Fri 1: To celebrate May Day, and to make the most of the glorious weather, I went for a 10 mile walk up the Chess Valley from Rickmansworth to Chesham. Along the way I passed 16 dogs, 19 horses, 2 cows, 68 butterflies, 8 birds of prey, 5 bluebell woods and 71 people, 13 of whom said hello. Highly recommended.
Sat 2: I have once again managed to ride all the TfL buses in the space of a calendar year, in this case 4 months. My last two buses were the frustratingly infrequent 399 and the Lakeside-bound 372. This is the sixth time I've achieved this feat, the quickest being 2023 when I had the whole lot ticked off by the end of January. Sun 3: Went to the South Bank because it was the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Festival of Britain. However the Royal Festival Hall was entirely closed to casual visitors having been turned into a massive artsy walkthrough experience called You Are Here, co-directed by Danny Boyle, ticket price £45. The outside section included a soul band, jazz trumpeters and a fog slalom, and the interior a lot of performative dancing. It certainly wasn't the inclusive celebration the original FoB had been, and I haven't seen one good review. [Highlights now on iPlayer] Mon 4: Another daily game that might suck you in is Clues by Sam, a grid of 20 suspects where you have to decide (by logic alone) who's innocent and who's a criminal. [Nancy is one of Sue's 3 innocent neighbors] Grids get harder during the week, so Sunday's a lot harder than Monday.
Tue 5:Swanley Mini Mart has the most unnerving selection of liquids on its exterior vinyl... Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Red Bull, bottled water... vegetable oil... Fairy Liquid, Domestos. Wed 6: Hats off to the dog in Richmond who waited until he was right outside David Attenborough's house before squatting and doing a dump on the pavement. Thu 7: I managed to complete the Guardian's 30,000th crossword, and spotted the hidden clues directing solvers to the perimeter of today's Quick Crossword, and solved the nina directing solvers to today's editorial, and spotted the acrostic message referencing the last 35 primes. However I did not check the bottom row of every prime numbered crossword grid published since January 2025 to discover the final message heralding a special crossword published at noon. Hats off to an incredible creative tour de force. Fri 8:Bexley Country Market takes place every Friday morning in Freemantle Hall, a cosy circuit with tables of jams, glassware, candles, twee clocks, homemade greetings cards and unusual knitted things, almost like being in a provincial village rather than Greater London.
Sat 9: The police have started doing regular speed checks at Bus Stop M, hoping to catch cars speeding up just before the limit rises from 20 to 30 at the Bow Flyover. I've spotted their snoopy lenses at least half a dozen times this month. Sun 10: Another daily game for you - dailymetro.live is yet another variant on 'guess the tube station'. The full archive is available to play. Mon 11: I unfollowed someone on social media who used to be interesting but has become a relentless hypercritical doomsayer and my timeline is much happier as a result. I have my eye on two further accounts that are alas heading the same way. Tue 12: Yesterday I walked across Ponders End Park. Today I walked over the top of Riddlesdown. Landscapewise south London beats north London hands down.
Wed 13: Zack Polanski liked one of my tweets today, which is often the kind of thing that gets him into deep trouble. Thu 14: A squirrel turned up on my balcony, dug up a monkey nut and sat there brazenly watching me while chewing it. Fri 15: Tom Edwards has made a 4 minute piece for BBC London called 'Does Anyone Actually Use London’s Cable Car?', including mention of its alternative title, and blimey it's had 200,000 views on YouTube. Thanks Tom! Sat 16: I read in Tower Hamlets Slice that the stables at Bow Police station have permanently closed and the 10 horses have been retired, redeployed, or rehomed. This is part of significant budget cuts to the Met's mounted division and ends 80 years of local service. The stables are "pure Moderne in white concrete" and Grade II listed so will be hard to repurpose. On the positive side, no more brown dollops down Bow Road on match days.
