Windsor Great Park stretches for over five miles from the castle in the north to Virginia Water in the south and is larger than all of London's Royal Parks put together. I walked it from one end to the other, dodging the private bits in the middle, and made the most of the sheer variety of the landscape. Admittedly a grey winter's day isn't the best time to visit but I was last here in high summer and fancied a contrast, plus the landowner's changed since, and it's always worth a wander.
A walk up Windsor Great Park
Virginia Water is a large artificial lake dating back to Georgian times, indeed so large that to walk round the edge takes an hour and a half. I gave the full circuit a miss because I had other places to be but made up for it by hiking all the way from the station of the same name. The car park abuts a classy timber visitor centre paid for out of Crown Estate coffers, which offers two ways to buy bacon rolls, one way to buy gifts and a suitably eco set of toilets. As I set off up the first path I was struck by the sheer density of visitors with dogs, indeed I have never before walked amid such a blanket proportion of dog owners. I did think I'd spotted one group of friends who'd come without but no, on closer inspection one of them had in fact tucked her pooch underneath her arm. The doggy hordes were having a fine time sniffing the grass and each other, which was great because none of them were interested in sniffing me.
This totem pole was a centenary gift from British Columbia and must be at least three times taller than I've shown you in the photo. A colourful stack of carved heads stares up the nearest wooded slope, and this was delightfully quiet because it's protected by a sign saying "All Dogs Must Be Kept On A Lead" so all the canine exercisers headed off a different way. This marks the edge of the Valley Gardens, a sprawling verdant landscape gifted to the nation by the Queen to brighten the austerity of the 1950s. The trees here include magnificent pines and redwoods, while sandy paths weave between cultivated beds and the land occasionally drops away with a vista over the lake. At present the occasional camellia has burst forth but the rhododendrons are at the "not quite revealing what colour they're going to be" stage. The best midwinter burst has to be in the Heather Garden where you can meet lots of charmers called Erica.
Up top is Smith's Lawn, the largest polo field in Europe where horsey folk with balance and money meet to bash mallets and chase chukkas. But the first match of the season isn't until the week after Easter so for now the grass is in hibernation, the enclosures are empty and the grandstands await corduroy bums on seats. Set off up the Rhododendron Ride and you'll soon reach Obelisk Pond, a swoosh of water bordered by a mix of lawn and adventure playground. The stone pillar with a metal sun on top commemorates the Duke of Cumberland, or at least it does now because Queen Victoria got woke and decided commemorating the Battle of Culloden wasn't PC. If you've noticed the sudden burst of small kids, grandparents and extended families milling about that's because we've almost reached the other big car park beside the Savill Garden.
This is the park's horticultural highlight, a triangular enclosure of formal beds, rustic copses and seasonal displays, so very much the place to go for a slow inspirational potter. It does however cost to get in and February's not the best month so I gave it a miss, plus I still remember how good it looked in August 1988. Since then a sustainable visitor centre has been added - long and low with an undulating timber roof - providing space for a semi-smart restaurant and a gift shop stocked with quality natural products. Perhaps grab a WGP tote bag or some smelly candles or a book about trees or any number of plants for your patio. Also check the chiller cabinet just inside the door where you should find packs of venison burgers and venison sausages, very-locally sourced, and yes they are dear.
A lot of the middle of the park is private so that royal-approved people can do royal-approved things, so proceeding north requires sticking to royal-approved paths. I weaved my way up a hedged track, turned off into the woods and tracked down Cow Pond, a long ornamental lake added to the park in the early 18th century. Highlights of my walk round its perimeter included a) crossing a diamond lattice bridge b) meeting a preening cormorant c) straying very briefly into Berkshire. What I didn't get to see was the extraordinary display of water lilies the pond is famous for in the summer, only a few submerged pads, neither did I realise that neighbouring Chapel Wood is renowned for the whiff of witch hazel at this time of year. This is why you should read websites before you visit somewhere and not afterwards.
Eventually the trees thin out and you enter the emptier northern half of the park. A lot of this is given over to deer (because Windsor Great Park condensed out of royal hunting grounds in medieval times), although with this amount of space to roam they're quite elusive. I did spot a few on the upper slopes, and I also spotted other local species including 'two jodhpured women out for a gallop' and 'man in green wellies walking a labrador'. All paths lead to Snow Hill, the highest point in the park although it's barely a strenuous ascent. Here we find King George III, or at least a big statue of him erected by his son in the place that he loved. The foot of his Copper Horse is about the only place round here you can sit down because WGP doesn't believe in providing benches. And it's also the marker at one end of The Long Walk, a perfectly straight line between here and Windsor Castle.
It's hard to tell initially quite how far away the castle is, although once you start walking it doesn't seem to get much closer. The tarmac stretches off between two lines of trees, not Charles II's original elms but planes and horse chestnuts added in the 1930s and 1940s, so now all of relatively uniform size. It all gets quite homogenous after a while so you make the most of any small variations along the way - a culverted stream, a gatekeeper's lodge - and then focus back to plodding between the double avenue of trees. Expect to pass a greater proportion of the population of Windsor out for a stroll as you progress, plus screaming planes flying into or out of Heathrow as they pass directly overhead. Eventually you have to cross the A308, which breaks the spell, and then it's the final semi-interminable stretch right up to the castle gates. Fifty minutes that took, because the Long Walk is indeed long.
What you choose to do in Windsor is your choice and will likely include refreshment, although obviously what I did is a) go back to the townhouse where I used to live b) revisit the jewellers that sold me my watch 30 years ago this week, and c) bump into two of the party guests from BestMate's 50th. For a truly varied day out, Windsor Great Park totally delivers.
I thought it would be interesting to work out which TfL bus route spends the most time outside London.
Sorry, you probably don't share my interest but I'm blogging about it anyway.
If you are interested that's great. But please don't tell me that my last sentence was incorrect because you are but one person and your individual interest does not invalidate its veracity. I considered my entire body of readers and (correctly) judged that a minority of them would be interested in a post about bus data, and for this reason my use of the word 'probably' is entirely justified.
Also I entirely underestimated how long it would take to calculate this data.
First I had to work out which TfL bus routes leave the capital, and thankfully that's easy because I've made a list before. Then I gulped because it turns out there are 60 of them and I needed to know three awkward pieces of information about each of them. I needed to know the length of each of the 60 routes with some degree of accuracy. I needed to know at which point each of these 60 routes crossed the Greater London boundary. And I needed to know what length of each route lay beyond the border, which is not a statistic even TfL has lying around. I set up a spreadsheet with three columns and shuddered at the scale of my statistical task.
