n.b. This is not today's intended post, but I didn't manage to get to the seaside yesterday.
Yesterday I found myself in Pratt's Bottom, the most hilarious of Bromley's outlying villages. It has a pub called The Bull's Head, a church called All Souls, a short parade of shops including World of Sewing and a bus every hour and a quarter. It's also unusual in that part of the village is in London and part isn't, thanks to suburban development whose boundaries didn't matter so much when all this was Kent.
Specifically I found myself in Turnpike Drive, a postwar cul-de-sac set back parallel to the main Sevenoaks Road. And what's really unusual about Turnpike Drive is that some of its residents live in London and some live in Kent. There are hardly any cul-de-sacs with London and non-London residents, even though the Greater London boundary is over 250 miles long.
The entrance to the cul-de-sac is in Kent. The road it bears off is called Stonehouse Road, which beyond this point is private and has a sign to tell you so. It has houses called Cobblecroft, Colts Wood and Copperkins, whereas Turnpike Drive just has numbered bungalows, 36 in total. Seven of these are in Kent and the remainder are in Bromley, that's how divided this cul-de-sac is. I checked and it does indeed have two bin days, the Kent end every Friday and the Bromley end every other Monday.
Here's the London end and you can see how generic the bungalows are. Nothing particularly changes up this end, the lampposts are still the same and the pavements are similarly paved, also I suspect if you hang around long enough the same number of curtains twitch. But numbers 5 to 31 all have a Labour mayor while 1-4 and 32-34 are overseen by a Reform county council because lines on maps matter and this one splits the street.
The reason for the divide is an old footpath which once cut diagonally across the field that used to exist here. On one side was Orpington Urban District and on the other side Sevenoaks Rural District, or at least it was in the 1950s when Turnpike Drive was built. The footpath survives as a signposted bridleway, arriving up an alleyway between 6 and 7 and continuing down another alleyway between 31 and 32. If you've ever walked the Green Street Green Circular Walk you'll have crossed Turnpike Drive about halfway round, and if you haven't you've probably never been.
n.b. There was once a turnpike at Pratt's Bottom, it being a waypoint on the main road from London to Hastings, now the A21. But Turnpike Drive isn't on the site of the turnpike, that was nearer to the Esso garage, so it's not particularly well named.
I wondered precisely how rare a part-London cul-de-sac was, so I scanned all around the Greater London boundary to see how many I could find. I make it three. Here's another.
This is Mountview in Northwood, 30 miles away on the opposite side of the capital. It's a short cul-de-sac of 22 houses just south of NATO's Allied Maritime Command at Northwood Headquarters. Again it started out as a field crossed by an ancient footpath, originally left empty when the avenues of Metroland were built all around. Then in the 1960s a small enclave of more upmarket houses was squeezed in, the boundaries of the site forcing the road to start in London and end in Hertfordshire.
There are thus nine properties in the London borough of Hillingdon before the cul-de-sac bends across the boundary to service 13 homes in the district of Three Rivers. Again bin days are different, the Hillingdon houses weekly on a Monday and the Herts houses fortnightly on a Tuesday. There is another split cul-de-sac a little further west along Eastbury Avenue, that's Little Stream Close, but all the houses are at the Hertfordshire end so that doesn't count for today's purposes.
The third split cul-de-sac is Grovewood Place, Woodford IG8. Here five of the 26 houses are in London and the rest are in Essex. The fourth split cul-de-sac is Oaks Way, Surbiton KT6. Here two of the 43 houses are in London and the rest are in Surrey. I don't have photos of those, sorry, I just happened to have the Northwood one from a previous post.
There are perhaps 20 cul-de-sacs where the London boundary is at the beginning, not in the middle, so either everyone lives inside the capital or everyone lives outside it. These include Amanda Close in Hainault, Audley Drive in Hamsey Green, The Coppice in Joydens Wood and Gable Close in Dartford.
But I believe there are only three cul-de-sacs where some residents can vote for London's Mayor and some can't.
• Turnpike Drive (Pratt's Bottom BR6): 29 homes London, 7 homes Kent [81%/19%]
• Mountview (Northwood HA6): 9 homes London, 13 homes Herts [41%/59%]
• Grovewood Place (Woodford IG8): 5 homes London, 21 homes Essex [19%/81%]
And Turnpike Drive in Pratt's Bottom is the Londoniest of the lot.
