this, and rightly so, kicking off instead some distance away at Cockfosters station. A set of signs points the way from the bus stop outside to the edge of Monken Hadley Common, following precisely the same route as London Loop section 16 if you've ever walked that. The last quarter of a mile down a wooded track to the valley floor is splendid, and possibly the only part of the entire walk that might muddy your trainers in winter. It's a fine start.
The trail proper kicks off at a narrow footbridge just below Beech Hill Lake. You won't immediately spot the lake unless you've got a map, but if you take a few steps upstream you'll reach the dam of a long blue pool tapering off into the distance, its surface liberally dotted with lilies and waterfowl. I stepped up, only to be eyed suspiciously by the anglers who've adopted this place as their own, so slipped uncomfortably away. Instead I started my long walk south along the river, passing a couple of school entrances (and several butterflies) before entering a housing estate where undeveloped countryside abruptly terminated.
The avenues of outer Cockfosters are pleasant enough, and well-served by meandering bus. Here the Pymmes Brook Trail signals its intent not to strictly follow its eponymous waterway by diverting into a neighbouring recreation ground, ostensibly because the view is better. And indeed it is, if you like sunbathing space, gasholders and a fenced-off water fountain. Victoria Rec is also the location of the East Barnet Valley Bowls Club, whose somewhat retro admission procedure requires you to drop your contact details into their letterbox and await a phone call.
Returning to the streets, the brook runs out of sight behind Crescent Road, where the contours provide adequate opportunity for a hillstart, and a couple of houses have such steeply-sloping gardens that their garage is at first floor level. Ahead are Brookhill and Cat Hill, similarly inclined, and the attractive heart of East Barnet Village. This slightly old-fashioned retail parade clusters around the war memorial and some dazzlingly pristine flowerbeds, and boasts an actual gunshop called Gunshop for all your suburban rifle and revolver needs.
It should be obvious where to go next - one of the adjacent roads is called Brookside. A run of semi-detached houses faces a large lawn tumbling down towards the re-emergent river. Looking across it's clear that the brook has carved a significant notch in the local landscape, however humble its waters now seem. This becomes even clearer ahead at Oak Hill Park, the largest recreational space along the route, and much loved in summer by the local populace, their offspring and their dogs. Nowhere else does Pymmes Brook look more like a proper river, ambling in a shallow channel beneath dangling willows, the contrails of passing jets reflecting in its rippled surface. Oak Hill's a good place for a rest, or a diversion up the woodland trails, or an ice cream from the pitch and putt.
Departing the park, the brook returns to residential streets. Specifically it forms a dividing line between two unimaginatively-named streets called West Walk and East Walk, each with semis on one side and a broad communal lawn stretching down to the river on the other. You'll see this kind of landscaping on several other London estates, but here it's particularly nicely done, not least thanks to the green-painted very-mid-20th-century design of the ironwork on several of the low bridges. Officially this grassy gap, named Everleigh Walk, is to prevent flooding affecting the adjacent properties, although the gradient suggests the west side is in considerably more danger than the east should this ever happen.
Take note of the bleached-out waymarking signs on Osidge Lane and head to the left-hand bank of the river to continue. This is to follow the Waterfall Walk, a mile of uninterrupted weaving tarmac which, though very pleasant, could perhaps be challenged under the Trade Descriptions Act. I neither heard nor saw any waterfalls, nor even anything vaguely weir-like, although the river itself was well shielded throughout, breaking out only occasionally through thick seasonal undergrowth. Much more obvious was the tinder-dry meadow at the northern end, gradually narrowing as the back garden fences of Osidge residences creep closer and a tennis club squeezes in.
And then come the arches, 34 lofty brick arches which are first seen spanning Waterfall Road. Here they enter Arnos Park, which might be a clue to the railway floating overhead, and the tube station just around the corner. That's Arnos Grove, and the occasional rattles overhead belong to Piccadilly line trains, indeed you might well have passed this way on your journey to the start of the Trail. This is the Arnos Park Viaduct, opened in 1933 when the Underground extended north, and one of the architectural wonders of the London borough of Enfield. It looks quite impressive from the side, but the best thing is that you can walk underneath and step through a chain of umpteen smaller arches.
After half a dozen or so arches on the western side the Pymmes Brook wiggles through, undertaking two right-angled turns to pass smoothly with minimum erosion on the brickwork. The trail doesn't cross back over but you should, and take your camera, to grab a few specialgeometricshots as the sequence of gradually diminishing spaces curves off into the shadows.
Head up to the shallow end and you might be tempted to join the Arnos Bowling Club, who offer "free coaching and tea" if the banner facing the viaduct is to be believed. Or take a look around the extensive parkland before deciding where best to head next. The Underground's most magnificentstation building is but a short walk away, and there'd be no disgrace in bailing here, because the best miles of the Pymmes Brook Trail are behind us. A great all-seasons stroll, I'd say, as many of the outward-looking residents of outer north London know well.