So what I did was dig around on my hard drive and extract the results of multiple Freedom of Information requests released over the last five years. Specifically I found a spreadsheet listing how long all the variations of TfL's bus routes are, and also hundreds of pdfs that TfL use as service specifications when they put bus routes out to tender, most of which list route mileages and/or distances between bus stops. Annoyingly they're 'secured' pdfs so you can't cut and paste the individual distances, you have to add them up yourself so I might potentially have ballsed that up. Also not all the routes had specifications and not all the specifications had mileages and some of the routes have changed since the documentation was produced, so I also ended up doing a lot of measuring on Google Maps.
For all these reasons the mileages I'm about to present to you may be incorrect or at least approximate, for which I apologise in advance. It might be safest to consider all the mileages to the nearest mile, such is the potential margin of error, and perhaps to consider all my percentages as plus or minus 5% as well. Annoyingly these approximations call into question the order of the top two buses in my first table, although I'm pretty sure the top two in my second table are correct.
Also when I say 'the routes that spend the most time outside London' I actually mean distance, not time, because language is a sloppy thing.
Also I'm afraid the photos I've used to illustrate the two tables are out of date. One is almost ten years old which I know will annoy a hardcore minority of you, and the other is from last April so includes a seasonally inappropriate quantity of leaves. I've included these photos mainly for the benefit of people whose eyes glaze over when they see I've written about buses so will just look at today's photos, surf off elsewhere and get on with their lives.
With all those caveats, here are London's least Londony buses.
The TfL bus routes that run furthest outside London
The winner is the TfL bus that heads for the hills, specifically Box Hill, via Leatherhead and a lot of places in deep Surrey countryside. By rights TfL should turn round the 465 rafter Malden Rushett but Surrey county council pump in sufficient funding to send it all the way to Dorking. In second place is the 166 which spends a lot of its time just outside the Greater London boundary and even ducks back in (briefly) near the lavender fields. Note that only one in three 166s goes all the way to Epsom, the other two come to a halt in Banstead. Third place goes to another Surrey wanderer, the 216, but this time north of the Thames on its safari to Staines.
Next come three buses that exit London near Dartford and run fast to Bluewater, because there's money to be made transporting Londoners to the shops. Staines gets another look in with the 290 and then it's the 81 which for legacy reasons extends all thee way to Slough. The 20 is the only vaguely north London bus in the list, should you ever want to get to Debden the slow way, and the little K3 rounds off the top 10 with yet more Surrey meanderings. The only other bus routes to run for more than five miles outside the capital are the 405 to Redhill, the R5/R10 Knockholt circulars and the 467, of which more imminently...
The TfL buses with the greatest proportion of their route outside London
Somewhat ridiculously eleven TfL buses spend more time outside London than inside it, and these are they. Top of the list is the ludicrous 467, an hourly service shuttling round Chessington and Ewell which for inexplicable reasons operates with double deckers. An astonishing 70% of the 467's route is in Surrey, almost as if Surrey should be operating it instead. The 216 is second with two-thirds of its route outside London and then we're back to Epsom again, indeed there are four Epsom routes in this paradoxical list. The 428 is the only Bluewater route to appear because, in terms of proportions, Erith to Crayford is quite short. But much of this list is the same as the previous list shuffled into a different order.
Just below the Top 11, with percentages in the high 40s, we find routes 81, 167, 96, 405, 411, 293 and K3 (some of which might actually exceed 50% if my measurements were more accurate.
Meanwhile if you'd like to know the TfL bus route that only just nudges over the Greater London boundary that's easy, it's the R68. After its penultimate stop at Hampton Court Palace it crosses Hampton Court Bridge, passing into Surrey midway, then grinds to a halt after less than 200m outside Hampton Court station. In second place is the 150 on the other side of town which exits Hainault just after its penultimate stop, and draws up beside the green in Chigwell Row in what's fractionally Essex 250 metres later. Another five routes spend just half a mile in Hertfordshire on their way to Waltham Cross bus station, a distance which would be even shorter if they didn't have to spin round the bypass.
I'm not sure that juggling these potentially inaccurate statistics was the best use of my Friday evening, but if nothing else we've learned that TfL run several buses whose routes are mostly outside London and this is both unexpected and counterintuitive.
It's 20 years today since the War On The Motorist kicked off with the introduction of the Congestion Charge. On Sunday 16th February 2003 you could drive round central London like you were king of the road but on Monday 17th Red Ken Livingstone sprung his road tax trap and it's been downhill for car owners ever since. No other global city had imposed sadistic road charges on its citizens but that didn't stop Lefty Livingstone from imposing his hardwired Singaporean tendencies on the streets of the capital. His evil plot to destabilise right-thinking drivers has since spread around the world and no doubt before long the tofu-eating wokerati will be charging us just to breathe.
Initially the Congestion Charge was just £5 but Ken swiftly raised it to £8, proving conspiracy theorists correct, and today every flash of the camera rakes in £15 for the coffers of Londonistan. What's worse a lot of this socialist levy was initially wasted on paying for additional bus services, infrastructure for pedestrians and pro-cyclist propaganda, and none of it spent on providing essential parking spaces outside the shops people occasionally use. It's estimated that the Congestion Charge has raised two billion pounds of unjustified funding for TfL over the last 20 years, and yet they still cannot fill the potholes on our streets or make the Woolwich Ferry run on time.
Red Ken was unable to contain his greed so swiftly extended his charging zone to encompass the streets of Kensington and Chelsea, where literally thousands of residents were suddenly driven into poverty by the imposition of a penalty they could not afford. It was this cavalier attitude to suburban motorists which ultimately led to Ken's inevitable defeat in the Mayoral election of 2008, after which Man Of The People Boris Johnson swept in on his diesel chariot and returned the mean streets of west London to public use. But to this day the callous central exclusion zone remains in operation, except of course on Christmas Day when hardcore drivers head for the West End so they can belch their toxic fumes with impunity.
The War On Motorists alas didn't end there. The land grab for our roadspace is never-ending as councils delight in closing existing lanes of traffic simply so that namby-pamby cyclists have more chance of reaching their destination in one piece. They delay our traffic lights so that occasional buses take priority, despite the fact that no self-respecting motorist would be seen dead sharing germs on public transport. They introduce cash-cow cameras in unavoidable locations with invisible signage and fine us for accidentally clipping the edge of a restricted lane. And they impose 20mph speed limits on our roads, especially the fast ones, even though this only makes journeys longer and ends up pumping more pollutants into the air. That's the problem with the left-wing idealist cabal, they never think things through.