Sun 17: I made the mistake of coming home via Hackney Wick and emerged into the mania of the aftermath of the Hackney Half Marathon, the streets clogged with sweaty folk 'rehydrating', also no buses for hours so I had to walk home. Mon 18: Over the next two months the Radio 4 Sunday afternoon quiz slot will be filled by pilot episodes of potential new quiz series. Tonight I went along to the recording of one of them in a really tiny venue, squished in and watched the bare bones of how radio is made. I was impressed by the host's quick wit and if the show is commissioned I'll be well chuffed to have seen the first one. [31 May & 7 June Bookmarks (with Claire Balding), 14 & 21 June Déjà News (with Lucy Porter), 28 June & 5 July Your Number's Up (with Max Fosh), 12 & 19 July Around the World in 80 Ways (with Simon Reeve)] Tue 19: At Waterloo station they were giving away free Ginsters pastries which you're supposed to put in a toaster before eating. Obviously nobody has a toaster nearby at 9.30am, and most workplaces outlaw them as a fire risk, so I wonder how many other people wolfed theirs down cold too? Wed 20: I have once again managed to visit every London station in a calendar year, in this case 4½ months. Specifically I either touched in or out at every station in zones 1-9, I didn't just pass through. There are more than 600 altogether. My last three stations were Tadworth, Chipstead and Thames Ditton. This is the second time I've achieved this feat, and four weeks quicker than last year.
Thu 21: It's been over two months since scaffolding went up across the front of Bromley-by-Bow station prior to repairing the smashed glass roundel, but only this week has someone been up and taken all the glass out. It's now fully boarded-up and looks worse than before. Fri 22: It's British Sandwich Week, the theme this year 'Seven Days, Seven Sandwiches', and I don't think there's a single concoction on the list anyone from the 20th century would recognise as a sandwich. (folded pinsa bread with a twist, anyone?) Sat 23: Riding the seriously unbusy Liberty line between Upminster and Romford, I shared the back carriage with a uniformed member of staff who seemingly just shuttles back and forth all day doing bugger all. (n.b. they may not actually stare at their phone all day, but it certainly looked like it) Sun 24: I've had a Mr Daydream glass tumbler since I was a child, regularly used. Today I filled it with lemon squash, gulped down to cool off, rested it slightly too near the edge of a table and smash, it ended up in sharp pieces on the carpet. Look after your heirlooms, folks.
Mon 25: I think I was the only person at the Dorset seaside wearing jeans, or indeed any kind of long trousers. Tue 26: On today's walk I listened to Equus, a horse-stabbing play by Peter Shaffer first broadcast on Radio 4 in 1980. I can't believe my English teacher let me read it, review it and submit an essay about it for my O Level. [The play's currently being performed at the Menier Chocolate Factory] Wed 27: I know I said I wasn't going to carry on doing this but...
Enf
25
Harr
25
Barn
25
Hari
25
WFor
25
Hill
25
Eal
25
Bren
25
Cam
33
Isl
33
Hack
25
Redb
25
Hav
25
Hou
25
H&F
25
K&C
25
West
33
City
43
Tow
144
New
139
B&D
25
Rich
25
Wan
25
Lam
33
Sou
33
Lew
25
Grn
25
Bex
25
King
25
Mer
25
Cro
25
Bro
25
Sut
25
Thu 28: Walking through the Olympic Park I heard the sound of whistles, then spotted outrider motorbikes stopping the traffic so a Landrover Discovery with tinted windows could slip safely through. Living on Bow Road this kind of thing happens quite a lot, and I often end up wondering who it is I haven't seen. Fri 29: I worry that the unprecedented May heatwave has borked the innards of my stash of Creme Eggs. Usually you can count on getting to the Best Before Date on 31st July before the yolk solidifies. Sat 30: Arrived at Heathrow to find the Piccadilly line closed for engineering works and Crossrail closed due to flooding. The bus station was a grim scrum of folk with heavy suitcases trying to pile onto double deckers to escape, and goodness knows how many people missed flights because they were trying to find a way in.
Sun 31: I dropped by the Arsenal victoryparaderoute but six hours before the bus arrived. Nevertheless the street was already busy with milling fans in red shirts, also dubious persons selling red hats, red scarves, red flags and red vuvuzelas, also excitable fans pouring off the trains in enormous numbers, and this was just the advance guard. I don't know how they filled the intervening hours, nor how those setting off from the outer suburbs three hours later ever got close enough to find a space, and all for just 90 seconds of top deck waving. Sun 31: My post on London's Free Roof Terraces hit Hacker News today so in piled the Americans, making it the 4th busiest day ever on this blog.