07:00 I have woken up and brewed a cup of tea. 08:00 I have bought a newspaper and am off to catch a train to the seaside. 08:15 I am at the ticket office trying to buy my ticket. I want to use a Delay Pay Rail Travel Voucher to pay most of the fare. The man behind the counter tries scanning it several times, also asks his colleague for advice, also looks in his folder for advice, also rings someone up for advice, also the colleague tries to scan it at her terminal instead, thereby holding up the queue for five minutes, but everything fails to apply the discount. 08:20 OK, I'll try at another station. 08:40 I am a different ticket office trying to buy my ticket. I still want to use a Delay Pay Rail Travel Voucher because otherwise it'll cost four times as much. The woman behind the counter tries tapping all sorts of things on her terminal, thereby holding up the queue for five minutes, but everything fails to apply the discount. 08:45 OK, I give up. 09:00 I am back home with a cup of tea, having failed to catch a train to the seaside. 10:00 I have applied for a refund for my travel voucher, but it's all a bit late now.
-----END-----
Last week I told you that a wedge of raised tarmac on Stratford High Street had been removed, immediately adjacent to the contraflow beneath the flyover that's never been opened. "All it needs now is a repaint," I said.
Well, that repaint has now happened. I know it may not look like it because the arrow and hatched area are still visible, but unwanted white lines are hard to get rid of.
Previously all eastbound traffic leaving the Bow Roundabout was funnelled into a single lane, leaving space for a contraflow on the right. We now have two eastbound lanes helping traffic flow faster, and as a result the contraflow lane has ceased to exist.
Previously the eastbound lane and contraflow were separated by a double white line but that's been erased and replaced by a single dashed line instead. This stretches all the way up to Marshgate Lane, beyond which it was always two eastbound lanes anyway.
This all sounds great but there are three catches:
i) Bus Stop W at Marshgate Lane is undergoing lengthy bypass works, so a few metres further on all traffic has to funnel down to one lane to get past. This is expected to continue for another month. ii) Newham council are planning some sort of bus priority project along Stratford High Street. This might well mean the left-hand lane is nabbed for buses only, leaving just one lane for all other traffic again. iii) Removal of the contraflow lane may only be an 18 month trial implemented via an Experimental Traffic Management Order, after which Newham will make a decision either to revert or "to convert to legal permanency".
But it does look ever more certain that the contraflow lane is dead and the new road under the flyover will never open, despite having been built at great expense, thus everyone who dug it, fitted traffic lights to it and paid for it has completely wasted their time.
Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, oodles of horticultural variety, outstanding architecture, glamorous vistas, top quality sculpture, regular refreshment opportunities, all continents included, occasional carnivorous plants, contour-free, royally approved, directly on the Heathrow flightpath, a bit of a stroll, won't take long. So here's a mile across a World Heritage Site in Kew, potentially enough to make a day of it and a nice walk all the same. [map]
Kew Gardens has evolved since 1759 into possibly the world's finest botanical collection, now with over 50,000 species across 330 riverside acres. Getting in's not cheap so this might not be for you, but it's only £10 on Tuesdays for the rest of the year so technically an autumnal bargain. For this nice walk I'm essentially heading down the eastern side, parallel to Kew Road, starting near the Elizabeth Gate and ending near the pagoda. This means missing out on the Great Badger Sett, Redwood Grove, Lake Crossing, Rhododendron Dell and Kew Palace, but you can always meander that way on your walk back.
Let's start by the Alpine House, a thin glass wedge whose rockeries are packed with tiny resilient plants, one of which (the arum pictum) is currently flowering with a supposedly foul odour. Enjoy the many flowers because there aren't a lot left across the gardens, especially out of doors, as summer turns to autumn. Or let's start in the Carbon Garden, a new project opened last year and recognisable by a central weird wooden mushroom thing in the centre of some stripy beds. The idea is to educate and inform but my word it's dry, not just the favoured arid plants but also the information boards that even a school party seemed uninterested in. Or start at the Hive, a metal lattice sculpture that quietly buzzes, best experienced from inside and best photographed from underneath. Or start in the Kitchen Garden, the Evolution Garden or the Aquatic Garden, indeed just potter around awhile because they've tucked a lot of interest into this northeastern corner and we won't be coming back.
For a proper debut let's go inside the Princess of Wales Conservatory, a stepped glasshouse opened by Diana the day before her 6th wedding anniversary. It has ten temperature-controlled zones all accessed through swing doors, the humidity climbing noticeably as you enter the central tropics. Not only is it packed with ferns, cacti and all manner of leafy fronds, but it's also a top-class maze with multiple up-and-down passageways to explore. Head up and you should find real-life Madagascar, head down and you might find a really fat white fish swimming opposite the building's architectural awards. I will say it's less fun when a secondary school party is exploring all around you, then two teachers arrive with primary crocodiles wielding worksheets, so maybe best explore at the weekend (or after 3pm when their coaches have left).