The most despicable crusade is the increasing dominance of so-called Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. These barriers to progress have shot up across thousands of quiet streets, mostly thanks to Labour councils, forcing many salt-of-the-earth taxi drivers to detour miles out of their way. What happens is that contractors sneak into the streets where you live overnight and block off roads with wooden planters - thankfully flammable - then erect snooping cameras so that Big Brother can check his database and send you a whopping fine. These woke schemes help nobody except those who live in the affected area, and turn much-loved rat-runs into tortuous labyrinths making entire estates entirely inaccessible. Each blockage could one day delay an ambulance by several precious minutes, indeed nobody wants a preventable death on their conscience, and yet the LTN plague spreads uncontrollably across our once-proud nation.
The latest diabolical scheme is the imposition of the Ultra Low Emission Zone, or FKOF for short. This draconian fraud taxes hardworking residents who have the misfortune to drive an old vehicle by introducing a whopping daily charge which prevents them from saving up for a new one. The plague started small affecting just the Congestion Charge zone, which everyone had already learned to avoid, then spread to the North and South Circulars affecting mostly carless millennials and buspass-owning freeriders. But the zone's imminent stretch to the edge of the Home Counties will affect proper Londoners, not to mention thousands of people who don't even live in the capital but simply choose to drive into it. Residents of Kingston in Surrey, Romford in Essex and Bexley in Kent are the true innocent victims in all this.
It's no good claiming your scrappage scheme will save us, Mayor Khan, because nobody wants to buy our vehicles now you've made them non-compliant. Your undemocratic fee is being introduced far too quickly with entirely inadequate consultation, and will simply act to bankrupt families, cripple pensioners, destroy communities and cause van owners to weep. You should instead be focusing on getting your beloved Silvertown Tunnel dug because that's going to be a proper gamechanger, increasing traffic density on both sides of the river simultaneously. What's more traffic speeds in London are actually slower than they were 20 years ago when the Congestion Charge was first introduced, proving that not only was it pointless but it also discriminates unfairly against the average citizen.
It's a sad state of affairs when a hard-pressed family can't hop into their car for the three minute journey to the shops without being forced to reflect on the impact on their neighbours and the wider planet. Children should be safely strapped into the back seat dreaming of buying a Maserati, not attempting to ride a deathtrap bike on a public highway or jaywalking across a busy street. Instead virtue-signalling politicians obsessed by race and gender continue to force innocent Englishmen to pay for the privilege of driving instead of embracing our Brexit freedoms and letting London flow free. Every car owner should have the right to congest and pollute without the nanny state nagging them for money at every turn, and my word this blinkered tosh is easy to write, and alas even easier to believe.
I like an unlikely day out and South Woodham Ferrers definitely fits the bill. The town's in estuarine Essex (not quite as far out as more visitworthy Burnham-on-Crouch). It's hemmed in on three sides by tidal water (or if you time it wrong thick mud). It has just one tourist attraction (which doesn't admit childless adults). It's linked to London by train (but you have to change onto a branch line at Wickford). It was barely a village until fifty years ago (so has architecture you may loathe). It's also approximately circular so my visit involved walking around it twice, once within the town and once around the edge. Join me for a trip around a round town, and then around it again.
The history bit: For many centuries there was just a Woodham Ferrers, unsurprisingly a short distance to the north. In 1889 the village earned a station where the Maldon and Southminster lines diverged, and over the years that became the site of a separate settlement, initially of lowly plotland developments. In the 1970s Essex county council swept in and compulsorily purchased 1½ square miles to create a New Riverside Country Town. Don't think Basildon, think twisty cul-de-sacs of barnlike houses with triangular roofs and barely a block of flats in sight. The town now has a population of 16,000, a goodly proportion of London commuters and a sense of being reclusively adrift beside the river.
Around town
A ten minute walk takes you from the station to the town centre, an entirely artificial construct designed to look like its street plan is much older. Within this triangle of land are the police station, fire station, library and church, plus a small warren of shopping streets and a lot of places you can drop into for a drink and a sit down. Many buildings have a rooftop flourish in a faux agricultural style, while a peculiar spire like an upturned ice cream cornet has been bolted onto the post office. At the heart of things is a false marketplace called Queen Elizabeth II Square (because she opened it in 1981 - the life of a monarch isn't all privilege), focused round a bandstand that doesn't get used much any more except by teenagers hanging about.
For entertainment there's a barnlike pub called The Town Crier and a seemingly unnecessary hotel where you can see bands like Scooby and Wully Bully on a Saturday night. There used to be a small cinema called The Flix, which I squeezed into 25 years ago to watch Titanic on the not-so-big screen, but that's long since been replaced by retirement flats. A large proportion of the town centre is owned by Asda, not just their big supermarket but their separate clothes shop, their opticians and a lot of the other central units, courtesy of a bold deal with the council in the early days. They can't be too pleased that Sainsburys were later granted permission for a huge superstore on the ring road, the town's first significant 21st century expansion and likely not the last.
The surrounding neighbourhoods spin off a series of feeder roads. Here the houses attempt to be diverse, cottagey and uncoupled, with smart rustic irregularity the order of the day. Pick carefully and you can still get a two-bed for £200,000, although something more family-sized and Essexy may not come cheap. It's probably wise to own a car because otherwise you may become over-reliant on hourly buses to Chelmsford and Basildon. What's more if you buy your home in the southwest quarter of town it may well come with one of the geekiest addresses in the country... because all the streets here have Tolkienesque names.
Imagine the planning meeting where they decided to call the spine road Gandalf's Ride and then set about picking characters for the cul-de-sacs leading off it. Imagine now living in Elronds Rest, submitting your tax bill from Great Smials or having to give your address as Gimli Watch. I have enormous respect for the house at the top of Hobbiton Hill whose owners have gone the whole hog and called it Bag End. I was far less impressed by the missing apostrophe in the nameplate at Two Gandalfs Ride, because as every wizard knows there's only one Gandalf to ride them all.
Around the town
For a complete contrast I then walked around the edge of South Woodham Ferrers, most of which is along high creekside banks. The circular route provided by the Essex & South Suffolk Community Rail Partnership is somehow six miles long, and I'd recommend stout footwear because even after a dry month it was squelchy in places. I'd also recommend going anti-clockwise and missing out the northern bit, but we'll get to that. A map on the platform should make it clear which way to head (along the north side of the railway and through the underpass), but when the first fingerpost says "To the Coast" it's stretching the truth somewhat, the open sea remains invisible throughout. Nevertheless prepare to have all your cobwebs blown away.
