London has a new tube extension and two new tube stations.
This doesn't happen very often.
The last three tube extensions 1) Heathrow Terminal 5 (2008) 2) Jubilee line (1999) 3) Heathrow Terminal 4 (1986)
The last three new tube stations 1) Wood Lane (2008) 2) Heathrow Terminal 5 (2008) 3) Southwark (1999)
It only tends to happen when big business wants it to, which is why Heathrow, Westfield and Canary Wharf helped pay for the last few. And it's only happened this time because a consortium of Malaysian investors were trying to upsell flats around a redeveloped power station, and because money talks.
The diamond geezer editorial position on the Northern Line Extension
A dreadful idea well delivered.
It's miserably depressing that the only tube extension since 2008 has been spurred by the need to flog real estate. Former Mayor Boris Johnson was only too happy to gain a shiny transport bauble by kowtowing to greedy developers, having previously binned several projects which would have benefitted existing Londoners. The power station development is due to deliver less than 10% affordable housing and Nine Elms no more than 20%, and all so that rich residents don't have to grab a taxi or walk a bit further to slum it on National Rail.
When you look at the other places which could have been served by a 3km extension from Kennington they include Camberwell, Burgess Park and the Old Kent Road, areas which have been screaming out for a tube connection for decades, but instead the money magnet yanked the connection west to serve a luxury highrise riverside enclave.
Admittedly the historic power station building might never have been saved were it not for the tube link, and better to have a new tube extension than none at all, and some lucky existing residents of Wandsworth and Lambeth are about to get a local tube connection, so it's not all bad. But when the Bakerloo and Metropolitan extensions have essentially been scrapped, and you could have built three Metropolitans for one Northern, today's link to a deluxe shopping mall in an overpriced housing estate is nothing but a deplorable craven boondoggle.
Today's the day trains start operating on the Northern line extension. You won't be able to catch one because today's only a dress rehearsal - all southbound passengers are being detrained at Kennington - but the new timetable is now underway. Your ability to take a ride starts at 05:28tomorrow.
Tomorrow's also the day that thousands more people will discover there's a station called Battersea Power Station station. Let the LOLs be unconfined.
It's a tiny unexpected nugget, the kind of thing you might nudge your partner and tell them, either with a smile or a grumpy "well I wouldn't have named it like that". It's going to get a reaction of some sort whenever you discover it. What intrigues me is quite how long that takes.
The timeline of a shareable thing can be a long one. Someone has to notice or announce the thing in the first place. Awareness of the thing climbs as the information spreads. Events can sometimes cause the rate of spread to spike. Eventually fewer people are left to discover the thing but they still act excitedly when they do. Even years later people will continue to share it, assuming nobody else has heard it before because they hadn't, while the rest of the population look on thinking "oh, that old chestnut again".
Battersea Power Station station is firmly in my chestnut zone. I discovered the name of the station six years ago, and blogged about it, and collectively we had a 38-comment discussion about the dissonance of it all. Readers of diamond geezer were early to the Battersea Power Station station party. It's only because I'm the kind of person who reads TfL project pages, or maybe because somebody nudged me to read them - I don't remember - but I got over the idea that the station's nomenclature was amazing some time ago.
I did not react with glee when somebody messaged me on Twitter last week to tell me that the station would be called Battersea Power Station station. I did not rise to the bait when someone else commented that the sign outside Battersea Power Station station should say Battersea Power Station Station. I kept quiet, as I have on many previous occasions, because it's polite to keep your indifference to yourself.
A similar level of commotion has come from people discovering that Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms are to be in zone 1. This has been public knowledge since 2014 when the Northern Line extension was commissioned, indeed I blogged about it at the time, but most people are only now waking up to the fact that this will be the case. Feel free to be surprised, but technically this is old news and some of us have known for seven years.
All of which exemplifies the awkward topic of whether it's right to tell someone something you think they might not know. If they don't know then you've scored brownie points for bringing fresh information to their attention, indeed something they might otherwise never have discovered. But if they do know then you've essentially wasted their time, and you might only end up feeling foolish.
For those on the receiving end it can be exciting to be told new things, but also frustrating if the other person only ever tells you stuff you already knew. The problem is that they didn't know you knew, they could only guess, and in this case they guessed wrong. I don't particularly enjoy it when people tell me excitedly about something I've already blogged about, but I have to remember they might not have been reading at the time, nor be capable of checking back, it's not deliberate ignorance.
The existence of Battersea Power Station station is a facile example, but any underlying factual disconnect can be really important in society. Who knows what, and who knows who knows what, sits at the very heart of our democracy because facts decide opinions.
If you know a fact about something you might then decide to vote one way on a particular topic. If you don't know that fact you might fill in the gaps inappropriately, or rely instead on misinformation, and vote a different way. It's in politicians' interests that you know as much as possible about some things and as little as possible about others.
Here are some Battersea-related examples, all culled from responses to a single tweet made by the Mayor last week.
Yes, a self serving personal tube station for the luxury flat buyers that not only dodges the law about building affordable homes, making you a hypocrite, but sells off yet more of London's real estate to unregulated foreign landlords & adds little benefit to any other Londoners (@chaosityuk)
Allowing Battersea PS to be in Zone 1 is corruption in broad daylight. (@dadge)
Oh great now we’re all connected to those luxury apartments and shops that only the super rich can afford. Thanks Sadiq you must be so proud glad I pay taxes for this! (@roryfcjames)
Zone 1! How much did the Nine Elms lot put towards your mayoral campaign? (@ed1231)
These are all people screaming at the Mayor for decisions taken by his predecessor over which he had no subsequent control. It's all too easy to shake your fist at government without realising which particular politician put that decision in place or who was pulling the strings. Sadiq's taken full responsibility for several decisions you might well hate, but this is not one of them. Despising him for delivering the Northern Line extension means your opinions are based on assumptions rather than facts.... and that's a dangerously easy thing to do.
