The bakery chain Gail's has been busy spreading its sourdough tentacles across London over recent years. It had been doing this successfully and also quietly until it dared to suggest opening a branch in Walthamstow Village whose residents promptly set up a petition to campaign against it. They claim Gail's "bring a risk of overshadowing our much-loved local stores", "could lead to decreased visibility and pedestrian traffic towards independently run businesses" and risk "dismantling the character and diversity crucial to Walthamstow's charm." This is middle class enclave Orford Road, in case you're wondering, not the very long high street with its market and lowbrow mall.
But how far have Gail's spread, where are their strongholds and who pays £4.70 for a loaf of bread? By the end of today's post I should have it all mapped out.
I started at my local Gail's, which isn't especially local.
This is Lauriston Road, a nub of long-term gentrification on the north side of Victoria Park. Walk for ten minutes and you're in the thick of Hackney's council estates, but the closest streets are smart terraces whose residents have a tad more cash to splash. They therefore have a Ginger Pig butcher, a Bottle Apostle off licence and they used to have a tapas restaurant called Spit Jacks until Gail's moved in and started selling sea salt caramel, banana and pecan cake instead. On my visit a steady stream of punters flooded in for coffee and carbs, most for a takeaway option, several with dogs trailing politely behind them. The most quintessentially Gail's moment was when a runner emerged with three bags of sustenance to feed the crew at the independent filmshoot taking place at the artisan grocers across the road. Nothing like this happens where I live.
I checked the locations of the other Gail's bakeries across east London and it turns out there are only five.
Hackney
Victoria Park
Waltham Forest
Redbridge
South Woodford Wanstead
Havering
Tower Hamlets
Spitalfields Canary Wharf
Newham
Barking & Dagenham
Tower Hamlets' two Gail's are in entirely atypical locations - the tourist hub of Spitalfields and a counter inside Waitrose at Canary Wharf. Over in Redbridge Wanstead's an obvious spot for a chichi eaterie, and South Woodford continues a Central line chain which leads to Loughton and Epping across the Essex border. But no other east London neighbourhood is deemed loaded enough to merit a Gail's, not unless they get their way in Walthamstow, whereas I note Newham, Barking & Dagenham and Havering have 18 Greggs between them.
Historically speaking Gail's started out in the 1990s supplying specialised bread for top restaurants. They opened their first bakery in 2005, here on Hampstead High Street.
Unsurprisingly it's still going strong, Hampstead being the absolute epitome of a place that would support an ethical upmarket bread shop. Ole & Steen operate across the street, Paul are just up the road and numerous other posh doughfloggers lie in close proximity, whereas Greggs don't bother coming within a mile of the place. Gail's' window is full of £4-something loaves, bijou gobbets of cake and larger slabs of fluffy stodge, some of them priced, with a further tempting array of sugary comestibles inside. Again the shop's terribly popular, generally with the well-heeled, be that simply to grab a hot drink or to settle at a table with a chunk of calories and watch the world go by. I see Gail's do that pretentious one decimal place thing with their prices, so an iced flat white is 3.9 and something that boils down to eggy soldiers is 8.6.
The geographical spread of Gail's bakeries across London, it turns out, is quite asymmetrical. Central London has a lot more than outer London, even though you might expect the disposable income to be in the suburbs. West London has a lot more than east London, but the capital's wealth gradient has always been that way round. Northwest London is a Gail's desert with only Mill Hill and Barnet as outliers, whereas southwest London supports many more. Be aware this map is always evolving, so for example Woolwich didn't have a Gail's until a month ago, such is the impact Crossrail is having on spending patterns in the town.
I had assumed Gail's only open in pockets of wealth, serving populations where quality of refreshment is more important than price, because if you're going to splash out a tenner on elevenses it might as well taste good. A look at their list of stores in Haringey (Crouch End, Highgate, Muswell Hill) and Richmond (Barnes, East Sheen, Richmond, Teddington, Twickenham) only seemed to confirm this. But then I caught a bus through Willesden and they had a Gail's too, along what otherwise seemed a highly unpromising high street, so I had to assume there must be more to it than that. So it was timely that the Guardian published an article yesterday in which chief executive and co-founder of Gail's, Tom Molnar, explained his rationale.
So yes when Gail's got to Hertfordshire they opened in Berkhamsted, Harpenden, Radlett and St Albans, not Potters Bar, Stevenage and Watford. Similarly Kent meant opening in Royal Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks, not Gravesend and Folkestone, and their so-far rare openings in the north have been in Altrincham, Chester, Didsbury, Knutsford and Wilmslow.
I finished my tour of Gail's at one of their newest branches, opened at Easter in what I thought was the unpromising town of Brentford. Blimey, that's changed.
When Ballymore started knocking down the south flank of the high street to build 900 flats one of the shops they extinguished was a Greggs. Today's regenerated quarter features a super swanky "eatery and supper club" run by a Masterchef contestant and, in pride of place in a converted Victorian warehouse, the inevitable Gail's. They're so chuffed with the architecture that you can pick up a free postcard of the building by the till when you buy your cinnamon bun. The interior decor is all blond wood and exposed brickwork, this apparently the corporate default, with additional seating upstairs for decamping with your croissant and strawberry & basil iced tea. If I were the proprietor of an existing smart cafe locally I'd be nervous, although the lowlier end of the market probably isn't especially worried. Greggs, I notice, simply moved to fresh premises across the road.
In conclusion Gail's may feel ubiquitous but that's only if you spend your time in well-off-ish parts of town. Just under a quarter of their UK branches are in Westminster and Camden (where they started), and about a half in Inner London. Meanwhile there are still twelve London boroughs where the bakery has yet to open, so far including Waltham Forest, and indeed the City of London which I suspect falls foul of their "strong community" requirement. Gail's remains eminently avoidable, and while a teensy pistachio & raspberry bun costs more than an entire Tesco Meal Deal is perhaps best avoided.
FENCHURCH STREET STATION Group: British Railways Purchase price: £200 Rent: £25 Annual passengers: 10 million Borough:City of London Postcode: EC3
The third of the four railway stations on the Monopoly board is unexpectedly minor, the terminus for a few trains from Southend and the grubbier parts of Essex. It made the cut for the UK version because Waddington's boss Victor Watson was from Leeds so chose only LNER termini, which Fenchurch Street was between 1923 and 1948. It's a small and mostly unloved station, tucked away in the far corner of the City and infamously lacking a proper tube connection. At least Marylebone had class, and indeed slightly more passengers, but let's try to make Fenchurch Street sound interesting anyway.