Exit at the lower end by the Paolozzi sculpture, a half-cyborg mix titled A Maximis Ad Minima. They like their outdoor sculptures at Kew and it's especially blessed at present with two dozen chunky Henry Moores scattered around the place. The closest to here are three Upright Motives, but there'll be some far lumpier specimens as we continue, some even stand-underable. Cut across the lawn to find the Broad Walk, its 320m-long beds believed to be the longest herbaceous borders in the country. You could learn about taxonomy because they've all been planted in groups, or you could simply admire the plants (the monocots are still ablaze). But sorry about the Waterlily House, it's 175 years old so they're replacing all 1546 glass panes and improving step-free access so it's all behind hoardings 'til next spring, dammit.
Next on Kew's major maintenance list is the famous Palm House, a massive glasshouse the length of a football pitch which in 1848 was the world's first large-scale wrought iron structure. It's due to close next spring for five years of extensive renovation, indeed the gardeners have already shifted several specimens to large pots and removed a substantial number, leaving empty beds and deep holes. For now it's still possible to wander round the sweaty interior past a variety of towering stems, crossing continents in minutes and learning a lot of Latin names on the way. My favourite part remains the spiral staircase that climbs to a high walkway, one-way only, where you can explore the canopy in greater detail and also get a good idea of why ironwork maintenance might be a good idea. Visit soon or miss out on one of Kew's best bits until 2032.
The flower terrace between the Palm House and the lake is still looking spectacular, almost as if it's been designed to peak in mid-September after every other bed has faded. Aim for the tall brick tower that looks like an Italian campanile but is in fact a disguised chimney for the boilers that used to heat the Palm House. This is located by the Victoria Gate, the gardens' chief entrance from which the chuggy land train sets off every hour. Hordes of cultured white-haired types pour through the barriers here every morning, return for tea and cakes mid-afternoon and shop for cuttings before they go home. Rest assured the Henry Moore teatowels are hole-free.
The most interesting route to the next glasshouse is via the Mediterranean Garden. It's not entirely European, it covers anywhere with a Mediterranean climate, thus at present Chile is looking a lot dazzlier than California atop the mound. The temple in the centre with the Tuscan porticos was added by Queen Victoria in memory of her uncle William IV, and was erected within months of her accession. The Cherry Walk is six months off looking spectacular, but follow that and you'll reach the glass door at the near end of the Temperate House. In good news this has already been renovated, they finished in 2018, so is a sparklingreceptacle for gum trees, tubers, cycads and hundreds of thankfully-labelled tall green things. Reading one board I leaned that some plants here are so rare that they could have been lost in a single landslide, and that only one specimen of New Zealand's Three Kings Vine survived the introduction of a few grazing goats. Inform, educate and entertain.
You could at this point deviate to the TreetopWalkway, a steel circuit erected high amongst the trees in 2008. There is a lift but I walked up all 108 steps before confirming that yes, you can see central London across the canopy and yes, even the horse chestnuts at Kew are suffering from premature leaf miner shrivelling. Or you could deviate in the opposite direction to the Galley of Botanical Art, although it's mostly full of Henry Moore collateral at present so not very flowery. Or there's the nearby Pavilion Bar and Grill, very much not one of the Garden's original buildings, where people tired of plant-spotting can settle with a ploughmans sharing platter or spend the equivalent of their entrance fee on a plate of fish and chips and a glass of white wine. But if you want to restrict your nice walk to one mile best not deviate, head straight on to the Far East.
The Japanese Landscape was completed in 1996 and the tea garden has to include a lot of signs saying Please Do Not Walk On The Gravel so visitors don't blunder through. Its centrepiece is the 16th century Gateway of the Imperial Messenger, although this is a four-fifths scale model created for the Japan-British Exhibition held at White City in 1910. Much more obvious is Kew's classic pagoda, a ten-storey landmark erected within a couple of years of the Gardens original opening and bedecked with 80 beautifully restored dragons. It's now under the management of Historic Royal Palaces and they charge £4.50 to climb to the top, this time with no lift so it could be a tiring end to your nice walk. And yes obviously I know none of you will ever follow this precise route, it's more an illustration of the riches to be had within a single mile at the absolute treasure which is Kew Gardens, now in its 267th year and still going strong.
Hey folks, welcome to the new channel! TikTok's where it's at because video is boss, so let's do this.
Got an incredible one to start with, so lock in, like and subscribe.
I'm here at the new entrance to King's Cross St Pancras on Euston Road, south side.