The small stream threading through Woodham Fen is about to broaden into full-on tidal creek as you follow it south. It gets more interesting after the sewage works and noticeably deeper too. That white house on the first bend by the sailing club is one of the two old farmhouses who sold their fields to create the town. By now grassland has morphed into saltmarsh and that's pretty much all we'll be seeing as Fenn Creek flows out into the River Crouch. The lowly clubhouse at South Woodham Ferrers Yacht Club can't hold a candle to the Royal Corinthian downstream in Burnham (one teensy balcony versus four stacked terraces) but it does its job. On the far side of the river is the quayside at Hullbridge, its pub tempting but alas also inaccessible now the ferry's extinct.
The racket you can likely hear inland comes from Marsh Farm, an animal adventure park for families with younger kids which offers piglets, alpacas, rideable tractors and Rossi's ice cream. But we're striding on along the earth embankment into the estuarine wilds and this is much more like it. The path zigzags above the reeds, the Crouch either glitters or turns to mud and that medieval saltpan to your left is likely full of seabirds. Pick your season right and these skies are an ornithologist's dream, so you may even see more people with huge lenses than local residents out walking their dogs. Look too for distant masts, reflective pools, turbid channels, wide open skies and the occasional bench where you can rest and absorb. If you're flagging you can head inland quicker and cut off the tip of the headland but I walked the whole bloody lot and it was glorious.
After what feels like forever, but skips by, the bankside walk reaches the top of Clements Green Creek. Here several townhouses creep back into view but ignore those for now and walk the last elevated stretch into Saltcoats Park. This is where I recommend you abandon the circuit and divert into the town centre, perhaps after a spin round the lagoons. Should you continue you merely get to experience some light industrial estates and the arterial road, plus perhaps a look up 'Radar Hill' to the north of the town. Here Marconi did some of their pioneering dishwork, this being some of the highest land near Chelmsford, until BaE finally sold off the site in 2016. South Woodham Ferrers isn't exactly full of surprises but it has enough to go round, and that estuarine loop is chef's kiss.
I like a pointless geographical challenge so at the start of the year I decided to try to visit all the postcode districts in London.
On 1st January I woke up in E3, then walked up the Olympic Park so that was E15 and E20 ticked off. By the end of the day I'd also visited E9, N1, N22, N11, W1, SW1, WC2, SE1 and EC1 - not deliberately but as part of my general perambulations. I've continued to tally where I've been ever since, and with my visit to UB11 this week I think I've visited all the postcode districts in London. This does however very much depend on how you define "postcode district" and "in London".
Even counting how many postcode districts there are is problematic. Let's start with the London postal district (as previously blogged here) and its eight postal districts: EC, WC, N, E, SE, SW, W, and NW
I've been to all of these. Admittedly they weren't all happenstance. I travelled around normally for the first three weeks, hitting about 50%, but then took a more careful look at a map and started thinking "oh, if I went there I could easily tick several more off". Pick your spot right and you can visit SE21, SE24, SE27 and SW2 in a few minutes. It only took another three weeks and I'd been to all 120.
But maybe I was missing a few. Officially several postcode districts are subdivided by letter because the number of addresses within them has skyrocketed since the system was introduced. E1 for example gave birth to E1W, a strip through Wapping, and SW1 is split into SW1A, SW1E, SW1H, SW1P, SW1V, SW1W, SW1X and SW1Y. Here's the full list.
Include these subdivisions and that's an extra 51 postcode districts, some extremely small, knocking the total up to 171. But when it came to visiting them I confess I thought "stuff that, life's too short". I'm happy enough to have visited WC2, I don't feel the need to have scooted individually round WC2A, WC2B, WC2E, WC2H, WC2N and WC2R. Where precisely is WC2H anyway?
And of course these 'compass point' postal districts don't cover the whole of Greater London. Several other postcode areas intrude into the outskirts, for example HA for Harrow, IG for Ilford and CR for Croydon. And here it gets trickier because postcodes and administrative boundaries rarely overlap so you have to work out which districts are genuinely in London and which aren't. Wikipedia reckons the outer London postcode areas are BR, CM, CR, DA, EN, HA, IG, SL, TN, KT, RM, SM, TW, UB and WD, but is that actually correct? This is where a map becomes essential.
Accurate maps of London postcode districts aren't easy to come by. Wikipedia has one (but you can't zoom in). Google Maps is clever because if you search for SW7 it draws a red line round SW7, although from experience the boundaries aren't very reliable. Various bespoke websites claim to depict postcode district maps, some approximately, some point by point. Hurrah then for london.gov.uk which does a stonking pdf map of London's postcode districts (plus a separate map for the complexities in the centre), although working out precisely which streets are in and which are out isn't always easy.
Take EN (for Enfield) for example. EN1 and EN2 are definitely wholly in Greater London. EN3, EN4 and EN5 are almost entirely in Greater London but small slivers spread outside. EN6, EN7, EN8 and EN9 are almost entirely outside Greater London but might potentially have slivers within. And EN10 and EN11 definitely aren't in Greater London (they're Broxbourne and Hoddesdon). The number of EN postcode districts in London is therefore at least five and might be as high as nine, but some proper research is needed to work out precisely how many.
I have attempted this research for all London's postcode areas and now present this surprisingly complicated table.
IN LONDON?
Wholly
Mostly
Partly
Maybe
Not
EC
EC1-EC4
WC
WC1 WC2
N
N1-N22
E
E1-E3 E5-E18 E20
E4
SE
SE1-SE28
SW
SW1-SW20
W
W1-W14
NW
NW1-NW11
UB
UB1-UB8 UB10 UB11
UB9
HA
HA0-HA4 HA9
HA5-HA8
WD
WD3
WD6 WD23
8 others
EN
EN1 EN2
EN3-EN5
EN6
EN7-EN9
EN10 EN11
IG
IG1-IG6 IG8 IG11
IG7 IG9
IG10
RM
RM1-RM3 RM5-RM13
RM14
RM4
RM15 RM19
RM16-RM18 RM20
CM
CM13 CM14
23 others
DA
DA6-DA8 DA14-D18
DA5
DA1
DA2-DA4 DA9-DA13
TN
TN14 TN16
38 others
BR
BR1-BR5 BR7
BR6
BR8
CR
CR4 CR7 CR8
CR0 CR2
CR3 CR5
CR6
SM
SM1 SM4-SM6
SM2 SM3
SM7
KT
KT1-KT3 KT5 KT9
KT4 KT6
KT8
KT7 KT17-KT19 KT22
11 others
TW
TW1-TW5 TW7-TW12
TW6 TW13 TW14
TW15
TW16 TW19
TW17 TW18 TW20
SL
SL0
SL1-9
194
20
15
18
107
194 postcode districts are wholly within Greater London. I've been to all of them this year. I've visited all the postcode districts contained inside London.
Another 20 postcode districts are mostly within Greater London. I've been to all of them this year too. I've visited all the postcode districts that are wholly or majority London.
