In this series I'm taking the train one stop beyond the Greater London boundary, getting off and seeing what's there. Today that means Chipstead, one stop beyond Wooodmansterne on the Tattenham Corner line. For positioning purposes it lies southwest of Coulsdon, a tad into Surrey, and spreads across a large area of dippy chalk downland. As suburbia goes it's top notch, a lot of rustic detacheds on hillsides and way out of your price bracket. Do come.
Chipstead station opened in 1897, a fortunate byproduct of the race to bring trains to the edge of Epsom racecourse. The stations hereabouts are nominally perverse, with Kingswood in the parish of Chipstead, Chipstead in the parish of Woodmansterne and Woodmansterne just across the border in Greater London. As ever the arrival of the railway nudged the residential centre of gravity much closer to the station, its platforms perched on a contour above the valley bottom. Living nearby must get irritating because a public footpath crosses the tracks just to the west so drivers have to whistle every time they approach, which is four times an hour in total. The station building was sold off as a private residence 30 years ago so its owners may need the best earplugs of all.
Chipstead's shops fill a long gabled parade which steps down from the station to the main road. It's fronted with herringbone brickwork, topped by flats with diamond-latticed windows and occupied by none of your usual rubbish. Expect to find a vintner, a vintage butcher, a private surgery, two cafes and a salon with such retro signage you could imagine Margo from the Good Life emerging with a new do. The newsagent sells a top class range of magazines and displays 'The Times' on its awning, which feels about right. The biggest disappointment is that the sole takeaway option is a Tandoori restaurant because you'd hope Chipstead would have a chippie but it doesn't. Fans of fried fish instead need to drive to Mr Chips on Chipstead Valley Road in Coulsdon near Woodmansterne station, because I told you local names were complicated.
The main road along the valley is Outwood Lane, which I see is the B2032 so expect me to come back in seven years time. It starts near The Midday Sun, a disappointingly feast-focused pub, and winds on past Tesco and the water treatment works. The 166 bus almost makes it to the foot of Station Parade before bearing off for the hills and the lavender fields. The fingerpost at the mini roundabout is pristine white so hints at a strong communal presence behind the scenes. In fact there are two, the Chipstead Residents' Association and the Chipstead Village Preservation Society, and I can't work out if they compete or complement each other in the never-ending battle to keep things exactly as they are. The CVPS knocks up a very proper noticeboard whatever.
But the real treasure here is across the valley on the chalk escarpment and that's Banstead Woods. They've been here a while, Anne Boleyn used to own them, as the curve of information boards by the car park explains. And they conceal all sorts of delights, some temporary and some plain unexpected like the sculpted form of a wooden lion at the first fork in the path on the way up. Next is a wooden lamppost with a girl standing underneath, and it turns out this is because the woods host a Narnia-themed nature trail based on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and she's meant to be Lucy. I nearly missed the White Witch because she was tucked behind a tree but I gasped audibly when I saw someone had carved a wardrobe you can actually walk through, brushing through four hanging jackets on the way.
Much better signed, and considerably longer, is the Banstead Woods Nature Trail. It leads deeper into the woods for a more satisfying stroll, and is much augmented at present by multiple patches of proper bluebells. These grow alongside much of the main path, and if you step off along some minor track you have every chance of finding yourself in a dappled glade of bobbing blue. I loved how quiet it all was, the weekly Parkrun having just evacuated, and like them I was almost tempted to go round twice. On the edge of the woods the land falls away to flatter meadows on the valley floor where the locals prefer to exercise their dogs, and where no river runs because that's chalk bedrock for you and whatever created all this has long since drained away.
On the far hillside Chipstead's finer houses spread out along quiet lanes and various private cul-de-sacs. Density was never a concern when these were built and road access never a priority, so householders enjoy whopping plots and pedestrians are very much an afterthought. I had to dodge several vehicles after the pavement ran out and was nearly reversed into at a minor passing place. Many of the front hedges are thick, high and impeccably shaped so I suspect the local topiarists do a roaring trade. But if you keep walking eventually a cluster of older smaller houses appears, this the heart of the original village where the pond still is and the post office used to be. The White Hart is Georgian and looks much more like the kind of pub a proper Chipsteader would frequent.
Up here is where the sport hides out, including the bowls club, a private tennis hideaway, football, cricket and a better-than-usual rugby club. The village hall has a prominent spot by the crossroads but is outdone for capacity by an unlikely entertainment venue up a back lane. This is the Courtyard Theatre, home to the Chipstead Players whose am-dram triumphs merited converting a former stable into a 97-seater back in 1995. Their next production is Terrance Rattigan's Separate Tables at the end of next month, then Brief Encounter in July and Dracula in the autumn, and you can count me impressed. I was also impressed by the bluebells in the orchard, but less so by the jobsworth CVPS sign on the gatepost.
You are very welcome to enter but you do so at your own risk.
Keep your eyes open for trip hazards.
Take extra care in high winds.
Protect the natural environment.
Leave no trace of your visit.
Keep dogs under close control.
ENJOY YOUR VISIT.
The parish church is nowhere near what most people think of as Chipstead, being over a mile from the shops and the station down lanes you wouldn't want to risk after winter Evensong. It's called St Margaret's and claims a history dating back to 675 AD, although the earliest part of the current stone church was built in 1150, the tower is more 1200 and the supposed 1000 year-old yew outside the entrance toppled in the Great Storm. I would have liked to go inside and see the memorial to Sir Edward Banks, the 18th century builder of Waterloo, Southwark and London Bridges, but the door was sensibly locked. I don't think June Brown is commemorated here, inside or out, but the real life Dot Cotton was a regular churchgoer and lived in Chipstead too.
You don't have to step far from Church Green to find yourself in another village altogether, this being Hooley, a linear outpost despoiled by the passage of the A23. They have a separate Residents Association and less exciting noticeboards, many of the posters on which are actually about Chipstead. For a sprawling non-nucleated village Chipstead displays a remarkable cohesion rarely seen elsewhere, but unless you live near the station you'll be relying on your car a lot.
In late April the seasons move on from pink to blue, from blossom to bells. These then are the weekends for a bluebell stroll, a rare treat before the flowers fade and summer greens overwhelm all.
