45 Squared 24) THE SQUARE, TW9
Borough of Richmond, 60m
In the very centre of Richmond, junctionally speaking, several fine Georgian streets and passageways come together beneath a zinc-scaled dome. One of the main streets is The Quadrant, one of the passageways is The Passage and stretching briefly to the east is The Square. This isn't square, just as The Quadrant isn't part-circular, although it may once have been more rectangular than it now looks, perhaps. Sorry, I thought the centre of a historic town would be easier to research, but rest assured there is a history behind all this somewhere.
The Square is an evasive thoroughfare, plainly labelled on a couple of street signs but not necessarily on the correct addresses. It connects two landmark buildings, the Old Fire Station and the Dome, and I believe once passed behind the former and now loops round the latter. The Dome is everything a prominent Victorian building should be, especially if you need activewear for your next yoga session because the lower storey is now a branch of Lululemon. Excitingly the top floor is currently up for lease as open plan office accommodation, including a boardroom inside the dome itself offering 360 degree views in case your meeting content is particularly tedious.
Also part of this odd complex is a small Persian restaurant called Saffron with a reassuringly dense menu pinned up outside, should you fancy an al fresco skewering. Even smarter is Major Son & Phipps alongside, a thin estate agents with a chic Parisian feel to its signage, one of whose staff is a dog called Scooby who merits his own page on the company website. Across the road a plaque above the Nationwide Building Society references The Imperial 1890, this being the pub that once occupied the building before a pizza chain moved in in the 1980s. The bubble tea shop isn't original either, ditto the Argentinian steakhouse and pizzeria in what is now The Square but used to be The Passage. Do try to keep up.
The final standout building is the Old Fire Station, an overtwiddly redbrick number from 1870 with a distinctive clock tower that would have looked right at home in the centre of Trumpton. Look out for the carved heads of two moustachioed Victorian firefighters above the ex-entrance. When fire engines grew too big the main body became a shop and is currently yet another estate agents with a solicitors' office perched above. Meanwhile the front end became public conveniences, but Richmond council don't believe in those any more so it's now a coffee shop whose slogan is "Every single step is artisanal", so still very much taking the piss.
The Square is only brief but everyone who heads south round Richmond's one-way system passes very briefly through half of it, and now you know what it's called even if it's hard to discern precisely where it starts and why it finishes.
As part of this year's Railway200 celebrations, special events and community get-togethers with a rail connection are taking place across the country. And yesterday a very special one took place at Motspur Park station because, coincidentally in this 200th anniversary year, it was celebrating its 100th birthday.
How did I know this was happening? Joe Brown always posts a London rail anniversary on Twitter and Bluesky every morning and yesterday it was that Motspur Park was 100 years old. Ooh a centenary, I thought, and on a Saturday too. I wondered if anything special was going on... and it was.
Motspur Park is a full-on cliché of a suburban railway station in that before it opened there was nothing here but farms and fields and within ten years, hey presto, ubiquitous commuter avenues. It was also an afterthought in that trains ran direct from Raynes Park to Worcester Park for 60-odd years but only in 1925 did the railway company add an intermediate halt to exploit the area's potential.
Effectively it means the community of Motspur Park is 100 years old too so they pulled out all the stops and organised an exhibition in a library. To be fair it was a very good exhibition with an extraordinary centrepiece, and several very important people turned up to celebrate. There was also cake.
The local MP turned up. This is southwest London so he's a Liberal Democrat, but he hoped Labour's nationalisation strategy went well and urged us all to get behind rail travel and rail expansion. He also praised the strong community connections in West Barnes and Motspur Park.
The Mayor of Merton turned up. He admitted to being a railway fan and urged everyone to watch Jago Hazzard's new video about Motspur Park station. He said the recent completion of step-free access at the station was a gamechanger locally. He also praised the strong community connections in West Barnes and Motspur Park.
sidenote
Did the Mayor of Merton come by train? No he came by car (a chauffeur-driven black Ford Mondeo, registration M1 LBM). An hour after the event the car was back in its special space outside the entrance to Merton Civic Centre. To be fair there aren't any direct trains, and I wouldn't risk coming by K5 bus either.
The two of them also cut a ribbon outside the station. All yesterday's speeches were supposed to take place outside the station but they moved most of them inside the library instead because of the hot weather. After cutting the ribbon Paul and Martin held up an original station sign for the cameras, this too exactly 100 years old to the day.
The Vicar of the local church turned up. She blessed the station, which arguably is a strange thing to do, but she got away with it because her prayer was also addressed to all those who pass through the station. "May they go to places of joy, may they all find seats".
sidenote
Do any other rail stations have a 100th birthday this year? According to Wikipedia, only four surviving British stations opened in 1925. Two are Croxley and Watford on the Metropolitan line so they don't count for Railway200 purposes. The only genuine railway centenarians this year are Motspur Park and Penmere in Cornwall.
SWR's Community Manager turned up. She said SWR had decided to focus all their Railway200 celebrations around station birthdays, but Motspur Park was the only one to have a proper 100th birthday this year. She loved the celebratory bunting around the station and across the local shops. She also said she was amazed and impressed by quite how many people had turned up.
One of Railway200's top brass turned up. He seems to appear where the best anniversaries are, so yesterday it was Motspur Park's 100th and today it's the 50th anniversary of the reopening of the North Norfolk Railway. He said a proper centenary plaque would be installed in an appropriate location later. He was also inspired and humbled by how the campaign he joined two years ago had inspired this local community and so many others.
sidenote
When exactly is the proper 200th birthday of railways in Britain? It's arguable, do you go with Stockton and Darlington in 1825 or the Rainhill trials in 1829 or some other event? But essentially who cares. If you disagree you're just an opinionated bloke in an armchair whereas the Railway200 team have picked a date and made great things happen.
Christian Wolmar turned up. He gave a talk in the library before the ribbon cutting and the speeches took place. He also hung around to sign some books.
One of the Friends of West Barnes Library turned up and led the speeches. He seemed quite excited that everyone would be going in and out of the library at least twice because this would do wonders for their visitor numbers. He was also genuinely moved that well over 100 people had turned up.
And Paul Gumbrell turned up, and he'd brought this.