Let's not get carried away and blame everything on ignorance. Complex issues like Brexit, party allegiance and who to vote for in elections are based on a whole raft of facts and opinions, not just one thing you might or might not know. But it pays to be aware of what's going on and to realise that you might not know everything. In particular it pays to question whether the truths you think you know are actually genuine, else society can all too easily end up in a misguided pit of populism.
Sharing facts is good, even if you've heard them before, rather than encouraging ignorance and misinformation. Just try not to share them too often because a lot of us already know the thing you think is thrillingly new.
Yes, from tomorrow there's a station called Battersea Power Station station. You'll get over it.
• England won't use vaccine passports
• 300,000 may have broken travel quarantine
• vaccines to be offered to 12-15 year-olds
• job vacancies top 1m for the first time
• booster jabs offered to over 50s (after 6 months)
• Winter Plan A: vaccines will see us through
• Winter Plan B: return of cautionary measures
• Scotland and Wales will use vaccine passports
• travel rules simplified (green & amber lists merge)
• India delivers 20m jabs in a day
Ever since 1974, when my Dad came home with a big map of England's new administrative counties, I've been fascinated by the one spot where four counties appeared to meet. Those four counties are Lincolnshire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire, and the point where they all meet is just west of Stamford. So while I was in town I decided to pay a visit... or at least to get as near as possible on foot.
A bit of administrative history first. Four counties have met here since 1888 when the Soke of Peterborough was officially split off from Northamptonshire. This set-up continued until 1965 when the Soke was absorbed into the new county of Huntingdon & Peterborough, which in turn became part of Cambridgeshire in 1974. At the same time Rutland was absorbed into Leicestershire, where it remained until being recast as a unitary authority in 1997. The following year Peterborough also became a unitary authority, but it remains part of Cambridgeshire for ceremonial purposes. That's how things stand today and that's what's shown on the map above.
Secondly, alas, it turns out that the four counties don't quite meet at one precise point. Instead there are two tri-points - one for Lincs/Rutland/Northants and one for Lincs/Northants/Cambs - both very close together along the line of the River Welland. Originally they were 500 metres apart but in 1960 the A1 Stamfordbypass was built and coincidentally passed between the two, sparking change. The Local Government Boundary Commission For England reviewed the Leicestershire/Lincolnshire boundary in the late 1980s and concurred it'd be much more sensible to shift the dividing line to follow the new road instead. This meant moving Area C to Lincolnshire and Area A to Leicestershire, which had the additional consequence of moving the tri-point in the pink circle to join the other tri-point in the red circle.
Had the LGBCE ever rationalised the Cambs/Northants boundary to match the new road then all four counties would meet at the same point. But they never did, so today the two tri-points are about 25 metres apart - both fractionally to the east of the A1 viaduct. The gap between them follows a field boundary, a river and a railway, indeed if you've ever taken a train between Oakham and Stamford you'll have (briefly) travelled between the two. But you can't quite reach the spot on foot without trespassing, so here's what it looks like from the public right of way across the adjacent field. It's not the most exciting photo, but excitingly it does show four different counties.
OK, enough backstory, here's today's rambling adventure.
You might find a map useful.
How to walk through four counties in 20 minutes
1)Lincolnshire(starting point - Stamford Spa)
Stamford Meadows stretch for a mile beyond the town, increasingly less frequented by people the further you walk. The main channel of the River Welland marks one edge and a shallower stream the other, with the Lincs/Cambs border following the latter. Just before the dual carriageway is a low brick structure resembling a macaroon which caps a mineral spring brought into use in 1819. Afflicted souls believed its iron water might cure their ailments, although I wouldn't risk drinking it today. Instead I enjoyed the peace of the rippling shoals, not to mention the enormous dragonflies, before heading off through the gate to start my four county adventure. A brief walk across the field I showed you earlier brought me closer and closer to the A1 viaduct where lorries rumbled overhead. OK, I'm going in...
2)Rutland(elapsed time: 4 minutes)
Tunnels beneath 1960s civil engineering projects aren't known for their beauty. This one's all concrete with a mess of pebbles underfoot, and has since been decorated with a couple of attempts at floral graffiti. On the far side is a pristine wooden footbridge and then a field of harvested oilseed rape, only the corner of which needs to be clipped. Before 1991 this field was in Lincolnshire so my four county walk wouldn't have worked, but transference to Rutland has made the whole thing possible. Ahead a wooden walkway leads up to Tinwell public footpath crossing, which only sees two passenger trains an hour so shouldn't trouble you, but I had to hold back while a lengthy freight train thrummed past.
3)Northamptonshire(elapsed time: 9 minutes)
On the far side I had to cross a narrow wooden footbridge above an overgrown stream, and that was the end of my very short Rutland safari. A delightfully pastoral scene lay ahead, a golden stalky field with a single footpath climbing gently to an upper plantation. Unfortunately according to my map there ought to have been two footpaths and the one I needed wasn't there. I put this down to the perils of trying to negotiate rural rights of way just after harvest and tried to follow where I thought it ought to have been, first up the field and then sharply back down. I now needed to find the gap in the hedge where a footbridge would allow me to cross a drainage channel, but there was no gap nor any sign of a bridge, just a line of impenetrable thicket. I searched for a while in case the map was slightly out, and more importantly because my 20 minute target could only be beaten if I passed over and ascended the adjacent field. No luck.
Bugger, I thought, Cambridgeshire is less than 500m away but I cannot get to it. As the clock ticked down I realised I'd have to try to get there via some much longer alternative route, so gave up and continued to climb the wrong hill. I've since checked online and can see no satellite evidence of a footpath, nor a second subway beneath the A1, nor a footpath continuing beyond, so at least I think I made the right decision. But I was now heading for the summit village of Easton-on-the-Hill (and its National Trust-owned Priests's House) and what looked like a 1½ mile diversion. Grrr.
