I worry sometimes that my content isn't niche enough. Things to do in Wood End. Roadworks at the Bow Roundabout. A walk along the Burnt Oak Brook. So today I'm going all-out niche in an attempt to dampen interest even further. Welcome to Random Bexley Footpath.
All Outer London boroughs have a Definitive Statement of Public Rights of Way and a Definitive Map, ideally up-to-date and hopefully online. Bexley's offering is particularly straightforward to access, clearly defining the locations of footpaths 1 to 254, so I picked one entirely at random and then went and walked it.
Random Bexley Footpath #7: Byway from Abbey Road to St. Augustine's Road (half a mile from Abbey Wood towards Lower Belvedere)
Typical, all those numbers to choose from and the random number generator chooses 7. On the plus side we've got ourselves a Byway and they're rare in Bexley, even if it does mean watching out for traffic. Promisingly it runs along the edge of Lesnes Abbey Woods, kicking off by the recreation ground a tad beyond the abbey ruins. Aha, what we have here is essentially a service road that slinks round the backs of the gardens on Elstree Gardens for residents' vehicles only, which explains the pushbutton lock on the barrier at the Abbey Wood end. The backs of gardens are not pretty, the fences often shabby, occasionally tumbledown. Only one panel is actually missing, revealing piles of rubbish and a discarded trampoline. Not many properties have garages and even fewer look like they're ever used. It's a bit muddy underfoot but my trainers survive generally unscathed.
And all this time what's been lurking to the right of the byway is Lesnes Abbey Woods. It's right there behind a line of low metal railings, a glorious deciduous wanderland brimming with wildlife and interest. Close by is a parallel path along which dogwalkers and merry families stroll, scrunching underfoot, beneath an intermittently yellowing canopy. But that path's not an official public right of way because the entire wood is roamable, so here I am trapped on the dull side with the backs of sheds and fences that haven't been Cuprinoled recently. A squirrel hops up onto the railings with a stray sweet chestnut between its paws, then hops off into the woods as if to taunt me. The mud eases on the final approach to St Augustine's Road, where the shortcut through the car park is no longer accessible because the pub's been demolished.
OK maybe that was too interesting, so I picked another random number and tried again.
Random Bexley Footpath #162: 115m from Frognal Avenue to Sidcup Bypass Road A20
On the very southern edge of the borough, this one's a shortcut across paddocks round the back of Queen Mary's Hospital. Except I couldn't find it. I walked the stretch of Frognal Avenue where it ought to start, not far from mental health and the lung clinic, but all I found was unbroken hedgerow. I did find a stile a little further up the lane, at the gates where the owner drives in to feed the horses, but the pole beside it didn't have a footpath sign on top even though it looks like it once did. I then walked the long way round to the dual carriageway on the bypass where the path is supposed to emerge but it didn't - the embankment is too high and the fence unbroken. I was thus unwilling to climb over that stile and wander around a paddock in search of an exit that isn't there, so Footpath 162 went unwalked.
I've since checked a Victorian Ordnance Survey map and it turns out there was originally a very sensible footpath here crossing Scadbury Park towards Chislehurst. But that was cut in 1926 when the Sidcup Bypass opened, and properly severed in 1987 when the nearby roundabout was underpassed, so the runty Bexley end no longer makes any sense. It's not officially 'extinguished' but you can't walk it, and what I think my random number generator has uncovered is a footpath anomaly that's past its use-by date.
OK maybe that was too interesting, so I picked another random number and tried again.
Random Bexley Footpath #210: 70m from Maylands Drive to Cleve Road
Welcome to Albany Park, the interwar suburb served by a lowly station midway between Sidcup and Bexley. Maylands Drive is on the slopes leading down to Footscray Meadows and part of the Royal Park council estate. Footpath 210 begins beside a house which I suspect keeps a 'Lest we forget' poster in the window all year round. It's a cut-through between back gardens. It's fully paved. It slopes downhill. It has two lampposts. The fence is partly overspilled with ivy. Halfway down is the Maylands Avenue electricity sub-station. Someone's left their brown bin out. Also littering the path are a cardboard box that once held ice cubes, some dog food packaging and a tequila beer wrapper. Number 28's hedge is well looked after. Cycling is not permitted but this is only signed at the Cleve Road end. It only takes a minute to walk it. The nearby church looks like an example of copper-based origami, but this is not on Footpath 210 so I shouldn't mention it.
OK maybe that was too interesting, so I picked another random number and tried again.
Random Bexley Footpath #155: 275m from York Avenue to Old Farm Avenue
Back to Sidcup again but this time west of the station, which will soon prove important. The first stretch off York Avenue is a gravel track with a separate pavement, right up to a barrier liftable by emergency vehicles only. The big building on the left is a care home with a penchant for advertising itself on multiple adjacent fences. The large greenspace on the right is Sidcup's King George V Playing Field, one of 471 nationwide, and much loved by Bexley young'uns who like an organised kickabout. And then the footpath does something annoyingly interesting, it launches across the railway inside a narrow cage-like footbridge. Crossing from one side to the other feels a bit like walking through an aviary at a poorly maintained zoo.
And when you finally twist down on the far side the houses ahead look like nothing else in the immediate neighbourhood. This is Old Farm Place, the first completed project of BexleyCo, the council's new in-house property development arm, and contains 58 new homes squeezed into a linear site. Normally this might be laudable but in this case they built the houses across half a park, the argument essentially being "well we've got to build some somewhere". This annoyed locals mightily, even after the remaining half of the park was majorly spruced-up. All the new homes have parking spaces, less than half are affordable, and this being Bexley all were marketed as having "access to three motorways". Footpath 155 ends shortly afterwards on an avenue with more traditional, less dense semis.
OK maybe that was too interesting, so I picked another random number and tried again.
Random Bexley Footpath #93: 200m from Parkhill Road to Hurst Road
Hello Old Bexley. Footpath 93 runs just west of St John the Evangelist Church. It starts beside the driveway to the vicarage. Cycling is permitted. The path is initially broad and meandering. Fences outnumber walls. One house's back gate opens onto the path but otherwise there are no intermediate access points. You can see the church but you can't get to it. An electricity substation is located about halfway down. Beyond the substation the path narrows and gets straighter. It emerges between 633 and 635 Hurst Road. 633 has a lot of flint in its walls. Rest assured Footpaths 92 and 94 would have been duller.
THE UNLOST RIVERS OF LONDON Burnt Oak Brook Mill Hill → Burnt Oak (2 miles)
[Burnt Oak Brook → Silk Stream → Brent → Thames]
London's bountiful supply of unlost rivers continues to provide opportunities for waterside walking if you know where to look. This one flows not far from Edgware and is yet another tributary of the Silk Stream, which is yet another tributary of the Brent. What's unusual about this one is that it spends most of its upper course in pipes and most of its lower course out in the open, which does at least mean proper running water later on. Along the way I can promise you suburban furrows, fancy pastries, municipal daylighting and a direct hit on two stations, one of which is celebrating its centenary later this month.