Fenchurch Street station opened in 1841 as the terminus of the London and Blackwall Railway, then a connection to the busy docks on and around the Isle of Dogs. The station was rebuilt in 1854, an upgrade made necessary by the addition of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway beginning its history as a commuter feeder to the City. By the time Monopoly came along in 1935 the Blackwall branch had closed, its viaduct later repurposed for DLR services, but another rebuild of the station was underway to cater for additional traffic resulting from the widening of the mainline between Barking and Upminster. The most recent rebuild came in the mid-1980s, wiping away most of the internal character as five floors of offices were slotted in above what had been the station roof. The former L&BR/LTSR/ECR/LNER/LMS/BR/NSE/LTS terminus is now operated solely by c2c, a millennial brand name which apparently doesn't mean coast to capital, nor indeed anything specific.
Let's start with the only pretty bit of Fenchurch Street station which is the front. The facade dates from 1841 and was constructed in gault brick, with a long segmental pediment across the top and a row of 11 arched windows underneath. The clock is impressively incorrect, but presumably getting up top to fix it is quite tricky. The zigzag timber canopy supported by cast iron brackets is a more recent addition, sympathetically attached in 1960. None of this is particularly visible from Fenchurch Street the street, only if you turn off into a separate piazza via a looping road used mostly by taxis. Come at rush hour and it bustles with commuters who haven't been able to work from home. Come on a weekday lunchtime and it buzzes with office fodder in tailored shirts queuing for sizzling streetfood. And come on a Sunday morning and it's essentially dead, which is plainly the best time to get a decent set of photos.
Downstairs refreshment options are limited - left for Burger King or right for M&S Food - but at least that's all the major Essex food groups covered. Access to the station is through the three middle sets of doors which I was pleased to see are still decorated with proper red British Rail double arrows. But Fenchurch Street is fundamentally an upstairs station, slotted in at viaduct level all those years ago, so best glide up the escalator through a drab chasm of off-brown tiles. It's not much better-looking upstairs, a low-ceilinged concourse with all the charm of the backside of a Thurrock shopping mall. Sir John Betjeman once described Fenchurch Street as a "delightful, hidden old station", "the only untouched railway terminus left in London", but that must have been before Ove Arup got their hands on it.
I like that tickets are still sold where the booking office used to be 150 years ago, from a lowly set of windows up the back beside the shuttered Covid Test centre. It's so well hidden that I suspect a lot of travellers see the main staff window now only dispenses Travel Information so go and buy their day returns from the obvious machines instead. Of the two shop units the one that used to be Upper Crust recently became a Costa, and the other remains vacant should you have use for 90 square metres of Serviced Shell with Remote Storage (aka 'Prime Retail Space'). The only other food option is a machine dispensing cans of Huel, ideal for Canvey lads heading to the gym before hitting the financial desk. The days of WH Smith and a paid-for choice of reading matter are long gone.
If you need a sit down then a couple of rows of grey plastic seats have been provided, one with a perfect view of the cash machines if not the departure boards. The other row is much shorter and faces you away from a rather nice map of the c2c network, highlighting such sightseeing favourites as Rainham Marshes, Leigh Marina and Chafford Gorges Nature Discovery Park. I'm not sure anyone's going to be sufficiently moved to book a day trip to Basildon's Eastgate Shopping Centre but the option's always there. And when your train's eventually ready a bank of ticket gates awaits, 17 in total, each currently emblazoned with an advert for Southend Airport (which c2c don't actually serve).
Fenchurch Street only has four platforms, two to the left and two to the right, so getting to your train is dead easy. Initially it's bright and airy, although further down it gets somewhat gloomy thanks to that slab of offices plonked on top 40 years ago, these supported by a succession of smooth white pillars. The only sign of anything properly old is a retaining wall beyond platform 4 with some rather nice recessed brick arches. Short trains reach no further than the dark bit, but the platforms stretch considerably further to be able to cope with the longest Southend shuttles. I kept on walking to thefar end, entirely alone, which felt like stepping out onto the roof of the City whilst surrounded by some of its worst architectural upthrust. The platforms terminate somewhere above The Minories pub in full view of the semi-cylindrical roof of Tower Gateway DLR, ensuring the gritbin end has a completely different vibe to the staffed gated end.
There is another way in and out of the station, via a pair of staircases leading down from roughly the middle of each platform. It's signed to 'Underground and Docklands', this the back exit that's notionally close to Tower Hill and Tower Gateway. Arriving passengers trip down white-clad stairs reminiscent of an 80s subway, funnelling towards a much smaller set of ticket gates (and an even smaller set of peak-only gates). Top tip - if you're heading into the station be sure to check which platform your train goes from down here because they haven't bothered adding any departure boards where the stairs divide. Retail options are somewhat lowly at this sub-exit, but if all you want is Doritos, Red Bull or a Cornetto you're better off down here.
Before you wander off, be aware that Fenchurch Street is a London terminus that can also be admired from underneath. At Coopers Row you can look up and see the front of a Grays train atop the Victorian viaduct. The brick arch over Crutched Friars and Savage Gardens (yes those are actual street names) is even older, having been constructed for the original station in 1839. The steel crossing alongside dates back to 1881 and required engineers to knock down part of the Roman City wall and the original Cheshire Cheese pub, which was Tudor, which feels utterly criminal. Perhaps most surprising is the low arched entrance to French Ordinary Court, a City backway dating from the 15th century, which was enclosed when the railway station was constructed above, transforming it into a cavernous vault-like passage.
Some things Fenchurch Street station utterly destroyed, and others it somehow left standing.
I caught the train from Whitechapel to Stratford, just the one stop, and saw lots of people doings things I'd never do.
The man opposite had drawn a smiley face on his jeans, and I'd never do that. The right leg of his trousers had two eyes and a barbed wire smile drawn just below the knee, seemingly in marker pen although I guess it could have been manufactured like that for street fashion reasons. If I get a mark on my trousers I wash it off and get quite annoyed if it proves to be permanent. His trousers were also artfully ripped throughout, this time I think before purchase, and I wouldn't have bought those. If I get a small rip in my jeans - let's be fair usually in the crotch area - I usually stop wearing them once the tear gets beyond a certain point because holey trousers are embarrassing and I'd never do that.