It's so new nobody else has filmed this yet, yes it's well exclusive.
Already got a homeless bloke asleep by the lift but hey.
We're going on an amazing journey, I cannot lie A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.
We're going one stop south and then back south TO THE SAME STATION.
It's nuts but the tube is nuts, innit?
Look, we've come down to King's Cross platform 4 which is the Victoria line southbound.
Remember the 'southbound' thing because that's like the super-weird bit.
Let's hop on, the doors are closing, it's one stop south to Euston.
At Euston we go through this passage to the Northern line, straight across.
Look it says 'Northern line Southbound platform 6'.
But southbound is to King's Cross and hang on, haven't we just been there?
IT WAS SOUTHBOUND TO EUSTON BUT NOW IT'S SOUTHBOUND BACK TO KING'S CROSS.
Mind blown.
AND THERE'S MORE...
Let's go straight across the passageway to the other Northern line platform.
It says King's Cross back to Euston is northbound.
But it was southbound on the Victoria line, WTF IS HAPPENING HERE?
Now we're back to Euston for a simple cross-passage switch to the Victoria line.
It says Euston back to King's Cross is northbound.
But we just rode northbound to get here, so how can it be northbound to get back?!?!?!?!
To summarise...
From King's Cross to Euston is SOUTHBOUND on the Victoria line.
And Euston back to King's Cross is SOUTHBOUND on the Northern line.
From King's Cross to Euston is NORTHBOUND on the Northern line.
But Euston back to King's Cross is NORTHBOUND on the Victoria line.
They're toying with us!
If you check the tube map it looks like Euston isn't north or south of King's Cross.
It's basically west, obviously, and neither north or south.
But the tube map lies.
A proper geographic map confirms Euston is further south than King's Cross.
So the Victoria line is correct, it was correct all along.
And the Northern line is wrong, 100% wrong.
What's going on here is that all trains to Edgware and High Barnet are deemed 'northbound'.
It just happens that between King's Cross and Euston they're going south.
Definitely not north, anyway.
And all Northern line trains to Morden are deemed 'southbound'.
It just happens that between King's Cross and Euston they're going north.
And that's not the only place this happens.
• Angel → King's Cross: northbound Northern line trains are going south.
• Finchley Road → West Hampstead: northbound Jubilee line trains are going south.
• Kilburn Park → Queens Park → Kensal Green: northbound Bakerloo line trains are going south.
• Harrow-on-the-Hill → West Harrow → Rayners Lane: northbound Metropolitan line trains are going south.
• Tottenham Hale → Blackhorse Road → Walthamstow Central: northbound Victoria line trains are going south.
• Stratford → Leyton: eastbound Central line trains are going west.
• Newbury Park → Barkingside: eastbound Central line trains are going west.
• Hammersmith → Goldhawk Road: eastbound Hammersmith & City line trains are going west.
• High Street Kensington → Notting Hill Gate: eastbound District line trains are going west.
• Wimbledon Park → Southfields → Putney Bridge: eastbound District line trains are going west.
• Fulham Broadway → West Brompton: eastbound District line trains are going west.
• Canning Town → West Ham → Stratford: eastbound Jubilee line trains are going west.
• Park Royal → North Ealing: eastbound Piccadilly line trains are going west.
• Holborn → Russell Square: eastbound Piccadilly line trains are going west.
Really stupidly...
• Manor House → Arnos Grove and Southgate → Cockfosters: eastbound Piccadilly line trains are going west.
Riding through the last seven stations eastbound, six sections are in fact travelling west.
And stupidest of all...
• Aldgate → Notting Hill Gate: eastbound Circle line trains are going west.
That's FIFTEEN consecutive stations of wrongdirectionness, technically speaking.
But King's Cross and Euston are the only adjacent stations where two lines truly travel in opposite directions.
So if you ever get bored you can come down for the ultimate illogical ride.
Start on the Victoria line at King's Cross, keep going one stop, then cross the platform and ride back.
KX to Euston southbound, Euston to KX southbound, KX to Euston northbound, Euston to KX northbound.
Round and round and round forever.
In a ridiculous contrary loop.
Five of HRP's six royal palaces are in London. It costs £120 to visit them all.
Tower of London £37.00
Hampton Court Palace £29.00
Kensington Palace £19.00
Banqueting House £10.00
Kew Palace £25.00 TOTAL £120.00
Take up HRP membership and you can get that down to £89.
But by playing the long game I've managed to visit the lot for less than £20.
I saved the most expensive until last.