The Burnt Oak Brook starts on the southern flank of Holcombe Hill, one of the lumpier bits of Mill Hill. Precisely where it starts is a good question, there being at least two feeder streams on the upper slopes, but the first sighting on the ground is a pond in a park called The Mill Field. As recreational spaces go it's quite precipitous so nowhere you'd play football, but the benches along the top path have a decent view across the M1 corridor. The pond is concealed by brambly woodland lower down and isn't currently full enough to spill out along the initial channel, but a thick coil of blue plastic pipe suggests drainage is sometimes a significant issue.
Below the lower field the channel becomes an artificial drain which diverts around the edge of the Chalet Estate, then skirts the grounds of St Joseph's College, a former Roman Catholic seminary. The trainee priests moved out in 2008 and their Gothic pile was used for filming early series of Call The Midwife - the original Nonnatus House! - but it's all luxury retirement flats now. The Middlesex topographer Nick Papadimitriou has christened this particular rill the Mill Stream and has a couple of fine photos of a narrow trickle awash with spring celandine on his website, but it's not so nice in October. Alas I checked on a 150 year-old map and this fork's not on it, only a much straighter stream starting near The Old Forge and running through the fields parallel to Lawrence Street, and this has all the classic hidden river tropes.
At the bottom of The Reddings is a widening stripe of grass called Lawrence Green with an utterly distinct furrow running down the middle. Sit on Joseph Swallow's bench and you can see it really clearly. It's dry these days but a drain cover at the far end, by the dogbins, strongly hints at the continuing passage of underground water.
The next street down is Sunnyfield, a hairpin crescent with an extremely pronounced dip where the Burnt Oak Brook once barrelled through. According to Nick a 14-inch culvert runs between the houses in the bottom's deepest point, so a resident told him, but I only met a Waitrose delivery driver and the postie so was unable to confirm this. By the next street the dented contours remain evident but are less defined, which seems somewhat ironic given this is Uphill Drive but it was actually named after Uphill Farm which once cultivated these brooky slopes.
The first proper view of the Burnt Oak Brook comes at Simmonds Mead Open Space as it spills gently out of a small pipe into an ornamental garden. It then meanders artificially through a wiggly narrow channel and is generally step-across-able, but four teensy footbridges have been provided at strategic locations to make recreational strolling more pleasant. Only one of these currently needs urgent repair. We have the Mill Hill Preservation Society to thank for elevating all this to Village Green status in 2007, and I suspect the special trees commemorating Dennis, Brian, Eileen and Leonard are their doing as well. Then it's all too swiftly back into a pipe because the A1 needs to power through.
We've reached Mill Hill Broadway, the main shopping street, where the Burnt Oak Brook once hugged the southern side. Here today we find a trio of churches, only one of which has been rebuilt to look more like a community centre, and a lot of shops catering for refreshment and grooming needs. Quite the worst name of any business is Joice, where "where joy is a choice", the kind of cafe where if you want hash browns with your cooked breakfast it'll knock the price over £16. From various maps it seems likely that the brook's culvert passes beneath Pizza Express, a frozen yoghurt joint ("where indulgence meets wellness") and the inevitable Gail's bakery before bearing off towards the railway.
Mill Hill Broadway ranks highly in the list of London's fugliest stations, its entrance having been demoted underneath the M1 motorway in the 1960s, and the bus station beneath the carriageways is a proper gloomy turnaround. I stood at the top of the steps and tried to picture the Burnt Oak Brook trickling through, long before the concrete thudded down, but the guy from synagogue security was eyeing me suspiciously so I thought it best to move on. Langley Park, on the other side of the railway, is the last suburban street where the absent stream's indentation can still be seen. But if you make your way across Lyndhurst Park to the dip in the far corner it finally emerges properly from a large pipe, now one metre across, and stays above ground as it wends its way across Burnt Oak.
This is The Meads, a fine example of how interwar planners cleverly incorporated an urban river into a council estate. Two lines of concatenated houses face off across a broad meadow, regularly mown, with the stream in a seemingly natural channel to one side. The banks are deep with greenery, and alas a sprinkling of himalayan balsam, while crabapples bob downstream until trapped by a stray branch or pebbled ripple. Occasionally a road intervenes, then it's back to brambly overhang, reddening shrubbery and even a zigzag meander at one point which I think is a leftover from an old farm pond. Shame about the discarded microwave.
For a couple of hundred metres the Burnt Oak Brook becomes the sole preserve of the Abbotts Road Allotments, a lovingly tended enclave watched over by various flags and two fake flamingos. And then it bursts out into Watling Park, the chief recreational space hereabouts, where it tracks the western edge in an attractive if not overly visible manner. There are thus £1½m-worth of plans to re-align the river, strip back surrounding vegetation, add meanders and bring it further into the park, thereby reducing the flood risk to neighbouring properties.
The largest intervention is the creation of a central wetland area along the alignment of an existing pipe, this currently at the "freshly-dug pools overseen by pristine lifebelts" stage. The fairly grim pergola above the southern outfall is also going, along with umpteen other changes you can read about in detail here, and all should all be finished by the spring.
After that last hurrah the Burnt Oak Brook plunges into one last pipe to duck beneath the lowest point of the shopping parade on Watling Avenue. If you stand at the southeastern tip of the platforms at Burnt Oak tube station (opened 27th October 1924), the Burnt Oak Brook is sluicing under your feet. To see it emerge head behind the shops to Market Lane, where the car repair gangs work, and follow the alleyway at the end to a little-trodden footbridge - voila! The stream's final ten metres pass quietly between trees and a graffitied fence before entering its fluvial parent, the Silk Stream, for a livelier journey down to the Welsh Harp Reservoir.
Four months of major roadworks were supposed to begin at the Bow Roundabout on Monday 30th September. This did not happen. But they are now underway and - spoilers - it's bad news for local road users.
Monday 7th October
The roadworks begin... although all the workmen have done so far is seal off the link road under the eastern end of the flyover, inconveniencing almost nobody. Traffic continues to flow freely.
Tuesday 8th October
Ah, here we go, the cones are out. One lane has been coned off at each of the four entrances to the roundabout and hey presto, queues are building up. The queue on Bow Road stretches almost as far as the DLR station, which is bad. They've also switched off the existing traffic lights, perhaps forever, and switched on the temporary traffic lights they installed last week. There are even temporary cycle lights, temporarily replacing the UK's first low-level cycle lights installed here 10 yearsago.
Intriguingly the temporary traffic lights are running to exactly the same timings as the usual traffic lights. However only half as much traffic can now get onto the roundabout which means multiple vehicles are backing up along the various sliproads. For example on Bow Road well over a dozen vehicles would normally have entered the roundabout during the 12 seconds the lights were green. Now only about 7 vehicles are getting through, and if a bus or massive lorry is in the queue then sometimes it's only 4 or 5. Negotiating the cones isn't helping. There's a lot more honking than there used to be.
However as a pedestrian this is all unexpectedly brilliant. Previously each of the six pedestrian crossings crossed two lanes of traffic but now they only cross one, making it much easier to nip across in a gap when the lights are red. There are also more gaps because traffic is slower and more sparse, so basically it's jaywalker heaven. But for drivers it's not great, and what's more as yet none of this is necessary because no 'proper' roadworks have begun which would require the closure of a lane of traffic.