15 postcode districts are marginally in Greater London. Only six of them have a significant London chunk, namely CR5, DA1, IG7, RM4, TN16 and UB9. The other nine I could have put into a category called 'Barely in London'. I've only been to six of these so far this year.
18 postcode districts might creep into Greater London. Boundaries suggest they might but they might not and the overlap might not contain any addresses. I need to do some more research to confirm (or exclude) these.
And 107 postcode districts aren't in Greater London. I've been to a few this year but for the purposes of my postcode challenge they're irrelevant.
To summarise, Greater London has at least 229 postcode districts (the first three columns) and maybe as many as 247 (the first four columns). My upcoming task is to deduce precisely how many there are and to visit all the rest of them.
And in case you hadn't worked out where this is going, I intend to visit these utterly tangential London postcode districts and then blog about them. Prepare to read about isolated farms, country lanes on the very edge of the capital, caravan parks and whatever else these borderline districts turn out to be. No rush, I'll visit them all eventually
June update: the finalised verson of my London postcodes table can be found here.
The Count- halftime update 1) Visits to this blog: 39886 (above average) 2) Comments on this blog: 436 (much as 2022) 3) Words I write on this blog: 17614 (on the high side) 4) Hours I spend out of the house: 85 (above 2021/2022) 5) Nights I go out: 2 (average) 6) Bottles of lager I drink: 2 (typical) 7) Cups of tea I drink: 57 (below average) 8) Trains I travel on: 77 (but 120 buses) 9) Steps I walk: 212000 (below 2021/2022) 10) Mystery Count: 0 (again)
Let's visit one of London's smallest postcode districts - UB11.
It might well be the smallest if you ignore the City of London where EC3 is really titchy. I think it's smaller than SW5 which is the tiny fiefdom of Earl's Court. Whether it's the teensiest or not depends on whether you count the golf course - UB11 doubles in size if you do. But if you only count buildings you can deliver mail to it barely covers quarter of a square mile. However you measure it, Stockley Park is a proper postcode anomaly.
UB11: Stockley Park
What to do with a wasteland of brickfields and gravel pits between West Drayton and Hayes? The entrepreneurial solution in the mid 1980s was to build a golf course and business park, one of the UK's very first, plus the Yiewsley bypass straight down the middle. The site was smothered in topsoil and landscaped to within an inch of its life, before various HQ-sized buildings were added and multiple big-name companies flooded in. It was so well done that this pioneering park has recently been Grade II listed (you can read a full backhistory here). And arriving late to the party was enough to persuade the Post Office to gift Stockley Park a teensy mail enclave of its very own, a brand new postcode designation rather than hanging on the coattails of UB3 or UB7.
Not many people live near enough to make the most of the parkland and the barriers at each end dissuade non-employees from driving through. But unlike many other private spaces the public aren't discouraged from visiting - the London Loop threads across the site and three bus routes will drop you off right in the middle. So I dropped in.
What strikes you immediately about Stockley Park is the space and the greenery. They could have squeezed dozens of office blocks into this footprint but instead spaced everything out to give each business their own little kingdom separated not by fences but by grass and water. Just 16 blocks are located around the original parkland loop with another five bolted on further from the lakes in the 1990s. Most buildings have three storeys, a few two, with a convenient car park alongside to accommodate every employee who wants to drive. A small sign out front confirms who the occupant is - M&S, Canon, Apple, Samsonite, whoever - or that it's vacant and up for hire. A third of the blocks are currently occupied by nothing more than a security presence because office life isn't what it used to be.
[UB11 1AW, UB11 1BA, UB11 1DB, UB11 1FE]
Wandering across the site is very pleasant, if occasionally hindered because the developers only added a path on one side of the road. You might cross a footbridge, pass some sculptures or encounter some beehives, and those feathers on the grass confirm you're sharing the space with wildfowl. I watched two geese strut confidently across the road from one lake to another, pointedly avoiding the crossings for mere humans to either side. All this outdoor space is perfect for employees wanting to nip out and make a private business call as the park becomes an extension of the office. The management have even added a purple Think Tank hut amid the lakeside shrubbery, but only those who know the entry code can get inside and Think Big Ideas.
[UB11 1AF, UB11 1AS, UB11 1FG]
Maintaining a business park like this doesn't come cheap. As well as the barrier-keepers at each entrance a crack team of gardeners can be seen pootling round the site in their little green John Deeres. I spotted one truck with a pair of conifers in its claws, as well as several hedgetrimmers causing a racket outside MSC Cruise Management. The estate's trees don't just clip themselves. Helpful ambassadors in purple gilets ride around on bikes, possibly doubling up as unspoken security. Someone somewhere is definitely keeping an eye on you given the number of cameras on poles, but I was never accosted despite stopping to take multiple photos. Maybe that's the freedom of being a Green Flag park as well as a business hotspot.
[UB11 1BB, UB11 1EZ, UB11 1HU, UB11 1JA]
Up by the largest lake is The Arena, the park's equivalent of a shopping parade, although these days the content is a bit thin. Around its brick rotunda are a Greggs, a Costa and a Subway, plus the entrance to a Nuffield Health gym because obviously Stockley Park has one of those. A peculiar metal spire graces the far end of the building overlooking a fountain surrounded by sculpted kicking limbs. Behind all of this lurks a sprawling Travelodge, a later addition ideally located a short bus ride from Heathrow Airport, and beyond that the clubhouse for the golf course. It must be so much easier to flog corporate units to chief executives if you can promise them 18 holes within a short walk of their desk.
[UB11 1AA, UB11 1AQ, UB11 1FL]
The newest part of Stockley Park is called The Square, even though it's patently a long thin oblong, and is based round a central loop of round nicknamed the Squareabout. The buildings here have unusual geometrical footprints like the holes in a small child's posting block, and only two are currently occupied. From here it's a fair walk to Costa so an extra cafe has been plonked in the middle of the piazza where you can mingle with employees taking a break from their, touchdown zones, breakout areas and paper-free hotdesks. If the weather's nice sit out at a table, and if not grab a deckchair in the perspex igloo and see how far your wifi tethers.
[UB11 1ET, UB11 1FW, UB11 1TD]
The park's somewhat-sanitised landscaping does a fine job of concealing the outside world. For example the Grand Union Canal runs along the southern edge but you wouldn't know unless you followed a single path to a gate in the hedge. The sloping golf course forms a backdrop to the north and there are really good views across West London if you walk up to the top of that, as indeed the London Loop chooses to do. That's also the safest way to reach the other chunk of Stockley Park, the mostly recreational part, via an unusual asymmetricbridge. Just four UB11 postcodes exist beyond the main road, and with a completely different feel to the harmonious landscape of the business park.
