However only 'TfL fares' are being frozen so you may find that your journey is more expensive from March, even if you only use TfL services.
What follows is my annual summary of TfL's fare rises, an analysis now in its 15thyear because having some historical perspective on this is important. Boris's years are in blue and Sadiq's in red.
Sadiq previously froze fares in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 and now he's free of government funding shackles here he goes again. It's the first time he's frozen fares in the year of a Mayoral election, although some might argue 2024's timing is deliberate. Over the last ten years TfL fares have only risen by 18% whereas inflation has risen by 32%.
Cost of a single central London tube journey
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
Peak
£2.20
£2.30
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.50
£2.80
£2.80
Off peak
£2.20
£2.30
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.50
£2.70
£2.70
2024 may see no increase but 2023's hike to the zone 1 tube fare was the largest since the Mayoralty was introduced. It also introduced a higher fare for peak journeys for the first time, and this 10p differential is now engrained.
n.b. These are PAYG fares for Oyster or contactless users. Those who insist on paying cash are still paying £6.70.
Cost of a tube journey from Green Park to Heathrow
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
Peak
£5.00
£5.10
£5.10
£5.10
£5.10
£5.10
£5.10
£5.30
£5.50
£5.60
£5.60
Off peak
£3.00
£3.10
£3.10
£3.10
£3.10
£3.10
£3.10
£3.30
£3.50
£5.60
£5.60
Again there's no change in fare but this follows a recent significant change. In September 2022 the Mayor announced that travel from Z1 to Heathrow would always be charged at peak rates, hiking prices on the Piccadilly line by £2 overnight. This was to keep central government happy by raising revenue but without overly impacting on the daily life of Londoners. The tube fare from central London to Heathrow is to remain £5.60 at all times, but that's still massively cheaper than the £12.20 fare if you choose the convenience of Crossrail.
For travel to other stations in zone 6, not cash cow airports, the off-peak fare from zone 1 remains £3.60.
Off-peak fares outside zone 1
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
1 zone
£1.50
£1.50
£1.60
£1.80
£1.80
2 zones
£1.50
£1.60
£1.70
£1.90
£1.90
3 zones
£1.50
£1.70
£1.80
£1.90
£1.90
4 zones
£1.50
£1.70
£1.90
£2.00
£2.00
5 zones
£1.50
£1.70
£1.90
£2.10
£2.10
No changes are being made to fares within zones 2-6 which is a relief after several years of higher than average increases. From 2016 to 2020 all off-peak tube journeys in Z2-6 cost £1.50, but since 2021 distortion of the fare scale has increased shorter suburban fares by at least 20% and longer suburban fares by up to 40%.
Cost of a single central London bus journey
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
£1.40
£1.45
£1.50
£1.50
£1.50
£1.50
£1.50
£1.55
£1.65
£1.75
£1.75
TfL are often kinder to bus passengers because they include the poorest amongst the electorate, and they too benefit from this year's fare freeze. The daily cap for bus journeys remains £5.25 (i.e. three single fares).
However daily fare caps for those who travel by tube or train are increasing by an average of 4.9%. That's because fare caps have to cover the possibility that you might have ridden on a National Rail service, and rail fares nationwide are rising 4.9% this year.
For example if you normally travel enough within zones 1-5 that you hit the fare cap, that cap'll be rising 5% from £13.90 to £14.60. With individual fares not rising, this means many travellers will no longer hit the cap and thus be charged up to 70p more. TfL calculate that 25% of the additional fare revenue they collect this year will be because the cap has lifted.
Cost of an annual Z1-3 Travelcard
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
£1472
£1508
£1520
£1548
£1600
£1648
£1696
£1740
£1808
£1916
£2008
Travelcards also rise by 4.9% in line with National Rail fares. A weekly Z1-6 Travelcard, for example, rises by £3.60 to £78.00. It also means the price of an annual Z1-3 Travelcard will exceed £2000 for the first time (and to think the first time I bought one in 2001 it was only £896).
One Day Travelcards have thankfully survived potential extinction and are also rising in price by 4.9%, or at least those within Greater London are. Only two versions are still available, a Z1-4 Travelcard for £15.90 (up 70p) or a Z1-6 Travelcard for £22.60 (up £1.10).
However those who buy One Day Travelcards from stations beyond zone 6 will find they've increased by a lot more - on average 7.9%, which is 4.9% plus the extra 3% agreed as a condition of their retention.
TfL have been trying to discourage people from using Travelcards of all kinds for many years, arguably since 2011 when they first restricted the range of zones available. They continue this passive aggressive nudging in this year's press release, which insinuates that those who continue to buy them are fools who could simply be using pay as you go.
Use PAYG and stick with TfL services within zones 1-6 and you won't notice a fare rise this year. Use a Travelcard and you will, use a National Rail train for part of your journey and you will, travel in from outside zone 6 and you will, fail to hit an increased price cap and you will.
It's not a fare freeze for everybody. But if it's a pre-election sweetener it's a very welcome one.
Are you at a loose end tomorrow? Do you like looking at station architecture? Would you like a surprise birthday gift from TfL? If the answer to all these questions is yes then why not take part in the Tube 160 Treasure Hunt? You even get to travel round central London for nothing while TfL staff hold the gates open for you, and how brilliant is that?
It's all to "help us cap our celebrations of 160 years of the Tube", which is an interesting concept because I thought the Tube's 160th birthday was last January? The first Underground train ran in public service on 10th January 1863 so Saturday is actually 161 years and 10 days since that happened, which seems somewhat belated? Admittedly TfL promised a year of celebrations following the 160th birthday but even that twelve month period expired last week, so Saturday 20th January 2024 actually falls in the Tube's 162nd year doesn't it? But hey there's free stuff so who's complaining?
So how do you take part?
(Did you notice that my first ten sentences were all questions? Or perhaps that should be eleven? Sorry, let's leave it at twelve shall we?)