Wednesday 9th October
Drilling has occurred! Unfortunately it's only occurred on the link road under the flyover so the cones on the roundabout are still entirely superfluous.
The end of the westbound contraflow lane has been coned off, in part so it can be used to park contractors' vehicles but mainly because it's now permanently closed. Traffic entering the contraflow lane at Marshgate Lane is being warned 'Road Closed Ahead' but several vehicles either aren't seeing it or aren't believing it and are gettting caught out. I watched three cars attempt to do a U-turn rather than turn up Cooks Road and go round again, and I hope drivers catch on soon.
In particularly stupid news, westbound buses on Stratford High Street are joining the queue to go round the Bow Roundabout rather than whizzing over the Bow Flyover. This is stupid because there are no longer any bus stops along this section now that the Bow Flyover bus stop has been temporarily closed, so buses might as well go over the flyover. To be fair I only saw buses on routes 25 and 425 in the stupid queue, whereas a driver on route D8 whizzed sensibly over the flyover. Maybe the managers at their bus garage are more astute.
Thursday 10th October
Proper drilling has occurred! It's along the inside kerb of Stratford High Street, just before it reaches the roundabout. I believe this is destined to become an extra lane of traffic so it's a good place to start. It means there is now a reason for one lane of traffic to have been coned off.
However as yet there's no reason for one lane to have been coned off on any of the other three slip roads, and the ensuing traffic queues are still not good. Northbound off the A12 they sometimes stretch back, eek, to Tesco. But Bow Road and Stratford High Street have it worse, this likely as a direct result of 25% of their 'green' time being cyclists only. And Bow Road has it worst of all, I'd say, because the road narrows near Bus Stop M so traffic aiming for the flyover can't always squeeze past.
Friday 10th October
Now that things have bedded in I thought I'd try riding buses past the Bow roundabout to find out how much they've been slowed down. I did this at 10am after the morning rush had died down because I'm not a masochist. First I hopped on a 25 at Bow Church DLR heading east to Stratford. We joined the queue just before Bus Stop M but ultimately it wasn't too dreadful. After five minutes we were through the roundabout and after just 13 minutes we pulled up outside Stratford station. The 25's new temporary timetable allows 26 minutes to get from Bow Church to Stratford but we did it in half that. This suggests that the temporary timetable is ludicrously pessimistic, at least at this time of day.
And then I caught a bus back again which proved most odd. All the westbound buses on route 25 were showing 'Bow Church' as their destination, which was odd because normally they go a lot further. Oddly the display inside the bus said 'City Thameslink Holborn Viaduct' instead, and that was additionally odd because the current western terminus is St Paul's. Things seemed less odd as we trundled dutifully towards the clogged-up roundabout... but this time, hurrah, we dodged it by crossing the flyover instead. Someone's plainly told all the drivers heading west to use the flyover, not just on route 25 but on all the bus routes, and this means avoiding all the queues and all the congestion entirely. Plus there's a great view up there.
I'd made this journey from Stratford to Bow Church before the roadworks to get a sense of how long it normally took, and it normally took about 12 minutes. But today it took nine minutes, such are the benefits of closing a bus stop and skipping over the flyover... a much faster bus service. And yet the 25's new temporary timetable allows 29 minutes to get from Stratford to Bow Church, a full 20 minutes longer, suggesting that the westbound temporary timetable is even more ludicrously pessimistic. Even at 6am the temporary timetabler has allocated 21 minutes to get from Stratford to Bow Church, a preposterous number, and this suggests someone ought to rewrite this timetable because it's ballsing up the buses.
So messed up are the schedules that buses really are terminating at Bow Church, then either hanging around or turfing everybody off. My bus duly pulled up outside the DLR station and terminated, at which point a Stagecoach operative dashed up the stairs to tell us all to 'jump on the bus in front please". I did as asked, entering the (rather crowded) bus in front through the middle doors like a criminal. Ridiculously the bus I had been on was despatched just three minutes later, now with 'St Paul's' on the front blind and with just one passenger on board. What's happening here is a customer herding charade, and all because a few men are drilling one kerb near a roundabout.
Perhaps don't catch a bus near the Bow Roundabout any time soon, unless it's one of the temporarily faster buses in which case absolutely do.
n.b. All the photos in this post were taken this week.
The Smudge of Remembrance
Art on the Underground is proud to announce an arresting manifestation of remembrance which will be on display in the run-up to Armistice Day, which is in one month's time. Ghostly poppies have manifested on the front of Tube trains across the Capital, presenting customers with repeated opportunities to reflect and resonate at this important time of the year.
This key project is called The Smudge of Remembrance and has been comprehensively curated to create spectral moments of commemoration firmly rooted in the everyday.
The ghost poppies appear as faint outlines and bleached patches on the front of Tube trains. All are different, the variety of form being the result of diverse artistic choices and complex maintenance histories.
Some iterations are almost complete in shape and remind us of the futility of war but also its underlying strength. Some are less structured and force us to confront the injuries of indiscriminate combat. Others exist only as faint evidence of imperceptible removal, just as the victims of war have been taken from us in cruel and damaging ways. Together they form a cohesive body of art that forces us to come to terms with the sacrifices of the armed forces across a global dimension and senseless loss of life on an unforeseen scale.
One of the best places to see The Smudge of Remembrance is on the front of District line and other sub-surface trains. Sharp grey blotches and grubby blurs have been carefully installed in full public view, halfway between the headlamps and directly beneath the cabin window. Customers waiting on the platform will thus become incrementally aware of the iconic double petal shape as the train approaches, inevitably musing on its deeper significance and perhaps reflecting on how these strange outlines could possibly have been created.
The Smudge of Remembrance is a long-planned art commission and has been undertaken with long-term objectives in mind. Engineers first created a poppy-shaped sticker and affixed it to the front of rolling stock almost one year ago. Their bright red colour often blended in with the front of the train helping to camouflage preparations for the current artwork. The key engineering decision was to use an adhesive that would not fully and conveniently detach from the metallic surface after use, thereby ensuring that scarring and damage to paintwork would be the inevitable result.
Customers wishing to view the Smudge of Remembrance should be aware that it is only visible on select trains on select lines.
Some of the finest deformation can be seen on the Central line where large uneven white fragments were created when the poppy-shaped stickers were removed. "It may look like chemical carelessness," said Alan Bants, TfL's Head of Adhesive-based Detachment. "But in fact we experimented for many sessions to determine the optimal viscosity to create maximum damage on the train's patina and I for one am thrilled by the result."
The ghost poppies on the Piccadilly line are even more numerous, yet simultaneously even more spectral. Initially you might not notice them but look closer and the pallid remnants of the original sticker are always visible, no matter how carefully train maintenance crews may have attempted to remove them. "This is our long-lasting artistic triumph," said Rizwana Hamid, TfL's Head of Sustainable Durability. "Our adhesive has caused such intrinsic damage to the underlying surface that not even a deep clean can completely remove it."
Not all District line trains feature ghost poppies - some have actually been cleaned properly since last year. These roll into stations with a near pristine red frontage demonstrating that The Smudge of Remembrance is not a cultural inevitability, more an institutional choice. But sufficient rolling stock has been insufficiently scrubbed over multiple cleaning opportunities that ghost poppies remain a tangible and ongoing presence across the network, even eleven months after the last Remembrance Day.