A passing jogger - the only other person I met on the entire walk - encouraged me to cut a corner to reach the next connecting footpath. Again this meant trying to find an overgrown footbridge at the foot of a ploughed field, and again after a couple of failed attempts I considered giving up, but thankfully pressed on and eventually located the way across. Stomping up the next pathless field I sighed, but also revelled in a view I wouldn't otherwise have seen of the entire town of Stamford illuminated on the horizon. How I've missed hills.
I emerged at the top of the slope beside a layby on the A43, where Sizzlers Burger Bar hoped to serve up greasy delights to a potential audience of truck drivers. And I was still in Northamptonshire, dammit, and would be until I'd made my way through a forestry plantation called Wothorpe Groves. It was genuinely delightful to be walking through thick woodland, but also frustrating as my elapsed time crept ever closer to one hour. I didn't even stop to investigate the "area of shake holes" shown on the estate map (which I've since looked up and apparently they're limestone sinkholes) because the clock was ticking. Blimey, what are those octagonal towers!?
4)Cambridgeshire(elapsed time: 60 minutes) (finishing point: Wothorpe Towers)
The bridlepath out of the plantation followed the wall around a private estate, within which were the remains of a Jacobean lodge retreat. This folly was built by the Cecil clan to enliven the horizon from Burghley Park, briefly used as a dower house and later abandoned to the elements. A bit of 21st century love has removed Wothorpe Towers from the Heritage at Risk Register but the couple who bought it still have a long way to go to fully restore their romantic ruin. And I would never have seen this Grade I listedDoctor Who filming location were it not for my failed attempt to walk through four counties in twenty minutes. Four in sixty is also hard to beat... but I suspect notimpossible.
Forget Peterborough, the town-to-visit is Stamford ten miles to the northwest. It got lucky when the Great North Road became a turnpike because it was one day's stagecoach ride from London. It lost out later when the local landowner refused access to the Great Northern Railway so Peterborough won that instead. The resulting economic slump froze the town in a splendid Georgian bubble, to the extent that many now deem it one of the most desirable places to live in the country. They are not wrong.[12 photos][visitStamford]
Picture a market town rising above river meadows with streets of limestone houses and soaring spires. Imagine somewhere the Germans mostly ignored and modern redevelopment completely passed by, but where you can still buy pretty much everything on the high street. That'd be Stamford, a charming throwback at Lincolnshire's southwestern tip, and very much beloved of makers of period drama. The BBC filmed Middlemarch here, Hollywood picked it for Pride and Prejudice and I spent a lot of time thinking "yes, if you blotted out those TV aerials that'd make a great backdrop for a crowd in bonnets". Equally Stamford's still very much a working town rather than a tourist-focused chocolate box, so is best experienced as a whole rather than in a single perfectly-framed photo. I never did manage to take one of those.
Barn Hill is one of the finest backstreets in almost-central Stamford, tipping irregularly down towards the parish church. It boasts a blue plaque to a disgraced antiquarian, a massive Georgian townhouse, a lot of cobbles and (potentially) a number of tourists consulting a map to discover what every building is. More typical are the narrow lanes like Blackfriars Street lined by humbler but no less attractive cottages, where hundreds of Stamfordians are privileged to live. Parking might be an impossibility, but imagine living in a house with a circular medieval chimney and having a limestone-fronted M&S Food Hall at the top of the road.
Only the High Street is pedestrianised - elsewhere you'll share the street with traffic threading through the back lanes towards the single bridge over the River Welland. These other roads host a number of small shops, including such staples as countryside outfitters, cookware emporia and (as seen on Mortimer and Whitehouse Gone Fishing) local cheesemongers. Those in the know frequent the alleyways off the main drag for their lunchtime sandwiches or take afternoon tea in a former coaching inn. I gazed in nostalgic wonder at the custard tarts, iced buns and cream horns in the window at Asker's Bakery. I could not resist a succulent Melton Mowbray pork pie from Nelsons Butchers. I feel obliged to point out that Robert Humm & Co Transport Booksellers are down to their last few copies of The Melton To Oakham Canal.
The town was once wealthy enough to boast seventeen medieval churches, of which five remain, hence the regularly-punctured skyline. On most days you can go inside most of them, even the one that's no longer used for worship because it's run by the Churches Conservation Trust. That'll be St John the Baptist, which was also my favourite because of the brightly painted angels with outstretched wings arrayed across the 15th century roof timbers. The south wall has a plaque commemorating Sir Malcolm Sargent who was a chorister (and learned to play the organ) here. Of the others All Saints is the largest and oldest, St Mary's verges on the Catholic, St Martin's is the odd one out south of the river and St George's is currently inaccessible because the guys from Rutland Scaffolding have been erecting out front.
The churches are the closest thing Stamford has to a visitor attraction, other than the town itself. You'd expect at least a museum but 'Discover Stamford' was closed in 2011 and a slimmed-down selection of exhibits relocated to the library (temporarily closed for roof repairs) and the town hall (essential visits only). Fret not, the town is essentially its own museum, especially if you pop into the Tourist Information Centre and grab the free trail leaflets which are impressively detailed enough to fill a few hours. I might otherwise have missed that the bus station used to be a castle, that 19 St George's Square is "arguably the finest house in Stamford" and that England's heaviest man is buried in St Martin's graveyard. That'd be Daniel Lambert, an uber-corpulent showman who died while visiting Stamford in 1809 and had to be buried within easy dragging distance.
In Remembrance of that Prodigy in Nature.
DANIEL LAMBERT, a Native of Leicester:
who was possessed of an exalted and convivial Mind
and in personal Greatness had no Competitor
He measured three Feet one Inch round the Leg
nine Feet four Inches round the Body
and weighed Fifty two Stone eleven Pounds!