The woman alongside was eating chips, and I'd never do that. The smell of hot food always permeates, indeed her wafting fried odour proved this, so I prefer to eat only non-smelly food aboard a busy train or preferably nothing at all. What's more she was eating chips out of a cup, an actual paper cup like they serve takeaway coffee in except this held takeaway chips. I would never buy chips in a cup because cups aren't very big so you don't get many chips in them. What you want is chips in a bag because at least that way you get more potato for your money. These chips looked a bit bigger than the crispy matchsticks McDonalds claim are French fries, but still not as plump as the chips I'd have bought if I were buying chips. What's more she was dipping her chips in mayonnaise before she ate them - she had a little jar - and I would never dip chips in mayonnaise because it's the devil's sauce and makes everything you dip it in taste worse. I understand not everybody thinks this about mayonnaise, you may love it and she obviously did, but I'm telling you what I'd never do and I'd never dip anything whatsoever in bloody mayo. What's more her jar of mayonnaise was really tiny, about the size of the jamjar you'd get for breakfast in a hotel, and it looked like proper Hellmann's from the side of the label. Tiny jars of condiments are usually appalling value for money, in this case possibly more expensive than the chips, and I would always opt for a larger more efficient size rather than a tiny one-serving container because that's just wasting money and resources. Blimey, I thought as I watched her feed herself, I would never do any of that.
The next group of three were having a loud discussion, and I'd never do that. I'm not averse to a conversation on a train if I'm in company, but I try to keep the volume down so that people nearby can't hear every word I say. This would especially be the case if I had a loud booming voice like one of the three did, because I'd hope I'd have the sense of presence to turn it down and not broadcast everything to all and sundry. Instead I had to listen to full details of "where all the ambassadors go" and much much more, all accompanied by extravagant hand gestures which is something else I wouldn't do either. One of the trio was sipping from a bottle of Lipton lemon ice tea and heavens no, I'd never do that. If I think I might be thirsty on a journey I bring a drink from home, either tap water in a refillable bottle or real tea in a thermos flask. More normally I do without, I don't buy this need to hydrate at every available opportunity, I'm not going to faint with exhaustion unless water passes my lips. And even if I was suddenly desperate I wouldn't waste £2 on a half litre of a pissy American soft drink, I'd buy the cheapest possible bottle of ordinary water and even then feel pretty bad about myself for doing so, which is why in practice I never do that.
One of the passengers had had their ear pierced five times, and I'd never do that. I'm of an age where having your ear pierced was never really the done thing, and by the time males with earrings were more acceptable I was past the threshold where it might have looked normal, plus I wouldn't have done it anyway. They had an armful of tattoos too, a symbolic jumble rather than a proper sleeve, neither of which I would have deemed acceptable on myself. For a start it hurts, then I wouldn't know what to get given I'd have to live with it forever, but mainly I've seen enough grizzled 70 year-old forearms in my time to know that ink rarely ages well. Perhaps more intriguingly they were wearing a t-shirt with artwork and a slogan and that's something else I never do myself. I don't like walking round with words emblazoned on my chest, I prefer unbranded clothing because that way people are less likely to jump to conclusions about what I think or do. Earrings and tattoos are one thing, but if I ever sat down with a therapist I suspect they'd be much more interested in why I insist on plain-fronted clothing, not that therapy's something I'd ever do either.
A lady to my left had her gaze fixed on her phone and was endlessly scrolling down on social media viewing whatever content they dished up, and I'd never do that. Obviously I do look at my phone on public transport but she was relentless... watch, scroll, watch, scroll, dismiss, watch, like, scroll, watch, scroll, watch. These weren't people she actually followed, not all of them, they were curated posts and gobbets of marketing content, perhaps also viewpoints on social issues of dubious origin. But I'd never ever surrender my on-train entertainment to a succession of posts I had no control over - I follow particular people for a reason - nor would I sanction an endless diet of promoted content. She also had a bottle of vapour-distilled electrolyte-heavy Smart Water in her rucksack, but you already know I wouldn't do that.
Another passenger had a basket on wheels decorated in a floral pattern, and I'd never do that. OK I say that now because I'm still sufficiently fit and healthy to be able to carry my own purchases, but even if one day that's no longer an option I'm certain I'd never get a basket on wheels and buy the floral version.
Someone of uncertain age and sex had their hood up over their face, and I'd never do that. I don't wear hoodies for a start - if it rains I just get wet - and even if I did I'd never have the hood up while inside.
One of the male passengers had his hair in a man bun, and I'd never do that. I'm fortunate that I still could if I wanted, I've not lost any of it yet, but my judgement is that it wouldn't suit me and I'd look a right knob if I tried.
There was also a passenger wearing a face covering, and I thought who am I to judge, if you want to do that go ahead, it's not hurting anyone, I'm sure you have your reasons, even though I'd never do that now.
As we pulled into Stratford one of the passengers stood up and his lanyard dangled free, and I'd never do that. I hated my lanyard when I was at work and kept it in my pocket, even though that was technically in contravention of HR protocol. But at least I was only ever expected to wear it at work, and yet this man was willingly wearing it in public announcing to all and sundry who he was. His name was Joachim Kane because it said so in the corner of his lanyard in easy to read letters, alongside the name of his place of work which was at a well-known location. Obviously his name wasn't really Joachim Kane, I've made that up because I have no intention of contributing further to his lack of privacy, but I could have used his real name because it's that easy when someone has their identity in plain view around their neck. Personally I always made sure my lanyard was hidden from view the second I left the office because I understood the importance of not revealing too much about myself in public, but I worry the younger generation has no such qualms because they've been moulded to make life easy for those in positions of surveillance, and I'd never do that.
It was only five minutes on the train but I saw so many people doing so many things I'd never do... and the important thing is that's fine. Just because I wouldn't do it doesn't mean they shouldn't, it's a free country, and none of them were lesser people purely because they acted differently to me. We shouldn't sit there endlessly passing judgement on others because they they're doing something we'd never do, that's their prerogative, indeed how much better life would be if we simply observed others and didn't judge them by our own personal standards. I hope I'd never do that.