This is part of the layout of the Green Valley Railway, a model layout based in a back garden in West Barnes. They only had room for a small proportion of it here, a representation of the line through Motspur Park as it was on its opening day, complete with ropey footbridge, Hornby island platform and specially-commissioned model gasometers. The modern Motspur Park station sign in the centre was the perfect final flourish.
This is not what you expect to find in the middle of a library complete with two trains circling round, and I think everyone was fairly blown away.
sidenote
The Green Valley Railway holds three open weekends each year and the next is in two weeks' time. The Edroy Garden Line's Summer Gala Open Weekend takes place on 26th and 27th July from 1pm-5pm at 173 Westway SW20 9LR.
Elsewhere within the library was an exhibition about the history of Motspur Park, also a scale model of the local estate in the 1920s, also a table selling local history books and centenary fridge magnets, also a framed board for Motspur Park Monopoly (not for sale). A separate Picnic in the Park had been scheduled for the afternoon. The effort here was off the scale and it was a privilege to drop in on a cohesive community that bothers to turn out in large numbers for events like this.
And all because a station opened here 100 years ago, because railways have truly shaped Britain, not just Motspur Park.
Earlierthisweek the Mayor opened London's largest new park since the 2012 Olympics. It's Springfield Park in Tooting, and given Sadiq went to school less than half a mile away he was surely* well chuffed.
Springfield Park covers 32 acres around the rim of a new health campus, so is a substantial chunk of recreational space. It has grassy bits, wetland bits, humpy bits, wildflower bits and also a pavilion cafe for the purchase of coffee and croissants. It's not a cross-the-capital must-do but it is very pleasant and a proper local boon. It also has quite a history.
Surrey County Pauper Lunatic Asylum opened here in 1840, expanded incrementally and was renamed Springfield Mental Hospital after WW1. At its peak it had over 2000 patients and also an adjacent dairy farm to keep several of them occupied. Parts of that farm were sold off for housing, then the remainder for a girls' secondary school and a 9-hole golf course. The Central London Golf Centre opened in 1992 (polo shirts and smart tops only) and proved a popular destination for inner city golfers, even Michael Aspel. You can perhaps see where this is heading.
The hospital meanwhile was coping with an increasingly old set of facilities across 67 ageingbuildings, so 15 years ago a decision was made to rebuild and restructure. A modern health campus was planned intermingled with over 1200 new homes, literally embedding mental health services within the community. What we have now is Springfield Village incorporating Springfield University Hospital... and on the site of the old golf course is Springfield Park.
The main spine road is Springfield Drive, which at first sight could be any new development anywhere. Four-storey blocks of vernacular flats line the eastern flank with multiple short mews bearing off, some still under construction. But several of the buildings on the western side are in fact occupied by wards, day units and clinical specialists, also assessment and tribunal suites, also well-hidden car parks for those attending appointments from across five boroughs. If it doesn't look anything like a normal hospital, that's because it isn't.
Springfield Village's focal point is Chapel Square, one side of which is the Victorian hospital chapel which is now occupied by a proper gymnasium (i.e. for doing gymnastics rather than grunting and pumping). The square would be a nice place to sit were most of it not occupied by a zigzagging ramp, leaving space for just three long concrete perches. What is nice is that those mingling outside the cafes could be medical staff, could be mental health patients or could be flat-owning professionals from around the corner, and everyone just gets on together, or at least appears to.
The original hospital building still stands and from the park resembles a huge stately home with multiple branching wings. The NHS has entirely evacuated leaving room for an exclusive collection of luxury apartments, obviously, because something's got to help fund all this regeneration. It's been branded The 1840 to help emphasise its historic provenance, although only the central hub with 1 8 4 0 written in the brickwork is really that old and one wing should more accurately be called The 1874. More awkwardly it creates a vast gated enclave in the heart of Springfield Village, making it unnecessarily awkward for those in the plebbier flats on Springfield Drive to reach the park.
And the park is well worth getting to. It's approximately L-shaped and a good ten minutes walk from one end to the other, as befits land that used to be a golf course until 2018. Most of it's grass but thankfully it's a lot more varied than that, including a wetlandstripe along the western edge. I don't think these are converted water hazards, they're a bit deep for that, but I did spot dragonflies from the footbridge and also copious butterflies in the long grass alongside.
One large grass oval is essentially an amphitheatre, or alternatively a picnic terrace, while a web of paths weaves throughout making this a good spot for a jog or stroll. The obligatory fitness circuit has been included, although each piece of apparatus is really no more than a few chunks of wood so probably cost the developers less than installing a couple of fitted kitchens. Intriguingly it is still a private trust that has long-term responsibility for the park, Wandsworth council having turned down the offer of buying it for £1 because they couldn't afford the upkeep.
Like the Olympic Park a full-time team of gardeners keeps everything in good order, although I note that the only patch of unparched green grass in the entire Village is on the verge outside the showhome because that's where the priority is. Close by is one of the final crescents of new homes, this within the footprint of the old golf course and permitted only because it was declassified as Metropolitan Open Land to permit partial development. It'll be easier to walk through to the park from the main street after this rim of townhouses is complete.
A word about the local bus service. Route G1 has always dropped by, in a ridiculously contorted way, and back in May route 315 was extended to terminate here as well. Absurdly only one bus stop has been provided within the whole of Springfield Village, despite two being shown in the consultation documentation. Alas the proposed stop near Chapel Square never materialised, the pavement's edge instead occupied by parking bays, so the bus goes over 900m without stopping straight past where most people work and live. I don't know who didn't liaise with who but it is a criminal waste of public transport opportunity.
The jewel in the park is the area at the top end closest to Wandsworth Common. Here spoil from the redevelopment has been landscaped into a scenic mound, with a paved spiral to the summit which has already been joined by desire line paths from those who can't be arsed to go the long way. From the upper benches you can look down towards a sensory garden, a cylindrical shelter, a playground area and the inevitable cafe which opened last Saturday. Toast Stores are offering a very limited menu at present but the pavilion was packed out yesterday suggesting Springfield Park's already sprung to life.
Yesterday Ofcom agreed to Royal Mail's request to deliver 2nd class mail slower and on fewer days. Great, said Royal Mail, we'll start doing just that from 28th July. You'll either have to post your letters and cards earlier or shrug and put up with it.