The place to be is Earl's Court station, probably the main eastern exit but I don't think they've specified that? The time is any time between 11am and 3pm, but given you have to whizz round zone 1 finding clues best not arrive towards the end of that window else can you imagine how peeved you might be? Here you pick up your 'clue pack' to take part in the treasure hunt, and I wonder if this includes a free pen or pencil?
At every station there are clues to solve, although might it be more accurate to say 'architectural features to spot'? They're all in ticket halls or on the exterior of the stations, not on the platforms, and do you know why that is? Health and Safety of course because we can't possibly have people having fun near trains can we? By the 200th anniversary they probably won't let us go outside either in case that's too unsafe or unhealthy and honestly where will all this risk assessment nonsense end?
When you've answered all of each station's questions what do you do next? You find a TfL Ambassador, that's what, who I assume will be obviously dressed? They'll scrutinise your sheet and if they approve you'll get it stamped... will you collect the full set? The best part is that they'll then open the ticket barriers and let you through for nothing as you journey on to who knows where? It wouldn't do for a treasure hunt to trigger multiple maximum fare penalties for exiting and re-entering stations because who can't imagine the fury that might invoke?
All they're telling us on the website is that the final station will be Battersea Power Station, or should that be Battersea Power Station station? However I originally read about this treasure hunt in yesterday's Metro newspaper and weren't they a lot more loose-lipped with specific details there? I won't provide full spoilers but you know the station with the Frank Pick artwork? And the 25 year-old station that destabilised Big Ben? And the station that's an anagram of pelmet? Might you perhaps be heading there?
You can visit the intermediate stations in any order, but you probably guessed that didn't you? Don't worry, none of them are too far from the West End, but why should that matter when TfL are allowing you to travel for free? All you have to do is make sure you reach Battersea by 3pm, so perhaps don't leave setting out too late?
At the destination station TfL Ambassadors will again be on hand, which makes me wonder just how much TfL are paying for this four hour jolly? Last January's treasure hunt cost £16,684.37 you may remember? If you reach BPS and have stamps from all the stations then you'll have completed your quest and can perhaps expect a burst of effusive praise? You'll definitely win "a surprise gift", although I see from the smallprint that this is "while supplies last" so that gift might not be as definite as you'd like?
I see this very much as an activity aimed at families, groups of young people and the irrationally transport-obsessed, and I don't know if any of you fall into any of those categories?
I'm also surprised the treasure hunt hasn't been more widely publicised, just a page of blurb in a free paper and a webpage nobody would stumble upon by mistake... unless they're proposing to make more fuss of it in the media today? I'm concerned that the link to "terms and conditions for the architecture treasure hunt" on the website is currently blank, so if that's your responsibility could you kindly make sure it's updated?
Will I be going on the treasure hunt? No I will not because I have already been to all these stations, and what do I want with a free souvenir tote bag anyway? Sorry, the Metro newspaper article also spoilered what the prize is, but I was already assuming you weren't going because where would be the fun in that, no question.
Sometimes while out and about I see something intriguing, take a photo and research it when I get home. Here are three of this week's serendipitous discoveries.
North:Gilpin's Bell
Where:Fore Street, Edmonton, N18 What I thought: Hmm, what's that lump of concrete in the middle of the pavement, ah some kind of sculpture, probably not concrete then, odd place for it outside a busy parade of shops, maybe it's something to do with the library, it has lines of writing on it, looks like a quote from something, also pictures of a man on a horse, why are people waving at him, ah it's shaped like a bell, no this is Angel Corner not Bell Corner, shame there's no plaque explaining what on earth it is, I'll look it up later.
What it is:Gilpin's Bell, a sculpture by Angela Godfrey. It's been here since 1996 so I'm just unobservant. Why is it here: It commemorates a poem by William Cowper called 'The Diverting History of John Gilpin', a comic ballad much beloved by 18th century audiences. It concerns a London draper, the aforementioned John Gilpin, who plans a minibreak with his wife to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary at the Bell, an inn in Edmonton. Unfortunately a runaway horse has other ideas and delivers him non-stop to Hertfordshire, then for an encore carries him all the way back to Cheapside. How the public must have cackled.
The Bell inn no longer stands but was originally right here, just between Carphone Warehouse and Cash Converters. A pub called The Gilpin's Bell lurks just down the street but that's not historic, that's a former motorcycle showroom which got converted into a Wetherspoons in the late 1990s. It's now independently owned with a cavernous Sky Sports vibe, not a poetic sensibility, and being half a mile from Tottenham's stadium tends to fill up with supporters either side of a match. In unsurprising news, because a lot of my online digging goes this way, it's just been agreed to replace it by an 18-storey tower block. It means the Gilpin name will be even less visible hereabouts, but at least he still rings a bell.
West:Worton Hall
Where:Worton Road, Isleworth, TW7 What I thought: Hang on what's that, we're in the middle of an otherwise very ordinary Hounslow suburb and yet that looks like a stately home, maybe Georgian, it's all stucco with chimneys and a short sweeping drive, I can see what it's called because there's a sign saying 'Welcome to Worton Hall' but that's all it says, no further clues, maybe it's a college or business centre, or could be something to do with the enormous sewage works behind, I'll look it up later.
What it is: It's a former country house built in 1783, set in 9 acres of lawns, orchards and paddocks. It lived a fairly unassuming life until it was purchased in 1913 by cinema pioneer George Berthold Samuelson, a workaholic keen to establish an English film industry in Hounslow rather than Hollywood. He paid for extensions to the building and invited Vesta Tilley, Britain's foremost male impersonator, to perform the opening ceremony. Most of the early filming at Worton Hall was done outdoors, utilising multiple backdrops to look like different locations, while the interior was used for dressing rooms, storage and overnight accommodation.