20 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in May 2026
1) The Mayor of London has no personal exemption from the Congestion Charge. 2) When the new Museum of London opens, TfL expects to rename the two adjacent bus stops currently called 'Snow Hill'. 3) In March 2026 TfL earned £88,361 from 10,754 passengers touching in and out at the same station (a "same station exit"). Meanwhile 33,0092 passengers were not charged (whatever that number is supposed to be). 4) TfL Emergency Response Units no longer use the callsigns Charlie 1-1 through to Charlie 5-6 (not used since 2020), Bravo 1-1 through to Bravo 5-6 (not used since 2024) and Echo Mama 1 (not used since 2024). 5) TfL earns more from the Congestion Charge than from ULEZ.
6) There are over 2300 Passenger Help Points at TfL stations. Only four of these aren't working - three on the tube and one at a tramstop. Nobody has complained about this since the start of the year. 7) London's busiest bus stop is Brixton Station (Stop P) with 4,117,594 boarders last year. The FoI team now assert "there is no one single ‘least busy’ bus stop" (which is more realistic than the bolx they published about Dysart Avenue in 2024). 8) Last year only 35 penalty fares were issued to persons aged 16-18 years for tram journeys made on weekdays between 07:30 and 09:00. 9) A bollard on the North Circular at the junction of Brentfield Road and Drury Way has been reported damaged and replaced 24 times since 10 October 2023. 10) The tube station with the most TfL ticket machines is King's Cross St Pancras with 43. The only tube stations with just one ticket machine are Harlesden and Roding Valley.
11) In the last financial year TfL earned £159m from advertising across their estate, up from £131m in 2024/25. 12) In 2024/25 the three tube stations earning the least revenue from advertising were Colindale (£122), Burnt Oak (£2195) and Croxley (£2233). Oxford Circus station earned the most (£13,118,587). 13) TfL have started to refuse FoI requests for the audio files for iBus announcements "because of continued and repeated misuse and abuse of access rights". 14) As of 7 May 2026, 2,635 bus countdown signs are operational and 264 are either not working or not fully functional (LED faults 2, transmission failure 141, offline pending shelter work 96, re-install pending shelter works 24, incorrect routes displaying 1). 15) TfL have no current plans to install travelators or moving walkways on Oxford Street. (subtext: obviously, you muppet)
16) A majority of penalty fares go unpaid (last year 55%). 17) Ten years ago the Rotherhithe Tunnel was used by an average of 200 cyclists and 9 pedestrians each weekday. 18) The London Rail and Tube Services map is not intended to be a comprehensive map of every station outside Greater London where contactless payment is accepted, thus there are no plans to add any additional stations to the map. 19) So far this year 52 pigeons have been culled at Upminster depot (in 2nd place Ruislip depot with 39, in 3rd place Neasden depot with 17). 20) Last year's lost property on TfL services included 26 sex toys. Of these only six were returned to their owner.
Bus Route Of The Day 315: Springfield Hospital to West Norwood Length of journey: 5 miles, 40 minutes
Because it's 31st May I'm exploring the 315 because that's the Bus Route Of The Day.
The 315 is one of Lambeth's duller buses - a bit short, a bit backroad and a bit infrequent. It used to be even shorter, a mere four miles, but a consultation saw it extended to a new estate in Tooting last year. I'm starting at that end near the remains of a hospital that recently rationalised its estate with the majority being sold off to become a large wodge of vernacular flats. That's Springfield University Hospital on the Springfield Estate beside Springfield Park, the last two of which are new. The terminus is up the far end by a care home and a sales office, also a park cafe called Toast, and is additionally served by south London's most annoyingly twiddly bus, the G1. Both routes run only every 20 minutes so you could have a long wait, indeed very little here is focused on convenience and it might well be quicker to walk.
The most annoying thing about the new extension is that Wandsworth council still haven't got round to erecting the proposed bus stops on Springfield Drive so the 315 sails through the estate for 900m without stopping, almost negating the point of sending it here in the first place. It then funnels onto Glenburnie Road whose residents fought tooth and nail to keep it out claiming the street was too narrow, alas ignorant of the fact that TfL can squeeze a bus through pretty much anywhere. Escape comes by the BP garage with the M&S Food, with those who've already boarded keen to alight at the big crossroads because there's a tube station here. This is Tooting Bec, lesser of the Tooting tubes, whose surfacebuildings are geometric wedges with whopping glass roundels courtesy of Charles Holden.