But where best to enjoy a full-on floral display? One of the places that always puts on a fine show is Myddelton House Gardens in Enfield, so when I found myself nearby yesterday I dropped in for a wander.
Not Myddelton House again? I think this must be the fifth time you've written about it, do you have no better inspiration these days?
Michael | 26.04.25 - 1:14 a.m. |
I think you'll find it should be Myddleton House? DG you get this wrong every time, although I admit it is a very common misspelling.
Greg | 26.04.25 - 1:38 a.m. |
No it is Myddelton House. He actually got it right this year! I confess this surprised me enormously.
Annie | 26.04.25 - 3:07 a.m. |
Why were you nearby? Were you walking the New River Walk again? Did you take the Weaver line or catch the 327 bus?
Andrew | 26.04.25 - 4:43 a.m. |
Myddelton House used to be served by routes 135 and 144B although the 144B became the 231 in May 1954 and the 135 became the 191 in September 1982.
Steve | 26.04.25 - 5:22 a.m. |
Please shut up about bloody BUS ROUTES.
Peter | 26.04.25 - 6:58 a.m. |
Myddelton House's gardens are amazing thanks to Edward Bowles, a self-taught Victorian horticulturist who grew up here and went on to spend most of his waking hours planting and grafting. He rose high in the RHS, had numerous plants named after him, wrote several books about bulbed flowers and even became known as The Crocus King.
The current owners of the garden are the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, who used a half million pound Heritage lottery grant to restore the site and who continue to employ a crack team of gardeners who do absolutely sterling work. Entrance is free, although £2 donations are encouraged in a box by the entrance.
The Queen used to be married to Edward's great-great-nephew, i.e. Andrew Parker Bowles, and she turned up for the grand reopening in 2011 and planted a peach tree.
I still can't get used to the Queen not being Elizabeth but that Camilla woman...
Paul | 26.04.25 - 1:25 a.m. |
Crocuses do not grow from bulbs they grow from corms (also known as bulbotubers).
Nic | 26.04.25 - 2:10 a.m. |
Dunderhead. The plural of crocus is croci.
Tom | 26.04.25 - 5:36 a.m. |
Both plurals are acceptable but 'crocuses' is generally preferred.
Mel | 26.04.25 - 5:58 a.m. |
Why are we discussing crocuses?! It is late April they are all dead.
Harry | 26.04.25 - 6:21 a.m. |
One of the finest current displays can be found alongside the long crescent lawn, which in Edward's day was the path of the New River. It's known as the Tulip Terrace and in Edward's day it's where Edward's Tulip Tea was hosted on his birthday in May. This year the tulips are at their peak right now in April, and beautifully augmented by the pink blossom of the Judas tree in the background.
Below the Tulip Terrace are the nursery beds, the kitchen garden and several glasshouses you can walk through. There are also a lot of old people because Myddelton House is very much the kind of place that attracts pensioners of a green-fingered bent. They wander the gardens, poke at the beds, say "oh how lovely" a lot and inevitably end up in the cafe.
The cafe is in the visitor centre and offers very reasonably priced hot drinks, jacket potatoes, pasties and cream teas. If the cafe is busy you may find yourself in the tiny carriage shed which doubles up as overspill and a small museum. Perhaps you could enjoy a ham and tomato panini while admiring Edward's spade and ice skates.
You forgot to mention Enfield's old Market Cross in the pergola garden.
David | 26.04.25 - 1:04 a.m. |
You forgot to mention that in the 1960s the New River here was filled in using spoil from the newly-dug Victoria line.
Ewan | 26.04.25 - 2:52 a.m. |
You forgot to mention the ostriches. Both of them.
Victoria | 26.04.25 - 4:01 a.m. |
I can't believe how much you forgot to mention! Are you having a Senior Moment DG or are you merely exercising your editorial prerogative?
Martin | 26.04.25 - 5:39 a.m. |
But for bluebells you need to walk down to the far end, past the pond and the alpine meadow. The blue flowers here aren't bluebells, don't be fooled, they're scillas and camassias. Only when you reach the rock garden, which was Edward's favourite and which is where he was buried, do the bluebells truly kick off.
A non-ostentatious summerhouse provides shelter from spring sun or April showers. A few dainty paths thread around the site. The humpy ground surrounds three clay pools, most of which are empty at present. At the foot is a stream that feeds the Turkey Brook, across which is a gate which ought to lead to the local public footpath but is always locked.
To be fair it's not London's finest display of bluebells, more a fine sprinkling, so don't let me get your hopes up. I'd hate you to schlep all this way and then be disappointed not to see a perfect bobbing carpet. If you want proper bluebells I'd direct you to Lesnes Abbey Wood in Abbey Wood, Chalet Wood in Wanstead, Emmetts Garden in Kent or the Ashridge Estate in Herts. You probably have your own favourites.
Dockey Wood is absolutely spectacular.
Mike | 08.05.18 - 11:37 a.m. |
Perivale Wood is fabulous, but having a year off this year.
Pat | 27.10.20 - 9:09 a.m. |
Plenty of bluebells in Highgate Woods.
Johnny | 03.05.21 - 5:34 p.m. |
The woodlands around Kemnal Manor have loads of bluebells in spring.
K | 16.06.22 - 5:24 p.m. |
Heartwood Forest near St Albans is worth revisiting.
Andrew | 14.01.24 - 6:26 p.m. |
But Myddelton House Gardens are worth a visit any time, varying splendidly with the seasons, and all thanks to Edward Bowles the Crocus King.
25 years ago today I bought a filing cabinet. It might be useful, I thought, plus I do have a lot of paper and official documents so it'd be much better to file them away. To be more accurate my parents bought the filing cabinet for me, which was very kind of them, and I treated them to lunch at The Beagle afterwards. I wouldn't have been able to haul the cabinet up to the first floor by myself because it was heavy even when it was empty. Also we had to take it straight back to Staples for a replacement because the drawers didn't open, so in fact they helped me haul the cabinet upstairs twice.
I filled it later that evening while I was watching Castaway 2000 on the TV. I'd also bought lots of drop folders, just like we had in the office, so my phone bills went in one, my car mileage receipts went in another and my bank statements went in another. Actually my bank statements went in several, one for each account, then mortgage documentation, cashpoint receipts and everything. I labelled all the folders by writing on little folded slips of paper in very neat handwriting (Insurance, Electricity, Tax). I even wrote the label for my mobile phone bills in orange pen. It was a three drawer filing cabinet so the top drawer was generally financial, the second drawer was for all my work stuff and the third drawer was initially empty. It didn't stay empty for long.