Selected Worton filmography
» A Study In Scarlet(1914): the very first Sherlock Holmes dramatisation
» Who Is The Man?(1920): in which John Gielgud made his film debut
» Things To Come(1936): the set for HG Wells' futuristic metropolis Everytown was built here
» The Third Man (1948): ...but just the start of shooting, it then moved to Shepperton
» The African Queen(1951): Humphrey Bogart won an Oscar for this classic adventure, shooting the rapids in a water tank in Isleworth
The hall passed through several owners after Samuelson, including Alexander Korda, Douglas Fairbanks Junior and the National Coal Board. The Coal Board turned it into their Central Research Establishment in 1952, after which it was earmarked for flats but in this case that never happened. A lot of the land subsequently became an industrial estate, and if you took your driving test in Isleworth between 1993 and 2018 then you'd have come here to Worton. The hall's latest lease of life is as a printmakers' workshop and artists' studio, which is at least creative again, and what an astonishing back history this building has.
South:British Home and Hospital for Incurables
Where:Crown Lane, Norwood, SW16 What I thought: That's an fine brick building, very institutional, probably Victorian, plus a much more modern chimney steaming white in this cold weather, but that must be old lettering because it says BRITISH HOME and HOSPITAL FOR INCVRABLES, nobody writes V for U any more, and then underneath entirely dependent on voluntary contributions which dates it, must be pre-Welfare State, I wonder what it is now, maybe a school, I'll look it up later.
What it is: It's still a care home, always has been, ever since the Princess of Wales opened it in 1894. The British Home and Hospital for Incurables was established as a safety net for middle class disabled people, i.e. those too poor to afford private care but too well off to be offered parish assistance. Terminal illness didn't get you a bed but being bedridden or generally incapacitated might, up to an initial limit of 77 patients. Pensioners with complex needs were additionally supported in their own homes. Later a chapel and an entertainment hall were added along with additional wings of accommodation, one of which was named after Queen Alexandra on her second visit.
These days the organisation's just known as British Home and offers services for people living with neuro-disability, say an accident, a stroke or some other debilitating illness. Walk a little further along the road and you can see how much it's grown, although still in attractive gabled blocks set around grassy cloisters. Because it didn't get snapped up by the NHS in 1948 it's still run as an independent charity, which I guess means it remains entirely dependent on voluntary contributions. And although it's perhaps not as intriguing as Gilpin's Bell or Worton Hall, it is doing a marvellous longstanding job.
Long distance rail travel can be both complicated and expensive.
So LNER are introducing a fare pilot to tackle one of these issues.
Unfortunately it's the first one.
LNER's innovation is 70min Flex, a flexible ticket which allows you to travel within a specific window either side of your booked train. Up to 70 minutes before, up to 70 minutes after, hence the name. Effectively it lets you travel within a 140 minute window, i.e. almost 2½ hours. It's clearly better than a normal Advance ticket where you have to travel on a single designated service, but it's also more expensive.
Two important things:
• The pilot is only for three specific LNER routes - London to Newcastle, London to Berwick and London to Edinburgh. No other journeys will be affected. So that's good.
• On the day the 70min Flex is introduced, which is Monday 5th February, Off-Peak and Super-Off Peak fares will be withdrawn. And that's bad.
LNER have form in fiddling with the usual rail fare structure. In June last year they abolished return tickets so now you have to buy two singles, these repriced at roughly half what the return used to be. Now they're fiddling again, with the approval of the government, in what management likes to call a Simplification Pathway.
Where standard class used to have 15 different ticketing options, next month that's down to three.
» If you want best value you buy a ticket for a specific train - an Advance.
» If you need some flexibility you buy a ticket with a 140 minute window - the 70min Flex.
» But if you need full flexibility, i.e. turn up and go, you have only one option - the Anytime.
Here's how it looks for travel between London and Newcastle on the Monday before the fare change.
After 9am a fixed Advance ticket costs fifty-something pounds, a Super Off-Peak single is £83.80 and an Anytime single is a criminal £192.80.
Here's how it looks for travel between London and Newcastle on the Monday of the fare change.
Fixed prices still vary according to availability. Semi Flexible tickets are now available and priced close to the previous Super Off-Peak fare. You could buy the cheapest 70min Flex ticket for £72.90 and still travel on the trains either side. But if you need more flexibility the only option is £192.80, an increase of over £100 on the previous £83.80, and the 11% of passengers who normally buy Off-Peak tickets may not be impressed.
There are other drawbacks to the new 70-min Flex ticket:
» You can't buy it from all ticket machines.
» You can't break your journey.
» Reservations are compulsory.
» Fares are non-refundable.
» There isn't a set price.
» It could sell out.
Off-Peak fares never sold out so you could turn up on a particular day and travel guaranteed at a guaranteed price. But now there's a risk you might turn up and all the cheaper fares have gone, in which case it's £192.80 or you don't travel. In my earlier screenshot the 09:30 Newcastle service already has only four sub-£192 fares left, and they'll never last until February.
Some further caveats about the 70min Flex fare.
• If you travel on another train within the window, not the one you booked, you can only change your seat reservation via the app or an online account. If you don't have digital access that's fine, they'll let you sit anywhere, but if the service is busy you're now no longer guaranteed a seat.
• If you need a broader window than 70 minutes they'll let you change your booking, but they'll charge you the new price plus a £10 admin fee.
• If your train is late that's fine, the 70 minutes is with reference to the timetabled time, not any disruptions.
• Yes railcards are accepted.
Another way of looking at the new ticket is as a £20 surcharge. That's because for most of the day on most services the 70min Flex fare always costs £20 more than the matching Fixed fare. It's not mentioned in any of the publicity but it's very obvious once you spot it.
So in effect there are now only two types of ticket, Fixed and Flexible, with passengers paying a £20 surcharge if they want to widen their travel window by 70 minutes. It might be 'simpler' but it's sure as hell not better value.
In good news, because this is only a pilot at three stations it's very easy to avoid. If travelling to Edinburgh, for example, you can just buy a ticket to Haymarket on the other side of the city centre and all the normal off peak tickets remain. This could be very useful during the Fringe if it looks like all the cheaper tickets to Edinburgh have 'sold out'.