Further treasures include an enormous medieval almshouse gifted to the town by a medieval wool merchant - that's Browne's Hospital - whose current inhabitants need to be active enough to tackle several sets of stone steps. Naturally there's a Corn Exchange, which'll be hosting an am dram version of Cats next weekend. The town once had an Eleanor Cross to mark the overnight resting place of Edward I's wife's dead body, but it crumbled long ago and has been replaced by a peculiar tall stone spike sculpted by Wolfgang Buttress. Stamford's bridge is a Victorian rebuild, but greatly enhanced by sloping Georgian streets climbing to either side. And although the Welland isn't much of a river its water meadows are splendid and much beloved by dogwalkers. Walk a little further than most to find the site of the ford where Ermine Street once crossed the river, now marked with a plaque commemorating Queen Boadicea's pursuit of the Ninth Roman Legion across the shallows.
A mile outside town, technically in the neighbouring county, is the most impressive building of all. This is Burghley House, an Elizabethan prodigy house knocked up by the all powerful Tudor courtier Sir William Cecil. It's over-turreted, over-chimneyed, over-roomed and enormously impressive, even from a distance. To reach it you walk first through an extensive landscape rippled by Capability Brown and grazed by sheep, then into a central deer park blessed with oak spinneys... or you drive in round the back and park near the gift shop. I recommend the walk. As time was short I got no further than the ha-ha, so sadly never quite reached the central lake, but was suitably delighted to be able to explore the parkland for free. Only the house and gardens are extra... but be warned they're closed for the next fortnight for filming, because Stamford's still very much that kind of town.
75 miles north of London, just under an hour by train, lies the medieval market town of Peterborough. It might still be a quaint throwback were it not for the railway, which arrived here in 1850 because neighbouring Stamford didn't want it. It might still be quite ordinary had it not been selected in 1967 to become a New Town, which is why over 200,000 people now live here. It's modern with the occasional flash of old. It's been a city since 1541. It's worth a quick look.[6 photos][visit Peterborough]
Peterborough Cathedral
900 years on thecathedral is still Peterborough's most amazing thing. The wow starts outside with the unique triple-arched West Front, which is topped off by a confection of gables, spires and towers. It's quite the skyline to see poking over the top of Starbucks and Nat West while you're out shopping. Entrance is free, which is nice, and the wow continues when you're inside. The nave is long and indubitably Norman, stretching from the font to a bright red crucifix hanging over the altar. The painted ceiling is an exceptionally rare 13th century makeover, still emblazoned with its original design of gold-rimmed lozenges. Henry VIII's first wife Catherine of Aragon is entombed on one side of the sanctuary, while Mary Queen of Scots was briefly buried on the other side before being removed to Westminster Abbey. The cathedral's summer gimmick is a moonscape laid out on the floor between the transepts under the tower, for traipsing across in flat-heeled shoes only. It's far better than any New Town deserves, and an excellent civic centrepiece.
Peterborough Guildhall
This is the oldest municipal leftover, a small assembly room (circa 1670) raised above a covered space where markets could be held. Today it lacks purpose, other than as a gathering place for local youth at the heart of Peterborough's best attempt at a heritage precinct. During the day the Cathedral Square Diner dishes out Jumbo Lincolnshire Hotdogs and Delicious Chips, while of an evening it's more about Pizza Express, Wildwood and Nando's. Alas the market moved out to a corrugated green box some years ago, less conveniently located, and is currently pencilled in for 150 flats so faces a most uncertain future.
Queensgate
Every New Town needs a shopping centre and Peterborough got Queensgate, opened in 1982 not by the expected monarch but by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. It's dense and large and has all the big guns, relegating the town's other streets to also rans, although it suffered a major blow when John Lewis announced they wouldn't be reopening after the pandemic so that's its anchor tenant gone. Peterborough's last department store is a downsized Beale's, recently reopened on the ground floor only, and very much not Westgate's most alluring building.
River Nene
The Nene - from here to the Wash essentially a navigable drain - just scrapes into the UK's Top 10 Longest Rivers. It also very much divides Peterborough in two, which is bad news for the suburbs south of the city centre connected by a paucity of road and footbridges. The chief access is via Town Bridge, watched over by a 17th century tollhouse and ideal for swan spotting. Pedestrians and cyclists can use the nearby crossing known locally as Asda Bridge (due to unfortunate supermarket proximity), beside which high speed trains cross the river via an original 1850 cast iron span. For several miles upstream the banks are flanked by Nene Park, which sounds lovely, but the city centre riverside only disappoints.
Nene Valley Railway
This popular steam railway runs for seven miles from (almost) the city centre to a Neneside village. Alas it doesn't operate midweek so that's a pleasure for another day, as is Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery which was closed by the time I arrived, not that I'll be rushing back.
If you're counting, and I am, today it's eighteen months since the Prime Minister advised us to stop all unnecessary travel. It's been the most atypical eighteen months of my life, and because I've been counting I have some idea how atypical.
I continue to count the number of times I visit each London borough, with each day I set foot in a borough counting as 1. The maximum possible total in eighteen months is 548.
In normal times I'd expect my home borough of Tower Hamlets to be in the 500s, neighbouring Newham to be in the 200s, busy Westminster to be in the 100s and all the other boroughs to be somewhere between the 20s and the 80s. But the last eighteen months have very much not been normal times.
Tower Hamlets scores an almost-maximum of 545 because I've only spent four nights away. The other huge numbers are the boroughs comprising the Olympic Park, which I have walked up and down a ridiculous number of times since 16th March 2020. Next comes the City of London, way lower down, followed by the other boroughs it's easiest to walk to. What's extraordinary is that I've only been to ten boroughs more than three times... not because Boris told me not to but because I continue to stick close to home. I really should be trying harder.