Tower of London £1.00
Hampton Court Palace £7.75
Kensington Palace £0.00
Banqueting House £0.00
Kew Palace £10.00 TOTAL £18.75
Tower of London: £37 is pretty steep for a palace visit, even when it's an extra-special Norman fortress, and even more so if you stump up the cheeky £3.70 donation on top. But Tower Hamlets residents get to visit the Tower for £1 which is easily one of London's best deals, an offer I've taken up several times (2009/2015/2023). Hampton Court Palace: Visiting Hampton Court is never cheap, but sometimes they do a half-price offer in the winter months and in 2015 I got the usual £15.50 down to £7.75. The price has almost doubled since. Kensington Palace: In 2019 I had an Art Pass when that entitled you to free entry. These days it only entitles you to half-price entry when there's a temporary exhibition open. Banqueting House: For Open House in 2003 they let us in for nothing (and gave us a damned good eight page booklet too). Kew Palace: This is the odd one out because you can't just go in, you have to buy a ticket for Kew Gardens where it's one of the attractions within. And Kew Gardens isn't cheap, it's currently £25 a shot, and although that drops to £17 in winter Kew Palace only opens April to September. But for the rest of 2026 there's a special offer whereby admission is ONLY £10 EVERY TUESDAY and that is a bargain. Alas I got in on the last possible Kew Palace Tuesday so you can't follow me in.
Historic Royal Palaces:Kew Palace Location: Kew Gardens, TW9 3AB [map] Open: 11am-4pm (April - September) Admission: as part of admission to Kew Gardens Website:hrp.org.uk/kew-palace Five word summary: the madhouse of King George Time to allow: about an hour photos:eight
When the Georges were on the throne, Kew was a much more important royal home. George II's eldest son Frederick enlarged an existing home into The White House, long demolished, then added a separate kitchen block behind to reduce the risk of fire. His children were educated in The Dutch House alongside, amongst them the future George III (and later his son George IV). This took on a greater significance when George III was confined here during his third and final mental health trauma, lured inside on a pretext then confined to the ground floor with his doctors. His wife Queen Charlotte moved in upstairs, also four of his 15 children, the princesses Augusta, Amelia, Elizabeth and Sophie. The Queen predeceased her husband, after which Kew was never again used by royalty, but Queen Victoria opened it to the public in 1898 and that is a ridiculously potted history of Kew Palace.
The palace is on the far side of the park where you might never notice it, although if you do drop into the Orangery for spinach curry the bright citrus of its distant facade might just attract your attention. It screams Dutch even from a distance, the rounded gables, the symmetry and even more the orange. Expect to be greeted at the door by staff in costume, perhaps a little tired of offering the same welcome and mini-safety briefing over and over again all summer. What you're getting for your 'no additional charge' is a walk round up-to-three of the floors, starting with a circuit of downstairs in the King's Library. A teensy scrap of 17th century decoration has been revealed on one wall, a human figure no larger than A4 size, which was revealed only after painstaking peeling. It's believed the pattern continues across the room so they'd love to uncover more, but it's underneath 37 subsequent layers of wallpaper and nobody has either the time or the money to remove the lot.
The King's Dining Room is where George III was served what his doctors told him to eat, like asparagus for his bowels and jellies to ease his stomach pains. The information boards are keen to point out that we shouldn't judge the man solely on health issues later in his 59-year reign, but unfortunately that's the era focused on here. Another room has mannequins representing the royal couple and their 15 children, sheesh, it seems poor Queen Charlotte did nothing much for two decades but be pregnant. Her suite of rooms is upstairs, starting with the boudoir where sewing, spinning and embroidery fended off the boredom of waiting for her husband to get better. The drawing room is nationally significant because it's here that two of the princes had emergency weddings to German princesses after George III's only grandchild died in childbirth. Edward's marriage lasted only two years before he too died, but that was long enough for Princess Victoria to be born and she'd go on to rule even longer than her grandfather.
Look they've stripped back one of the walls so you can see the original oak blocks used for construction in the 1630s. Look it's the chair Queen Charlotte died in, indeed never left for the last few months of her life, a comfy lowslung black number that apparently nobody's sat in since. Look the stairs to the second floor have been blocked off, this because it's nearly the end of the season and they just don't have the staff. And look there's a couple in full Indian dress dancing at the bottom of the garden, being filmed by two blokes from Eminence Cinema. It's a pleasantly compact garden, one half formal and Georgian, the other half sunken and Stuart, although a tower block across the Thames in Brentford spoils the skyline somewhat. And that's not all.