This is the town of Purley.
It's on three OS Landranger maps.
You know Landrangers, they're the pink ones. There are 204 Landranger maps, each drawn to a scale of 1:50000, and between them they cover the whole of Great Britain and its islands.
Most people live on one OS Landranger map. The maps tend to align precisely with their neighbours so places appear on one or the other. But sometimes the maps overlap, generally slightly, nudged for reasons of geography and topology. Several people therefore live on two OS Landranger maps, usually near the edge of both.
I live on one OS Landranger Map [177, East London], but if I lived in Whitechapel I'd be on two OS Landranger maps because [176, West London] covers that as well. London's a bit of a special case for OS Landrangers because 176 and 177 overlap to cover the capital and also overlap with all the pink maps around the edge.
Purley gets lucky because it falls in the bottom right corner of [176, West London], the bottom left corner of [177, East London] and along the top of [187, Dorking & Reigate]. You might not think being on the edge of three maps is lucky, but it's a lot more useful than being on the edge of just one.
Other places around London on three OS Landranger maps include Enfield [166, 176, 177], Billericay in Essex [176, 177, 178], Chobham in Surrey [175, 176, 186] and Snodland in Kent [177, 178, 188]. Around the country the environs of Perth [52, 53, 58], Berwick [67, 74, 75], Scarborough [94, 100, 101], Wisbech [131, 142, 143] and Nailsea [171, 172, 182] are also on three maps, but they're very much the exception.
I think only one place in Great Britain appears on four OS Landranger maps and it's just north of Leominster in Herefordshire. Here maps [137, Church Stretton & Ludlow], [138, Kidderminster & Wyre Forest], [148, Presteigne & Hay on Wye] and [149, Hereford and Leominster] coincide, creating an overlap 3 miles wide and 5 miles deep. Villages in this rare fourway space include Eyton, Luston and Larpole, also residents of Ridgemoor Road on the very northern edge of Leominster.
If you want to check this for yourself, the place to look is the summary map on the back cover of any OS Landranger map. You can find a useful jpg copy of that map here. Alternatively the Ordnance Survey has an amazing Map Selector online, its function to identify all their maps that cover a particular place. Enter the name of a place or click a particular point and a very precise set of map boundaries appears. You may have to turn off the Explorer maps to see the Landrangers more clearly.
Which brings me to the Explorers, the orange ones. There are 403 Explorer maps, each drawn to a scale of 1:25000. Some are larger than others, particularly the OL (Outdoor Leisure) maps that cover recreational hotspots.
Most people live on one OS Explorer map because these also tend to align precisely with their neighbours. Overlaps exist, but they tend to be even more marginal than Landranger overlaps. You can find a jpg of Britain's OS Explorer maps here.
I live on one OS Explorer Map [162, Greenwich & Gravesend], but if I lived at the other end of Bow Road I'd also be on [173, London North]. The overlap in Bow is only one mile wide, whereas with Landrangers the overlap across central London spans three miles.
This is the Thames at Rotherhithe.
It's on three OS Explorer maps.
Being on three OS Explorer maps is rare, indeed in London it's unique.
The triple overlap includes the eastern side of the Rotherhithe peninsula as far south as Deptford dockyard, and also the western side of the Isle of Dogs at Millwall. It bulges slightly to the north so residents of Rotherhithe Street don't have to buy a north London map. The overlap marginally fails to include any stations but does include the river pier at Greenland Dock. The maps which overlap here are [173, London North], [161, London South] and [162, Greenwich & Gravesend].
Being on four OS Explorer maps is either extremely rare or non-existent. I haven't yet managed to find a four-way overlap anywhere in Britain, but I haven't scoured the map for long so you might have more luck if you lookyourself.
Update: Two of you have noted that four Explorer maps [OL4, OL5, OL6, OL7] overlap in the heart of the Lake District, but only across two grid squares in the hills west of Grasmere. The summits on all four maps are Calf Crag and Tarn Crag, both part of Wainwright's Central Fells.
This is the centre of Enfield.
It's on five Ordnance Survey maps.
Three Landrangers and two Explorers.
It's on three Landrangers for the same reason that Purley is, but this time on the northern side of the capital. The three Landrangers are [166 Luton & Hertford], [176, West London] and [177, East London].
It's on two Explorers because two of these maps overlap quite seriously up the Lea Valley, namely [173, London North] and [174, Epping Forest & Lea Valley].
Being on five of the Ordnance Survey's premier maps is really special, and this is quite a large area stretching from Crews Hill to Lower Edmonton. If you live here you can buy five maps with your street on, whereas I and most of the country can only buy two.
Hayling Island lies just off the south coast near the mouth of the Solent, just east of Portsmouth. It's England's 7th largest offshore island and 5th most populous, some way behind Wight and Portsea respectively, both of which are nextdoor. It nestles between the tidal fingers of Langstone Harbour and Chichester Harbour and is sometime described as having the shape of an upturned T (although if you have a decent imagination you could do a lot better). It's both a retro holiday destination and a retirement backwater, and unless you've got a boat there's only one way in or out, which is where I'll begin. [Visit Hayling Island][map][map][13 photos]
The first bridge to Hayling Island was built in 1824, prior to which travellers took their chances crossing a tidal causeway called the Wadeway. A railway branch line followed suit 40 years later, though both bridges had serious weight restrictions and tended to close in bad weather. It took until 1956 for a proper concrete road bridge to be built, after which Dr Beeching axed the railway because the cost of bridge repairs was entirely uneconomical. The railway has since become a popular walking/cycle route - the Hayling Billy Trail - and curves a mile south from Havant to the harbour and then a further 3 miles down the main body of the island. I walked that way after my visit to the museum, an easy stroll, but was very glad I deviated across two fields beyond the A27 because I stumbled upon this gorgeous jigsaw-box panorama.
This is the small harbourside village of Langstone, Havant's quaintest corner, where quirky buildings meet the lapping waters of watersports nirvana. The most obviously photogenic building is the black tower of a former windmill, its exterior tarred as protection against sea winds and with a rare tidemill alongside. A little further up the one-sided High Street is the Royal Oak, a dreamy pub with views of kayakers and passing yachts, then a teensy walk-innable chapel with boards of historical photos. The conservation area also includes Langstone Towers, an odd domed building which in its time has been a military hospital, Nevil Shute's aeronautical works and a pre-Scalextric factory. A teetery path hugs the harbourside to an even more popular pub, The Ship Inn, where I watched four blokes unload a very homemade raft from a trailer and head out onto the mirrored water. I suspect a lot of people get no closer to Hayling Island than this.