The filing cabinet has only been shifted once since - once is enough - and now sits in a convenient recess in my bedroom. I've juggled the contents several times, adding a lifetime of utility bills and throwing out a lot of work-related bumf I once believed would always be important. Paperwork that arrives in the post, such as it does these days, still gets squeezed into the files when I get round to it. But a substantial proportion of what's in that filing cabinet still comes from a millennial era, a time before everything got digitised and paper was still important, so rifling through the drawers can be like flicking back in time.
electric
Date of bill 20 Jun 00 - Please pay £34.93 (412 units at 6.53p per unit)
Bill date 16 Mar 10 - Please pay £64.10 (414 units at 17.86p/10.89 per unit)
Bill date 9 Mar 2020 - Please pay £106.60 (438 units at 18.24p/17.51p per unit)
purchases
5.3.89 Sony Compact Disc Player - £249.95 (from Galaxy Audio Visual, Tottenham Ct Rd)
26.2.00 Nokia 3210e - £49.99
7.5.00 You've earned £7 in Clubcard Vouchers (voucher - 25p off cooking sauces)
28.5.00 Butlers Wharf Chop House - £127.01 (dinner for 3, with Sauvignon Blanc)
9.3.02 BA London Eye - £10 (your flight time is 15.00)
7.2.02 The Streets, Brixton Academy - 2×£15.60 (Stalls Standing)
22.8.03 The Britannia Hotel, Manchester - £98 (2 nights)
5.8.06 Century Falls DVD - £9.97
20.9.09 Annual Travelcard Zones 1 to 3 - £1208
27.4.15 Essential Khaki Straight FF ×2 - £130
TV
13.9.99 TV licence - £101
14.1.02 "Welcome to ITV Digital..."
28.3.02 "As you may already be aware ITV Digital has been placed into administration..."
20.3.03 "You will not be receiving a full refund of what you are owed..." (claim £111.09, likely dividend £2.23)
Time was when you really did need to keep this stuff. Everything arrived by post, on paper - no e-invoices or online accounts. If you ever wanted a refund you needed the receipt, if you wanted to pay your electricity bill you filled in the tear-off slip, and if you ever wanted to tell the gas board they were charging you for the wrong meter you needed years of backdated bills as evidence. They paid up eventually. Completing an expenses claim relied on collecting printouts, seeing how many text messages you'd sent meant scrutinising multiple pages and filing a tax return meant stashing a year of statements safely away. Even now there are still some ID applications which are facilitated by presenting a printed utility bill, which must make life a tad harder for those who've gone resolutely paper-free.
water
31.3.05 water bill - £178.48
10.3.10 water bill - £77.01 (following installation of water meter)
13.3.15 water bill - £99.74
manuals
Radio Controlled Projection Clock
Ferguson 14M2 Portable Colour Television (as seen in photo)
Sony Portable CD Player
Staple Wizard
car
3.3.99 VW Polo (purchase) - £12231.87
9.4.99 Car park fee paid, Basildon Council - 30p
22.5.99 Unleaded petrol - £27 (38.62 litres)
24.9.99 10000 mile service - £99.48 (screenwash £1.60)
14.1.00 Ipswich Body Repair Centre - £150
29.9.01 VW Polo (sale) - £6000
will
"This will dated 9th June 2005 is made by me..."
Some things do still need to be stored away carefully so you can get your hands on them easily. When my broadband vanished and BT customer services asked for my account number, it helped that I had a sheet of paper I could find in seconds on which it was printed. The inventory for my flat on the day I moved in will one day be invaluable. It remains possible that my £3 of Premium Bonds will again come up trumps. The passport photos I found attached to a 1999 driving licence application are remarkably cute.
But while writing this post it's become clear, if it wasn't already, that my filing cabinet includes rather a lot of paperwork that used to be useful but no longer is. 30 years of phone bills is overkill. Petrol receipts from 1999 are unnecessary. The follow-up letter to a dental appointment in 2006 is no longer relevant. Arguably I don't need all my old bank statements, although they do form such a good record of my life that I'd be loathed to get rid. You may have binned all yours years ago, indeed you may have chucked most of everything and never once felt it was a mistake.
What I should do is sit down and thin out my unwieldy paperwork archive, being well aware that much of it is irrelevant and unnecessary. I could probably get through all three drawers in an afternoon or two, chucking hundreds of sheets into the shredder once I'd checked them for importance and nostalgia. The receipt for my very first CD player stays, as do the files marked 'Health', 'Pension' and 'Mortgage', as does everything the taxman might one day want to see, but not all those covering letters, statements and faded printouts that mean nothing any more.
The trouble is that I have a useful place to hide everything out of sight and so I do, because my three convenient drawers mean it's not doing any harm to keep it. It turns out the filing cabinet I bought 25 years ago has enabled me to file away more and more, and that 25 years of paperwork creeps up on you if you do nothing to slim it down.
Have you ever wondered which tube station has the most escalators? In good news we can now answer that question, and more, thanks to an FoI request last week which revealed all. We learnt that 89 stations maintained by London Underground have escalators, and we learned how many there are at each. Here's the Top 10.
1) BANK/MONUMENT (35 escalators)
That is a lot of escalators.
Also a lot of them are recent, like these escalators which were added during the expansion works related to the new Cannon Street entrance. They're numbered 29, 30 and 31, which just goes to show how many escalators there are. The FoI request only gives a total but if you go round with a pen and paper, or if you know where to look online, you can work out where they all go.
1-3: Bank junction to Central line 4-5: District line to Northern line 6-7: Lombard Street entrance (1991) 8-9: Northern line, north end (1991) 10-11: DLR west end (1991) 12-13: DLR east end (1991) 14-15: District line to DLR (1991) 16-19: Walbrook entrance to W&C (2018) 20-22: Northern line to DLR (2022) 23-25: Central line to Northern line (2022) 26-31: Cannon Street entrance to Northern line (2023)
There were only 5 escalators in the good old days of the Bank/Monument 'escalator connection', as depicted on tube maps. Then the DLR came along upping the total to 15 and the most recent expansion more than doubled that to 31.