In bad news, what LNER are doing here is giving themselves free rein over how much they charge. That's because Off Peak fares can only rise by a fixed amount annually, but by axing Off-Peak fares LNER slip loose of the government's regulatory shackles.
It's all part of the airlinification of long distance train travel, i.e. charging passengers according to demand, which is a world away from the original turn up and go railway. Thankfully at present it's only a tiny pilot but if we accept its introduction we risk that model polluting other routes and operators, meaning anyone who doesn't plan ahead is screwed.
Beware of operators 'simplifying' ticketing because it rarely makes your life better, only theirs.
Hounslow High Street ought to be about as historic as it gets, being a former Roman road. It sits astride the Great West Road, a busy coaching route, and was lined by several inns because it was the first stop out of London. The town was bypassed in 1925 reducing the flow of traffic and boosting the High Street's importance as a shopping centre for the growing suburb. Then in the late 1960s it was part-pedestrianised in readiness for nearby redevelopment (as you can see explained in this marvellous public information film made by Hounslow's planning team). So why does Hounslow High Street now feel about as unhistoric as it gets, an unexciting thoroughfare of ugly shops and little more? I decided to take a closer look and brought all my negative prejudices with me.
Present
It's not a good sign when the heritage information board at one end of the High Street kicks off with the phrase "no buildings of any antiquity survive". It's even worse when that same sign apologises that only two of the old inns remain, and it turns out both of those have since closed down. At least the western end of the High Street still has a resonant pub, The Bell, which used to stand beside the tollgate that heralded the start of Hounslow Heath. But the current building's not the original pub, it's a late Victorian rebuild, and the old inn sign now sits amid a pedestrianised piazza which the council likes to use for summer events. Sorry, you don't get a very good photo of the building when the emergency glaziers have turned up.
This end of the High Street is the most mashed, with a long run of concrete-topped 1970s units and the entrance to Hounslow's major shopping mall, the Treaty Centre. It's watched over by a remarkable modern church, Holy Trinity, whose tapering reinforced concrete tower somehow manages to resemble a massive air vent. The site's actually over 800 years old, being the location of a priory established by French Trinitarian Friars, but the last vestiges of that were demolished in 1813 and the subsequent parish church burnt down in 1943 so now we have this. It undoubtedly has character, and apparently it has a beautiful vaulted sanctuary, but it doesn't bring visible heritage to the High Street.
There are however a few older buildings amongst the infill, which you might spot if you stop and look (and I spotted because I'd consulted Hounslow's Local List before setting out). The Halifax bank at 222-228 was previously the Littlewoods department store and has small art deco friezes across the top. Taco Bell at 217 is late Victorian with Italianate details and floral motifs on the windows. McDonalds at 200-202 has an elaborate Edwardian pediment.
Boots at 193-199 is substantially art deco and was Edmond’s department store until 1976. Vision Express at 177 is turn of the century and has a laurel wreath decoration on the second floor. Argos at 137-143 was formerly Platts and still has the department store's name in protruding letters poking out from the flat roof.
The mobile phone shop at 135 retains Victorian Gothic windows on the first floor. The charity shop at 125 is topped with terracotta balustrades and a pediment dated 1905. And yes, most of the High Street is undistinguished anonymous scruff, seemingly randomly sequenced in a motley and higgledy line-up, but it's good to know these little flourishes remain inbetween.
There's not much 21st century architecture here either, but you only have to stand halfway to see a whopping example of that. This is High Street Quarter, a crush of Barratt homes and leisure hubs with twisty balconies and flashy gold cladding, not actually on the High Street but set back from it. Head here for a new 10 screen cinema, a half-empty Starbucks and bland public realm. Behind is a slightly older curving behemoth anchored by Asda, and all of this is very much a nod towards where the council think central Hounslow should be going...
Future
A draft masterplan for Hounslow town centre published last summer picked out several problems including limited green space, insufficient leisure facilities and lack of evening opportunities. A particularly telling issue was 'low level of “draw” for consumers with higher disposable income'. The proposed solution will include more high quality office space, more emphasis on hospitality, plenty of greenery and a fair amount of housing. The High Street should survive mostly intact, maintained as "the heart of Hounslow", but will be backed, topped and tailed by considerable redevelopment. Expect landmark towers.
At Bell Corner very little may survive other than the pub and Neal's Mansions, which is the current turrety focal point. At the Broadway end, if complex ownership and logistical issues can be solved, the bus garage and bus station are pencilled in for walls of flats. And the Treaty Centre is up for a total overhaul, stepping back from low-rise infill to a row of four courtyard blocks to potentially 20-storey towers. This mall already feels a waste of space with too much empty atrium and the recent disappearances of Debenhams and Wilko, but the trick will be to keep the shoppers coming while gaining hundreds of new residents.
In short Historic Hounslow High Street doesn't feel particularly historic and will increasingly look even less so if the masterplanners get their way. But there are still historic features if you know where to look, which I'm glad I have, because even the drabbest retail centres have their moments.
The origins of common land date back to feudal times. Back then the poorest, least productive soil in a parish was often designated as common land, and was available for parishioners to graze animals and/or cut turf and timber for fuel. Members of this community with these rights were known as commoners.
So for example Richmond Park is not a common, it's a park, and Blackheath isn't a park, it's a common. Blackheath is jointly owned by the Crown (to the north of the A2) and by the Lord of the Manor of Lewisham (to the south). Specifically it falls under the protection of the Metropolitan Commons Act of 1866 (it was added in 1871) which makes it a common not a park. Richmond Park has been royally owned for centuries and no common rights were ever granted to mere underlings.
Wading through official designations isn't fun, but fortunately Wikipedia has a List of common land in London in a clickably sortable format. It looks definitive because it includes over 100 commons including some impressively obscure ones, and several of the areas are listed to two decimal places.