I should be ashamed at only having been to Wandsworth, Haringey and Bexley once, in each case only marginally. I should be even more ashamed that there are 13 London boroughs I haven't been to at all in the last year and a half, including one that's less than seven miles from home. As for leaving the capital I've only done that seven times, and only once for more than a day trip. It's plain wrong that I've been to East Sussex more than Ealing and Lincolnshire more than Lewisham.
In my defence I have managed to continue blogging while focusing on the coloured bits of the map, because tons goes on in East and Central London, but I really do need to get back on some public transport again. The next six months had better not be atypical too, and hopefully that'll all be down to my mindset rather than the Prime Minister telling me what not to do.
Acton Main Line West Ealing West Drayton Southall Hayes & Harlington
Hayes and Harlington went step-free yesterday, which means there's only one more TfL Rail station to finish and that's Ilford.
As for the tube, when Amersham's lifts opened in February the proportion of step-free tube stations hit exactly 30% (81/270). Last month Wimbledon Park lifted that to 31.9% (86/270), and next week it gets even better.
Tube(next week)
87) Battersea Power Station 88) Nine Elms
Two new fully-accessible Northern Line stations will bring us to 32.4% (88/272).
Also, if I've counted properly, it'll tip the proportion of step-free stations on the tube map over 50% for the first time. Today it's only 49.9% (251/503) but next week it'll be 50.1% (253/505), i.e, more step-free stations than not. Counting stations on the tube map is somewhat subjective, and even being one out would tweak the result, but by my calculations the Northern line extension is the tipping point. Interestingly we'd have got there sooner if Thameslink hadn't been added to the tube map - I think Southall would have done it.
And the year's not over yet.
Tube(rest of 2021)
??) Osterley ??) Sudbury Hill ??) Harrow-on-the-Hill
Three more tube stations are due to go step-free before the end of 2021, and whichever's third will mark the point at which one-third of tube stations are step-free (91/272 = 33.5%). It's nowhere near enough, but four years ago it was only 28% so we're getting there.
These are the 25 wards of the City of London - administrative districts of medieval origin with an electoral function. They varygreatly in size and shape, the largest being those once outside the city walls. Each elects one alderman and a number of councilmen commensurate with their resident and working population. Many have cracking names. Here's a full list, with links for future reference purposes.
Ward boundaries had been mostly unchanged for centuries until 2003 when administrators with perverse objectives set about redefining most of them, severing historic links and in several cases splitting off the features that originally named them. My explorations have therefore felt a little artificial in places, taking in one building but not the next, or inexplicably zigzagging down half a backalley. But several groups of wards retain quite distinct characters, for example the ones along the Thames, the pair now dominated by the Barbican, the large ones west of the Fleet and the compact crowd between Bank and the Tower. I'd happily direct a tourist to Bassishaw, Bridge or Walbrook. I wouldn't rush back to Broad Street, Dowgate or Portsoken.
For the last year I've visited one ward every fortnight, always on a Sunday morning, and attempted to walk down all the streets within its perimeter. I took thousands of photos, because they're usually the best way of remembering what you've seen, and stuck 200 of the best on Flickr. And I wrote up each ward visit in approximately 1000-1200 words, which meant glossing over the finer detail in favour of a broad overview, but it still took absolutely ages.
A typical City ward has an area of just 20 acres, but also centuries of history so I was never lost for content. I can't think of a better location for concentrated heritage-focused blogging anywhere else in the UK. On the bright side I've now been absolutely everywhere in the City, restrictions permitting, and know my way round a heck of a lot better. On the downside I've now blogged about absolutely everywhere in the Square Mile so there's nowhere left to surprise you with, although I only skimmed the surface and the City is always changing so I'm sure I'll manage.
My compartmentalised exploration confirmed that two events - the Great Fire and the Blitz - shaped the City's future above all others. Very little survived 1666 so medieval and Tudor buildings are very rare, while 1940 took out a significant random selection of what followed. Several corners of the City have therefore become bland commercial warrens, but it's been precisely this ability to knock down and start again that's delivered such staggering financial benefits since. Footprints are getting larger. Towers are getting higher. Churches are increasingly redundant. It never ever feels like home. But there is still absolutely nowhere else like it.
My final random ward slots inbetween the Bank of England and Liverpool Street station. It's named after a broad street that technically no longer exists (there's only an Old Broad Street and a New Broad Street). It's mostly a warren of dead ends and undriveable alleyways. It doesn't contain the site of the former Broad Street station. It's not a classic to end the series on, nor exactly brimming with interest, but best try to remain Broad-minded. [pdf map]
New Broad Street is the shorter of the two roads, and the better looking, with a red phone box at one end and Portland stone facades to either side. Were it not for the excess of bollards it might make a decent filming location for something administratively Victorian. Running parallel is Broad Street Avenue which is a dump leading to the back of a TfL substation, a surfeit of motorbike parking spaces and some bins. Somewhere below are the platforms of Liverpool Street tube station, this gap being the patch of sky you can see while waiting for a Met line train. The adjacent office block, recently emptied of Crossrail administrators, is due to be rebuilt as a ten-storey office block called One Liverpool Street and will morph around a large ventilation tower. Let's not hang around.
The remainder of the ward once lay inside the City walls, including All Hallows-on-the-Wall which was squashed right up against it. It no longer has a parish, but an urban youth charity operates inside on weekdays and an evangelical charismatic congregation turn up every Sunday morning. St Margaret Lothbury is the ward's last remaining C of E outpost, although technically it's only half a church because it's shared with Coleman Street and the ward boundary divides the nave in two. Drop by on a Thursday lunchtime to enjoy a free organ recital with commentary, most usually featuring Richard Townend playing a a lot of Baroque, but this week Benedict Lewis-Smith is playing instead.