"We couldn't have done this without a fundamentally cavalier attitude to exterior train cleansing at an institutional level," said Binky Reynolds, TfL's Head of Budget Optimisation. "One decent scrub since January and all our hard work would have vanished. Instead trains are still rumbling around inadequately cleaned and so our hard-earned ghost poppies remain on view for all to see, delighting and challenging customers in equal measure."
TfL are always keen to slap poppies on the fronts of trains for a lengthy period in October and November because it would be highly disrespectful to our war dead to do otherwise. This focused fervour helped to ensure that last year's stickers were affixed without due thought for how they would be removed, and indeed whether they could be removed, leaving behind visual detritus that lingered long beyond Remembrancetide. A limited cleaning schedule imposed by insufficient resourcing has then retained these leftovers in situ and the Smudge of Remembrance is the result.
Londoners are encouraged to seek out The Smudge of Remembrance over the next few days, and to meditate upon the millions of lives sacrificed to war that these poignant images reflect. Like the original stickers they too were untimely ripped. But best hurry because the next slew of red poppies will no doubt be slapped on soon, covering over the ghostly scars until they too are inadequately removed and the whole messy art project goes round again.
Do you ever look at the front of a bus and think "where the hell is that?"?
Wood End is the epitome of a nondescript place name, two words that could apply to almost anywhere in the country, but is an actual place in actual London. It even has a library, or rather it did but we'll get to that. You'll find it west of Sudbury, north of Greenford, east of Northolt and south of South Harrow, if that helps.
10 Things To See and Do in Wood End(each Thing better than the Thing before it)
1) Grab a service wash at Wood End Launderette
This is bottom of the heap so it's not that exciting. But feel free to bring your mixed cottons and pillowslips to Wood End Laundrette at 123 Wood End Lane, and perhaps even plump for a service wash with post-tumble ironing thrown in. The smell of detergent wafts out across the corner of Russell Road, evocative of washday for anyone of an appropriate age. Had you been here 100 years ago this would have been the entrance to Wood End Green Farm, one of the three farms in the hamlet of Wood End, but that's long been obliterated by suburban development. Yes they do duvets.
2) Return a book to Wood End Library
The borough of Ealing ought to have 14 libraries but currently has 13 because Wood End library, beside Wood End Primary School, has closed. More accurately it's been demolished and is being replaced by a stack of 11 flats because Ealing council have housing targets. In good news there'll be a replacement library space on the ground floor, but in bad news it'll be a fifth of the previous size so a far lesser facility. In even worse news the hoardings outside say "due to be completed by late 2023" but all that's visible from the street is a concrete shell awaiting cladding because the construction company went bust, so any borrowed books could be massively overdue by the time it's eventually finished.
3) Visit the split recreation ground
When Wood End's suburban avenues were being laid out in the late 1920s, two arrowhead-shaped gaps were left surrounded by back gardens either side of Russell Road. In February 1928 Ealing Council bought these from Corporate Development Trust Limited and created twin recreation grounds, as can be confirmed by the blurb on the information board in the larger of the two. These days they're called Woodend West and Woodend East, each accessible only by footpath and with a scrap of playground and a patch of grass to enjoy. They form a mundane but most unusual pair, and pigeons may not be fed in either.
4) Catch the train to Islip
Wood End's very own railway station opened in 1926 as a spur to developing housing locally, a catalyst which patently worked. It was initially named ‘South Harrow & Roxeth’ before being changed to ‘Northolt Park’ in 1929 in recognition of a nearby place of interest frequented by tens of thousands of punters, which is Thing Number Nine so I won't reveal it yet. These days it's run by Chiltern who don't bother with anything as posh as station buildings, only a locked shed and a couple of shelters, nor do they bother stopping trains very often either. The least served destination is Islip with just one train on weekdays at 10.49pm, although Marylebone is likely where most locals escape to.
5) Buy one of Wood End's original cottages
Such was the impact of suburbanisation on rural Wood End that all that remains of the original hamlet is a single row of six cottages. These appeared halfway along Wood End Lane in 1906 and were named Wood End Cottages because there was nothing else to confuse them with at the time. Today they find themselves sandwiched between later semis at the widest part of the lane, by the 7-foot width restriction, and are the only homes hereabouts with bin-sized front gardens. The end cottage recently went on the market for £375,000 which feels somewhat excessive for a two-up two-down with less than 50m² floorspace but nothing else locally comes close.
6) Enjoy Curry Club at the Greenwood Hotel
Wood End has only two listed buildings, one of which is a large L-shaped estate pub built by Courage in the late 1930s. According to the Greenwood Hotel's citation the architecture "epitomises the restrained respectability of the suburbs in their inter-war heyday" and "the interior survives very well." Since 2016 it's been a Wetherspoons so most punters care more about the fact it's Curry Club tonight than the fireplaces, cornices and panelling, but at least the place is being looked after and as a public house it has zero competition locally.
7) Shop til you drop at Oldfields Circus
Wood End has a half-decent shopping parade, at least in terms of size and breadth if not necessarily quality. It bears off from half a leafy roundabout, is topped by 30s-style flats and includes one of London's many chippies called The Codfather. The largest shop is a Polish delicatessen, indeed there's an Eastern European flavour to several outlets, but also an Irish butchers, a Turkish takeaway and a Scotch-based off-licence. Morgan's Office Furniture is piled high with upturned chairs on top of other chairs, all the way to the back, while Golden Crust Bakery looks to be a proper throwback of hot buns and filled rolls that thankfully hasn't been Wenzel-ed yet.
8) Enjoy the view from Wood End Wireless Station
By WW2 the whole of Wood End was housing apart from a large patch on the hilltop which had been occupied by an RAF radio station in 1926. Most of that land has since succumbed to become a loop of townhouses but a small park remains in the centre, a greenspace known as Woodend Wireless Station, still with two serious-looking communications towers locked away at the summit. As a place to exercise your dog it's proper unusual. A sign on the compound confirms this is still used by Air Traffic Control and is known as Greenford Tx Comms Station. I suspect it's related to nearby RAF Northolt but from the top of the slope the procession of planes descending into Heathrow is clearly seen so maybe it's of wider strategic importance.
9) Visit the racetrack where George Formby rode Lucky Bert
The UK's first Pony Racing course opened here in 1929, complete with Art Decograndstand and a 1½ mile grass circuit. This looped through the former fields of Wood End Farm but they called it Northolt Park, hence the name of the station back in Thing Number Four. After a slow start it became ridiculously popular, drawing in half a million punters in 1938, some of whom came to see ex-jockey George Formby run an exhibition race, but the owners over-reached and sadly went bankrupt. After WW2 the government requisitioned the land for housing and created the Racecourse Estate, so all you can still see today are two strips of parkland and the original gates at the entrance to Dabbs Hill Lane. I could write more but northoltparkracecourse.wordpress.com has already sewn that up in brilliant detail so read that.