Except that's not 35, we're four short. It seems likely that whoever complied the FoI request also included Bank's four travelators even though they're not technically escalators. It just goes to show, as we've said many times before, that you can't rely on the information in a TfL FoI request because it may have been compiled in a questionably opaque way. Whatever, in this case it doesn't matter whether it's 31 or 35 because it still beats the second placed station whatever.
2) WATERLOO (26 escalators)
That is also a lot of escalators.
There were 14 before the Jubilee line arrived in 1999 and that added another 10. Except that's not 26, we're two short. Again the discrepancy can be bridged by adding in the two travelators, convincing me that the TfL FoI operative has indeed included them too. It just goes to show that no matter how carefully you phrase an FoI request it can always be misinterpreted, or data can simply be churned out of a spreadsheet without it being what you wanted. Alas in this case it does matter because the third-placed station has 24 escalators too.
3) LIVERPOOL STREET (24 escalators)
That feels like a lot of escalators. The Central line only required 9 escalators so how has the total got so high? The answer is Crossrail which added 9 more between Broadgate and the Elizabeth line platforms, but even that doesn't make the requisite total, we're six short. The full answer must be that 6 escalators on the Moorgate side have also been included. It just goes to show that FoI data often isn't telling you what you think it is, so you should always try to check it before you believe it.
4=) Canary Wharf [Jubilee] (20 escalators) 4=) Tottenham Court Road (20 escalators) 6=) Bond Street (19 escalators) 6=) King's Cross St Pancras (19 escalators) 8=) Canary Wharf [Elizabeth] (17 escalators) 8=) Westminster (17 escalators) 8=) London Bridge (17 escalators)
Canary Wharf has a double labyrinth of escalators, 20 at the Jubilee line station and 17 more for Crossrail. It would take top place with 37 escalators if these stations were linked but they're not so it doesn't. Of the seven stations in this list three stations are served by the Elizabeth line and four by the Jubilee line, because newer lines tend to have a lot more escalators than older lines. For Top 10 purposes it's a shame that so many of these are joint placings.
The other stations with more than 10 escalators are Paddington, Victoria, Oxford Circus, Farringdon, Charing Cross, Piccadilly Circus and Green Park.
No station has 9 escalators, but every other number from 1 to 10 is present.
The most common number of escalators is 2 - there are about 30 stations with two escalators.
(OK, actually the most common number of escalators is 0 - there are almost 200 of those)
And only one station has one escalator, which is Greenford.
It used to have the last remaining woodenescalator on the Underground, but in 2014 they removed that, replaced it with an incline lift and added a new non-wooden escalator. It remains London's least escalatory station.
But this escalator is no longer there.
Further escalator FoI facts The least used station with escalators: Wanstead The most used station without escalators: Finsbury Park The only zone 6 station with escalators: Heathrow Terminal 2,3 The number of escalators beyond zone 3: 12
If you're not following Time Out's newsfeed I worry that you may not be up to date with London's official best things. I am therefore delighted to bring you this list of official bests, as churned out by Time Out's social media editors with deadlines to meet and quotas to fill. This is just April's output, so far.
• Officially the nearest unspoilt village to London is Hambleden, Bucks, according to the Daily Telegraph.
• Officially Bromley-by-Bow West is London's 9th most-gentrified neighbourhood, according to consultants WPI Economics.
• Officially London is the second-greenest city in the world, according to AI company Freepik.
• Officially London's best museum café is at the V&A, according to the Guardian.
• Officially London's best Mexican restaurant is Cavita in Marylebone, according to travel journalist Daniela Toporek.
• Officially the EN5 postcode district is the most expensive outside Central London, according to property broker Jefferies James.
• Officially London is the best city in Europe for live music in 2025, according to travel booking site Omio.
• Officially London Heathrow is the world's 6th best airport, according to Skytrax.
• Officially London is the world's 6th wealthiest city, according to wealth migration firm Henley & Partners.
• Officially the world’s 5th most beautiful airport landing is into London City Airport, according to travel insurance provider AllClear.
• Officially London is the world's 4th most expensive city, according to wealth migration firm Henley & Partners.
• Officially the cheapest five-star hotel near London is The Roseate in Reading, according to Which.
• Officially London's most-pinned bar is Lyaness at the Sea Containers Hotel, according to the Pinnacle Guide.
• Officially London's best rooftop bar is Forza Wine at the National Theatre, according to Time Out.
• Officially Bond Street is Europe's most expensive retail destination, according to Savills.
• Officially the City of London's best pubs are Goldwood, Lamb Tavern and The Wren Tavern, according to the National Pub & Bar Awards.
• Officially London's least posh borough is Barking and Dagenham, according to property brokerage Jefferies James.
• Officially London's best new hotels are The Emory and the Mandarin Oriental, according to Travel + Leisure.
• Officially London's best station pubs are The Parcel Yard and the Pelt Trader, according to the Telegraph.
• Officially the fastest place in England and Wales to sell a house right now is Waltham Forest, according to Zoopla.
• Officially the world’s 10th best low-cost airline terminal is London Luton, according to Skytrax.
• Officially the best private prep school near London is Cottesmore School near Crawley, according to Carfax Education.
• Officially London is the world's 18th most walkable city, according to Time Out.
• Officially the London airport with the worst delays is Gatwick, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.
• Officially the three best London commuter towns are Roydon, Watford and Epsom, according to the Daily Telegraph.
• Officially London's best fish and chip shop is Brockley’s Rock in Brockley, according to the National Fish and Chip Awards.
• Officially London's journalists with the greatest inability to do their own research write for Time Out, according to Time Out.
1) Patron saint of England
3) First US President
5) Careless Whisperer
6) 2nd in line to the throne
8) Name meaning 'farmer'
9) Beatles guitarist
10) Patron saint of Ukraine
11) Dragon slayer
13) Peppa Pig's brother
14) Composer Händel
15) Four consecutive kings
16) Fame singer
17) Patron saint of Ethiopia
DOWN
1) His day is April 23rd
2) Asda clothes line
3) By ________ (wow!)