Lothbury is the only road on the ward's perimeter with a wealth of architecture worth studying. Alongside St Margaret's is a Gothic edifice that'd look at more at home in Venice, originally built as a banking HQ but now (of course) 11 luxury flats. Across the street is 41 Lothbury, for over a century the head office of the Nat West Bank and its predecessors, which faces the Bank of England and is grand enough to hold its own. Its former banking hall has a dazzling checkerboard marble floor, and is now (of course) the atrium for a deluxe office facility offering "exceptional workspace with a refined aesthetic". The photo above merely shows the side entrance.
All of which leaves 12 acres of City it's hard to drive into and impossible to drive through unless someone from one of the livery companies has unlocked the gates. The Worshipful Company of Carpenters diligently guard one end of Throgmorton Avenue and the Worshipful Company of Drapers the other. The Drapers are an extremely rich lot, thanks to centuries when clothes were made of wool followed by decades of compound interest. The interior of their building is sumptuously ornamental, especially the Livery Hall with its marble pillars, ceiling frescos and ring of golden arches. The Carpenters were a lot less fortunate with German bombs so their interior decoration is all postwar wood. I looked round both during Open House ten years ago, but on a normal weekend one simply does not get close, let alone inside.
For those on foot a mismatched selection of alleyways provide access.
» There's Angel Court, which doesn't live up to its name unless you like jarring juxtapositions of old and new, or restaurants that've tried much too hard to surround their outdoor tables with flowers. That slanty glass tower is only here because the developers retrofitted an old core because they weren't permitted to build a new one.
» There's Tokenhouse Yard, a Georgian cul-de-sac which suddenly funnels through a narrow brick passageway at the northern end. The Tokenhouse used to be a bank and is now (of course) used as offices, because that's how things roll within the Bank of England Conservation Area.
» There's Pinners Passage, an exceptionally modern envelope that bends beneath an office block, the only decoration being cocktail recipes on sale in the bar nextdoor. It's named after the Worshipful Company of Pinmakers whose livery hall used to be adjacent, except needles aren't as big a moneyspinner as wool so they folded 200 years ago.
» And there's Austin Friars Passage, the sole northern slipway, which only perks up when it squeezes through a narrow glazed arch. Features to look out for are a painted sign pointing towards Pater & Co Stockbrokers (2nd door on right) and a parish marker dated 1853 pinned to a leftover slice of brick wall.
All paths lead to Austin Friars, once the largest Augustinian friary within the City of London. It was founded in the 13th century and grew to the point where it supported 60 friars and an extensive veg'n'herb garden. Its most important private resident turned out to be Thomas Cromwell, whose machinations with Henry VIII ultimately led to the friary being dissolved (and his own execution). The church was later gifted to non-conformists from the Low Countries and soon became known as the Dutch Church, which it still is today, although the currentbuilding is a postwar rebuild. Princess Irene sailed over in 1950 to lay the foundation stone. Having turned up at 11am on Sunday I can confirm that the congregation still meets, the bell tolls several times before the service and the nave is seven steps up from the front door.
Austin Friars today is a pedestrianised labyrinth with the Dutch Church at its heart, and a most rewarding wander. One arm is lamped and gated and would look Georgian were it not for the red phone box. One arm is a split level dead end. The main spine is a double dogleg, Victorian-style, with a backdoor to Drapers Hall on one bend opposite a marble monk in an alcove. Many addresses have particularlyattractive numbers outside, be they painted, carved or chiselled. Austin Friars is precisely the kind of place you could have walked past, or near, countless times without ever knowing it was there, and that makes it an ideal place to end this year-long ward-by-ward exploration of the City. We're less than five minutes' walk from Candlewick if you want to go round again.
According to the Ordnance Survey, who've made available a huge OS Open Names dataset, there are 43,120 "populated places" across Great Britain. I wondered how many places there were in London so I downloaded a small subset of the data, and according to the Ordnance Survey there are 681. They range from cities like Westminster to hamlets like Bopeep, taking in Suburban Areas (like Neasden) and Other Settlements (like Penge) along the way. There's more about the dataset and some of the fancy cartographic stuff you can do with it here, courtesy of AlasdairRae.
Local Type
Great Britain
Greater London
City
65
3
Town
1,358
0
Other Settlement
2,826
125
Suburban Area
10,844
520
Village
12,873
25
Hamlet
15,154
8
Total
43,120
681
According to the Ordnance Survey London has no towns. Several exist just beyond the boundary, including Potters Bar, Dartford, Westerham, Esher and (er) Chigwell, but the OS don't use the 'town' category within the capital.
London's 3 cities: London, City of London, City of Westminster London's 25 villages: Berry's Green, Botany Bay, Chelsfield, Coldblow, Crews Hill, Cudham, Downe, Harefield, Hazelwood, Hill End, Horns Green, Keston, Leaves Green, Luxted, Malden Rushett, Maypole, North Cray, North Ockendon, Pratt's Bottom, Ruxley, Single Street, South Harefield, South Street, Upper Ruxley, Wennington London's 8 hamlets:Bopeep, Edgware Bury, Farthing Street, Hockenden, Kevingtown, Nash, Newyears Green, Rowley Green
I like the definitiveness of these three lists. I also knew where most of the villages and half the hamlets were without having to check on a map. Editors of listings magazines and marketing departments for housing developments should note that Marylebone, Notting Hill and the Greenwich peninsula are not villages.
The first 5 places in alphabetical order: Abbey Wood, Acton, Acton Green, Addington, Addiscombe The last 5 places in alphabetical order: Worcester Park, World's End, Wormwood Scrubs, Yeading, Yiewsley
The most common first letters for London placenames are S (81), C (71), B (69), H (67) and W (61).
The 4 places that start with I: Ickenham, Ilford, Isleworth, Islington The 3 places that start with V: Vale of Health, Vauxhall, Victoria The 2 places that start with Y: Yeading, Yiewsley The only place that starts with Q: Queensbury
No London placenames begin with J, X or Z.