There are three key aspects.
a) Saturdays will be excluded
b) Deliveries will take place on alternate weekdays
c) Delivery targets will be eased
The Saturday thing
Currently Ofcom requires "at least one collection every Monday to Saturday" and "at least one delivery every Monday to Saturday". In future, for 2nd class mail, Saturdays will be removed from the requirements.
This means if you want a letter to arrive by Saturday, you'll have to readjust your posting date so it arrives by Friday. For example if someone you know has a birthday on Saturday 26th July, posting it three days before on Wednesday July 23rd should be adequate. But if someone you know has a birthday on Saturday 2nd August, it'll need to go in the box a day earlier on Tuesday 29th July.
The change won't affect letters posted on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays because these should continue to arrive before Saturday. But it will affect letters posted on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, all of which should arrive later because Saturday's no longer a "working day".
Although Saturday will no longer be counted as a 2nd class collection day, in practice Royal Mail intends to collect letters anyway. This is because 1st class letters do still have to be collected on Saturdays and Royal Mail doesn't know which is which until they've been collected. However although 1st class letters will continue to enter the sorting process immediately, 2nd class letters can now be set aside on Saturday and sorted on Monday.
The alternate weekdays thing
This is where Royal Mail starts significantly saving money. Currently it has to deliver 2nd class mail six days a week. In future it only has to deliver on alternate weekdays, which is just two or three days a week.
Here's their graphic.
The expectation is that one week you'll get 2nd class mail delivered on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and the next week only on Tuesday and Thursday. Previously all twelve boxes in this grid would have contained a green envelope, now only five do.
Effectively Royal Mail will split their delivery routes into two halves, A and B. On any particular day only one or the other will get 2nd class deliveries. This means only half the staff will be needed, hence considerable savings.
Here's my graphic.
Previously you'd never go more than one day without a potential 2nd class delivery. Now you might go three days without one, with either Friday-Sunday or Saturday-Monday skipped each week.
Viewed like this it is a remarkable drop in service. Ofcom's gambit is that you'll barely notice - all the same mail will still arrive, just imperceptibly later.
Also the A/B pattern won't always be rigidly stuck to. In weeks with a Bank Holiday Monday the same delivery pattern as last week will apply, so Week 1 will be followed by Week 1 or Week 2 by Week 2. It means the usual gap of '2 working days' will still apply, even if in reality that means no 2nd class post from Thursday to Tuesday or from Friday to Wednesday.
1st class mail will continue to be delivered daily, even on Saturdays, probably alongside parcels. The downside is that decoupling 1st and 2nd class deliveries may end up costing Royal Mail extra, and this could be passed on to the consumer by raising 1st class prices even further.
The eased target thing
Currently Royal Mail are tasked with delivering 98.5% of 2nd class mail within three days. The new D+3 target is 95%, or nineteen letters out of twenty, an easement to reflect the introduction of alternate day delivery.
At present Royal Mail have three potential days to deliver 2nd class mail and still hit their target. In the future they may have two potential delivery days or they may have just one, depending on which Week it is. For example a 2nd class letter posted on Monday could currently be delivered on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. In future the delivery window will either be Tuesday/Thursday or just Wednesday, which doesn't leave Royal Mail much room for error.
A new D+5 target of 99% will also be introduced. This is to try to stop delayed mail hanging around in the system, in this case for any longer than a week. Combine the two and Royal Mail now has to deliver 95% of 2nd class mail within 3 days and 99% within 5 days. For half the population this gives them just two opportunities to deliver.
1st class targets are also being changed. Currently 93% should be delivered the next day and this is being reduced to 90%. Ofcom argues this should aid efficiencies and is still higher than comparable European countries. Again there's a new 'tail' target, specifically that 99% of 1st class mail be delivered in three days.
within 1 day
within 3 days
within 5 days
1st class
90% (was 93%)
99% (new)
2nd class
95% (was 98.5%)
99% (new)
It's not much of an easement all told, but expect your mail to be arriving inexorably slower all the same.
An example
Currently a 2nd class letter posted on a Wednesday has a 98.5% chance of being delivered by Saturday.
Next month a 2nd class letter posted on a Wednesday has a 95% chance of being delivered by Monday.
It's not the end of the world.
But it's not great.
• Letter volumes reached their highest point around 2005 but have been falling since, and have halved since 2011.
• 1st class stamps increased from £1.10 in April 2023 to £1.70 in April 2025, and 2nd class from 75p to 87p.
• 62% of residential users agreed they send fewer letters because of the cost.
• On average, a UK household spends 60p per week on postal services.
• One in four UK adults would struggle to afford a book of 2nd class stamps if they had to buy them next week.
• As of last month, redirected mail changed from being treated as a 1st class service to a 2nd class service.
• The new 'tail' targets should mean that virtually no 1st class mail is delivered later than 2nd class.
• Ofcom reckons stamp prices would rise faster in the future if these changes weren't introduced.
• Some restructuring may be necessary, so don't expect everything to change with a bang on 28th July.
In summary
Ofcom wants you to know two things...
✉ Unless there are 1st class or other priority letter or parcels for you, you will not receive letter deliveries on Saturday.
✉ Any 2nd class letters posted on Wednesday to Saturday may arrive a day later than now (excluding Sunday).
Often the best value travel comes from a rover ticket, and this is an absolute bargain.
The Senior Rover allows unlimited train travel on the c2c network beyond London, i.e. all the stations on this map, for the measly sum of £7. It can only be used after 9.30am on weekdays, not at weekends, and a £10 option also exists allowing travel into London too.
Full terms and conditions here.
The catch is you have to be over 65, which I'm not, OR you can be over 60 with a Senior Railcard, which I am. So I headed out to Upminster yesterday morning, bought myself a Senior Rover and went on a proper south Essex safari.
The man in the ticket office at Upminster didn't ask for proof I was eligible, merely glanced at a flash of railcard, maybe even didn't look at all.
I gave the ticket a really good bash by visiting all the stations around the central loop. That's Upminster down to Grays, then out to Pitsea, then back to Upminster... ten stations in total. And because the trains run every half hour I spent 30 minutes in each location, attempting to walk to somewhere interesting within half a mile of the station and then back again. Let's see how I did.