The railway crossing may be gone, bar a chain of wooden foundations across the harbour, but the two breakwaters remain fully accessible. The northern arm curves out beside an artificial creek to a low chalky drop where the bridge once launched. Here I disturbed two fish-seekers, one an angler with two rods hanging over the former wharfside, the other a startled heron. The southern arm is higher and properly surfaced, thus providing a useful midstream jumping-off point for locals with inflatable dinghies, canoes or whatever. Since 2015 it's also supported a restored semaphore signal, thankfully set to Stop. These days it's a good 20 minute walk from one tip to the other, this across the low-slung stilted road bridge, from the deserted tollhouse on the mainland to the applegreen garage on the island.
On the island's northwest coast is Creek Point, now the Hayling Billy Nature Reserve. Step through the hedge to find yourself on the lip of a dishevelled sequence of manmade lagoons formed from reclaimed mud flats. In the 19th century these were used as overwintering oyster beds, from which 700 tonnes of oysters were exported by train to Whitstable every summer to complete their growth spurt there. Although the bund walls are long collapsed the site has been successfully transformed into a breeding and roosting site for multiple seabirds. From the shore I watched a swirling black flock in collective ballet above the creeks, then turned my eyes to the silhouette of Portsmouth on the far bank of the harbour, so that's two reasons to bring binoculars. Refreshments are provided at Hayling Billy Bites, a foodvan parked on the former site of North Hayling halt, offering ice creams or bacon rolls depending on the season.
The Hayling Billy Trail continues alluringly down the west side of the island, heading towards what's now a community theatre in a goods shed at the terminus. I instead broke off here to see something of the centre of the island, a patchwork of fields through which a single main road delivers all the beachbound traffic via a chain of tiny hamlets and car-park-friendly pubs. I decided against visiting the only Grade I listed building on the island, 12th century St Peter'schurch, because it was too far away along dubious footpaths and might well have been locked when I got there. Instead I waited for a southbound bus amid a cluster of rough and ready postwar bungalows, just as the two residents of the turquoise house opposite returned home after getting married! Their driver whipped out a bottle of champagne from her boot before positioning the happy couple beside the pink-ribboned limo for a celebratory photo, then let them head inside while she lit up a cigarette. It's not all holidays on Hayling.
The number 30 bus relocated me to the far corner of the island so I could walk its full four mile width from east to west. The beach here faces across the mouth of Chichester Harbour to the glorious sandy spit at West Wittering, which looked much more rammed with sunseekers than the handful of us here on the Hampshire side. The foreshore at Eastoke Point is liberally scattered with granite rock groynes in an attempt to prevent flooding, backed up by a high shingle beach because nobody's taking any chances. The council thoughtfully preserved 45 acres of heath and dunes at Sandy Point, these kept permanently human-free, but beyond that it's streets of holiday lets and dream retirement homes all the way. Those facing the shingle along Southdown Road each have their own set of steps through the flood defence, some with saltproof gardens decorated with questionable statuary, others with sun terraces where pugs snooze while their owners redden on bloated loungers.
Eventually the houses step back so that Hayling Island's beachfront road can slot in, although 'Sea Front' never gets too close to the shingle, leaving a broad scrappy stripe as a recreational barrier. Into this nomansland slips the Hayling Seaside Railway, a mile-long 2ft narrow gauge line operated by a merry cabal of local retirees. It kicks off opposite a shuttered cafe whose painted menu I considered a Wimpyesque work of art, and continues via a halt at the foot of the road where the island keeps its proper shops. The western terminus is at Beachlands, site of Hayling's former Butlins, where pie and mash and fish and chips coalesce with slot machines, pirate golf and the family-friendly Funland amusement park. Its most obvious attraction is the runaway mine train rollercoaster which zigzags above the shingle, but numerous other rides have been shipped in from minor theme parks elsewhere, and please remember Shirts Must Be Worn At All Times.
A lot of the seafront beyond Beachlands is given over to parking, at least in summer, like a sponge to soak up the stream of traffic pouring down from the mainland. There used to be even more beyond the lone beachside pub but the sea swiped it two winters back, the coastline retreating closer to the pitch and putt as the council controversially prioritises defences elsewhere. I'd like to have roamed that way past the dunes at Gunner Point, but realised I had no time because I needed to make a beeline for the ferry at the island's western tip. That meant passing the WW2 Heavy Anti-aircraft gunsite at Sinah Common, now a scheduled monument, and also the former holiday camp at Sinah Warren where BestMate used to be dragged most summers, now a slightly more upmarket hotel. The main road to West Beach is over a mile long, intermittently pavementless and has zero inbound public transport connections, so I was impressed to find the Pride of Hayling packed with passengers.
A lot of them were cyclists, the ferry being small but optimised for bikes. The fare for crossing to Portsea Island is £3.50 and they don't come round to collect it, they expect you head inside the cabin and reach up with cash or card. With departures only every 45 minutes many choose to wait instead in the adjacent Ferry Boat Inn, a watering hole as packed at the weekend as the beach below, as if this is a far as many daytrippers from Portsmouth get. The crossing is a mildly exhilarating chug across the mouth of Langstone Harbour, the fruits of watersport all around, although it doesn't take long and our first passengers were disembarking less than three minutes after casting off. Bus connections on the Portsea side are much better organised, but I skipped that for the chance to walk east to west across a second island, i.e. four more miles to the mouth of Portsmouth Harbour. Hayling's a lot lot quieter, I can tell you.
Until yesterday I hadn't been to Havant.
But I can no longer say I haven't been to Havant.
Because I have.
Havant is a large town in southeast Hampshire on the way to Portsmouth.
If you only get as far as West Sussex you Havant gone far enough.
They Havant got many old buildings because most of the town burnt in a fire in 1760. Only the church and a row of cottages survived.
The church is St Faith's and they found Roman remains in the foundations. It's very central. The cottages are now a pub called The Old House At Home. They say a wooden post in the pub was once used to tether England's last dancing bear, but they Havant provided any evidence.