You could easily miss the small sign by some woodland inviting you to visit the palace kitchens but that would be a shame. At the far end is a well-tended kitchen garden and the offer of a half-hourly tour of the basement, which you should definitely take up. Here food was prepared for the White House and the Palace, so you get to go into the wet store (with actual meathooks), bakery (with actual ovens) and main kitchen (with actual table gouged by 18th century knife marks). The best part may be the huge fireplace where roasting meat was rotated automatically via a devious heat-powered spit, but is more likely the tin bath George III sat in while he endured hours of heat- or ice-treatment, this found stuffed up a chimney when the kitchens were restored in 2012.
You'd probably be happy to pay £10 for the combined attraction of a palace and a kitchen tour, so how brilliant that it's merely an add-on to all the other glories at Kew Gardens. Until Sunday.
Sometimes spaces on heavily booked tours suddenly appear overnight, even on the day of the opening, thus I grabbed this one and changed my plans for the day. Richmond is the last lock on the Thames if heading downstream, and the only one owned and operated by the Port of London Authority. It was opened in 1894 to solve a problem created 60 years earlier when the old London Bridge was demolished, speeding up the flow of the river. This meant the upper tidal reaches between Teddington and Richmond became unnavigable for hours either side of low tide, hence an elaborate iron span was constructed with five arches and three rising sluice gates. An Act of Parliament requires river levels to be maintained at or above half-tide level, which is 1.72m, hence government permission has to be sought annually when they open the weir for autumnmaintenance.
The footbridge across the top opens daily but you can't walk underneath, not unless you're a PLA employee. For Open House it was possible to do this on both banks because each end of the structure is supported atop a sturdy lockkeepers cottage and both of these were open. One is still in operational use, complete with big screens, tide tables and a kettle, while the other has been leased to an architectural practice called Astronaut Kawada. The long thin space has been beautifully kitted-out in white with drawings and models on display, plus a well placed mirror to make it look longer. Dean's desk is perfectly placed to have the lock span over his right shoulder, far better than any screensaver, while the view from the entrance is of the weir side-on in perfect symmetry. If you have a small boat you can lug it over the rollers here for free.
The actual lock itself is adjacent to the Surrey bank and is 76m long and 8m wide so can take much larger craft. It's needed when the weir gates are raised, a mechanism you can watch up close from the footbridge roughly two hours before and two hours after high tide. We were instead fortunate enough to be able to watch a boat pass through, admittedly a small one but it wasted the same amount of upstream water all the same. To admit them Mason the lockkeeper pressed a button to open the lock gates, then closed them, then wandered round to the mooring chains carrying a big fishing net. What on earth does he need that for, we thought, and were both amused and surprised when he lowered down a white plastic card reader so the boatowner could pay his contactless toll charge. It costs £5 for non-commercial craft to pass through the lock, down from £12 last year, which also covers a return journey on the same day. I presume the same net method is used to collect notes.
They've had a tough year at Richmond Lock, first with too much water passing through thanks to high winter rainfall, then insufficient water thanks to summer drought. They're still suffering from low flow so the weir's currently raised for longer than normal, also they try to double up boats through the lock which helps maintain the statutory minimum level at all times. Climate change is expected to bring additional challenges, thus managing the lock/weir combo is a lot to keep on top of and not just an open and shut case. I had been hoping the tour would go further than just the dockside (we didn't even get to cross the lock gates), also a lot of what was said was drowned out by regular planes on the Heathrow flightpath directly overhead. But always keep an eye on the Open House listings because sometimes some proper last minute treats pop up.
It's always good to walk round a postwar council estate on a tour led by a resident, so this year I headed to the Central Hill Estate which hugs 17 acres of sloping land near Crystal Palace. It's lovely and woody at the top, rather less so at the bottom, and considered an acclaimed high-densitylow-rise estate. It is however in the London borough of Lambeth and they've historically had a feral bloodlust for redeveloping their older council estates, which must be why the introductory talk didn't start with a potted history but instead a lengthy gripe about the sneaky tactics that had been used to vacate tenants and let the fabric of the estate decline. And yet despite a demolition order passed in 2017 no flats have yet been pulled down, mostly thanks to the dogged stubbornness of the residents, which echoed everything I'd heard on an Open House tour of Cressingham Gardens a few years ago.
The tour of the site lasted almost two hours, much of it pointing out lovely things, pointing out bad things and responding to questions. Look at these gorgeous mature trees, there's no reason for these boarded-up homes to be empty, we had a decent basketball court here but then they built a playground in the middle of it, I had to push to get these bricks replaced, we used to have a community centre but they closed it, this neighbourhood was low-traffic even in the 1960s, imagine what you could use this nuclear bunker for, these modern flats in the corner are pretty shoddy, we first guessed something was up when they chopped down all the trailing ivy, etc etc. Near the end we also got to look inside one of the maisonettes which was fairly spacious for a 3-bedder, even if it didn't have the stunning views across London the upstairs neighbour enjoyed.