Ockendon → Little Belhus Country Park
Rather than walk towards the medieval church or the postwarestate I headed west, past the Next depot, toward the former landfill site. It's now Little Belhus Country Park, a half-open partly-decontaminated scrubland sprawling down to the M25. A few hardcore paths stretch off to a big loop round a reptile-friendly wetland area, although I didn't manage to get that far, only to the scattered logs, stacked tyres and fenced-off turbine. It's all a bit bleak frankly, also I'm a bit nervous of a park that says "keep to the designated path at all times", although it might be a decent dog-walking loop if you've already done all the nicer local circuits. If nothing else the daisies are great at the moment, there must be tens of thousands across the lumpy crust of hard-baked topsoil, and essentially there is nothing else.
My Senior Rover opened the ticket gates no problem.
Chafford Hundred → Thames View Hill
Almost every visitor to the station crosses the slalom overpass to enter Lakeside, the quintessential shopping mall. I aimed in the opposite direction instead, deep into the estate past whorls of 80s housing. Follow the correct arm off the roundabout and you reach the foot of a low sandy cliff, this because Chafford Hundred was built across a humpy landscape pitted with quarries. I only had time to climb Thames View Hill, a brief golden ridge on a thin tongue of woodland, estimated ascent 30 seconds. Here was the promised panorama, although the only sliver of Thames was a tiny patch of grey beneath the arc of the QE2 Bridge and everything else was concealed behind Barratt-style rooftops. Nice pylons though. And if you do ever fancy an unexpectedly weirdwalk round cliffs and gorges, give the mall a miss and spend a couple of hours exploring the real Chafford Hundred instead.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates. A member of gateline staff let me out, no questions asked, and someone in the ticket office pressed a button to let me back in.
Grays → Grays Beach Riverside Park
Again I walked in the less-travelled direction - across the level crossing, past the council offices and down towards the riverside. This being the Thames estuary there are huge floodgates designed to protect adjacent flats from flooding and these were closed, forcing a longer walk past bleak grey tower blocks and speculative newbuilds. Four can-clutching gentlemen lay sprawled at the far end of the car park, the local derelict-looking pub not yet being open. But eventually I reached the waterfront and the unexpectedly upbeat Thurrock Yacht Club, its sleek craft either stashed on the quayside or bobbing in the estuary opposite Broadness. The 'beach' in the Beach Park is an elliptical sandpit and has a better view of a renewable biomass power plant than of the Thames... and yet somehow I'd much rather live here than at our next stop.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates. The bloke on the gate said he'd never heard of it and was bemused it didn't show a destination, but I talked my way through (and back in again).
Tilbury → Civic Square
Normally I'd head past the port to the cruise terminal, Windrushjetty and Tilbury Fort but that was too far to hike in the time available. Instead I walked to the heart of the real Tilbury, the shops at Civic Square, at the centre of the lowly web of streets built for dockers and portworkers. I passed bleach-blonde mums with pushchairs, baked-bronze blokes in t-shirts, hopeful ladies standing in the doorways of their empty shops and vaping teens loitering outside shuttered takeaways. By contrast Civic Square looked well-scrubbed with recently-revamped parking spaces, bright paving and pedestrianisation continuing apace around the war memorial. It's all part of a £23m grant from the last government's Town Fund, not that it worked because they came third at the General Election behind Labour and Reform. To better understand downtrodden Britain, come to Tilbury.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates but another gate was open so I just walked out. By the time I got back the gateline was staffed again, and he knew exactly what I was clutching.
East Tilbury → Bata Factory
East Tilbury is something else altogether, accessed across sweeping marshes stalked by lines of pylons and preparatory works for the Lower Thames Crossing. An outpost of Modernisthouses exists between Coalhouse Fort and Mucking Landfill, located here because in 1932 Czech shoe magnate Thomas Bata chose this site for his first British factory. Once 300 high streets had a Bata shoeshop but foreign imports inevitably led to the factory closing in 2006, and the landmark buildings are now marooned inside a private industrial park. I got inside in 2016 as part of the inaugural Essex Architecture Weekend, but on this occasion got no further than Thomas's statue on a parched lawn outside his main office and leather factory. If you do decide to follow in my footsteps read the council's Conservation Area plan first and enjoy exploring properly.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again and I was beginning to feel somewhat oppressed. Nevertheless the member of staff opened the adjacent gate and let me out without checking what I'd used.
Stanford-le-Hope → town centre loop
Finally somewhere I'd never been before, despite our housekeeper once living close by. This old estuary town boasts a medieval church atop a rare hill, also a knotweed-choked stream flowing out towards Mucking Flats. The town centre is formed by a triangle of streets, the High Street now trumped in importance by the curve of King Street. Here tattooed limbs are on display outside the coffee shop, the clock outside the former jewellers is stuck at noon, the butcher sells proper meat and the bakery doesn't need a name because everyone samples its loaves and iced buns anyway. The sandwich shop by the war memorial is new and does brisket-loaded nachos every Tuesday, this because we've nudged towards slightly more aspirational Essex. As for the weatherboarded pub on Church Hill, the semi-orange Rising Sun, the chalkboard outside ignores menus and ales, instead confirming "The colour is 'Salsa Mix' so please stop asking".
There are no gates on the eastbound platform, only pads, so my Senior Rover proved unnecessary.
Pitsea → Pitsea Mount
This is where I switched lines and turned back towards London so I didn't have 30 minutes to wait, I had either less or more. I chose less because I once went to the 24 hour Tesco beyond the flyover on a date and have no burning desire to return. I briefly climbed the scrubby hill overlooking the roundabout, the one place round here that's not going to flood one day, and looked out towards the row of giant cranes at London Gateway Port. If I'd had more time I'd have walked down to Wat Tyler Country Park, a recreational island amid the estuarine marshes, but maybe I'll do that next time I buy a Senior Rover because there's a very obvious follow-up to today's post ticking off all the stations from Pitsea out to Shoeburyness.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again. I pushed through the sidegate instead, and on the way back in the bloke in the ticket office gestured that I should push through the sidegate again so I did.