According to Wikipedia London's largest common is
1) Mitcham Common(152 hectares)
This has been grazing land for millennia, the original oak woodland having been cleared by early Neolithic people. But the underlying river gravels mean the soil here is poor, hence grazing led to a preponderance of shrubby acid heathland. Those gravels eventually proved appealing to 19th century road builders, which along with early 20th century urbanisation led to the end of grazing and a fair amount of scrubby encroachment. Since 1891 its been overseen by the Mitcham Common Conservators, or what's left of it, and marvellously explorable it is too.
Except Mitcham Common actually has an area of 182 hectares according to the Conservators' website, which makes the Wikipedia list look potentially ropey. And if you dig into the page's edit history it turns out Mitcham Common was only added to the list by an unregistered account in 2022, then had its area tweaked six months later. It's all somewhat dubious.
Where, for example, is the far larger, far more obvious other common in the London borough of Merton?
1) Wimbledon Common(461 hectares)
This is much bigger, indeed at 1¾ square miles it's considerably larger than the City of London. It's also one of the first commons to be protected by specific Parliamentary legislation, this to fend off an attempt by the landowner to enclose part of the common for his own use and sell off a large chunk for housing. The Wimbledon and Putney Commons Act 1871 secured its future and placed the land under the custodianship of a board of conservators who still operate (and are holding elections in March, if you're interested). Wimbledon Common is fabulously sprawly, always worth a wander and kept inexplicably free from litter.
Except it's not all one common. Three other constituent parts make up its total acreage, the largest of which is Putney Heath which merges invisibly into Wimbledon Common from the north. That's 160 hectares, then there's the separate Putney Lower Common (13 hectares) and also the Richardson Evans Memorial Playing Fields (19 hectares), leaving Wimbledon Common proper with about 270 hectares. It's still enough to be comfortably the largest common in London but not as vast as the headline figure.
Wikipedia's List of common land in London was created in 2013 and derives explicitly from a biological survey of registered common lands in Greater London which was published by Defra in 2002. It's one of several reports compiled by the Rural Surveys Research Unit at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, so is impressively detailed and authoritative. The researchers' sources were the official registers of common land maintained by London's local authorities - a legal requirement - and I'm glad they tracked down all 33 because that task would have been way beyond me.
The researchers found that...
• Greater London contains 122 separately identified commons.
• The majority of commons (53%) are between 5 and 50 hectares, while 38% are less than one hectare.
• The dominant cluster of commons falls in the area between Ealing, Paddington and Richmond.
• 17 commons are contiguous with other commons.
• The most popular land use is broadleaved woodland, followed by what's called "amenity grassland".
• Ickenham Marsh is an example of marshy grassland, Keston Common includes mire habitat and Rowley Green exhibits acidic flush.
• The boroughs with the most common land are Wandsworth, Hackney, Greenwich, Camden, Bromley and Richmond.
And in the researchers' supposedly authoritative list, London's largest common is
1) Hampstead Heath(145 hectares)
Hampstead Heath's never been much good for farming because it lies across a sandy ridge overlying clay. It faced its greatest threat in the 1860s when the landowner started flogging sand, digging brickfields and making plans to build avenues of mansions. Local people duly set up a Commons Preservation Society which kickstarted the whole legislation bandwagon, enshrining that ‘the Board shall forever keep the Heath open, unenclosed and unbuilt on'. It's still a magnificent green lung, the closest natural escape to central London, and remains an unenclosed undeveloped treasure.
Hampstead Heath's Wikipedia page states that it "contains the largest single area of common land in Greater London", which sounds promising for our purposes, except its sole reference turns out to be the research report I've already mentioned. With Wimbledon Common, Putney Heath and Mitcham Common all patently larger, we need something a bit more statistically convincing.
What I think's going on here is that some commons are registered and some aren't. The Commons Registration Act 1965 requires all common land to be definitively registered as such and Wimbledon Common isn't because it's not on Merton's statutory list. Ditto Mitcham Common, and ditto Putney Heath not being on Wandsworth's, but Hampstead Heath is on Camden's so it's definitively London's largest registered common.
However this dubious list of London's commons starts, this is how it continues...
» Hampstead Heath (Camden) 145 ha
» Hackney Marsh (Hackney/Waltham Forest) 136 ha
» Hayes Common (Bromley) 91 ha
» Blackheath (Lewisham/Greenwich) 86 ha
» Lambourne Common (Redbridge) 80 ha
» Clapham Common (Wandsworth/Lambeth) 78 ha
» Monken Hadley Common (Barnet) 74 ha
» Wormwood Scrubs (Hammersmith and Fulham) 73 ha
» Wandsworth Common (Wandsworth) 69 ha
» Woolwich Common (Greenwich) 60 ha
» Tooting Bec Common (Wandsworth/Lambeth) 58 ha
» Barnes Common/Barnes Green (Richmond) 50 ha
» Ham Common (Richmond) 49 ha
» Stanmore Common (Harrow) 48 ha
» Plumstead Common (Greenwich) 41 ha
» Tylers Common (Havering) 32 ha
» Bostall Heath (Greenwich) 30 ha
» Streatham Common (Lambeth) 24 ha
» Peckham Rye Common (Southwark) 23 ha
» Tooting Graveney Common (Wandsworth) 22 ha
n.b. "Figures specifying the areas of these commons cannot be regarded as accurate measures. More detailed mapping and calibrations made during the biological evaluation of the commons have indicated that errors can be of a significant order"
Yesterday a 12 mile walk from Redhill to Epsom morphed abruptly into a 13 mile walk from Redhill to Leatherhead. And so I found myself blundering unexpectedly through Langley Vale, England's WW1 Centenary Wood.
It's very large - 640 acres. It lies a mile to the south of Epsom racecourse. It's one of four Centenary Woods across the home nations. It's a long term project undertaken by the Woodland Trust. Some of it is ancient woodland. Most of it was farmland but is now being transformed into rolling woods. The planting took place over four years, 2014-2018, exactly a hundred years after the First World War. Thus far they've planted 180,000 trees. It's meant as a place of recreation and contemplation. It's part sponsored by a supermarket. It's years off looking like proper woodland. And it's just a bit unusual.