10) See part of St Paul's Cathedral at St Barnabas St Barnabas is Wood End's other listed building, designed pre-WW2 but not completed until 1954 so somewhat of an architectural anachronism. It has a lofty brickbellcote, a polygonal baptistry and "the design is redolent with medievalism", apparently. Best of all the doors were open when I arrived so I went in and hunted for a very specific chunk of marble I'd researched online. I didn't find it but I did meet the vicar emerging from the vestry so I asked him where it was and he didn't know. "It's from St Paul's Cathedral and I read about it on your church website." Still no recognition. "It's in the baptistry set in the wall near the foundation stone." So we went and looked, peeking behind a board dotted with mission posters, and there it was embedded in the wall. Best of all there was a framed letter hanging underneath signed by C. A. Linge, Clerk of Works at St Paul's Cathedral, dated 20th April 1953.
I'm still not sure the vicar was particularly excited to discover he had a block of white marble from St Paul's embedded in his baptistry, but if that isn't the best thing in Wood End I don't know what is.
The square after Piccadilly on the Monopoly board isGO TO JAIL. The accompanying picture may show a police officer blowing a whistle but the person who actually sends you to jail is a judge in a court room, so today's post is about criminal courts in London.
Supreme Court
Top of the heap is the Supreme Court which is based in the former Middlesex Guildhall in Parliament Square. It hears civil and criminal cases and was established as recently as 2009. It also has fabulous carpets as I once discovered on an Open House visit. Had you been there yesterday you could have heard the judges ruling on the Dartmoor 'right to roam' case, but that's civil rather than criminal so I didn't go there.
Court of Appeal
Second in the pyramid is the Court of Appeal based at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand. It too hears civil and criminal cases and was established in 1875. Again it's a fabulous place to visit for Open House should you ever get the chance. Courts 6, 7 and 8 were in operation yesterday hearing cases including "Application for leave to appeal against a confiscation order" and "Pronouncement of an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court". They didn't appeal so I didn't go there either.
Crown Courts Second tier: Central Criminal Court (the Old Bailey) Third tier: Croydon, Harrow, Inner London (Newington), Isleworth, Kingston, Snaresbrook, Southwark, Wood Green, Woolwich
My photo shows Snaresbrook Crown Court which is the busiest Crown Court in the UK handling over 7000 cases a year. It's based in the former Wanstead Infant Orphan Asylum, a truly Gothic pile which later became Royal Wanstead School before being converted into a Crown Court in 1974. It's set in lovely lakeside grounds, which helped when they needed space to add a five-court annexe in 1988. I got as far as the front steps but decided against going in and taking a seat in a public gallery to watch heaven knows what.
Magistrates' Courts North: Barkingside, City of London, Ealing, Hendon, Highbury Corner, Romford, Stratford, Thames (Bow), Uxbridge, Westminster, Willesden South: Belmarsh, Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Lavender Hill, Wimbledon
All criminal cases start out at a Magistrates' court, although many are passed up to Crown Courts sharpish. There are no juries here, only JPs, who can hand out sentences of up to twelve months or dole out fines. My photo shows Thames Magistrates Court on Bow Road because that's the one I've walked past thousands of times without ever going inside. Maybe I will one day, hopefully of my own volition, but I wasn't convinced observing the reprobates before the bench would be overly enlightening. So I went somewhere much more famous.
This is the Old Bailey, or to give it its official title the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales. It hears criminal cases from the London area as well as anything important that gets passed its way, often the biggest cases of the day. And anyone over the age of 14 is allowed to go inside, take a seat inside a courtroom and observe proceedings, so I did. But it isn't necessarily easy. Visitors face airline-style security on the way in, obviously, but additional strict rules require that "Cameras, Recording Equipment, Radios and Telephones" are not permitted. This means you can't turn up with a mobile phone on your person, nor is there anywhere to deposit one, and it did feel strange travelling from home with an empty pocket. The list of unacceptables also includes food, sweets, liquids, perfumes and large bags, plus (in a relatively recent update) vapes, smartwatches and Fitbits, so do check carefully first.
The Old Bailey has 18 courts spread across three floors. The first four are the ornate historic ones, these where the larger cases are heard, and are accessed via the main on-street entrance. But I skipped those in favour of the other fourteen, these stacked up in a 1970s annexe built on the site of Newgate Prison, because these offered a wider range of cases to observe. Their entrance is tucked away in Warwick Passage, a weekdays-only alleyway which passes underneath the court building, and which also tends to gather a smaller queue than the biggie round the front. It's not a particularly nice place to wait, especially without the distraction of a phone to scroll through, but at least it's dry if it rains. The red CLOSED light above the door is switched off at 10am when the door quietly opens (and turned on again at 12.40pm before lunch and 3.40pm before the end of the day).
The public entrance, quite frankly, is not up to a decent standard. Expect to hold the door open for whoever's behind you in the queue. Expect to wait at the foot of the staircase until called up, individually. Expect to turn your pockets out and maybe even remove your shoes at the top of the stairs, because none of this security was foreseen in the 1970s so they've had to squeeze the detector arch onto the first floor landing. Don't expect a waiting room, everyone gets to linger on one of three tiny landings or in the stairwell until called through into the appropriate corridor. And don't expect any obvious indication of what case is in what court, they mostly expect you to know in advance, which it turns out family members/friends/acquaintances of the accused generally do.
So which courtroom to visit? The day's cases at the Old Bailey are postedonline, generally a day in advance, so you can scan down in advance and see what takes your fancy. Blimey, I thought, it's that case that's been in the news, and that other case that's been in the news, and another, and another... though never for a good reason. It thus feels a bit odd waiting on the landing alongside those with a particular interest in each case (Dad? Grandma? gang boss?), especially when you don't have a smartphone and have subsequently forgotten precisely what's on where. I felt like a complete impostor and somewhat reticent to tie my colours to one particular case, but the court official swiftly spotted I was here as an independent observer and offered a couple of options - "ABH or attempted murder?" And then I was ushered inside.
It looks just like it does on the telly only with more people in the room. A long bench for the judge, a bank of desks for the barristers, a couple of rows for the jury and a glass box for the accused. The public gallery meanwhile hangs above it all, concealing where the witnesses sit underneath, although you're no longer allowed to sit in the front row I presume for security reasons. Observers are also expected to sit quietly and not make any kind of obvious movement, and to stick around for at least half an hour, so an usher sits up the far end to keep an eye. I wish I hadn't unintentionally sat on the slightly squeaky seat. I've done juryservice before so this wasn't all new to me but it was interesting to observe the discussions the judge and officials have before the twelve jurors filed in. All rise!
I'd turned up mid-trial during quite a complicated case, which was a bit like starting to watch a crime drama at episode three. I still don't know precisely what the accused did, only what the outcome was because I spent my morning listening to the testimony of an expert witness. They were utterly professional and very explicit as they addressed their comments to the jury and educated them on a particular topic as applied specifically to this case. I learned plenty. The prosecution lawyer was meticulous, her questioning style providing clarity, whereas the defence lawyer who followed was showier and it was hard to see what his point was. I enjoyed the moment where he mis-addressed the judge and she threw back a jokey barb and all the courtiers laughed.