Only a miracle it seemed could turn around Lambeth's blinkered purge, and unbelievably that may have happened earlier this year and be consolidated at a council meeting next month. The Green Party took control of Lambeth council in May, ousting a 20-year Labour administration. One of their new councillors was PeteElliott, a former Central Hill resident who's been running the Open House tour for years and been highly outspoken on the subject. He's now the Cabinet member responsible for Housing and suddenly in charge of the process that previously evicted him from his home. Making changes is difficult when you've a restricted budget and inherited debt, but the council is now working with residents rather than against them and it's anticipated demolition status will be reversed. Miracles do happen, but you have to vote for them.
I've been meaning to look inside this utter anomaly for years and it didn't disappoint. First there was Kingswood Lodge, owned by the solicitor who foiled George IV's plan to divorce his wife Caroline of Brunswick. In 1891 John Lawson Johnston moved in, the inventor of Bovril, having spotted that cubes of beef extract were easier to send to market than the cattle themselves. He extended the house and added chunky battlements, also Scottishifying the interior. In 1921 another meat baron took up residence, namely Sir William Vestey (who was responsible for the Dewhurst chain and a massive shipping empire). After WW2 the building's importance slumped when 'Bovril Castle' was turned into a council library, and since 2020 it's become a bookless arts venue with cashflow issues. They told this amazing backstory in far more detail on the tour.
About 50 of us were led jovially round the building, starting in the entrance hall where the house's surviving tapestries haven't quite faded. The Great Hall has true Scottish baronial style, including full wood panelling and an anachronistic minstrels gallery, thus must have been an amazing space to seek out the latest library books. Children instead renewed their Julia Donaldsons in the billiard room. The Jacobean Room is named for its decorative plaster ceiling inlaid with noble symbolism, while the Palm Court is no longer frond-filled but retains a classic airiness. We didn't get upstairs because they were hosting a children's party up there, but that's a working venue for you.
When Camberwell council took control of Kingswood House in the 1950s they surrounded it with a fairly basic council estate, much to the horror of nearby Dulwich residents. It thus remains a shock to see this battlemented castle sitting incongruously amid municipal blocks opposite a very lowly shopping parade, especially if climbing up out of Sydenham Hill station. Thankfully the arts centre has established itself at the heart of its community with a cafe, classes and wedding availability, also a free meal served every Tuesday evening from 6.30pm should you be feeling lonely and/or hungry. I don't think they serve beef very often, nor is yeast extract on tap, but a fine bunch of volunteers continue to keep Johnston's Bovril-funded creation alive.
Here's London's newest museum, opened just three months ago in a former stately home amid parkland beyond Cockfosters. Trent Park has been a socialite's retreat, a wartime intelligence centre and a university campus, the new museum showcasing only the first two of these. I last went on a tour of the house in 2012 just before Middlesex University sold up and moved out, since when an alternative educational proposition has fallen through and Berkeley Homes have built some stonkingly expensive houses in and around the mansion. But they didn't apartmentalise the lower two floors which have become a £14 visitor attraction, an admission charge kindly waived for Open House. Also our tour guide was the museum's Director whereas normally you just wander round, so even more of a good deal than usual. [50 photos]
You start out on the ground floor in the world of Sir PhilipSassoon, aristocrat, cabinet minister and bon viveur. He bought Trent Park and fashioned it into an elegant country house surrounded by landscaped grounds, inviting a Who's Who of Thirties society to join him there. Charlie Chaplin signed into the visitors book with a comic squiggle (see display case in room two). The museum trust have gone to great lengths to deck out the first four rooms with the correct decor, either the actual items or top quality replicas, and having seen how the university left it (orange plastic chairs stacked in the corner, overhead projector affixed to the wall) have done an excellent job. The Chinese wallpaper in the saloon looks so much better now, almost like no students had ever brushed up against it.
One of the perks of a tour with the Director is that he can break off from the approved route, in this case out onto the back terrace where guests were once entertained. The view'll be better when the huge pile of earth on the former lawn has been turned into something prettier and you can finally see the lake again, which I suspect will especially please the tenants in the upstairs Berkeley apartments. Back inside the house the fourth and final period room is the library, this now laid out to tell the story of the dawn of WW2. Sir Philip missed out by dying three months beforehand, thus Trent Park was immediately available for the government to requisition and turn into a home for prisoners of war. Head through the secret door in the bookcase to find out how.