Havant is one of those rare towns with a crossroads where North Street meets East Street meets South Street meets West Street. West has the best shops, North has the big Waitrose, and South and East Havant got much.
The Meridian shopping centre is on two floors. Head upstairs for school uniforms and second hand Warhammer figures. Stay downstairs for bagged sweets and the street piano. Galvanize by the Chemical Brothers was playing in the gents toilets and I Havant experienced that before.
The bus station was opened by a local councillor in 2006. They Havant got any leaflets.
Havant has some of the best chalk karst springs in the UK. One bubbles up into a small pool just south of the church. The water was so pure that a parchment-making business operated alongside for many centuries. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on Havant parchment! But they Havant made any since 1936 and the mill's now flats.
As a tourist, the best place to go in Havant is the Museum inside The Spring Arts and Heritage Centre. They have the actual Wedgwood nursery rhyme tiles from the children's ward at Havant War Memorial Hospital. I also learned that Havant is famous for making many famous things. Scalextric! (1956-1970) Kenwood mixers! (1962-1999) Tampax! (1959-2004) They have a Kenwood mixer room and a Tampax dispenser but they Havant got a full Scalextric circuit.
To pick up a Havant Heritage Trail leaflet, look in the research room at the back of the museum. Each of the 34 locations around town has an elliptical blue plaque, but many of them have faded away because they Havant thought about long term legibility.
Havant boasts the UK's longest running community radio station which is Angel Radio. They've been playing music from the 1920s to the 1960s since the 1990s. They broadcast on FM, DAB and normally online, but at the moment they Havant got a website due to technical issues. Today's programmes include Simon's Sounds Of The 40s, Willie McIntyre Turns Back The Clock and Angel At Night With Eileen.
Havant's quite ordinary - not too posh, not too rundown. My favourite story confirming the town's ordinariness is that when residents were asked to vote on a new name for the Civic Centre in 2011, the winner with sixteen thousand votes was Public Service Plaza. I Havant got a photo of that, sorry.
HYPERLOCAL HISTORY MONTH: Looking forward (I'm not sure things happening in September really count as History, but they are Hyperlocal)
Major roadworks at Bow Interchange
Serious cloggage is coming to the Bow Roundabout in September (and maybe beyond). I can tell this because TfL have announced temporary timetables are being introduced on bus routes 25, 205, 276, 277, 425 and D7 starting on Saturday 31st August. This is "to help with reliability during roadworks at the Bow Roundabout and displacement of traffic onto local roads", which sounds like it could be very messy because there are so few local roads to displace traffic onto. The 277 and D7 don't go anywhere near the Bow Roundabout, suggesting this will be serious displacement.
I've checked for futureroadworks online and discovered two possible candidates. In both cases the owner of the roadworks is TfL.
» High Street Stratford(12 Aug 2024 - 2 March 2025): "Works to include but not limited to kerb realignment, full depth reconstruction and resurfacing and traffic signal works as part of Silvertown Tunnel Monitoring and Mitigation Works."
» Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach(9 Sep 2024 - 16 Jan 2025): There are no further details at this time, but the ⛔ symbol appears to be located in the underpass under the roundabout and that would be four months of misery.
• Robin Edwards [Conservative]: Robin is Deputy Chairman Political for Stratford & Bow Conservatives. He stood in this ward in the 2022 election and got 2% of the vote.
• Rupert George [Green]: Rupert is the Green Party's national Policy Communication Manager. He stood as a candidate for Harrow West in the General Election and got 5% of the vote.
• Abdi Mohamed [Labour]: Abdi is a Public Affairs Manager for the charity Scope, also Chair of the GMB union's London group for BAME workers, also a local school governor.
• Siobhan Proudfoot [Liberal Democrats]: Siobhan stood in a neighbouring ward in Bromley-by-Bow in the 2022 election and got 2½% of the vote.
This is for the council by-election triggered by the previous councillor being elected as a Labour MP. Interestingly the party that runs Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman's Aspire, hasn't put up a candidate. The by-election takes places on on 12th September.
309 bus straightened out
From Saturday 31 August route 309 will be diverted within the Aberfeldy estate in Poplar. This follows a consultation last summer. Buses will now run direct along Abbott Road in both directions and will no longer serve Blair Street or the shopping centre. The stated intention is "to support increased demand for bus services on either side of Abbott Road as new homes and communities continue to develop". The unstated intention is to speed up buses by not twiddling so much. However...
In the consultation, the expectation was that a new westbound bus stop would be added alongside Braithwaite Park, but this has not yet happened. This means the effect of the 309's route change will be to close five bus stops and add no new ones, which is a pretty poor show and helps nobody locally. Some residents at the eastern end of the estate will now be over 500m from a westbound bus stop, which wasn't anticipated in the consultation and isn't what was promised. Presumably TfL know why they're rerouting the 309 before adding the necessary extra bus stop, but what a slap in the face for one of Tower Hamlets' poorest communities.
Open House comes to E3
Five E3 properties are opening up for Open House next month. I mention this not because you should go but in case you want to start researching your own area. Booking starts next Wednesday.
And that's a proper independent bookshop, not a second hand repository. It's called Bard Books and it opened on 2nd July inside a former Estate Agents at the Mile End end of Roman Road. It looks bright and jolly with flowery tables, shelves of curated paperbacks, a separate children's trolley and books on more serious topics. They've gone big on events like author meets, writers' workshops and toddler gatherings, and are also opening as a bar in the evenings (think wine and a bowl of nocerella olives or an Aperol with babaganoush). As a business it feels much more like something that'd open in Stoke Newington than in Bow, but I guess E3's further along the gentrification conveyor than I thought. I wish them well.
All Points East has started
Can you hear it? I can hear it, pumping across from Victoria Park, thumpty thumpty thump. I think that's Thundercat pounding the bass, later it'll be Victoria Monét and Kaytranada, then the same again all this weekend and next. Tickets for Ezra Collective, Beabadoobee, Jockstrap, LCD Soundsystem and Death Cab For Cutie sold out yonks ago and are helping to subsidise my council tax.