4) 41st US President
5) 43rd US President
6) Bernard Shaw
7) Oscar winner Clooney
9) Author Mary Ann
10) Father in The Jetsons
11) 1984 author
12) Arsenal footballer
13) Mathematician Cantor
14) Old abbreviation for 15
45 Squared 14) WALLINGTON SQUARE, SM6
Borough of Sutton, 130m
We're off to Wallington, a town halfway between Sutton and Croydon which once had its own town hall. Today's square lies just across the road, bang opposite David Weir's gold postbox, and has changed a fair bit over the years. As streets go it isn't square and you can't ride anything down it but you can buy brogues, blinds, binbags and beard trimmers so that's a bonus. The owners insist on calling it The Square for branding reasons, but officially it's Wallington Square and it's the town's chief shopping precinct.
Go back 150 years and all this was lavender fields, the only buildings to the south of the station being a row of eight houses called Rose Mount on this very site. These survived into the 1970s as the town centre grew around them, at which point Sutton Council decided a shopping mall needed to be squeezed in somewhere and knocked them all down. A typical linearprecinct emerged, at its heart a few trees and some benches plus a set of stairs up to an elevated car park for the convenience of local residents. The name Rosemount lives on only as the name of a tower block bolted on at the rear.
But my word it's changed. Sainsbury's built a very large store at the rear, the kind where you take an escalator up to the retail floor. Some of the shops on the north side were knocked together in the hope of livening things up. Three storeys of dilapidated offices above the entrance were transformed into 33 flats with swanky balconies. And perhaps most noticeably a stretched fabric roof was added, all white and billowy, to create an all-weather space along the entire length of the precinct. I'd say it looks gloomier now but it does also allow patrons of the Cox Pippin Cafe to spill onto outside tables and gossip over a cuppa, and they do.
The presence of Sainsbury's keeps footfall high but the intermediate shops are less of a draw, certainly once you get past the gateway Nationwide and Boots at the main entrance.
Clarks have been here for ages whereas Nadri only started boxing up bulgogi beef and other Korean food in 2023. Little Street is a themed play centre, like a low-key version of Westfield's Kidzania except much cheaper and they haven't gone bust yet. Bargain Buys and Peacocks fill the larger units in a very non-aspirational way.
Fresco is a gelato-friendly cafe, much frothier than the lowlier Cox Pippin. Wallington Academy offers tution for parents who take a dim view of their kids' teachers. The hardware store is packed with boxed electricals and tat which may one day end up on Sue Ryder's shelves. Alvina is targeting the pound-plus audience, its door shielded behind a wall of plastic containers.
Only one unit on Wallington Square is currently empty, but there's certainly turnover here and all in a downward economic direction. Go back just a few years and the precinct boasted two outfitters - Dinah May for ladies and Richard Mark for men - but their shops are now occupied by the DIY store and the massage parlour respectively. Two opposing travel agents have disappeared, but haven't they everywhere, and the electrical goods store is long gone in favour of mops, pots and plastic flowers.
Definition: Budget Quotient
The proportion of shops targeting shoppers with little money
With Peacocks, Bargain Buys and Card Factory propping up the retail offer I'd give Wallington Square a Budget Quotient of about 40%, suggesting it still has some way to fall but is definitely heading that way. Meanwhile Wallington's main street has a BQ of only about 10-20%, so walking into Wallington Square does feel like lowering one's expectations somewhat. But Sutton council did once describe it as "an unexceptional 1970s shopping precinct with poor quality public realm and limited street furniture and landscaping", and despite subsequent tweaks it's still hard to disagree.
Alternative Sutton Squares I almost wrote about
45
45 Squared 14a) STANLEY SQUARE, SM5
Borough of Sutton, 90m×30m
This suburban interlude is tucked away in Carshalton-on-the-Hill and forms a bridge between the interwar semis to the west and the rustic avenues to the east. Its footprint resembles a buckle on a belt, with houses packed around the outside and a lush rectangle of grass in the centre. Its trees appear to have been selected for their blossom potential and are in the process of covering the carpet of dandelions and daisies with a torrent of pink and white petals. The central tree was planted by the square's residents for the Platinum Jubilee so doesn't yet contribute to the drop.
Behind the square's northern flank is an enclave of allotments where lavender is still a main crop, and if you want a date for your diary you can drop in and pick it on the last weekend in July. The S4 bus passes through, hugely incongruously, amid one of its Hail and Ride sections. Stanley Square feels charming but also very odd so I was convinced it would have a fascinating backstory but it didn't, and that's why you're not reading any more about it.
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45 Squared 14b) MOLLISON SQUARE, SM6
Borough of Sutton, 90m×30m
The Roundshaw estate is inherently fascinating, having originally been the airfield for London's first international airport at Croydon. Its streets are named after planes and pilots of which Mollison is one of the latter, an aviation record setter in the 1930s. Jim's probably best known for being the husband of aviation record setter Amy, although she reverted to her maiden name of Johnson after they divorced in 1938 so everyone now knows her name. Mollison Square is the estate's notional heart and curls round the estate's focal place of worship, St Paul's, which may be the only UK church whose cross was made from an aircraft propeller.
But the square itself is really drab, a set of parking spaces serving a row of shops which peaks with a Co-Op supermarket at one end. Nextdoor are a pharmacy and two takeaways, one focusing on fried and one focusing on grilled... and unexpectedly another gold postbox because David Weir earned one every time he won a 2012 top medal. But that's it for Mollison Square, even after heavy Googling, whereas Wallington Square delivered a ridiculous amount of backstory which is why I focused on that.
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45 Squared 14c) THE SQUARE, SM5
Borough of Sutton, 150m
This is the only other Square in Sutton, the borough's official tally being just four. It's just round the back of Carshalton High Street, doesn't look square and didn't seem to have a history, only some nice houses and a car park, so I didn't even bother going. Such are the editorial choices that led me to select one Square over another.
And about time too,
because it's been 34 weeks since the last Bank Holiday Monday,
and that's the longest possible gap.
n.b. I'm now going to explore whether this is true,
and prove that it isn't,
and then prove that it is.
Bank Holiday Mondays are the touchpoints of the English spring and summer, a key time to get out and explore, to hit the beach or the DIY store, a stately home or a garden centre, deep countryside or a festival, perhaps even fire up the BBQ. It's just a shame that the weather doesn't always deliver and that they're not better spaced.
These are the big four.