It helps if you arrive via the car park, which I didn't, instead blundering in off a chalk track surrounded by paddocks. One of the ancient tracts came first, but with mysterious risk averse signage warning that the path was muddy, which it wasn't especially. I spotted a few premature catkins. And then came large contoured swathes covered with saplings growing inside protective tubes, ridiculously many, which when you're not expecting it looks somewhat peculiar. They're going to need a heck of a lot of thinning out later.
One wooded field was particularly enormous, now populated with twiggy trees like a battalion of very thin soldiers. This impression may have been the intention. Some of the individual groves appeared to be sponsored by local organisations including a synagogue and a food company. Suddenly there were more people wandering around, which in the middle of the countryside is always a good indicator of a car park somewhere within half a mile. In the near distance you could see the green stripe of Epsom Downs and its chunky grandstand for flat racing spectators perched on top. And then it got arty.
This is Jutland Wood, or will be, comprising 6097 saplings to represent all of the fallen in that famous sea battle. Up the middle is a 'ship-shaped clearing', not that you can yet easily tell, lined by 14 oak markers each representing one of the warships lost. The numbers in the portholes highlight lives lost, while underneath are the (generally much higher) number of survivors. I appreciated it more before I read on the information board that 'the mix of native trees evokes the sight and sound of the waves', and sorry but no, that's totally stretching things.
Another sculptural feature, this time much nearer the car park, is the Regiment of Trees. This is an avenue of 80 trees intermingled with a dozen well-spaced stone soldiers and commemorates the day in January 1915 when Lord Kitchener came to inspect the troops on Epsom Downs. Back then this was Tadworth Camp, a sprawling tented city for training 8000 fresh recruits in the art of trench warfare, grenade throwing and mustard gas resilience. Unfortunately the day of the inspection was cold and snowy, Lord Kitchener arrived several hours late and I'm not sure why you'd want to commemorate disempowered soldiers succumbing to deep chill and hunger.
I did not wander down the Cherry Walk or find the Verdun Oaks, the latter a plantation grown from acorns found on the French battlefield. I did pass the Sainsbury's Community Orchard, which remains some years off apple production, and also the Poppy Play Area, which appeared to be a very small adventure playground with the word Poppy added its name. I suspect it looks more convincingly symbolic from above. I didn't find the visitor centre because there isn't one, not yet, which made it all the more impressive that dozens of Surrey residents had turned up to somewhere that doesn't serve coffee. The coach unloading bay felt hugely over-optimistic at this stage.
You'd be better off visiting in spring when the ancient woodland is full of bluebells. You'd be better off visiting in summer when the wildflowers are a riot. You'd be better off visiting in November when the Remembrance Trail would resonate more deeply. You'd be better off visiting in ten years' time when the trees have had more time to grow, more likely twenty because one day it'll be somewhere really special. In the meantime you're most likely to see Langley Vale Centenary Wood alongside the M25 about halfway between junctions 8 and 9 so keep an eye out, and maybe pencil in a visit on an appropriately later date.
Here are ten other photos from my walk, presented without comment.
A new train has entered service on SouthWestern this week.
In fact it's a whole new train class - class 701 - but as yet there is just one train. There should be 90 trains but their introduction is running way behind schedule, indeed the original intention was for the first 701 to enter service five years ago. Reasons for the delay include Covid, union disputes, shoddy workmanship and "endemic software issues", all contributing to a massive delay that makes Crossrail look competent. Geoff made a video about them pre-pandemic, ffs.
Class 701 isn't being introduced with a fanfare, indeed it's hardly being introduced at all, the sole new train making just four return journeys before returning to the depot for an unspecified period. It crept into service at 10:25am on Tuesday morning for a trip from Waterloo to Windsor, slotting into the usual timetable as an additional service and carrying anyone who happened to turn up. And it's been running daily since, the fourth and final outing being yesterday so you've already missed your chance. The Men Who Like Trains were out in force.
The place to be was platform 19 at Waterloo station, ideally well before 10:25 to give yourself a chance to walk up and down and admire the new beast. Even better they'd plonked it next to a horrible old class 455, a shabby model dating back 40 years, as a proper contrast. This is why the new trains are needed, indeed why they ought to be in service already.
Many of those lingering by the new train had lanyards identifying them as members of SWR staff or from Alstom, the manufacturing company. They were here to see how the train performed, this time with passengers, and to be on hand in case something untoward happened. Others were hovering to appreciate the new exterior, check the livery, press the buttons, grab a selfie from the top of the platform, message their mates - all the things that MWLT like to do. And some just boarded the train thinking it was a normal service to Windsor, found a seat and sat there oblivious.
The door buttons look exactly like Crossrail door buttons, this because class 345 trains and class 701 trains are all from the same overarching 'Aventra' family. The front might slope more steeply and the seats might be arranged differently but the underlying mechanics and bodywork are similar. Other operators with Aventra trains include London Overground (class 710), Greater Anglia (class 720), c2c (also class 720) and West Midlands Trains (class 730). The SWR version is branded 'Arterio', this because the trains "will carry our customers along the arteries of our suburban network to the capital", and you'll see this vacuous name emblazoned just behind the driver's cab.
Having stepped aboard, the interior of the 701 feels quite a lot like the interior of the class 700s used on Thameslink. There are slim grey seats, slightly moulded cushions and umpteen grabhandles, plus an excess of standing room - the increase in capacity being one of the main drivers behind the introduction of the new trains. Yes you can plug in a gadget under the seats, yes you can charge your phone, yes there's onboard Wi-Fi and yes there's aircon because this is the 21st century. The heating was doing its job yesterday too.