But what you may not know is that for the four days inbetween (that's Monday 19th - Thursday 22nd) the corral in the park opens up for In The Neighbourhood, a community free-for-all. Most of it is school summer holiday filler with sports and joiny-in things, but you can also watch Barbie on the big screen, get your bike fixed, meet Bard Books, do yoga and go for a mindfulness jog with Run Dem Crew. If nothing else it'll be a lot less thumpty thumpty thump for a few evenings.
TfL run all their services to timetable, but increasingly hide these from the public on the assumption we don't need to know.
Bus timetables were some of the first to go under the radar, no longer attempting to list departure and arrival times at main stops along the route. As TfL customer information development manager Mike King said in 2002...
Departure times are now only shown for low frequency routes (those running every 15 minutes or more), while arrival times have been replaced in their entirety by a single strip showing 'off peak journey time in minutes'.
In effect timetables have been replaced by two pieces of information - when is the next bus coming and how long does it usually take to reach my destination. In practice most passengers are only interested in the former.
And 'time to destination' is a very woolly beast, varying with time of day and traffic conditions. For example a journey which can take 18 minutes in the middle of the day might take 35 minutes in the evening peak or 12 minutes late at night. Old style timetables used to take this into account, providing realistic expectations for passengers because they were based on actual schedules used by drivers. But providing a single catch-all time can be highly unrealistic, often hugely misleading, indeed my hunch is that a lot of these journey times are wildly optimistic even in normal conditions.
I've had my doubts about 'off peak journey time in minutes' for many years, but nothing quite clarified it like these two timetables pinned up at bus stop BP outside Waltham Forest Town Hall.
One is for route 123, a longstanding service which runs from here to Ilford and supposedly gets there in 18 minutes.
The other is for the SL2, a new Superloop service which follows EXACTLY THE SAME ROUTE and supposedly gets there in 25 minutes.
There is no way that the all-stopping 123 gets to Ilford station quicker than the express SL2, especially not 7 minutes quicker. At least one of these sets of figures is absolute bolx.
I tested this out by taking an off-peak ride on the SL2 to see how long it really took. In the interests of accuracy I should say I've done this twice and got pretty much the same result both times, which I know isn't exactly proof but it does suggest my data's not wildly inaccurate.
Here's a table of my results.
According to timetable at bus stop
Stop
123 timetable
SL2 timetable
SL2 journey
WF Town Hall
0 mins
0 mins
0 mins
Wood Street
1 mins
2 mins
2 mins
High Road
6 mins
9 mins
8 mins
Gants Hill
12 mins
19 mins
16 mins
Ilford station
18 mins
25 mins
21 mins
» The 123 timetable had already failed by the time we reached Wood Street (formerly Wood Street library), three stops from the start. This is a distance of half a mile which I dont believe is possible in one minute (indeed it'd suggest an average speed of 30mph).
» By High Road my SL2 had been held up by a few lights, one temporary, but was still a tad early according to the timetable. For the 123 to get here in six minutes would require 100% perfect luck with traffic lights and no passengers wanting to board or alight.
» We sped along to Gants Hill, the traffic perfectly smooth for midday on a weekday, but allegedly the 123 can get here 4 minutes faster. I think not.
» And Ilford station took the SL2 21 minutes, again faster than timetabled but still implausibly slower than the 123's 18 minutes.
TfL also provide bus timetables online, impractical drilldown webpages which require a lot of clicking to find the times you want. These too provide a list of departure times and 'off-peak journey times in minutes'. And what's intriguing is that they show completely different journey times for both routes.
This time the 123 is timetabled to take rather longer, which is closer to reality. But yet again the all-stopper 123 is scheduled to pass along the route quicker than the express SL2, in this case by about a minute, and again I call out this timetable data as implausible ill-thought-through bolx.
But if you look elsewhere, specifically Robert Munster's excellent website londonbusroutes.net, it's possible to view the proper scheduled timetable for every TfL bus route. I've used this to find the actual timings for the SL2 journey I rode and its shadow 123.
Here at last the express SL2 gets there quicker than the slower 123. But not by much, not by very much at all, indeed only two minutes quicker on a five mile journey from Walthamstow to Ilford. What on earth is the point of running a Superloop service, you might wonder, if it's only going to speed you across London two minutes faster than a normal bus. Thankfully my driver made no attempt to 'regulate the service' by pulling over and lingering annoyingly at a bus stop, preferring to plough on ahead of schedule and get us to our destinations quicker.
In summary, the bolxest timetable of them all is the 123's timetable at the bus stop. This is so far from reality that I suspect it's a cut and paste error, or based on a stupidly inaccurate model, or numbers picked at random by an idiot on work experience. It's also ridiculous that two out of three timetable formats have the Superloop trailing the ordinary bus, and in the third case beating it only marginally. There's no coherence here, which is so often the way when it comes to TfL and the presentation of customer-facing information.
In a built-up city like London bus timetables can only ever be best fit, which is why the savvy traveller is on their app to check arrival times rather than scrutinising panels at bus stops. But rather than diminishing the role of timetables we should instead be trying to improve them, and not be presenting fictional timings that serve only to mislead.
Greater London contains around 2000 National Grid squares, each 1km by 1km in size. What I like to do, very occasionally, is pick one at random, visit it and writeaboutwhat'sthere.
All the better if it's somewhere I'm not familiar with, but with random numbers you can never be sure.
Which random grid square did I pick?TQ2492 Where is it?Frith Manor in the borough of Barnet, a semi-rural backwater just north of Mill Hill East and just west of Woodside Park on the Northern line. An estate agent would call it Mill Hill/Finchley borders. Have I been before? Obviously yes, because I've been to every grid square in London, but somehow I've only ever grazed TQ2492 for about five minutes, in this case while walking the lower end of the Folly Brook. Have you been? Probably not unless you're local or have ridden the 221 bus.
The best place to start is probably the junction of Frith Lane and Partingdale Lane, near the primary school, partly because it has a bus stop but mainly because it's the end of the driveway to Frith Manor. For over four centuries this was the only habitation in the grid square, originally Tudor, later a farm with holdings across the valley. Dairy cattle arrived in great numbers in the 1880s, at one point a 200 acre enterprise. In 1958 the Express Dairy was about to switch from horse-drawn delivery to the buzz of the electric milk float, so decided to make Frith Manor their rest home for redundant horses. Here they lived out their retirement in fields on the edge of the Green Belt, occasionally sent out to showcase the good name of the company at such prestigious events as the Regent's Park Easter Parade and the Watford International Horse Show.