But gosh it's slow work. The accused had already been here for days and faced several more, their boredom plain to see as the minutiae of their alleged handiwork was picked over. Punishment, it seems, starts long before sentencing. But they did have a tablet to fiddle with, indeed everyone in the court appeared to have a laptop or tablet, essentially to swipe through several pages of evidence and to make notes on. We spent a very long time looking at the images on page 81, then page 82, then going back to scrutinise page 81 again, all additionally displayed on screens around the court so everyone could see. Technology has certainly moved on since I sat on the jury benches with a pad of paper.
I was struck by quite how many people were needed to keep the show on the road. The bank of bewigged barristers outnumbered the jury, for example, despite only two of them having anything to contribute during the morning session. Everyone has to be present for everything, however long it lasts, which ties up a vast amount of expertise (and salaries) potentially for no reward. At one point the judge admitted that the Old Bailey has staffing problems at present and they were having to shuffle personnel around, which meant not every trial was proceeding as expected. Given how long ago the crime under her scrutiny had originated, it seemed evident that our legal system is struggling to move forward at a reasonable rate.
As the digital clock on the judge's bench ticked round towards 1pm, the stomach of the man sitting behind me in the gallery started rumbling uncontrollably. The defence lawyer apologised for not quite finishing with the expert witness, who'd now need to come back after lunch, and negotiations then took place regarding how many of the afternoon's potential witnesses could be realistically called. I spotted the accused yawning again before the call went up to clear the public gallery and I was back out again on the institutional staircase. I have no idea whether they'll ultimately be found guilty, nor did I feel the need to come back and sample more. But I was reassured that the Central Criminal Court is painstakingly picking through some of the more heinous cases our legal system has to offer, and if you want to go and see it happening then anybody can.
I was out in the City at lunchtime, not far from St Paul's, and found myself amid a horde of businessfolk buying lunch. They were flocking to nearby shops, mainly specialist food outlets, for a calorific haul to tide them over into the afternoon. You could tell it was peak lunchtime because many places had queues coming out of the door, each comprising smart folk in suits and jackets, shirts and brogues, trainers and pullovers, all the workwear tropes. Such patience. Then they strode back to their offices carrying trays and bowls, many in paper carrier bags, to eat at their desks while catching up on events or completing urgent work tasks. It never used to be like that.
In my day we had a canteen. It was on the top floor with its own kitchen and everything, even a chef (or at least a restaurant manager as the official title had it). We'd go up every lunchtime and pick a meal from the heavily-subsidised menu, then sit down in the dedicated space and discuss news, gossip and various fruit-based topics while we ate. It provided a proper break in the middle of the day, enhanced workforce cohesion and was also carefully nutritionally balanced to be good for you. Everyone loved it because the food was patently cheap. I loved it because it enabled me to have a proper meal in the middle of the day so I didn't need to cook when I got home. And my workplace loved it because it kept us in the building and generally back at our desks quicker than if we'd been let loose to buy food elsewhere.
Our canteen had a proper serving counter and a choice of main meals, one obviously vegetarian, plus a selection of cooked vegetables of diverse provenance to enhance variety. Chips only appeared on Fridays, always in combination with 'fish and', which I suspect gave cooking staff an easy end to the week. A separate counter offered lighter bites, a salad bar kept those with lighter palates satisfied and there was always soup if nothing else appealed (or if you had to be back at your desk sharpish). We took it very much for granted, muttering repeatedly about whether they'd given us enough potatoes, pouring an extra ladle of custard over the pudding and revelling once a year when they pulled out all the stops to deliver a proper Christmas dinner. But it didn't last.
The rot set in when a proper coffee shop opened on the ground floor. This started taking trade away from the canteen whose coffee was serviceable but not frothy, and although it wasn't direct lunchtime competition it must have had a considerable financial impact. Or perhaps the rot set in when they cut the number of non-veg main courses from two to one. This meant you either liked today's meal or you didn't, and that meant you were more likely to be unhappy and to start to look elsewhere. Or perhaps the rot set in more gradually as younger employees shunned the canteen in favour of spicy bowls and fried chicken purchased elsewhere, preferring choice over convenience, returning to eat their spoils at tables alongside those of us still loyal to a plated option.
There's no canteen at work these days, so I'm told, because a steady terminal decline set in. First they downgraded to lighter meals, enabling them to lose several staff, then it all went a bit soup, salad and sandwiches, then it vanished altogether. The pandemic won't have helped, nor the subsequent increase in working from home, making a subsidised workplace canteen too inefficient a use of company funds. And so 'going out for lunch' became the new default, there being no easy way to stay in, and my company's employees joined hordes of other companies' employees in the queues for rammed sourdough, spicy trays and noodly bowls. Palates have changed for sure, but the economic default has also moved on from in-house subsidy to full-price external traders.
I looked round Paternoster Square (where these photos were taken) and watched the suited crew queueing patiently wherever lunchtime food was offered. Queues at itsu, queues at Nusa, queues at Hop, all offering their own take on southeast Asian cuisine. Elsewhere Middle Eastern options, Indian options, Mexican options. Then Pret, Nero and Paul for wraps and baked goods, also Sainsburys and the Co-Op for the basics. The broad spread of outlets means you can easily join a different queue every day of the week, which is ace, but the queues are longer than anything my canteen generated and the price is higher too. I paid less than £4 for my proper sit down meal, admittedly several years ago, but you won't get even half a cold bowl of bits for that today.
Perhaps the absolute pinnacle of lunchmarket-targeting is Farmer J, an impressively generic purveyor of wholesome fare for worthy stomachs. Its signature dish is the 'fieldtray', a simply-compiled mix of base (rice, grains or salad), main (meat, salmon or vegetables) and two sides (e,g. kale, miso slaw or tahini aubergine). The end result isn't specific to any national cuisine, the multiplicity of options provides variety and all the vegetables are locally sourced. Presentation reminds me of an airline meal, and perhaps portion size too, but it slips back easily to the office and can be rapidly forked down. In fact it turns out 'Farmer J' is a former banker from Notting Hill called Jonathan who took a punt on the lunchtime market and hit the spot so it's all a carefully-constructed illusion, but at £12 a time a surprisingly successful one.
Obviously you could still make your own lunch at home and bring it in, but Tupperware doesn't impress folk these days and many consider all that preparation to be far too much effort. Obviously you could just buy sandwiches or a meal deal if you're on a budget, but then you get to look defeatist in the breakout zone surrounded by exotic tubs and bowls. Obviously some locations have proper streetfood rather than all this manufactured muck, but grabbing some kind of spicy package is more of a zeitgeist default than it ever used to be. And obviously some places still have canteens, especially the biggest workplaces, but nipping out for lunch is the new default amongst those who would previously have stayed in. And so we find thousands of hungry office workers thronging the streets, trays in hand or bags a-dangling, as the private sector cheerily soaks up the lunchtime market. You get a lot more choice without a canteen, but you pay a lot more for the privilege.
It's time once again to go on a pointlessly challenging train journey.
How many zone 1 stations can you travel through without repeating any?
That's the question. We're looking for the longest zone 1 journey with no repeated stations.
And there are 72 zone 1 stations altogether, so it's going to be a long journey.
It's perhaps best to think of the question as "which stations do you miss out?"