Basildon → Town Square
The new town of Basildon gained its station in 1974, conveniently located by the shops, so I got to do a full circuit of the town centre to see how much had changed since I was last here in 2018. The anchor department store is now a shell with DEBEN half-written on the roof. The whimsical mechanicalclock inside Eastgate is increasingly ignored. Freedom House has been demolished and replaced by a less thrilling modern development primed with restaurants and a cinema rather than shops. Brutalist Brooke House survives, its V-shaped supports overlooking a blanker East Square. The Market has been relocated to not many cabins in St Martin's Square. An entire block opposite Greggs has been flattened because housing will be more useful than retail. Effectively the town centre's still busy but the 20th century is inexorably being replaced by the 21st as regeneration funding allows. Oh and the WH Smith has unapologetically evolved into a TG Jones, this in the last few days, but I think that's happened everywhere.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again. On my way out of the station the bloke at the gateline insisted I inserted my ticket again before nodding and beckoning me through. On my way back in a different bloke looked at the ticket after he let me through and said "ah, zones 1 to 6, you want that platform up there", despite the text very clearly saying 'excl. Zones 1 to 6'. Staff training at c2c is clearly inadequate.
Laindon → Langdon Hills
Laindon predates Basildon and is much less interesting, sorry, especially close to the station. I crossed the railway to the former plotlands at Langdon Hills, looping round a most peculiar housing development at the foot of Marks Hill. Six rising walkways weave past what look like the front doors of tiny wooden shacks, but they're actually two-storey three-bed townhouses with more rooms, a small garden and parking downstairs, separately accessed. So unexpectedly spacious are they that one of the houses on Puckleside has been painted blue and named The Tardis, complete with blue plants beside its blue gate and a police box and lamp outside the front door. I would never ever have thought to walk this way had I not been on a ridiculous ten-stage Senior Rover challenge, so my apologies if the obscure blue front garden I've uploaded to Flickr is yours.
My Senior Rover failed to open the ticket gates again. I was waved through both times. The code which flashed up on the gate was '07', which I looked up later and it means "magnetic code unreadable", suggesting the stripe on the back failed in the five minutes between Ockendon and Chafford Hundred. I think this means my gateline travails were atypical and a Senior Rover should normally work seamlessly.
West Horndon →
By this point I was a bit tired so merely hopped out onto the platform and hopped back in before heading home. Don't worry, I'll be returning to West Horndon as part of my One Stop Beyond feature (assuming I can find anything here to write about).
The opportunity has arisen to spaff your brand across the Waterloo & City line.
Bring your dosh, share your collateral, own the journey.
The Waterloo & City is by far the least used tube line, runs nigh empty for a lot of the day and closes at weekends. However it's also entirely self-contained and jam-packed with financial decision makers, so an elite captive audience will be forced to embrace your brand story on a daily basis. What's not to love?
To be clear you don't get to rename the line. TfL's commercial mavens would love to do that, prostituting their most iconic assets to the highest bidder, but instead killjoys embedded in reality always kick up a fuss at the thought of deliberately inconveniencing the travelling public.
Also the stations won't be changing their names because Waterloo and Bank are complex shared interchanges, so trains won't be running from Buxton Waterloo to Monzo Bank any time soon.
But substantial tangible assets remain for full-on brand takeover, from all the platforms and trains to all the experiential spaces (which is the posh name for every possible surface we can smother).
Imagine your company message on every wall and ceiling at Bank station, also scrolling across the electronic display, also embedded in every announcement, also emblazoned across incoming trains, perhaps also performed by singing dogs on digital screens if you choose the deluxe option. How much better it would be than the current fragmented mess where no cohesive narrative dominates and the most popular advert is for a Jeffrey Archer novel.
Please note that the Network South East branding on the edge of the platform will remain in place, so if you run a train company or if your corporate colours clash with blue and red this may not be the opportunity for you.
Please also note that the platforms are often much busier than this, indeed the majority of customer throughflow takes place at peak times in ridiculously cramped conditions, so any intricate subtle messaging may go entirely unnoticed.
A true prize in this takeover will be the opportunity to rebrand the interior of the trains. Passengers are often crammed in like cattle staring at the walls for six minutes at a time, so imagine the cut-through of your message on a twice-daily basis. Also don't underestimate the impact of reupholstering a bespoke moquette throughout the train. Nobody will see it during peak times because every patch of fabric will be arsed-over, but rest assured that influencers will descend en masse during quieter periods to share fawning reels of seating with a global audience.
One of the design assets up for grabs is the Waterloo & City line map itself. However don't get too excited - the line links just two stations so nobody ever bothers looking at it, thus any clever jiggerypokery your creative department comes up with will be entirely wasted. However slip us an extra £0.5m and we'll see if we can squeeze your company name onto the tube map, somewhere in the key, no questions asked.
Also this is nothing new. The travelator at Bank has long been a fully-stickered brand tunnel, replaced every few months by another financial company in need of wider visibility. Nobody who uses the line regularly will blink if another all-encompassing message appears instead, it's been their everyday experience for years.
Note that the current advertiser along the travelator is a spread-betting company, the vast majority of whose investors lose money, so hardly a force for good in the wider world. Meanwhile every panel inside the train carriages is presently monopolised by an app that leverages blockchain, so if you have an exploitative financial brand you might fit in perfectly as the new name here.
Also this is really nothing new. TfL rebranded an entire tube line last year as part of promotion for a new smartphone feature, earning £830,000 for a two week takeover. This limp splash has been the exemplar for tube line renaming in TfL's Commercial partnerships Opportunities catalogue since April 2024, so don't look all surprised when it's suddenly proposed to do this to the Waterloo & City.
Remember that every penny earned in sponsorship is ploughed back into London's transport system, which has often been used as a reason to do a lot more of this kind of thing. However it's worth remembering that a million quid is peanuts in the world of London transport, not even enough to keep the cheapest Superloop bus route on the road. Also a lot of the money effectively pays the salaries of TfL's commercial flunkeys who churn out brand-obsessedbolx and social media posts sprinkled with emojis, so is essentially wasted.
The partial rebranding of the Waterloo & City line could be an exciting and truly unique opportunity with the potential to blend synergies and supercharge brand awareness going forward. Alternatively it's a vulgar stain on what should be a passenger-focused public service, further damaging credibility and helping nobody except big business.