Placenames including the letter J: Clapham Junction, St James's, St John's, St John's Wood Placenames including the letter X: Alexandra Park, Bexley, Bexleyheath, Brixton, Hoxton, Loxford, Luxford, Old Bexley, Roxeth, Ruxley, Upper Ruxley, Uxbridge, Uxbridge Moor, Vauxhall Placenames including the letter Z: Fitzrovia, Freezy Water, Furzedown, Hazelwood
There are 50 places called Something Park, 33 called Something Green, 31 called Something Hill, 12 called Something Heath, 11 called St Something, 11 Upper Somethings, 8 Lower Somethings and 6 called Something Wood.
London's longest placename is Hampstead Garden Suburb which has 21 letters. In second place is Enfield Island Village (20) and in joint third are Carshalton on the Hill and Northumberland Heath (19). Residents of Barking Wharf Square, Frank Whipple Estate, Kingston upon Thames and Richmond upon Thames share fifth place.
Seven placenames are used in two different parts of the capital.
Because this is an Ordnance Survey dataset it can also do geographical extremities.
London's most northerly places: Crews Hill, Bullsmoor, Botany Bay London's most westerly places: Uxbridge Moor, Hill End, Longford London's most southerly places: Old Coulsdon, South Street, Kenley London's most easterly places: North Ockendon, Cranham, Upminster
When it comes to names with compass directions, West wins with 18 West Somethings. South is next with 16, then North with 12 and finally East with 8.
The five boroughs with the most places: Bromley (58), Barnet (40), Hillingdon (32), Enfield (30), Croydon (27) The five boroughs with the fewest places: City of London (1), Barking and Dagenham (9), Kensington and Chelsea (9), Hammersmith and Fulham (11), Islington (13)
All other boroughs have between 16 and 26 places.
The postcode areas with the most London places: E (75), SE (65), N (62), SW (62), BR (49) The postcode areas with the fewest London places: WD (1), EC (4), TN (7), WC (7), KT (19)
The only London place in the Watford postcode is Elstree Park (WD6).
3 of London's newest places: Barking Riverside, Barking Wharf Square, Hallsville Quarter 4 places in Tower Hamlets I'd never heard of: Coalmakers Wharf, Festubert Place, Frank Whipple Estate, Hitchin Square 5 other places I'd never heard of: Bandonhill, Cowley Peachey, Maitland Park, Risley Close, Tavern Quay
Open House normally lasts just one weekend, so to be able to go out for a Day Three is a treat. It could have been Day Eight, given that a handful of properties also opened midweek, but slogging through the website to find three Saturday properties proved challenging enough. My trio of buildings included one from a nursery rhyme, one with a 9th floor roof terrace and one offering a free courgette to every visitor. Nothing outstanding, but still very much par for the course.
1)St Dunstan's
This has been on my OH list for years but I've never visited because there's always been somewhere better to go than Stepney. St Dunstan's is the oldest church in the East End, established by the aforementioned Bishop of London in the year 952. The currentbuilding's not quite that old but does boast a 10th century rood cross, a 13th century chancel and a 15th century tower. The Red Ensign flies from the flagpole because the Port of London once lay in the parish, so St Dunstan's was often known as the "Church of the High Seas" (and is where centuries of deaths at sea were registered). What with 16th century tombs, 19th century bells and 20th century glass, exploring the interior is like a full-on history lesson.
One of the most striking features is the stained glass window behind the altar which depicts a suspiciously blond Christ, mid-crucifixion, high above the ruined streets of wartime Stepney. I also liked the Mercer's Map, an embroidered historical perspective of the parish stitched by local ladies, and a full list of St Dunstan's rectors starting in 1233 and only recently overflowing onto a second plaque. This month the church is hosting an exhibition by local artists, dominated by four particularly evocative portraits of homeless men strung around pillars down the nave. Regular users of the food bank might like to know that current stocks include a heck of a lot of bottles of vegan mayo and packets of Uncle Ben's rice. And yes, this is indeed the building from the nursery rhyme... "When will that be, say the bells of Stepney."
2)Republic London
After the East India Docks were filled in, late eighties, the LDDC turned the Export Dock into an administrative estate. Tower Hamlets built their new town hall at one end, some of the UK's key data centres opened at the other, and inbetween arose some impressively bland postmodern office blocks. In 2015 plans were developed to knock them down and replace them with flats, but the developers instead chose a carbon-friendlier path by keeping the shells and renovating the interior. The end result was Republic, a "mixed use next generation office campus", conveniently located where the A12 meets the A13. The walkways now boast jazzed-up ponds overlooked by wooden gazebos that stream nightmarish musak, most of the ground floor retail units are yet to be occupied, and were it not for council employees and gymgoers the whole space would feel impressively dead. Pandemicwise, flats might have been by far the better choice.
For Open House we were welcomed inside the Import Building, inasmuch as a signless entrance and a terse security guard are welcoming. No photos of the interior were permitted, although I can confirm that the timber-frame inserted into the atrium looks very much like the officialpictures on the website (except the cherry wasn't in flower). While waiting for our guides to arrive I peered into the "curated amenity offering", i.e. coffee shop, and noted that the so-called library was essentially 100 arty books arranged on the shelves by colour. A security issue affects visitor passes and the turnstiles, but I won't elucidate further because HM Government rent an office upstairs.
Our invitation to "Explore the Import Building" turned out to be just a chat in the atrium and a trip in the lift to the 9th floor. That said, an ascent to a roof terrace is an Open House staple that never gets tired, and the unobstructed parts of the view were rather splendid. The Dome and Thames were clearly visible behind East India DLR, the heart of Docklands resembled a fortress of blue and brown building blocks, and right up close was the 'On' button logo on the front of Global Switch's IT megahub. Canary Wharf will however disappear when one of Republic's four buildings is replaced by flats and student accommodation, which does suggest economics have finally overtaken carbon-friendliness in the owner's list of priorities.