You can already see that Hoxton and Shoreditch High Street aren't going to be included because they're entirely isolated.
Also Tower Gateway and Fenchurch Street aren't going to work. Also you can only do Aldgate or Aldgate East, not both.
Also Pimlico/Vauxhall and Battersea Power Station/Nine Elms are very much dead ends, so you can't do those unless you start or end there. "unless you start or end there" is going to be quite important in what follows, so every time it comes up I'll replace it with an asterisk.
A few rules. Once you've been through a station you can't come back to it. Interchange can only take place at stations, walking between them is not allowed. Bank and Monument are different stations, as are Moorgate and Liverpool Street, as are the two Edgware Roads. In fact the Edgware Road thing doesn't matter because it's impossible to visit both of them*.
What's important strategically, it turns out, is stations that are only on one line. What's even more important is when three or more of these branch off from the same interchange. For example Holborn connects to Russell Square, Chancery Lane and Covent Garden but your route can only connect two of these*. Similarly at Notting Hill Gate you can't do all three of High Street Kensington, Bayswater and Queensway*, one has to be sacrificed.
I had a go at doing it and managed to visit 59 zone 1 stations. It took three and a half hours.
There's more than one way to do it, but I picked a route which ended in a newsworthy place so that my final photo would be interesting. And I started at Battersea Power Station for the aforementioned dead end reason. Deep breath.
Battersea Power Station: It's not ridiculously busy if you visit on a Sunday before all the shops open. 00:00Northern Thankfully I wanted the Charing Cross branch. Waterloo: First of the long interconnecting hikes. 00:09Bakerloo Fabulous, a forward-facing seat in a carriage all to myself. Elephant & Castle: Had to dodge past a slow pushchair on the stairs. 00:18Northern Rather a lot of Arsenal supporters on this train. London Bridge: Happy 25th birthday (today!) to the Jubilee line platforms which opened here on 7th October 1999. 00:25Jubilee ...although this journey wasn't possible until 20th November. Southwark: I'm the only person who turns right at the top of the escalators. Waterloo East: The two staff supervising the intermediate barriers - one tube, one rail - look very bored. 00:35Southeastern Managed to grab a seat after everyone from Strood had piled out. Charing Cross: In via the rail terminus, out via the tube. 00:47Northern One of the tube's shortest journeys so it would've been hugely quicker to walk. Embankment: They're still making that stupid platform announcement about taking off hats and scarves. 00:52District The number of Chelsea fans now exceeds the number of Arsenal fans. Victoria: Also a strong showing for purple-shirted NFL fans heading to Tottenham. 00:59Victoria That's the first hour done, with 15 stations visited.
Green Park: It's such a long twisty slog between platforms, almost hatefully so. 01:08Piccadilly Grrrr to the man with the rucksack and binbag who squeezed aboard at the last minute. Earl's Court: Maximum Chelsea density on the platforms here. 01:26District It took a while for an Edgware Road train to arrive. Notting Hill Gate: I unexpectedly found myself waiting alongside a vicar with a bagful of vestments. 01:35Central I decided to sacrifice Bayswater to get the three stations between here and Bond Street. Bond Street: These interconnecting Crossrail passageways are ridiculously long. 01:48Crossrail I initially expected to be riding a lot of purple trains but no, just the one. Paddington: For this challenge I'm counting Paddington as one tube station. It doesn't help to make it two. 01:53Bakerloo Obviously you go to Baker Street via Marylebone because that's one extra station. Baker Street: That's the second hour done, with 31 stations visited.
02:02Hammersmith & City I decided to sacrifice Regent's Park, although I could have gone that way and ended up somewhere different. King's Cross St Pancras: Managed to nip past a bloke with a guitar before he obstructed the escalator. 02:14Northern Squeezed in beside a young lad carrying a bouquet of tulips. Moorgate: Importantly I'm not using Crossrail so Moorgate is entirely distinct from Liverpool Street. 02:24Metropolitan Any of three lines would have done but this turned up first. Farringdon: Still not using Crossrail so Farringdon is entirely distinct from Barbican. 02:29Thameslink City Thameslink station is closed on Sundays but I passed through so I'm totally claiming it. Blackfriars: This interchange took five minutes because I alighted on the wrong side of the river. 02:43Circle The longest of all my tube journeys, curling lengthily through the City. Liverpool Street: That's the third hour done, with 47 stations visited.
03:00Central I didn't get a chance to sit down because Sundays are no longer quiet. Holborn: Chuffed to discover I still remember precisely where to be to alight opposite the platform exit. 03:09Piccadilly I didn't get a chance to sit down because Sundays are madness. Piccadilly Circus: Now mopping up the big name stations in the heart of the West End. 03:16Bakerloo A quick zip under Regent Street. Oxford Circus: It's never quick switching to the Central line here. 03:24Central We spent longer waiting at a red signal than travelling between stations. Tottenham Court Road: Ha, once again I was at the right end of the train for a swift exit. 03:28Northern My twenty-third train was my last, bringing the zone 1 challenge to a close. Euston: Oh that looks a lot better with the blazing giant advertising screen switched off.
Altogether I managed to visit 59 zone 1 stations in 3 hours 31 minutes without passing through any more than once.
It's probably easiest if I list all the zone 1 stations I didn't visit.
Didn't visit Impossible: Hoxton, Shoreditch High Street, Tower Gateway, Fenchurch Street Dead ends: Pimlico, Vauxhall Bypassed: Aldgate East, Edgware Road (District & Circle) Chose to ignore: Bayswater, Regent's Park, Russell Square, Sloane Square, Temple
I don't think 59 can be beaten although, as I said, there are other ways to do it.
Further stats
» I used all ten tube lines that were running yesterday and also three rail services.
» I spent 45% of my time on trains, 27% interchanging and 27% waiting on platforms.
» My average wait was 2 minutes.
» I walked 2½ miles (or 6500 steps).
» My phone says I climbed the equivalent of 45 flights of stairs.
As usual you have no need to do any of this, indeed I had no need to do any of it either. But I do now know how well zone 1 stations are connected, which is very well, even if you can't quite visit all of them.
Piccadilly leads from the West End to the west of town and is one of London's older roads. The eastern half was originally called Portugal Street and grew significantly in importance when Green Park was created, closing a previous road connection. The modern name comes from a tailor named Robert Baker who made his fortune in the 17th century selling a fashionable frilled collar called a piccadil, then spent that fortune on a big mansion on the outskirts of town nicknamed Pickadilly Hall. The street subsequently grew up posh and proper, ensuring that the final yellow on the Monopoly Board is both heritage-packed and very famous.
Indeed there's so much along Piccadilly that you could easily write a entire month of blogposts about it, which is exactly what I did in August 2004 so I'm not keen to churn through the whole lot again. What I will do, however, is cut and paste a few snippets from 2004 and take a look at what's changed over the last 20 years, starting here with this vinyl-based anachronism.
Piccadilly: "The street is numbered from Piccadilly Circus down to Hyde Park Corner and back again, from 1 (Tower Records) to 149 (Apsley House) on the north side and back from 150 (The Ritz) to 230 (Virgin Megastore) on the south." Now: 230 Piccadilly is now a Hard Rock Cafe. 1 Piccadilly remains empty.