[UB11 1BF, UB11 1BT, UB11 1BU, UB11 1FH]
This time the layout embraces the canal with a manicured slope above the towpath and several benches for smoking and/or lunching. But behind that the fortifications begin at a green fence emblazoned with notices about CCTV, security contractors and automatic numberplate readers, although nothing actually says don't enter. These four ginormous anonymous buildings must be distribution centres, I thought, each with dozens of identical delivery bays out back. But there was barely enough room to park a van alongside, let alone a lorry, and on closer inspection the bays had louvres like part of some utterly massive ventilation system. It turns out this is the UK's largest data centre campus, a Virtus facility offering "over 86MW of IT load over 37,000 NTM", and it takes a heck of a lot of cooling.
You can give the creepy data hub a miss but Stockley Park is a genuinely offbeat place to pass through and might even be a nice place to work. With willows budding and thousands of daffodils poised to burst forth it's definitely one up on your average business park, perhaps because it came first before privacy concerns trumped integration. Outer London's tiniest postcode district is an eyeopener, an enclave of what might have been, and very much not UB11quitous.
If I've been to your borough over the weekend, here's some news from it.
Barking & Dagenham
If you know the Goresbrook Interchange where the A13 meets Ripple Road you'll know the two highly unusual black spikypinnacles in the centre of the roundabouts to either side. You may even call this the Witch's Hat roundabout or worse, Madonna's Bra. But what you may not know is that they're an early work by Thomas Heatherwick, commissioned in 1998 and intended to represent the two rocks Jason and the Argonauts had to pass between, hence the northern boob is called Scylla and the southern boob Charybdis. Charybdis is pictured.
Bromley
I don't know how often they wipe down the handrails on the stairs at Crystal Palace station, probably quite often, but the birds lurking in the mansard roof alas expel deposits vertically at a faster rate.
Croydon
What is it with pink hair in Croydon? Everyone I saw in Croydon had pink hair, every last one of them, all artfully dyed and coiffed in a vibrant shade. This may well be because I only spent ten seconds in the borough while crossing the street so saw only two people, but on the basis of my extensive research Croydon is definitely London's pink hair hotspot. Also everyone has a dog.
Hammersmith & Fulham
It's four years since Hammersmith Bridge closed to vehicular traffic, an amputation that's turned much of Barnes and Castelnau into a sleepy backwater. Pedestrians and wheeled bikes can still cross, but doing so only serves to confirm how shabby and unfixed the main span remains. We're currently at the "1220 pieces of steel welded in Middlesbrough" stage, the next part of the plan being to fit steel supports to the bridge. Engineers will then jack up the saddles, replace the corroded seized bearings, remove the damaged decking for repairs off-site and slide a temporary double-decker crossing within the existing structure supported by the bridge's foundations. But the council's Hammersmith Bridge webpage is noticeably silent on dates so don't expect to be driving over the Thames here for absolutely ages.
Havering
With Valentine's Day imminent, the thoughts of all good Havering folk turn to romance and floral gifts. In Elm Park they trot along to BeauDe Fleur on Broadway Parade where the window display is a riot of hearts and two temporary tables have been covered with identical hand-wrapped plants and gift boxes awaiting collection. I watched the assistant poking another rose into a bagged arrangement, perhaps their 'tall hatbox' special alongside hydrangeas and antirrhinum. Meanwhile in Harold Hill all the action is on Grange Road where Flowers By Tracy has been dispensing beautiful bouquets since 1988. Here red heart-shaped balloons herald the biggest sales day of the year, footfall is healthy and sorry, the Lindt truffles have already sold out.
Kingston
For years the welcome signs at the edge of the borough used to say Linked with Delft but now there's a brand new sign on Burlington Road that says Twinned with Jaffna instead. This comes after councillors decided to honour their Tamil population and make the Sri Lankan city their third 'twin town'. Poor old Oldenburg in Germany never gets a look in.
Lambeth
There's a house in the middle of Leigham Court Road in Streatham, quite a large house, which has three cars out front with personalised DG numberplates. I'm sorry I didn't make a note of the numbers which were something like DG 11, DG 83 and DG 262, but I was too amazed that someone had enough money to afford a DG trio. I briefly considered getting off the bus to take a closer look but then I thought "oh for goodness sake, get a life", so if anyone lives locally and could tell me what they really are that'd be great (although maybe they're only in situ at the weekend and overnight, so don't nip out specially).
Merton
Residents of SW20 are bracing themselves for a lengthy closure of Raynes Park Bridge to enable cycle and pedestrian facility works, starting today and expected to complete on 4th March. As one of the few routes under the railway it's going to be a real pain, and the queues on Grand Drive are usually bad enough at the best of times.
Newham
For details of the BT Street Hub blocking the pavement on Stratford High Street, see yesterday's post.
Redbridge Wangey Road in Chadwell Heath has a pigeon problem. They flock to the wall by the bus stop and strut across the patch of grass underneath in a haughty urban manner, and someone's seemingly been encouraging them by chucking bread. The college admin staff at number 8 have stuck up a notice to try to discourage the practice, although they've since moved out and the premises have been auctioned off for a tidy sum so I hope the new owners are aware of the local pestilence.
Richmond
Great news for music lovers in Richmond! You can now borrow a ukulele for free with your library card in a pioneering project between Richmond Library Service and the London Ukulele Project. Six instruments are available - three soprano ukuleles and three concert ukuleles - and if none are currently available they can be reserved just like an ordinary book.
Southwark
I spent less than ten seconds in Southwark, risking life and limb because nobody had built a pedestrian crossing precisely where I wanted to cross the street. This was mainly because I couldn't be bothered to walk 100m in either direction to a proper crossing, but how typical of the council not to prioritise pedestrians over the ubiquitous car.
Sutton
They've completed the upgrade to the path beside the Wandle between Culvers Avenue and Hackbridge Road - it always did need a cut-through. I spotted Egyptian geese in the river. It's a shame someone's grafittied the Wandle Valley post. If you're planning on attending the Habitat Management day on Thursday with Harry and Robyn please be aware that the meeting point is the Ancient lamppost at the foot of Riverside Way - an infrastructure remnant which inexplicably has a 5-star review on Google.
Tower Hamlets
If you have a pedantic friend you like to chat tediously with, why not bring them to this cobbled street opposite Bow Church station. "It's not cobbled," they will say, "those are actually setts, they're different, setts are flat and cobbles are lumpy, or rather..." Here you will interrupt them by pointing up at the rare 01 telephone number on the dental surgery. "Not so rare," they will say, "I know of several, of course this dates the sign to pre-1990, 6th May 1990 to be precise..." Here you will interrupt them by pointing at the street sign which says Kitcat Terrace. "By rights it should be called Rowntree's Chocolate Crisp Terrace," they will say, and you will rejoice in telling them that it's actually named after the Reverend Henry James Kitcat, rector of St Mary’s Bow from 1904 to 1921, and hopefully that will shut them up.