We turn left onto Balham High Road passing a lot of shops and the London Sewing Machine Museum, except this is never served on 31st May because it only opens on the first Saturday of the month. If you need to go to Streatham you'd now be better off switching to the 24th September because that goes direct whereas the 315 is about to deviate via Balham. Originally the 315 started beyond Du Cane Court, the massive Art Deco Block it's said the Germans had plans for post invasion, and if nothing else it would now have been very convenient for a pastry from Gail's. Bedford Hill then leads to one of the best-named streets in London which is TerrapinRoad, a prestige Victorian development previously blogged. Crossing Tooting Common is a bit special, and indeed a bit sprawly in this weather, although the 315 is never quite the closest bus to the Lido.
The traffic lights by St Leonard's church in Streatham can be a bit jammy but the 315 has a sneaky escape route down a road you wouldn't think buses would serve. Gleneldon Road is all Hail & Ride, also big and villa-ey throughout, also with one brief glimpse of a tunnel portal on the railway line carving underneath. It's then time to climb to the heights, this past an opening for Unigate Wood which was indeed once part of a farm owned by the famous dairy. You don't pass treasures like this on any other Bus of the Day, only 31st May, so it's perhaps a shame it's one of London's lesser ridden routes. If you're getting thirsty there's a Budgens by the Esso garage, although I don't think they do appropriately branded milk.
Climbing Canterbury Grove feels like entering proper off-piste suburbia, a sensation only enhanced when climbing higher to the hoop of Royal Circus. Anyone with any sense hops out at the bottom of York Hill which is still marginally Hail & Ride rather than waiting for the driver to pull out towards the first proper stop on Norwood Road. We've hit West Norwood and things are suddenly commercial again, so please note that Four Hundred Rabbits is actually a pizza restaurant and Badger Badger is a beardy gamers' pub. Stops for the cemetery, the station and the bus garage then bring this innately devious route to an end, not that anyone would ever ride it end-to-end because that would be pointless purgatory.
16:00 Paris St-Germain v Arsenal kicks off at 5pm (which is 6pm in Budapest) oi oi you Gunners. 16:05 Best find yourself a pub. The final's not being shown on free-to-air channels, only the TNT Sports greedstream, so best squeeze into a bar with all the other sweaty fans and buy some pints. 16:15 Time to stop driving round town with all your car windows down yelling "Goo-ners!" at anyone you see wearing a replica shirt, which appears to be every single male in London aged between 15 and 40. (blimey there are so many red shirts out there on the streets today, also the blue away kit, the grey goalkeepers kit, the pink away kit, the weirdly stripy away kit, the embarrassing kit that still says Visit Rwanda on the sleeve and the kit so old JVC are the sponsor). 16:40 Arsenal have the hope, the dreams, the courage, the ambition, the opportunity to own the moment, the confidence, the inner fire, the relentless desire to win, the tactical clarity, the deep-seated bravery, the talent, the commitment, the heroic mindset, the self-belief, the taste for history, the steadfast vision, the dedication, the tenacity, the hunger for success, the fearless mindset and the passion to seize a glorious victory. 16:41 And so do Paris St-Germain. 16:50 Arsenal's line-up: Raya, Mosquera, Saliba, Findus, Gabriel, Hincapie, Spirograph, Rice, Lewis-Skelly, Odegaard, Bejam, Saka, Trossard, Havertz (except for three of those). 16:59 It's only 10 days since Arsenal won the Premier League and North London self-combusted. Can they top that today?
17:04 Still nil nil 17:09 Goaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!!!!!!!!!! 😀 17:54 One nil up at half time (off for pep talk and orange segments) 18:10 Now the second half. 18:29 Penalty! ☹️ 18:30 Goal ☹️ 19:02 One all at the whistle, so extra time. 19:45 One all after extra time, so penalties. 19:52Penalties: ☹️😀☹️☹️😀😀☹️😀☹️☹️
20:01 Arsenal have come second, and football fans really hate coming second. 20:02 Imagine the orgasm you will never have. 20:05 The silverware from today's final will not be doing a bus-top circuit of Islington tomorrow alongside the Premier League trophy and something the women won in February, indeed a sense of cheerful misery will be palpable because today's loss has really squished the earlier joy. 20:26 Only 12 days until the FIFA World Cup kicks off with the first of 104 televised matches.