It's not mostly longitudinal seating like Crossrail, so thankfully you can still look out of the window rather than at your fellow passengers. Then in the centre of each carriage is a display screen which scrolls through the usual carousel of coach number, stops served, service updates and toilet availability. I thought the contrast on the latter was quite poor, and Greater Anglia's version is much clearer. There are also additional screens beside the door listing destination, next stop and the current time, all in SWR's preferred typeface.
The most obvious thing you'd have spotted yesterday, had you been aboard, is that the sound quality of the announcements was awful. Every time the guard launched into one of his spiels ("welcome aboard... I will be walking through the train... I am currently in coach 10") the sound went all crackly, obliterating the odd syllable in a burst of fuzz. If this is the best a new train can do, on the only Arterio yet to enter service after months and months of testing, you have to wonder what else isn't quite up to scratch.
One reason the trains have been delayed is because they're One-Person-Operable and the unions don't like that. They think a guard is essential for safety reasons whereas the train company would rather take advantage of the economies the new trains offer. It seems some kind of compromise has been struck because guards are still supervising door closure at some stations but not at others. I overheard two members of staff reeling off a full list of which was which as they walked down the carriage ("...it's driver at Barnes, guard at Mortlake and North Sheen, driver at Richmond..."). I'm pretty sure I've remembered that wrong so don't take it as gospel, but it just goes to show you never know who's listening.
I didn't sample the Controlled Emission Toilets, whose bioreactor "thermally treats waste to produce wastewater compliant with EU bathing water standards" but apparently they're a UK first. And you can't sample them either, sorry, until SWR decides to run another journey. The ultimate plan is to roll out 90 class 701 trains on of all SWR's suburban lines, i.e. as far as Dorking, Guildford, Farnham, Reading and Windsor & Eton Riverside, including services to Hampton Court and Shepperton. They reckon this programme will take another two years - two years! - but eventually all the class 455 and class 458 trains will be replaced.
I don't tend to get excited by new types of rolling stock, I'm more interested in where trains go, which I suspect makes me a Man Who Likes Railways rather than a Man Who Likes Trains. Nevertheless I'm always keen to learn, so I've tried to use Wikipedia to knock up a list of all the class numbers used on London's suburban railways. The 100s are diesels, the rest are EMUs.
If you're a Man Who Likes Trains I expect you to tell me the numbers are wrong, and if you're a Man Who Likes Railways I expect you to tell me those aren't all London's suburban railways. And if you're most normal people, just be aware you might eventually be catching a newer train from Waterloo.
Thank you for your occasional emails, which I generally try to get round to answering eventually.
Here's a compilation of the emails that have arrived in my inbox so far this year. They're a mix of missives from lovely readers and requests from commercial interests, so a fairly mixed bag. In the interests of anonymity I won't be using the senders' real names but will instead work through this year's list of storm names as agreed by the British, Irish and Dutch Met Offices.
Agnes was quick off the mark at the start of the month.
Hi,
Hope 2024 is off to a good start for you!
I'm reaching out to you to arrange a call to talk about advertising options at diamondgeezer.blogspot.com. We would like to publish advertorials in exchange for a fixed fee. Would that be possible?
Agnes works for a Danish company that claims to be the global market leader for premium links, so spends its time pumping out content with embedded hyperlinks promoting clients' businesses. "We will surely have some backlinks that match your preferences," they say, which just goes to show you should never risk a surely.
Agnes got a one word reply, and it wasn't Yes.
Babet was after something for nothing.
Hello,
I am writing an article on the Museum of London Docklands for an article at <Adventure Game Co> and was wondering if we could please use your great picture with credit?
And this is a link to our blog, where I've written lots of other articles: adventuregameco.com/things-to-do
Kind regards
Babet works for a company that devises interactive Whatsapp-based city trails around London, Harrogate, Singapore, Vancouver or wherever. You pay them £15 and they send you on a treasure hunt with clues to solve, or £35 if you pick one of the trails with food samples from selected traders. It could be fun, especially in a group, or alternatively you could just explore London and look at stuff for free.
I did not allow Babet to use my Flickr photo on her website because she could jolly well go down to West India Quay and capture it for herself, plus I don't licence my photos for use in commercial projects. You tend to have more luck asking for permission if you're doing something charitable, community-based or educational, for example designing an information panel or writing a book. Not flogging text messages.
Ciarán noticed I'd made an error on the blog.
Para 'Cost is clearly a driving force...' has a coat where you mean cost. Rgds
Brief and straight to the point. I was much obliged and updated the typo within five minutes.
This is a nice way to point out a mistake, and I much prefer it to people who quote my error in the comments and whack a sarcastic question mark on the end. Be more like Ciarán.
Debi wondered if I solicit ideas for future posts.
Hello
The other day I was cycling back home through Vauxhall, and tuned in to the noises of the background, with the vast bong of Big Ben cutting through the rest. I was momentarily thrown - it felt far to be hearing the sound at first, but I reflected it wasn't all that far. Then I was thinking, how far from The Elizabeth Tower (or other sources of big Bongs) can you be and still hear them? It could be an interesting post.
It could indeed, although I suspect it depends as much on wind direction as on distance. A chilly northerly might well carry the sound of the bells to Vauxhall while Trafalgar Square remained mute. All I've previously blogged about is how long Big Ben's sound takes to travel, not how far. But you may have a better notion.
Elin had a fabulous offer.
Hi Diamond,
Hope you’re well! Happy New Year!
As we gear up for an adventurous start to 2024, we are thrilled to invite you to <International Music Festival> taking place in January 18-20, 2024. The line up includes some great artists like DJ Biggles, Zipstar, Boondollar$, The Hench, Wumpty X and many more. It’s a unique spot on the beach at a world heritage site.
That is a remarkably generous gift given that the music festival is taking place abroad and general admission starts at £60. That said it would cost me hugely more to fly there and stay two nights in a hotel, plus more importantly the event's taking place in a Middle Eastern country with a dubious human rights record so quite frankly two fingers to that.