Wandsworth
Some London places barely exist outside the realm of those who live there. One such area is Furzedown, a residential suburb to the south of Tooting Bec Common which is packed with rather nice Edwardian houses. It must exist because FURZEDOWN is written across nine granite blocks in front of the shopping parade on Thrale Road, plus it still has its own TfL spider map with 'Buses from Furzedown' written across the top. Famous Furzedown residents include Henry Doulton, Buster Crabbe and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, but I digress. Anyway the news from Furzedown is that Margaret has several very ripe bananas going spare so anyone who fancies making banana loaf should pop round to Corsehill Street.
My apologies if I didn't get to your borough this weekend.
A BT Street Hub has appeared in the middle of the pavement on Stratford High Street at the junction with Abbey Lane. The pavement's nice and wide here, even after a segregated cycleway was added ten years ago, and yet BT have somehow managed to plonk their wifi/advert gizmo in a grossly inconvenient spot bang inbetween a lamppost and some planters. This used to be a "three pushchairs abreast" pavement but BT's inconsiderate positioning has knocked that down to one, in a selfish landgrab that'll blight accessibility for years to come. What idiot at Newham council allowed this, I thought?
But I jumped to conclusions too soon because when I searched Newham's planning portal the application wasn't there. Instead this section of Stratford High Street falls under the auspices of the London Legacy Development Corporation, the post-Olympic umbrella body, despite the Olympic Park lying some way to the north. And hey presto I found all the documentation on their portal under reference 21/00517/FUL. Submitted November 2021, approved August 2022 - Full planning application for the removal of an existing BT Phone box and installation of a BT Street Hub and associated display of advertisement to both sides of the unit.
At least this was a swap rather than an unprompted assault, but still, how on earth had nobody objected? Well that's partly because almost nobody was asked - only TfL, Arup, Newham council and the LLDC themselves. Also TfL did object - this only adds to street clutter they said - but their arguments were discounted because a telephone kiosk was in place before. Indeed the chief reason this sailed through is because BT said they'd plonk their hub exactly where the kiosk used to be, in front of the planters rather than in the middle of the pavement, like so.
But what they've actually done is install it in the middle of the pavement instead. This goes against all the LLDC's agreed permissions, indeed there's nothing in the planning documentation suggesting "oh go on then, two metres to the right" was acceptable. It's possible that subsequent conversations were had, or that engineers discovered some unforeseen issue beneath the pavement, but it seems wrong to go through a strict public planning process and then ignore it, especially when this nudges your advertising portal closer to passing traffic.
This has peeved me, and will continue to peeve me every time I walk past. I shall try not to kick it.
It's been a while since I liveblogged the BritAwards. Here's my time-delayed summary of the first ever Saturday night ceremony, confirming you missed very little.
8.30 This intro will make no sense to anyone who hasn't just been watching the Masked Singer. 8.32 They're playing the Harry Styles card very early (but I suspect he'll be back). 8.37 How long has there been an award for Hip Hop/Grime/Rap Act? (answers own question - since 2021). I have not heard of the winner, Aitch, although I knew three of his fellow nominees. Big up to Adex, Kelvin and my boy Femi, 0161 in the house. 8.41 So far more there's been more "what's coming up" than actual stuff. 8.47International Artist of the Year is Beyoncé, who obviously can't be here because here is North Greenwich and she has a life. 8.50 Becky Hill is best Dance Act, if you call this dance, we had proper dance music in my day, this is just warbling over electronic beats, no decent bpm whatsoever. 8.53 Hurrah for Wet Leg bringing a dollop of deadpan quirk to these over-mainstream awards. I'm glad they performed their big hit and not the one about the tortoise. 8.57 Host Mo Gilligan is attempting banter with celebs - nicking Stormy's beef, talking cocktails with Stanley Tucci and swapping fragrance tips - and if nothing else he is better than Mick Fleetwood and Samantha Fox.
9.04 Having an award combining Pop and R&B encapsulates everything that's wrong with current pop. Harry Styles seems chuffed to have won. So far only two buttons of his shirt are open but that'll increase later. 9.08 Mo accidentally introduces Lewis Capaldi as Sam Capaldi, or maybe that was deliberate to distract from his forgettable performance. 9.13 There are five contenders for New Artist and I have heard of 60% of them. Wow it's Wet Leg, which may be the first time in years a 6Music-friendly artist has won anything. The group are dressed like it's 1975 and look giddily embarrassed. 9.16 Flo have come dressed as different cuts from a brown leather three-piece suite. The Rising Star award they won is barely an afterthought. 9.23 It's the controversial Artist award, which in an attempt to be gender-non-specific has shortlisted only males. Oh it's Harry Styles again, which at least is as genderfluid as the nominations got. Tactfully Harry dedicates his award to five unnominated female acts. 9.26 Lizzo has come dressed as a pink furry bidet. Her voice is even bigger than her costume. She performs a medley of songs from her latest album, or so she says.
9.31 Sam Ryder is both blindingly upbeat and eloquently thankful - he is such a good ambassador for music. 9.38International Group goes to rockers Fontaines DC, most of whom have the sense to be on tour in Australia but sadly the dull one stayed behind to collect the statuette. 9.43 Blimey, Group also goes to Wet Leg so they're now tying with Harry Styles. They get the first [audio muted] of the night, delivered with a knowing smirk. 9.51International Song is the first shortlist where I recognise none of the entries, despite there being nine songs on it, because I am 57. 9.55 As for Alternative/Rock, the Absolute Radio vote goes to The 1975 (who are dressed like it's either 1935 or 2025). 9.59 Nobody wants to hear Ronan Kemp's David Attenborough impersonation, nobody.
10.00 Instead of the massive choreographed opera of recent years, Stormzy chooses to perform a low-key laid back orchestral number. 10.10 They've got Shania Twain to present the award for Song Of The Year, which can only mean she has an album out. Obviously it goes to Harry Styles, because only he still has his finger on the cross-generational button. 10.15 Cat Burns performs, i.e. artfully warbles, backed by a harpist and assorted orchestra. 10.18 Fatboy Slim is wheeled on for the Producer award so he can give it to his friend David Guetta. Mutual backslapping ensues. 10.21 I very much hope that's the last limp at-table attempted interview. 10.28 Sam Smith has been gifted the massive choreographed opera slot this year with a Mad Max gasoline-fuelled crotch-grabbing epic. The song, however, is forgettable.