March/April
May
June
July
August
Easter Monday
Early May Late Spring
-
-
Late Summer
That's the day after Easter Sunday, the first and last Mondays in May and the last Monday in August.
That's a gap of 2 weeks, a gap of 3 weeks and a gap of 13 weeks.
Which is appalling spacing - a springtime glut and a summer drought.
Easter Monday
2 weeks
Early May
3 weeks
Late Spring
13 weeks
Late Summer
It's not always this bad but it often is, and it can be worse.
The gap between the two May bank holidays is always either 3 or 4 weeks.
If May has four Mondays the gap is 3 weeks and if it has five the gap is 4 weeks.
The gap between the Late Spring and Late Summer bank holidays is almost always 13 weeks, i.e. 3 months.
But one year out of seven the gap is 14 weeks.
This happens when the Late Spring bank holiday is 25 May, the earliest possible date.
The Late Summer bank holiday is then 31 August, the latest possible date.
The gap between Easter Monday and the Early May bank holiday is the true variable.
Easter Monday can be as early as 23 March and as late as 26 April.
If it's 23, 24, 25 or 26 March then the gap is six weeks, the greatest possible.
If it's 24, 25 or 26 April then the gap is one week, the shortest possible.
The last time we had a six week gap was in 2008 when Easter was 23 March.
The last time we had a one week gap was in 2011 when Easter was 24 April.
One week and six week gaps are rare.
They'll each happen only three times in the next 100 years.
A quick summary of Bank Holiday Monday gaps...
Easter Monday
1-6 weeks
Early May
3-4 weeks
Late Spring
13-14 weeks
Late Summer
There's never a gap of more than 14 weeks in the spring and summer.
But through autumn and winter the gap can get very long indeed.
As long as 34 weeks, you may remember, which is the gap that ends today.
You might think we don't have Bank Holiday Mondays in the winter but we absolutely do.
When Christmas falls on a Monday that's technically a Bank Holiday Monday.
When Christmas falls on a Monday so does New Year's Day, so that's technically a Bank Holiday Monday too.
We also get a winter Bank Holiday Monday if Boxing Day falls on a Monday.
Or if Christmas falls on a Friday and Boxing Day gets shifted to Monday.
Or if Christmas falls on a Saturday and the holiday gets shifted to Monday.
Thanks to substitution we get a winter Bank Holiday Monday four years out of seven.
Christmas Day
Christmas holiday
Boxing Day holiday
New Year holiday
Monday
Monday
Tuesday
Monday
Tuesday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Wednesday
Thursday
Thursday
Friday
Thursday
Friday
Friday
Monday
Friday
Saturday
Monday
Tuesday
Monday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Monday
So if we're looking for the longest gap between Bank Holiday Mondays,
we need Christmas to fall on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
That's what happened last year.
Christmas was on a Wednesday, so no winter Bank Holiday Monday occurred.
Instead we skipped all the way from Monday 26 August to today, Monday 21 April.
And that's 34 weeks, the longest possible gap.
Late Summer
34 weeks
Easter Monday
To get the longest possible gap we need...
a) the Late Summer bank holiday to be as early as possible
b) Christmas to be on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday
c) Easter Monday to be as late as possible
If Christmas is on a Tuesday then the previous bank holiday is always 27 August.
If Christmas is on a Wednesday then it's 26 August.
If Christmas is on a Thursday then it's 25 August.
And these match up with late Easters of 22 April, 21 April and 20 April respectively.
Late Summer bank holiday
Christmas Day
Easter Monday
gap between BH Mondays
27 August
Tuesday
22 April
34 weeks
26 August
Wednesday
21 April
34 weeks
25 August
Thursday
20 April
34 weeks
It turns out you only get a 34 week gap when Easter Monday is 20, 21 or 22 April.
i.e. when Easter is 19 April, 20 April or 21 April.
If Easter is any later, Christmas kicks in and breaks the gap.
Years with Easter on 19, 20 or 21 April include 1981, 1987, 1992, 2003, 2014, 2019 and 2025.
These all have 34 week gaps between Bank Holiday Mondays.
So far so good.
Except leap years sometimes mess this up.
In a leap year things nudge one day forward.
In a leap year the Bank Holiday Monday gap table actually looks like this.
Late Summer bank holiday
Christmas Day
Easter Monday
gap between BH Mondays
27 August
Tuesday
21 April
34 weeks
26 August
Wednesday
20 April
34 weeks
25 August
Thursday
26 April
35 weeks
And oh look, a 35 week gap has suddenly appeared.
This pairs the very earliest day for the August Bank Holiday with the very latest Easter Monday.
This gap is unbeatable and can only occur in a leap year.
It turns out 34 weeks is not the longest possible gap so I have misled you.
I did say I'd prove it wasn't true,
and then prove that it is,
so here goes with that.
A 35 week gap requires the latest possible Easter Monday.
The very latest Easter Monday only occurs when Easter Day is 25 April.
And this, it turns out, is exceptionally rare.
Here are all the years with Easter on 25 April,
from the start of the Gregorian Calendar to the end of the fourth millennium.
But for a 35 week gap it also has to be a leap year,
and there are vanishingly few leap years in that list.
Unbelievably there's only one - 3784.
All the other years, including all the other even numbers, don't divide exactly by four.
And by the time 3784 comes round the current system of Bank Holidays won't exist either.
(nor indeed banks, nor probably holidays, nor possibly England).
So although a 35 week gap between Bank Holiday Mondays is technically possible,
in practice it never ever happens.
So hurrah it's a Bank Holiday Monday today,
and about time too,
because it's been 34 weeks since the last Bank Holiday Monday,
and that really is the longest possible gap.
This is the Easternmost station in London, which is Upminster.
It sits at the top of the Easternmost high street in London, which is Station Road, in London's Easternmost town centre. Here we find the Easternmost department store, which is Roomes, the Easternmost Wimpy, the Easternmost Brewdog, the Easternmost Pizza Express and the Easternmost Caffè Nero. The Easternmost Travelodge is imminent on the site of the former Easternmost carwash. Here too is the Easternmost M&S Food Hall and round the corner in St Mary's Lane is the Easternmost Waitrose, both of which are important for middle class reasons. Upminster also has London's Easternmost record shop, which is Crazy Beat Records, the Easternmost Iceland and the Easternmost library. If you're looking for vinyl, frozen party food or a classic hardback, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost shopping parade in London, which is in Cranham.