And if you do decide to go ahead with a bid, remember that smothering a few platforms with sloganed vinyl with isn't always the word of mouth success your planners hoped. Nobody recalls last year's rebrand of the Circle line, nor the underlying campaign, nor dashed out to buy a new phone as a result. Sponsor the Waterloo & City line and you may just end up pouring millions down the Drain.
They didn't have blogs or the internet forty years ago, indeed my Sinclair ZX81 wasn't capable of much, but here are 31 things I didn't digitally publish at the time. To help you get your bearings I was 20 and July was the start of the summer break between my second and third years at university. I apologise that I wasted the opportunity and did nothing of any interest whatsoever.
Mon 1: I'd arrived home from university yesterday so today I walked into Watford and signed on. I also dropped off one of Mum's films at Boots for developing, and dripped an ice lolly down my t-shirt on the walk home. Tue 2: Dad brought a copy of New Scientist home from work, also a copy of Time Out. New Scientist contained details of yesterday's leap second, while Time Out had some really intriguing small ads at the back. Wed 3: Walked down the road to see my grandmother. She showed me the scar on her leg and I made her some tea and watered the plants. As a reward she gave me £5 which I promptly spent on the new Scritti Politti album, Cupid & Psyche 85. Thu 4: My brother finished his A levels. I walked down to the butchers and we had mince for tea. The Liberals won the Brecon and Radnor byelection.
Fri 5: Took my Scritti Politti cassette back to Our Price because it had chewed up during the first play. The replacement cassette chewed up even worse. Sat 6: Scored 94 in Scrabble by playing EQUALITY. Sun 7: Mum and Dad went to Uncle Sid's Golden Wedding anniversary party, leaving my brother and I to attempt to cook lunch. The Yorkshire puddings were more successful than the lumpy gravy. Mon 8: Had to go into Watford twice, first to sign on, then six hours later to go to the dentist. I got £28.50 per week. No fillings. Tue 9: The new series of V wasn't as good as the first, especially now the aliens ate tarantulas rather than hamsters. Wed 10: My new Girobank cheque guarantee card had a hologram on it. Thu 11: Bought six Berol pens in Tames the stationers in Rickmansworth. Bumped into my old headmistress in Budgens (not in Bejam, I don't think she'd have lowered herself to shop there).
Fri 12: Today's TV included a) Television Scrabble on Channel 4 [Richard Stilgoe continued his winning streak] b) Swank on Channel 4 [a fashion show presented by Dawn French] c) Live Aid Preview on BBC2 [Noel Edmonds looked forward to tomorrow's concert] d) An Audience With Dame Edna Everage on ITV [she savaged David Steel, but nicely]. Sat 13: Watched Live Aid from Status Quo at noon to Paul McCartney at ten. Took advantage of the stereo headphones option. My college flatmates actually had tickets - I'd said no thanks. The Beach Boys looked very old. My diary says "Queen did a fab little set". Once the Philadelphia-only section started I gave up and switched over to watch The Stepford Wives instead, then set my alarm for the USA For Africa finale. Sun 14: My Dad and brother went to the athletics at Crystal Palace as guests of Kodak, so I was left with Mum to go round to my grandmother's for a non-roast chicken lunch. Mon 15: Watched our tortoise eat a heck of a lot of cucumber (40 years on, nothing's changed).
Tue 16: Dad rang from West Berlin where he'd flown for a conference. I'd given him 4 marks I had going spare before he caught the 724 this morning. Wed 17: Bobby Ewing died in a car crash in tonight's episode of Dallas, a death which would later prove to have been a dream when he walked out of the shower at the end of the next series. Thu 18: Tried loading up my Sinclair ZX81 with a game off cassette but it wouldn't work, so I typed in a worm-wriggling program instead. Fri 19: Watched the birds eating some stale chocolate sponge on the lawn. Dad was back from West Berlin with tales of life inside the wall. Sat 20: My brother went to see the Royal Tournament with a group from Youth Club, then came home in time to watch the Royal Tournament on BBC1. Sun 21: It being July, preparations for Sunday lunch always involved shucking the peas.
Mon 22: A young yellow-beaked bird smashed into my bedroom window and slumped dazed on the sill before flying off. Later we found it hopping around the lawn with its mother, learning how to be a proper bird. Tue 23: ITV were rerunning Fireball XL5 as one of their summer holiday morning shows and I was hooked. On Brookside it was the day of the incredibly unlikely nurses siege. Wed 24: Took my grandmother a loaf of bread and we sat in the garden while she told me stories of her time working in a glove factory. Thu 25: The latest unemployment figures were 3,235,036, and would have been one lower without me. Fri 26: My friend from Cheshire rang unexpectedly from Euston at 8am, could she come round? She'd been on a science course in London and was being spontaneous. If she was hoping for an exciting visit, what she got was a trip to the allotment, a roast pork dinner and a lot of watching TV.
Sat 27: Between us we were planning a 'Snowdonia spectacular' walking holiday in September so we used my typewriter to write up some notes. We needed an Ordnance Survey map of North Wales so drove to WH Smiths in Rickmansworth (no luck), but they did have the second Adrian Mole book so I bought that. Found the map in Watford instead. Sun 28: Finished the Adrian Mole book at 2am, lying on a mattress on the front room floor. My friend finally set off home from Watford Junction at 5pm and I got a peck on the cheek. I bet my parents got their hopes up there. Mon 29: Back to normal. Coco Pops for breakfast. Wrote up some lecture notes. It rained a lot. Tue 30: Mum had bought me some new clothes from her catalogue. I hated the pullover but thankfully it was the wrong size. They'd also sent the wrong jacket. I did however now have a blue check shirt and a cool pair of grey trousers. I loved the trousers. Wed 31: We've reached the last day of July and I hadn't been more than three miles from home all month. Looking back I can't believe how unadventurous my life was back then, but at the time I thought nothing of it.