Also I should say that all those bands are fictional, although the actual setlist reads similarly.
Fergus wanted to help with my Monopoly project.
You might find this photo useful later. I don't know the date of my set, but the instructions say send a 2 1/2d stamp with any queries, but don't give an address. The buildings are dyed wood.
I hereby waive my copyright; whether Waddingtons do is another matter.
Attached to Fergus's kind email was a photo of three title deeds in classic format - one brown and two light blues.
It might have been an ideal accompaniment to a blogpost but I didn't want to risk the wrath of the copyright gods. Tim Moore kicked off his book Do Not Pass Go by offering "a fitful round of derisive applause for Hasbro, who have ensured you won't be seeing a dog, boot, title deed or Monopoly board graphically represented within these pages." Best not go down the illustrative route if they're that litigious.
Gerrit's email was simply titled 'wembley'.
have you been there recently? its a sea of flats. quite mad might be worth a blog entry
Gerrit included a short 360° spinaround video to prove his point, and yes it does look like our national stadium has been surrounded by a dense forest of stackybox flats. I have of course been to Wembley recently, indeed I was there yesterday, although this particular photo was taken during the summer months. It doesn't show the worst of it.
I replied to Gerrit, noting that way back in 2006 when I was blogging about Metro-land I'd written this.
Eighteen years later that vision is mostly complete, and mostly grim. It's great to have a lot of extra housing, obviously, and some people do want to live in a neighbourhood where you can buy cut price trousers, eat saucy flatbreads in a shed, splash out on experiences and live in the sky with a view of a neighbour's brick render. But the whole area has a soulless vibe and a placemaking team trying much too hard to make it sound exciting, and "quite mad" might well be a understatement.
I suspect I'll write a proper post about the new Wembley to celebrate the centenary of the British Empire Exhibition in April. Thanks Gerrit.
This post is about little-used buses on the eastern edge of Havering. If you've never ridden the 346, 347 or 497 it may not be for you.
These are the 20th, 7th and 14th least used bus routes in London, that's how irrelevant they are. The 347 is also London's least frequent bus (speciality routes excepted), and Geoff's just made a video about it.
A year ago TfL launched a consultation to tweak/combine/withdraw these three routes, with the 497 proposed to be the sole survivor. Yesterday they published the results of that consultation, and under the new plans the 497 is the only number to die.
I've made some maps because TfL don't do that for the results of consultations, only for proposals that may never happen.
The 346 is the oldest of the three routes and has been linking the outer extremities of Cranham to Upminster station since 1988. It runs every 15 minutes, which is quite generous, but is also one of London's shortest routes so operates with very few vehicles. It was going to be withdrawn and replaced by an extended 497 but that's not now happening and the 346 will be swallowing up the 497 instead.
The 347 is an infrequent single decker running just four times a day between Romford and Ockendon stations. You could also make that journey by train or aboard the 370 bus which is much more frequent and runs through places people actually live. The 347 by contrast takes the scenic lightly populated route, hence its two hour frequency, and most of those in the remoter cottages go everywhere by car anyway. The plan was to withdraw the 347 completely but instead it's being kept as is, for now.
The 497 is London's most useless bus, as many of us pointed out when it was introducedin 2020. The idea was to link Harold Hill to Crossrail at Harold Wood and to save residents of two housing estates from a slightly longer walk. But its roundabout route proved mostly superfluous, it's rubbish as a rail connector because it only runs every 30 minutes and launching just before Covid essentially strangled it at birth. Now TfL are finally binning it, just 50 months after it launched. Or are they...
What's really happening is that the 346 and 497 are being combined, with the connection along a remote part of route 347. The new 346 will serve everyone it serves now before continuing north from Upminster to Harold Wood and then serving the whole of current route 497. It'll also do this slightly less frequently, every 20 minutes rather than every 15. This is poor news for passengers in Cranham, but good news for anyone currently using half-hourly route 497 and bloody excellent news for residents of Shepherds Hill who'll go from 4 buses a day to over 50.
n.b. In the original proposal the hybrid route was numbered 497, but someone's obviously worked out it would be more politically astute to number it 346 because nobody will mourn the disappearance of the 497.
n.b. In the original proposal the hybrid route made a stupid detour round Cranham in the middle of the route rather than dashing straight from Harold Wood to Upminster. This was due to toilet issues because residents of Upminster Park didn't want a Turdis planted in their midst at the southern end of the route. But there's already a Turdis at the northern end of the route and bosses now reckon drivers can make do with that (and a bit of bladder control) so the stupid detour won't be happening.
n.b. In its brief four year history the unloved 497 has already been the subject of a somewhat desperate consultation asking 'should we scrap it or should we extend it?'. It was subsequently extended a mile to the driver's northern loo stop, not that this really helped boost passenger numbers, so now it's being nominally scrapped.
n.b. The extension of the 346 was first proposed in a pre-Crossrail review in 2016, but was discounted for having 'too many issues' in favour of a new route 497. And here we are eight years later.
"A decision has yet to be reached on the future of route 347. The route will continue to operate until further notice while it remains under review."
This could be good, perhaps rejigging or extending the route, but is more likely a prelude to withdrawing it later. In future the 347 will have only one unique stretch of route, just east of Upminster, and this might be sacrificed by making a few hundred people walk a bit further for a more frequent bus. The rest of the route will be mostly superfluous once the 346 extends. My hunch is that TfL want to publish the good news about the 346 before the Mayoral election and are holding back a decision on the 347 to avoid any negative headlines.
In the meantime the big changes to the 346 and the death of the 497 will be taking take place in two months' time, specifically on Saturday 9th March. The bad news is that's also my birthday so you can expect a blogpost about the 59 as well as the 346, and the week beforehand posts about new routes 439, 443, S2 and SL2, and the week beforehand a post about new route SL3. That's a heck of a lot of bus fuss just before Mayoral campaigning starts. Who says buses aren't a political issue?