I thought the Easternmost would be the main shopping parade by the District line depot, indeed the two run parallel, but this parade on Avon Road nudges marginally further East. It contains London's Easternmost fish and chip shop, the Easternmost pharmacy, the Easternmost hairdressers and the Easternmost launderette. It used to contain London's Easternmost post office but that closed in 2020 when McColls sold up and the unit is currently occupied by London's Easternmost tanning shop. London's Easternmost post office is now down the road inside Cranham's Tesco Express, which I believe is also London's Easternmost supermarket. If you want freshly baked sausage rolls, a funeral planned or a plate of pie and mash, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost pub in London, which is also in Cranham.
It's The Thatched House, which is two minutes further down St Mary's Lane than the pub which would otherwise take the title which is The Jobber's Rest. They like their pubs out here in Cranham, ideally with full-on table service including pie of the day, king prawns and a special menu for dogs. Jaxon's at the golf course also does Essex-friendly sit-down meals but it's not a pub and it'll be trumped by one further Easternmost restaurant we'll get to later. If you count marine dealers selling outboard motors then Boating Mania opposite The Jobber's Rest is London's Easternmost shop, or alternatively you might count the gift shop at the Thames Chase Forest Centre, but my vote is with Sea Fish, the chippie in the previous paragraph. If you want cod wrapped in paper and slathered in vinegar with a gherkin side, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost village in London, which is North Ockendon.
North Ockendon is famously the only inhabited part of London outside the M25 and really ought to be in Thurrock. But it isn't and thus contains London's Easternmost church, which is St Mary Magdalene, the Easternmost car lot and the Easternmost reptile showroom. The most convincingly Easternmost business is Fenlands Nursery, a mini garden centre brimming with attractive shrubs and plants where you pay for your wares in an open shed. North Ockendon is also home to London's Easternmost bus stop, which is Home Farm Cottage, and boasted London's Easternmost pub until The Old White Horse closed in 2022. If you want to buy begonias, flash your Oyster or bemoan the decline of pub culture, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost road in London, which is Fen Lane.
Fen Lane starts in North Ockendon and heads, appropriately, almost due East. It starts at what looks like London's Easternmost postbox but is in fact trumped by another to the north on St Mary's Lane, along with London's Easternmost kennels, the Easternmost koi dealer, the Easternmost crocodile sculpture and the road to the Easternmost sewage treatment works. But Fen Lane is the real deal, the sole road to the farthest flung part of London which amazingly is still a 40 minute walk away. It passes the Easternmost care home, which is Ladyville Lodge, also the Easternmost run of bungalows and the Easternmost cluster of front garden gnomes. If you want neighbours, Sadiq as your Mayor and a trig pillar in an adjacent field, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost golf course in London, which is Top Meadow.
Top Meadow has 18 holes, was built on the site of a former gravel pit and is 40 years old this year. More to the point it also has several bedrooms and a bespoke dining suite so doubles up as London's Easternmost hotel and Easternmost restaurant. It marks the edge of the village of North Ockendon, beyond which everything is fields, as Fen Lane slopes gently down London's Easternmost hill. It looks idyllic out there, or at least scenically agricultural, although all this may be swept away in the near future to enable the creation of Europe's largestdata centre. An incredible 200 acres of digital storage is planned, I suspect solely because this is the very very edge of London so almost nobody will notice. If you want environmental damage, 1000 jobs and the hum of network servers, there'll be nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost house in London, which is Home Farm.
It's hidden behind a gate because most properties out here are, especially the former farms which are few and far between. The gate is also the end of London's Easternmost public footpath, which is number 233 to Berry Farm, which I suspect is also one of London's least trodden. Of the houses up the drive the Easternmost is actually a 4-bedder called Bolyngtons, which receives London's Easternmost polling card and whose back garden includes London's Easternmost goalposts. There are two further houses along the road before London peters out - one former farmstead and one newbuild under construction - but although they back onto Fen Lane they're actually in Essex so they don't count. If you want a roadsign indicating a double bend, a final pylon and a track leading to a solar farm, there's nowhere Easter.
The is the Easternmost bridge in London, which crosses the Mardyke.
We're now almost two miles down Fen Lane from the last T-junction in North Ockendon, a ridiculous distance to have walked and yet somehow remain within Greater London. The Mardyke is the longest river in Thurrock, a good 11 miles all told, and the drainer of considerable fenland hereabouts. It's name means "boundary ditch" so you'd expect this bridge would mark the edge of Greater London, but not so because the boundary deviates away from the river here to accommodate two further fields. If you see that row of trees in the near distance, behind the tallest tree closest to the road, that's the actual edge of London along the line of a less significant ditch (currently dry). If you want a hedgerow, some discarded fast food wrappings and a concealed gas pipeline, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost edge of London, which is on Fen Lane.
A ditch passes beneath the road almost unseen but you can't miss the cacophony of signage indicating you're passing from one jurisdiction to another. Both sides have street signs naming the local authority, although the Thurrock one has suffered some serious vandalism and been bent back on itself. Thurrock have also erected signs warning about court injunctions and automatic numberplate recognition, suggesting they're joyless souls, but at least they have an official 'Thurrock' boundary sign whereas Havering's has vanished since I was last here in 2008. Speed limits change too, from 50 on the Thurrock side to a positively nannyish 30 in Havering, and you can also see the divide in the tarmac where maintenance responsibility changes. Havering's side is definitely potholier. If you want to stand somewhere in London, there's nowhere Easter.
This is the Easternmost point in London, which is a ditch beside Bulphan Fen.
The precise spot is just down there in the water, where the dry ditch beneath the road meets a broader trench which carried the main flow of the Mardyke before the fens were drained. To get here you have to walk on towards Bulphan for a couple of minutes and then back down the Mardyke Way, a waymarked path which starts at Harrow Bridge and continues 7 miles to Davy Down. The banks on the Thurrock side are thickety with long grasses and a brief grass dip where you can step down to the water's edge at the precise boundary turn. The banks on the London side are denser with overhanging foliage and currently blossom, with one of these being London's Easternmost tree at London's Easternmost point in London's Easternmost corner. If you want to experience how utterly ridiculously remote East London gets, there's nowhere Easter.