10.32 'Technical issues' force a recorded repeat of last year's Adele singalong. It goes on a bit. 10.37 Still filling. Desperately filling. Something behind the scenes must be well buggered. 10.40 Finally the final award which is for Album. And the winner is... obviously Harry Styles. A lot of tattooed chest is showing now. Nobody knows when to stop talking. 10.46 David Guetta closes the show with a cast of top singers, a lot of dry ice and writhing rubber hordes. Miming being a DJ seems especially pointless. And we're done, just 10 minutes over time but 10 minutes too many.
Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, a bit of a stroll, lots to see, pretty views, close to public transport, lots of history, widely contrasting, won't take long. So here's a pleasant mile and a half round Rotherhithe, nowhere near enough to make a day of it but a nice walk all the same.
This self-guided walk comes courtesy of Our Rotherhithe and the Rotherhithe & Bermondsey History Society, to whom I say thanks. It's available as a copiously-detailed booklet dated August 2019, a product of the before-times when full-colour 12-page leaflets were still a thing. Back then it was available at 10 different locations including Debbie Western Flowers and Canada Water Library but I only found it on the counter by the ticket office at Rotherhithe station. They've got lots of copies so that's where to head if you want to follow in my footsteps.
According to the blurb the 1½ mile walk "takes about 2 hours at a leisurely pace", but that would be staggeringly leisurely. I had it all wrapped up in an hour, and that included dawdling, stopping to take 150 photos and chatting to the vicar.
Let's start at Canada Water station, the space age millennial rotunda that's acted as the trigger for enormous amounts of redevelopment. But that transformation's all to the east and south whereas we're going north and west where far less has changed. If you need the loo or a Hilary Mantel before setting off then the extraordinarily angular Canada Water Library will oblige. The walk starts with a brief diversion to see the Deal Porters statue, a tribute to long-extinct timber shufflers, although the sculpture's now marooned by the water's edge amid a levelled building site so don't expect to get close.
We're heading out towards the Dockmaster's Office with its splendid clocktower, this one of the first Surrey Docks buildings to be restored in the Eighties by the LDDC. And then we divert off into proper Rotherhithe, the part they didn't get to tweak so is mainly still council houses. We get to cross King George's Field, one of numerous such-named recreational areas created in the 1930s, this one since extended in size due to local bomb damage. The park gate has a jobsworth notice from Southwark council saying they don't grit the paths during bad weather so "Please think about the risk of slipping before entering the park." This is supposedly for environmental reasons rather than lack of funding, but it does come across as ridiculously patronising.
To approach the properly historic bit of Rotherhithe requires walking through a council estate. Not the Canada Estate, whose tower blocks are loosely protected by 'no trespassing' signs and one-way alligator teeth in the road, but the even lowlier Irwell Estate. I looked in on Mayflower Hall on Neptune Street where Southwark's least appealing table sale was taking place, enticed by a cardboard sign on the door promising "CD's, DVD's, New Mugs, Playstaions, Xbox Games, New Plates, Baby Clothes, Books, Kids Games and Essentials". It also listed Covid safety measures including "Cleaning Station Avaible" and "1 person at a time", although 2 seemed frankly unlikely. If any of the professionals from the flats at Canada Water ever ventured this far and handed over a day's salary, they could transform a life.
We turn right at the undertakers, a company that's pre-Victorian according to the blurb but whose premises scream 1993, and not in a good way. We get to view the Edwardian Pumphouse from a safe distance, it now being private flats. And then we creep up on Albion Street, the local shopping hub with its bolted-shut pub, charity shop and community cafe, plus not one but two Scandinavian churches. The building that looks like a block of flats with a belltower is the splendid FinnishSeaman'sChurch, equipped with a sauna and home to a classic Christmas market. The green-spired church is St Olaf's, a Norwegian asset since 1927, with a delightful sculpture garden out front that's generally unlocked early afternoon. The flats they're currently building between the two churches do neither of them any favours.
It's time to cross the entrance to the Rotherhithe Tunnel, which thankfully is achieved via zebra crossing and thereby a doddle. Look out for the dangling metal strips that prevent anything too tall from gaining access, the arch comprising sections of the original cutting shield and the big gates they close when the tunnel's closed. Anyone fascinated by the evolution of Southwark's pedestrian fingerposts will also find much of interest in the vicinity. We're heading for King's Stairs Gardens, alas the mostly-featureless end, although the first burst of daffodils are doing their best by the railings. Ultimate escape is via Paradise Street which is not well-named. I spotted a fox slinking into the playground round the back of the Bosco nursery but you may not be so lucky.
At last we reach the Thames, and bang on the rim of a bend so the views up- and down-stream are excellent. The square of bumpylawn with a low ruined wall is what's left of Edward III's Manor House, a moated royal hideaway that's hard to picture even with the aid of the interpretation board. Against the river wall is an unusual ensemble of statues titled Dr Salter's Daydream depicting local slum-clearing philanthropists, their daughter and their cat - again read the board for details. And the isolated pub alongside is The Angel whose sign bandies around dates in the 17th century and the middle ages while quietly admitting to being an 1837 rebuild. Drop in for Sam Smiths steak and ale pie with creamy mash or a bowl of Whitby Bay whole tail scampi.
The walk now returns to King's Stairs Gardens but this time Thames-side, where a gilded memorial stands alone on some steps. This is the Jubilee Stone commemorating 1977, 2002 and 2012, unveiled once by the Queen and twice subsequently by the Earl and Countess of Wessex. The path continues under a row of flats to Prince's Stairs, where precipitous foreshore access is available, and then unexpectedly heads back inland. This is to pass a community theatre called London Bubble and a pub called The Ship, the latter looking hospitable in a very Thirties manner except they've used the slogan "There are no strangers here only friends you haven't met yet" outside, twice, so I can't condone entry. After you pass under the Time & Talents arch be sure to turn left into the gardens else you may be greeted by a cheerily condescending volunteer.
Finally we reach peak historical - the heart of old Rotherhithe. Here be workshops, wharves and watchhouses, some almost old enough to be remembered by the Master of the Mayflower. Here be cobbled streets and classic pubs with river terraces, plus the enigmatic Rotherhithe Picture Research Library. Here be lofty St Mary's church (sorry, said the vicar, we're not really open, we've got the builders in). Here be cafes, coffee carts and quirky statues commemorating the departure of the Pilgrim Fathers in 1620. And here too is the legendary Brunel Museum perched atop the pioneering Thames Tunnel, its door propped open beckoning you deep within its shaft. I could write umpteen blogposts about everything I've just skated over, let alone where I've been across the previous paragraphs, but that's the joy of this meandering SE16 stroll.