3)St Mary of Eton Church Mixed Use Development St Mary's is actually in Hackney Wick, but was indeed founded by a mission based in Eton when the public school sought to support a marginalised corner of the Victorian East End. The church is huge and Gothic, as befitted the congregation at the time, but a few years ago was suddenly hemmed in by a burst of flats in garish variegatedbrick which I have never taken to. Open House provided the ideal opportunity to go inside and find out why, and hopefully to appreciate the building a little better. And yes, the extra millions from selling off the churchyard and tower have gone to help St Mary's survive the future and retain some relevance, so now I detest the exterior a little less.
As part of the revamp half the church essentially became its church hall, with facilities deftly shielded behind timber shutters. The remaining chunk of nave behind the decorated screen is perfectly adequate for current levels of worship, its seats neatly laid out for today's Trinitytide service and with a Whitechapel Foundry bell hanging in one corner. I hung around for tea and Tunnocks and conversation, confirming the friendliness of the current set-up, and was honoured to be present at the precise moment when Reverend Sue suddenly discovered her church had a basement. She was keen I took a courgette from the table when I left because these donated vegetables wouldn't last, but courgettes are very much not my favourite squash so I had to disappoint her. If you're local, they're probably still up for grabs today.
• schools return with most restrictions lifted
• NHS gets extra £5.4bn for winter pressures
• number of recorded cases passes 7m
• govt denies plans for short October 'firebreak'
• pension triple-lock suspended
• record 5.6m waiting for routine surgery
• surge in Scotland may be slowing
• Pfizer and AZ approved as booster vaccines
• Biden "frustrated" with unvaccinated Americans
• boost in availability of HGV driving tests
This is a fine example of Betteridge's law which states "Any headline ending in a question mark can be answered by the word No." Had this been a genuine story then the headline would have read "London's Oyster card to be withdrawn" but it isn't, hence the question mark to command interest. We still click on these stories in case the answer is Yes for a change, but no, it was obviously No.
If journalistic question-baiting peeves you, you are not alone. But if it makes you properly angry you should probably calm down and try to develop a sense of perspective. No badly phrased headline is worth getting incandescent about, indeed if this enrages you you're probably a thin-skinned miseryguts who moans and whinges excessively, so ssssh.
Yes, technically the Oyster card's days are numbered. There will come a day when it can no longer be used, perhaps after a drawn-out cost-saving consultation or perhaps the day after the capital is destroyed by a nuclear explosion, Maybe Oyster has 537 or 2734 or 6078 days left but as yet nobody knows, so let's not get hung up on a metaphorical technicality.
The article claims that...
...82m Oyster cards haven't been used for at least a year
...only 5.7m of the Oyster cards in circulation are still active
...there are three times as many contactless users as Oyster loyalists
This sounds bad for Oyster.
But hang on, the adult population of London is about 7 million so 5.7m Oyster cards being active isn't half bad, especially during a pandemic. Also if a "contactless user" is anyone who sometimes uses contactless, and an Oyster loyalist is someone who only uses Oyster, then we're not comparing like with like. This might not be what the journalist meant, I don't know where he sourced his figures, but it pays to be circumspect about these things.
But it's not that catastrophic.
According to a recent FoI request, the Oyster/contactless split was 49%/51% in 2018, 43%/57% in 2019 and 38%/62% in 2020. Oyster usage is definitely dropping but it's nowhere near extinction level yet.
Which'll be why, about halfway down the article, a TfL spokesman debunks the original question.
However there are no plans to stop offering an Oyster option, according to TfL's head of customer payments Mike Tuckett, who joined the ticketing team just after the contract to deliver the technology for the Oyster card was signed in 1998. He said: "I can't imagine a situation where everyone either will have a bank account and card suitable to pay or wants to."
Oyster is there for those who can't or won't use contactless, most importantly the former.
It's there for those without a debit card or smartphone, for those with some kind of season ticket, for those who get discounted travel and for those who wouldn't use public transport if forced to use a contactless option. I used to use Oyster because I had an annual Travelcard which meant contactless wasn't an option, and now I use Oyster because I prefer waving a cheap piece of plastic with limited access to my bank account rather than the keycard to my savings or £500-worth of nickable gadgetry.
You might respond by saying "Well I use contactless and I think it's better", and that's fine. Or you might say "Well you could always get a smartwatch like me", and that means you don't realise how lucky you are to have disposable income. Or you might say "Well I use contactless so I don't see why anyone should still be using Oyster", and that demonstrates a blinkered lack of empathy. Or you might say "Well I use contactless so I don't see any objection to withdrawing Oyster", and that makes you a selfish bastard. People who are happy to introduce a restriction because it doesn't affect them are the worst people.
There is a genuine nugget of news in the BBC article, which is that weekly payment capping on Oyster is due to be introduced "by the end of the year".
TfL introduced weekly capping on contactless in 2014 and have been promisingtointroduceit for Oyster ever since. Technically it's more complicated, but nobody ever expected it would be seven years more complicated. That's almost 400 weeks during which Oyster users have lost out - an embarrassingly long period during which it hasn't been true that Oyster would always be the cheapest means of travel.
TfL are actually hoping to introduce Oyster weekly capping this month. It's got to be a Monday because that's how weekly capping works, and it's not this Monday otherwise they'd have announced it by now, and it can't be the Monday after otherwise the good news would clash with the opening of the Northern line extension, so I'll leave you to work out which of the remaining Mondays it must be.
As Mr Tuckett said, "We're investing in Oyster to develop it - we wouldn't be doing that if we were thinking of retiring it. It's iconic. It's hard to contemplate a future without Oyster because it's absolutely right that TfL has to be inclusive in its approach to customers."