This is my favourite way up Box Hill, the one I keep coming back to, the route with the great views where you get the knackering bit done up front. It kicks off at Burford Bridge by the hotel and the bikers cafe, i.e. all the facilities, then slips through a gap in the hedge. One of the best things about it is that you can alight from a 465 bus and be climbing the hill literally five seconds later, so well positioned is the bus stop. The chalky slope can initially be a slippery scramble after wet weather but it's bone dry at the moment so a solid ascent. What you're encouraged to do is use the steps that start a short way up but I much prefer to bear off to the left up the open path, or more specifically the grass bank to one side because that always feels less hassle. It doesn't take long to rise above the treeline opening up ever-improving views across the valley but only if you look behind you, so it's perfectly OK to stop panting and pause several times on the climb. It's always worth anotherlook.
The higher you go the more you see - dual carriageway, vineyard, country houses, ridgetop woodland, Dorking. You may also have to dodge between groups who've properly paused and sat down on the grass to better enjoy the panorama. Keep going and the view becomes partially shielded behind a row of trees, then follows a broad chalky path into woodland, ever climbing but nowhere near as breathlessly as before. A sheer chalk cliff is hidden just over the rim. Keep right if you want the viewpoint or left if you want the summit, the latter a tad quicker and taking in a derelict fort along the way. It's less than twenty minutes from bus to National Trust cafe if you didn't dawdle, and perhaps a more satisfying pot of tea if you did.
2) Below Burford Spur
A lower ascent follows the dry dip to the north of Burford Spur. To kickstart this route alight the 465 one stop earlier at Zig Zag Road and the path should be pretty obvious. You'll join up with route 1 partway through the second paragraph.
3) Zig Zag Road
This is the famous way up for those with wheels, especially bikes, which'll be why the 2012 Olympic road race came this way. A narrow lane twistssatisfyingly up the hillside, perhaps watched over by marshals if some kind of organised cycling activity is underway. If you're walking best take the decent path which continues upwards at the first hairpin because doubling back is a waste of time. If you're cycling the best view is on the third leg. If you're driving prepare to be patient as cyclists wish you weren't in their way, but how else are you going to get the kids and the pushchair up to the car park where you can proceed to enjoy the hilltop expanse without any of the effort the other visitors have expended. The Easter Egg Trail setting off from the Shepherd's Hut is a seasonal treat, with cardboard bunny ears for younger visitors and a choice of dairy or vegan chocolate egg once completed.
4) via Juniper Top 5) via Juniper Bottom 6) via Lodge Hill
Or you can head in from Mickleham, a delightful village with a Saxon church, a proper pub and a parking problem that regularly impedes the progress of the 465. Take the path up the side of the churchyard for the longer tougher walk in, or alight from the bus at Juniper Hall for a less humpy walk up Headley Lane. Once past the mini car park the choices open up, branching one way for Juniper Top and one way for Juniper Bottom - the contours will make it obvious which is which. One of the National Trust's waymarked walks heads out down one and back up the other, but that's from the cafe.
My preferred route veers off a short way along Juniper Bottom, or more accurately veers up via a precipitous set of steps. Precipitous steps are commonplace in the Box Hill area but can generally be avoided if you pick your path well. At the top of this set is the path to Broadwood's Folly, a flint tower that used have two storeys and a spiral staircase but is now just a shell. The great storm of 1987 did for the beech avenue out front. Much woodland remains for you to walk through as you ascend Lodge Hill, a minor summit just above the Zig Zag Road, before proceeding to the proper trig point on Box Hill itself.
7) Across the Stepping Stones
You were probably wondering when I was going to mention this one. The iconic river crossing is located ridiculously close to a convenient car park, and also to the 465's North Downs Way bus stop (southbound only). Seventeen hexagonal stepping stones span the river Mole at a conveniently narrow point, just challenging enough that an eight year old would find it an adventure. Eighty year olds probably shouldn't risk it, also best not go this way if it's rained a lot because I have seen the stones overtopped by a slippery torrent. Come on a bank holiday and you should expect to join a queue to cross, not least because those going one way have to wait for everyone going the other way to cross.
The true challenge in fact lies beyond - the winding climb to the top of Box Hill, which as signs near the car park warn includes a total of 270 steps. The path includes several flights, far more than you think there are going to be and then some, with the occasional flatter break round clumpy tree roots. I much prefer walking down to walking up, indeed that's what I did yesterday, taking delight in watching the faces of those who'd chosen to head the other way. Near the top the unfit look seriously flushed, halfway down children are often doing better than their parents, and near the bottom it's oh so tempting to tell those on the early flights that they have so many more to go. And that's when the ground's dry - any hint of mud multiplies the effort needed considerably.
8) Over the Rambler's Memorial Bridge
In 1992 a safer crossing of the Mole was added, a wooden footbridge dedicated to the memory of lost wartime souls. A good way to reach it is from Burford Bridge along a crescent path at the foot of the chalk cliffs, although you can also get there from the Stepping Stones because the two routes deliberately connect. But the ascent is then exactly the same 270 steps as before, entirely the same challenge, so again do be aware what you're letting yourself in for.
9) From Dorking
If you stand at Salomon'sviewpoint on the brow of Box Hill the town of Dorking is laid out beneath you, enticingly close. It looks like you could walk down the steep grass slope, then cross fields and be in the high street with ease. But in fact those fields are private and beyond them is the wiggly River Mole which along this stretch is entirely bridgeless, so I recommend you're not tempted. Anyone attempting to ascend from the south instead has walk out of town past the cemetery at least as far as Castle Mill, or park up by the garden centre, then take a duller slog across the railway and then some.
10) From Box Hill Village
What most people know as Box Hill is in fact the end of a long escarpment which opens out to the east and flattens off sufficiently for hundreds of people to live there. Most of the properties are mobile homes but many are plotland homesteads and little mansions as if this were the most normal place to have a home. The North Downs Way heads in via this route, also umpteen other feeder footpaths and obviously an actual road which is the least challenging way to arrive gradientwise. Arriving from the east is definitely the long way in so not ideal if you're here for a day trip experience, but it is a genuine alternative and has its quarry-top moments. If you think you've climbed Box Hill what I hope I've proved in today's post is that there are so many other ways to do it which is why it's always, always worth coming back.