Today the site of the manor is occupied by The London Equestrian Centre, a somewhat presumptuous title for a family-run riding school that's been here since Express upped and left. They have ponies called Guinness, Tattie and Wasabi as well as several others with more sensible names, plus as a cafe offering Wine & Dine and Classic English Afternoon tea. Be sure to get the right entrance because the adjacent driveway leads instead to the Frith Manor Equestrian Centre, a completely separate livery option. To see the site more clearly take the paddocky footpath which detours round the back of both stables, although you sense the owners would rather you wouldn't (HORSES IN THE NEXT 4 FIELDS YOU WALK ACROSS. PLEASE DO NOT APPROACH FEED OR TOUCH HORSES. ALL DOGS MUST BE KEPT ON A LEAD).
The second arrival in the grid square was the British Army who bought up Bittacy Farm in 1904 and opened Inglis Barracks. Every soldier recruited for the Middlesex Regiment during WW1 was initially processed here. In 1961 this large triangular site became home to the Royal Engineers Home Postal & Courier Communications Depot, effectively the Forces' Post Office, with multiple barracks to accommodate the mail sorters and logisticians. Even the Queen popped by to pay tribute, this in 1982, unveiling a bronze copy of the famousstatue called Letter From Home. But the steady march of digital communication set in motion a future you can probably guess - the barracks closed in 2007, were sold off in 2012 and are still evolving into thousands of homes. If you've stepped out of Mill Hill East station and spotted a sales office and cranes, that's Millbrook Park.
This grid square only covers the top bit of the development, phases 3, 4 and 5, where the land is much higher and the flats are less dense. They spread out from a central greenspace called Panoramic Park from which the skykine of central-ish London can be seen, although I suspect the view will be sacrificed when they start building phases 7 and 8. Long brick-faced blocks and smart three-storey townhouses spread out along labyrinthine fingers, each quiet enough for playing in the street and with a tortuous drive to the exit. As a pedestrian I found the most difficult thing was finding a way out into the adjacent Green Belt, this not having been deemed a priority, without even a teensy footpath breaking the security fence where the barracks' back entrance used to be.
I eventually wound my way back round to Partingdale Lane, one of the other age-old trackways hereabouts, now a useful cut-through with a punishing width restriction. Here is located the only listed building in the grid square, which I'm glad I researched before I went because I'd never had guessed (nor spotted it) otherwise. It's a Cold Warcontrol centre, a single-storey surface blockhouse built secretly circa 1951, and would have co-ordinated civil defence in Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey, Islington, Westminster and the City of London in the event of aerial catastrophe. Identical war rooms were built in Cheam, Chislehurst and Wanstead. But as nuclear capability ramped up they became practically obsolete, not being underground, and were all decommissioned in 1958.
English Heritage listed Mill Hill in 2002 as "an exceptionally well-preserved example of a 1950s War Room", although this didn't stop it being converted into a private home in 2009 with an additional glass-fronted storey added on top. You won't see it from the road, only its new name Planet House emblazoned on the security gates. But it looks stunning in the 2020 sales brochure - a true supervillain's lair - now with two kitchens, 1.5m-thick walls, a 956-bottle wine cellar and a swimming pool under the patio where Barnet's civil defence team never burrowed. All I got was a sneaky glimpse of the upper terrace from the neighbouring bridleway, as yet unobscured by intervening trees.
That bridleway is Burtonhole Lane, another ancient track which still heads into deep country because housing never got this far. It dips northwards through a tunnel of foliage past multiple paddocks and a cloudy ditch... and a strange alien presence in the neighbouring field. This is the Mill Hill electricity transmission station, a hum of silver coils hidden away where hardly anyone will see it, and far longer than you'd imagine it needs to be. Beyond that is the backside of Mill Hill Village Sports Club, the cricket pitch furthest from the pavilion, hence where the 4th team were exiled on Saturday when they lost to Old Camdenians. And at a remote T-junction of three footpaths, all called Burtonhole Lane, a remoter track heads deeper into the valley below Totteridge.
It's hard to believe this is the same 1km×1km grid square with the modern housing estate and the Wine & Dine meal deal. Here a thin path weaves singly through deciduous woodland, corralled on one side by rickety fencing and on the other by semi-visible barbed wire. Robins hop out between bindweed and thistles, oak trees rise above the last of the summer flowers and occasional butterflies zigzag by. Before long the ground becomes scrappier and more thickety, with blackberries free for the taking and bees at work in the undergrowth. Dry cracked clay underfoot suggests a mudbath in the winter, especially if you bear off up the sidetrack towards Darland's Lake nature reserve. Officially the footbridge across the Folly Brook is in TW2493 so out of scope, but turn right and you're soon back in the zone as the nettle-shielded stream aims for the back garden fences of civilisation.
The farthest fingers of Woodside Park Garden Suburb protrude into eastern side of the grid square. Fred Ingram kickstarted the estate in the early 1930s by proposing a development of rustic three bedroom semis, spaciously arrayed. He named the new roads after rural areas of Sussex he'd known as a child, hence Chanctonbury Way, Cissbury Ring, Rodmell Slope and Pyecombe Corner. Streets to the north of Folly Brook are slightly smarter, with houses along the curling avenue of Michleham Down blessed with leaded lights and a mild sprinkling of Range Rovers. Further south the density is a little higher and the more likely it is that the front door will look like it was bought from a catalogue, but they have the better bus service so they're laughing.
Along Lullington Garth is one of the most useless 'Missing Dog' posters I've ever seen. It alerts readers to a collarless dog lost five miles away over six months ago, and refuses to state the bitch's name "to avoid members of the public calling her and scaring her off further". But the posters on the edge of the paddock by the playing field are perhaps more dismissive, urging passers-by in large red capital letters not to feed Ned the 17 year-old donkey, Alfie the 38-year old cob or Sonic the 10 year-old Shetland pony because it makes them "very poorly". Instead they while away their days in a plywood stable with a bathtub to drink out of, at this jarring interface between city's edge and country's fringe. It's more random than most, is TQ2492.
Greater London contains around 2000 National Grid squares, each 1km by 1km in size. What I like to do, very occasionally, is pick one at random, visit it and write about what's there.