The most visited attractions in each English county
(according to VisitEngland) [data is for 2024]
Bedfordshire: Whipsnade Zoo, Wrest Park, Shuttleworth Collection Berkshire: Windsor Great Park, Windsor Castle, Basildon Park Bristol: Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol Zoo, Wake the Tiger Buckinghamshire: Cliveden, Stowe, Bletchley Park Cambridgeshire: Fitzwilliam Museum, IWM Duxford, Anglesey Abbey Cheshire: Chester Zoo, Tatton Park, Chester Cathedral Cornwall: Eden Project, St Michael's Mount, Tintagel Castle County Durham: Beamish, Durham Cathedral, Locomotion Cumbria: Windermere Lake Cruises, Ullswater Steamers, Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway Derbyshire: Chatsworth, Calke Abbey, Hardwick Hall Devon: Plymouth Aquarium, RHS Garden Rosemoor, Killerton House Dorset: Kingston Lacy, Corfe Castle, Tank Museum East Riding of Yorkshire: Beverley Minster, Bayle Museum, Wassand Hall East Sussex: Brighton Pier, Sheffield Park Garden, Knockhatch Essex: Adventure Island Southend, RHS Garden Hyde Hall, Southend Pier Gloucestershire: National Arboretum, WWT Slimbridge, Dyrham Park Greater London: British Museum, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern Greater Manchester: Manchester Central Library, The Lowry, Manchester Museum Hampshire: Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Marwell Zoo, Mottisfont Abbey Herefordshire: Hereford Cathedral, Croft Castle, Berrington Hall Hertfordshire: St Albans Museum, NHM Tring, Verulamium Museum Isle of Wight: Osborne House, Blackgang Chine, Carisbrooke Castle Kent: Canterbury Cathedral, Leeds Castle, The Beaney Lancashire: Mrs Dowson's Ice Cream Dairy, RSPB Leighton Moss, Pendle Heritage Centre Leicestershire: National Space Centre, Leicester Museum, Leicester Guildhall Lincolnshire: Belton House, Rand Farm Park, Skegness Natureland Merseyside: Museum of Liverpool, World Museum Liverpool, Knowsley Safari Park Norfolk: Blickling Hall, BeWILDerwood, Wroxham Barns North Yorkshire: National Railway Museum, York Minster, RHS Harlow Carr Northamptonshire: Canons Ashby, Wellingborough Museum, Lyveden Northumberland: Alnwick Castle, Wallington House, Cragside Nottinghamshire: Wollaton Hall, Nottingham Castle, Newstead Abbey Oxfordshire: Blenheim Palace, Ashmolean Museum, Bodleian Libraries Rutland: Barnsdale Gardens, Lyddington Bede House, Clipsham Yew Tree Avenue Shropshire: Attingham Park, RAF Museum Cosford, Blists Hill Somerset: Roman Baths, Tyntesfield, Bath Abbey South Yorkshire: Cannon Hall Museum, Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Millennium Gallery Staffordshire: Trentham Estate, National Memorial Arboretum, Shugborough Suffolk: Abbey Gardens, Ickworth, Sutton Hoo Surrey: RHS Wisley, Polesden Lacey, Bocketts Farm Park Tyne & Wear: BALTIC Centre, Great North Museum, Sunderland Museum Warwickshire: Shakespeare's Birthplace, Charlecote Park, Baddesley Clinton West Midlands: Midlands Arts Centre, Black Country Living Museum, Dudley Zoo West Sussex: Wakehurst, Nymans, Chichester Cathedral West Yorkshire: Royal Armouries Museum, Ogden Water Country Park, Nostell Priory Wiltshire: Stonehenge, Longleat, Stourhead Worcestershire: Croome Park, Hanbury Hall, Severn Valley Railway
I've counted and there are only seven counties where I've been to the full top three.
Meanwhile there are twelve counties where I haven't visited any of the top three.
Must try harder.
And it's certainly busy, so much so that they don't take walk-ups at the front any more, that's prebooked free ticketholders only. I joined the slalom round the back instead and waited 15 minutes before being waved past because I didn't have a bag. It is a proper treasure trove inside though, with urns and coins and gilt scabbards and mummies and hulking great chunks of temples and masks and manuscripts and clocks and busts and tapestries and carved wooden gods and jewellery and where exactly was Levant anyway and more urns and helmets and inscriptions and the remains of civilisations we're still bombing and chess pieces and jade and torcs and stone panels and marbles and Marbles and screenprints and sculptures with tusks and ceramics and friezes and the real Rosetta Stone and a fake Rosetta Stone to draw the crowds away and mosaics and vases and cups and more urns, not all of which were looted from their place of origin. Also a cloakroom, pizzeria, £6 cakes and £3 cans of Coke because once people have waited that long to get in they're not going anywhere else. Always a joy.
That's the NHM in South Kensington, not the Tring outpost because that only had 151,000 visitors last year. Again it took me 15 minutes to get in, which wasn't great but could have been worse. It's a proper maze this place, especially once you step away from the central hall with the blue whale skeleton, and I don't know why people pay £2 for a map because it's always disorienting whatever. I did a circuit round the dinosaurs before it got too busy, including the skippable T-rex. I walked to the back of the minerals to see the gemstones and meteorites in the Vault. I noted that the escalator into the heart of the Earth's core is working again. I found an empty exhibition you had to pay to get into at the end of a silent corridor. I passed the stuffed zebras I remember as a child, also several shops and cafes I don't. I appreciated the Fixing Our Broken Planet gallery where ways of avoiding extinction are explored. I wandered out into the new back garden with its pond full of toads, and noted that if you ever want to jump the queues just enter the building this way through the tumbleweed West Entrance. But mostly I mused that the finest display of animal behaviour onsite was the visitors themselves, from the throng of global tourists to the swarm of excitable schoolchildren, because Natural History is all around us and we are a key part.
A huge hall that's empty most of the year. Four thematic collections that don't refresh as often as they could. Odd stuff, obtuse stuff, overwrought stuff. Two exhibitions it would cost £40 to see both of. Echoing tanks with not much in. Ridiculous descriptions of thematic nonsense. Escalators that take you past where you want to be. A top floor terrace they've had to retreat from. But also Dali's lobster, Duchamp's urinal, Matisse's snail, Warhol's diptych, Rothko's maroon, inspiration, expertise, goosebumps and lots to make you think, which is why we all keep coming back.
Twenty years ago in a Singapore hotel, 54 IOC delegates voted to award the 2012 Olympic Games to London. Few saw it coming, the expectation was that the Games would go to Paris and that Seb Coe and friends had valiantly wasted years of effort. Instead the world came to Stratford to win medals and the Lower Lea Valley was duly transformed from a post-industrial backwater to a recreational and residential hub, and all in seven years flat.