Piccadilly Circus: "After Shaftesbury Avenue was built in 1886, tenants of the new buildings realised they could sell advertising space on their façades and so the area became famous for its illuminated advertising boards. It's a far cry from the first ad for Bovril (comprising just 600 light bulbs) to the mesmerising electronic displays to be found here today." Now: A dazzling digital display has curved across the top of Boots since 2017, occasionally entirely Coca-Cola based, occasionally segmentally luxurious.
The Criterion(224 Piccadilly): "Apart from the box office the whole of the Criterion Theatre lies underground, and the stage is currently home to the Reduced Shakespeare Company." Now: The current theatrical offering is I Wish You Well: The Gwyneth Paltrow Ski-Trial Musical, and I would argue tastes have gone downhill somewhat since 2004.
The first Lyons teashop(213 Piccadilly): "The fast food revolution started right here in 1894, when good service and fine quality ensured Joseph Lyons' teashops were an instant hit. 213 Piccadilly is now a dull boring British Airways travel shop." Now: Was consolidated into a modern development, the St James's Gateway Scheme, in 2013. Now occupied by Barbour International, the greenjacket floggers. Nothing of the original building remains.
Simpson of Piccadilly(203 Piccadilly): "Built in 1936 this six storey store sold traditional clothing for ladies and gentlemen with reverential customer service. Waterstones the booksellers moved in five years ago opening the largest book store in Europe - well worth a browse but somehow not quite the same as having your inside leg checked." Now: Still Waterstones, and although they've restructured the ground floor still very recognisable to a 2004 browser.
St James's Church(197 Piccadilly): "One of the few churches outside the City to be designed by Sir Christopher Wren. A couple of years ago I saw Dame Judy Dench buying her charity Christmas cards here. Respect." Now: A great place to hide in the event of a furious cloudburst, although smells somewhat of incense. The lunchtime food market in the churchyard sells global streetfood that millennial palates weren't yet ready for.
BAFTA(195 Piccadilly): "You'd never guess from outside that the 19th century facade houses two preview theatres at second floor level, one of which is big enough to seat 213 people. Members and their guests only thank you." Now: I finally got insidein 2015 when they held a hush-hush open weekend... up two marble staircases, past multiple replica bronze masks and into the boardroom where photographs of Bagpuss and newsreader Jon Snow adorned the walls. I doubt they're still there.
Hatchards(187 Piccadilly): "The oldest surviving booksellers in London, founded in 1797 and with customers including Disraeli, Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron and me. Visiting is reminiscent of being inside a rambling old house, with six floors of little rooms curling round a central staircase." Now: Unchanging. Still more than happy to sell you a hardback for the shelves in your study. Jeffrey Archer dropped by for a chat last week and left a pile of signed copies.
Fortnum & Mason(181 Piccadilly): "The ground floor of this grand retail outlet is full of exclusive foodstuffs, none of them in any way essential, all traditionally packaged (or at least that's what the tourists think), with the store's trademark duck-egg bluey-green prevalent throughout." Now: Has already nudged into Christmasmode because brandy biscuits and cognac butter won't go off. Hampers start from £100 and Advent Calendars peak at £390. Still employs a fawning footman to hold the side door open.
The Royal Academy(Burlington House): "The whole of Piccadilly used to be lined by palatial houses such as this but Burlington House is the only reminder of just how grand this street used to be. Really really grand." Now: The latest exhibition is a retrospective of the colourfully cartoonish works of Sir Michael Craig-Martin RA (also to be seen, more cheaply, on the walls of Woolwich Arsenal DLR).
French Railways House(178 Piccadilly): "Voulez-vous acheter un billet pour le voyage de train en France? Visite ici. Le bâtiment a été conçu par Erno Goldfinger, l'architecte célèbre avec un bureau dans Piccadilly." Now: Irrelevant in this digital age. Recently demolished and due to be replaced by a pastiche office block Erno would have spat at.
The Ritz(150 Piccadilly): The capital's most exclusive hotel, so the management would have you believe, towers over Piccadilly like a giant ocean liner. Take your pick from the Ritz Hotel, the Ritz Restaurant or the Ritz Club, and please don't forget to wear a tie (ladies, this probably doesn't apply to you). Now: Afternoon tea now costs £76, up from £32 in 2004, and will be rising to £79 in January. You do get six types of sandwich for that, including cucumber with cream cheese, dill and mint on granary bread, and egg mayonnaise with chopped shallots and watercress on brioche roll.
Green Park: "You couldn't fault this open space under the Trades Descriptions Act - it's green and it is indeed a park. Includes fine avenues of lime and plane trees plus a couple of fountains and a lot of deckchairs, but otherwise the park is pretty featureless." Now: Also famously flowerless, apart from the daffodils in spring and a carpet of bouquets should the monarch snuff it. Easier to reach since the tube station went step-free for the Olympics.
The In And Out Club(94 Piccadilly): Nicknamed the 'In and Out Club' because of the large black letters painted on the gate posts to help direct incoming traffic. Members moved out five years ago and the building was subsequently snapped up by an Arab buyer with plans to transform it into a 100-room hotel. Now: Astonishingly the building is still smothered under scaffolding (because conservation work is slow and painstaking). The planned hotel now has two extra rooms, plus seven super-prime private residences.
The Japanese Embassy(101 Piccadilly): "The only embassy on Piccadilly and home to His Excellency Mr Masaki Orita, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. You can also pop inside to view the Japanese art exhibited in the foyer gallery or make enquiries at the Japan Information and Cultural Centre." Now: Popping in now requires photo ID. Cultural activities moved to Japan House in Kensington in 2018. Mr Hayashi Hajime is the current AE&P.
The Hard Rock Cafe(134 Piccadilly): "The very first Hard Rock Cafe opened here in Piccadilly in 1971 when Americans Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton opened up a glorified burger restaurant in an old car showroom close to Hyde Park Corner, slowly covering the walls with rock'n'roll ephemera." Now: Tourists flock, Londoners keep well away. Eric Clapton's red guitar remains on show. Foodstuffs on offer include Moving Mountains® Burgers, One Night In Bangkok Spicy Shrimp, Apple Cobbler and the Lionel Messi children's menu.
The InterContinental hotel(145 Piccadilly): "145 Piccadilly was bought by Albert and Liz Windsor in 1927. You probably know them better as King George VI and the Queen Mother, but at the time they were merely second in line to the throne and completely ignorant of their later destiny. Elizabeth II's first home is now the InterContinental Hotel, a particularly ugly 70s block which would look more at home in some eastern European capital." Now: I see now that the hotel was designed by Frederick Gibberd who planned Harlow New Town so I hate it less. All rooms are advertised as showcasing "quintessential London views" even if they only face the service yard, not Hyde Park.
Apsley House(149 Piccadilly): "This grand house was once the first to be encountered after the tollbooth at Knightsbridge and so earned the alternative address "No. 1 London". Wellington bought it after returning victorious from his military campaigns in France, seeking a London base from which to launch a glittering political career." Now: English Heritage still run the place but ticket prices have increased from £4.50 to £11.30. Out front Hyde Park Corner is just as chaotic but less exhaust-choked.