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Kendrick had the brilliant idea of housing captured German generals here in relative luxury, then bugging the entire house so their conversations could be recorded. A team of transcribers worked shifts in the basement, many of them German-speaking Jewish refugees, listening out for careless talk and capturing it (seven minutes at a time) on acetate discs. Additional tricks included sending in fake Nazi sympathisers, sending the officers on fieldtrips and interrogating them really badly in the hope they'd boast about unspilled secrets afterwards. And it worked! Amongst the gamechanging information obtained was an early key to how Enigma machines worked (1940), how the Luftwaffe were targeting munition factories so accurately (1941) and the existence of a new fearsome weapon called the V2 (1943). Without Trent Park these fearsome rockets would have arrived months earlier, whereas instead the RAF were able to bomb the test site and save not just thousands of lives but also oodles of morale.
The second half of the museum is thus a walk back through the basement via a warren of compact spaces, learning the minutiae of the wartime story as you go. The Director abandoned us here to explore at our own pace, partly for reasons of space but also because I suspect he's a tad tired of the sausage factory of showing another 20 polite souls round exactly the same exhibits telling exactly the same story, fabulous story though it is. And after one last chance to take a selfie of yourself cutting a disc it's back up to the gift shop, circuit complete. It is essentially two museums in one which is always good value, plus there's the obligatory well-heeled cafe round the corner if you can't yet face the slog back to the tube station. Just be careful what you gossip about because you never know who's listening.
Open House:WilkinsonEyre (Shoreditch) The Dangleway's One
Another weekend another architects' practice, this time WilkinsonEyre who've recently moved to new premises near the Old Street roundabout. None of that hotdesking nonsense here because everyone gets their own dedicated space, also they've retrofitted with care, also they had members of staff taking visitors on brisk informative walkabouts which is quite the best way to do it. Oh, I thought on several occasions, you're the ones who did that... the Copper Box, Battersea Power Station, 8 Bishopsgate, those stands at Lord's, Stratford Market Depot, King's Cross's gasholders, the Crystal and even Boris's cablecar, and that's just within London. Apparently they have 80 staff right now working on the design for Old Oak Common, a station whose connective purpose hasn't even been agreed yet, but they have at least settled the sinuous form of the platform roof so expect to see a start on that next year.
It wouldn't be Open House without the opportunity to take off your shoes to walk round someone's home, usually an architect, invariably unorthodox. This year my barefoot venue of choice was a teensy shoddily-built Victorian box just round the corner from Arsenal station, known locally as the Blue House. Architect Edward Farleigh-Dastmalchi saw its potential and transformed it into a unique family home, essentially keeping only three wonky brick walls and cramming in an extra bedroom up top. You visit these places to pick up tips - how to create a garden terrace out of nothing, how to hide a washing machine behind your TV, how to source blinds for your skylights, that kind of thing - or else simply to be amazed at the creativity that makes 54m² seem positively spacious. Top tip, minimise your circulation space (or move way out of London, obv).
Open House:Plaistow Hub (Plaistow) The Nuclear One
Here's one of no importance unless you live in E13, in which case it's been transformational. A few small patches of underused land by the tube station have been repurposed by Newham council to create 182 new homes, one-third affordable, plus a range of other previously non-existent amenities. The key building is a 21-storey block of flats somehow squeezed in alongside the railway, now a towering landmark in the neighbourhood. We only got to visit a flat on the 10th floor but that offered fantastic views towards the Dartford Bridge, Canary Wharf and (from a completely different window) West Ham station and the City. I never thought I'd ever consider Plaistow to be scenic but from up here it somehow is. The building also contains an events room (hireable rather than communal) and a large first floor terrace overlooking the street (communal but empty).
At street level a new Station Square has been created, activated by a coffee shop and a Co-op, plus a brand new connecting staircase down to London Road which I give thanks for every time I pop round to see BestMate. Apparently the gym behind the supermarket has four storeys and is already the busiest in East London, which is perhaps a reflection on how little else there is to do in Plaistow. A separate residential building on the other side of the railway bridge is heavily constrained by the footprint of a passing sewer, and underneath contains a brand new Plaistow Library which should be opening within weeks. A nice touch is the palindromic ironwork on the staircase down to the playground, which is perhaps the maximum amount of whimsy a council-led project can condone. And I came on the tour because I've watched all this go up over the last few years, turning nothing much into a lively new civic focus, and sometimes it's nice to thank the architects first hand.
500 things I love about London