I had the day off work on 6th July 2005, just in case, and over breakfast watched Seb and Becks give their 'Inspire A Generation' presentation to assorted suits. By the time I got to Trafalgar Square only London and Paris were still in the race, and a large expectant crowd had gathered to witness the opening of an envelope. When 'London' was revealed there was surprise, jubilation and a lot of ticker tape, then Heather Small stood up and sang Proud and the Red Arrows flew over. Lunchtimes have rarely been so consequential.
In the afternoon I went for a walk up the Olympic-Park-to-be, trying to get my head round what might be going where. I bumped into film crews, BMX bikers and oblivious drunkards swigging from cans. I looked down from the Greenway across a swathe of instantly doomed businesses. I got as far as the bus garages, cash and carrys and nature reserves off Waterden Road, taking on the enormity of the transformation ahead. And on the way back I walked to the end of a cul-de-sac to find a German car company and a skip hire depot in the middle of what would eventually be the Olympic Stadium, and soon was. It was quite the day.
20 years later I've walked up the Olympic Park again to muse and reflect on the transformation wrought and the legacy delivered. I did this after 10 years too, as you'd expect, but I'll keep it briefer this time. Also there have been several significant changes since 2015, starting here.
This is the Abba Arena, erected silently during the pandemic and now playing to full houses in sequins and lace seven times a week. Technically it's a 'meanwhile' use, originally intended to be removed by 31st March 2025 and replaced by flats. Instead it's still standing because nobody kills a goose that lays golden eggs, and the owners of the Snoozebox Hotel nextdoor hope the day it finally ups sticks is as far in the future as possible. Back in 2005 all this was industrial estate with an emphasis on muck and auto parts, alongside the DLR's least significant halt. Since then the station has been massively upgraded, also relocated to dodge Crossrail, and all but one of the former warehouses has been knocked down. But even though the Games were over a decade ago not a single flat has been built within the Olympic footprint, only on land immediately outside, and a heck of a lot of empty hardstanding remains. It wouldn't surprise me if I returned in 2035 and found Pudding Mill neighbourhood still substantially incomplete.
This is the Olympic Stadium, now the London Stadium because West Ham United still haven't found anyone willing to sponsor it. On the bright side it does have a proper legacy use because that was never a given, eventually reopening in 2016, and still packs them in for rock gigs and American football takeovers as and when. If you'd walked this riverside in 2005 it would have been a lonely experience, passing silos and the backs of warehouses while a guard dog barked across the water from a lengthy tumbledown shed. It was plain luck that the braids of the Bow Back Rivers spread wide enough here to accommodate the footprint of a world class arena, also pitch perfect for security, also always going to be an annoying walk from the nearest station. Today it's a joy to see the surface of the river still as alive with damselflies as it was 20 years ago, also a damned shame that the banks of wildflowers that peaked so memorably for the Games have been allowed to almost entirely fade away.
This is the East Bank, or Olympicopolis as Boris tried to dub it, which is currently midway through its opening sequence. We've had fashion since 2023 and ballet since February, with culture from the V&A and BBC due next year. This used to be a stripe of industries nowhere else wanted, from scrapyards and repair shops to battery stores and tyre mountains, before being repurposed for swimming and water polo during the Games. It's impressively busy along here now, partly due to office workers and students but mainly thanks to the arrival of Westfield just beyond. A massive mall on former railway lands was planned on this site before Jacques Rogge opened his envelope so the IOC merely turbocharged things and the UK's busiest shopping centre is the result. The Olympic Park itself is also reassuringly abuzz, even midweek, confirming that the speakers in that Singapore hotel room weren't being entirely over-optimistic. The fountains by the bridge squirt far less often than they used to, alas.
This is the blue bridge, a single point of reference for those of us who remember how this area used to look. If I really concentrate I can remember a graffitiedcrossing beneath two tall pylons surrounded by secure fencing, just past Parkes Galvanizing Ltd, and now just look at it! I also remember Carpenters Lock as a derelictruin I wasn't supposed to clamber on, and never would have guessed it would be fully restored to full navigational use. The fact barely any boats ever use it is alas irrelevant, although when I did my 2025 walk I was thrilled to see one of the lock gates raised while two official-looking gentlemen in Canal & River Trust polo shirts checked it out. Meanwhile nobody's yet found a good reason for the Orbit to exist, not since it was a useful viewing platform above a world-class sporting event for four weeks in the summer of 2012. If the world's longest tunnel slide failed to rake them in then a recent switch to the custody of Zip World is unlikely to cut it, especially with a greedy £5 booking fee on top.
These are the northern parklands, arguably the greatest triumph of the post-Olympic legacy. Not only were they glorious to lounge in during the Games but they've matured since to become a wetland landscape of some beauty, complete with multiple kingfishers if you manage to get lucky. I wasn't thinking 'pandemic' when all this was created but my word it made my lockdown hugely more tolerable. That said the parkland has started to be nibbled away for housing on the west side, as was always in the long-term plan, as the neighbourhood of East Wick inexorably expands. There will still be a lot of grass left but it won't be as much as many people anticipated. Also the top of the mound beneath the Olympic rings used to have a much better view than this but the trees they planted 15 years ago are maturing now and the canopy is obscuring the horizon, with some way still to go. It is a shame the Manor House allotments had to move, split off to two less great locations, but what the wider public's gained here is immense.
This is the Lea Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre with its dazzling blue outdoor pitch. I never walked this far in 2005, the A12 was too much of a barrier, so QEOP has also helped knit the community together. This Waltham Forest End does however feel somewhat underdeveloped, only coming to life when some massive hockey event descends and seals the place off. Also it was announced last week that the indoor tennis courts are to be converted to padel instead, which has caused a lot of angry players to make a racket, but the Park's recreational overlords have always appeared more interested in income than participation. Beyond that is the Velodrome, a timber beauty that far exceeds the cycle track that used to be here, and also the only Olympic residential neighbourhoods to have been completed so far. Never did I imagine when I wandered up here in the sunshine 20 years ago quite how amazingly it was all going to turn out, almost entirely for the better, and all because three more IOC delegates were persuaded to vote for London instead of Paris.