Also why are there two painted bands? One at roughly head height and one at chest height. Is it a precision thing?
Keep looking, and it seems a lot of them are dark blue.
Blue again at Grove Park, which like Chislehurst is on Southeastern. But also blue at Hounslow and at Malden Manor, both of which were once Southwestern.
And not just in London.
Here are blue stripes on a white pillar at Christchurch and white stripes on a blue pillar at Stockport. White stripes again at Hartlepool... but now seemingly no consistency in height.
You can also see them on the London Underground.
White on green at Hornchurch, but dark green on light green at White City. Meanwhile at Southfields some bands are white and some are grey.
And it can't be a heritage thing because these next three stations are really new.
I had a dig and it's an accessibility thing. If you're partially sighted a free-standing post or column is easy to miss and can cause a nasty injury. So a contrasting band (or two) is added somewhere near eye height to maximise the chance it'll be spotted.
I found these in station guidance:
• Necessary free-standing items such as columns should have adequate tonal contrast with the floor colour and the background they are seen against. They should also incorporate a 150mm wide tonally contrasting band with the bottom edge at 1500mm above the floor.
• Any free-standing post or column within an access route should incorporate a band that contrasts in colour and luminance with the remainder of the item. The band should be a minimum depth of 150mm, placed with the lower edge of the band between 1400mm and 1600mm above ground level. Some guidelines advocate deeper bands or more than one band, but the single band (minimum 150mm) is acceptable to the RNIB.
• It is recommended that upright posts, grabrails and pillars be of a contrasting colour to the surrounding platform surface. Where this is not possible, they must be marked with a contrasting coloured band 140–160 mm wide, with its lower edge at 1500 mm from the ground. An additional lower band should also be used to mark them as a hazard.
It's called DDA banding, and once you start seeing it you see it everywhere.
» I did this for the four cardinal points five years ago.
» This took ages to compile, again.
» Even so, it won't be 100% correct.
• Northwest is almost in Rickmansworth but you can't count that because it's in Hertfordshire. The chief area to search is thus mostly around Harefield, and if that fails to deliver then maybe Northwood.
• The northeast boundary is two miles of the M25 near Brentwood, but we need to look just inside that so Noak Hill and Harold Hill.
• Southeast is a seriously rural chunk of Bromley where very few people live, so the southern end of Biggin Hill usually wins instead.
• Southwest is a long tongue of Kingston with Malden Rushett at the tip, but generally the place to check is Chessington. I was disappointed that Chessington World of Adventures only satisfied one category.
A lot of the south coast is unbroken gently-curving coastline, interrupted only by rivers entering the sea. But some of these interruptions are spectacular, the mouths to natural harbours often part-protected by a hooked headland or sand bar. So it is at Christchurch where the harbour is tucked behind a long sandstone headland - that's Hengistbury Head - and almost sealed by the sandy protrusion of Mudeford Spit. Not only is it a gorgeous seascape it's also possible to walk a complete circuit of the harbour, aided only by a teensy ferry hop from tip to tip. So I did. [Visit Hengistbury Head][40 photos]
The arc of Poole Bay runs ten miles from Sandbanks through Bournemouth to Hengistbury Head with sandy beaches all the way. I started my assault on the headland from Southbourne, easternmost of the coastal suburbs, which is just off the bottom left hand corner of that map. Here a solid grid of bungalows and retirement-focused avenues suddenly breaks into open duneland, the sand underfoot not always the easiest to walk on. It being a bank holiday the beach was packed, thinning slightly as proximity to car parking space decreased, the roasting contingent including dune-sitters, sand-sprawlers and drippy paddlers between the groynes. I stuck slightly inland, following an intermittent boardwalk, and enjoyed the sight and sound of skylarks emerging from the Whitepits and arcing overhead.
This is not the only way in. From the Wick Ferry at Christchurch a mile-long footpath offers a harbour-side shortcut from which the harbour itself is rarely seen. Alternatively you can just drive in past the golf course to a final car park where £6.40 for two hours probably isn't going to be enough. These routes pass a cafe and then a proper Visitor Centre complete with natural history galleries, geological exposition and the inevitable gift shop, or so I assume. By following the track 200m closer to the sea I missed the lot, mainly because it was so hot I didn't fancy adding another ten minutes to my walk. You probably don't want to skip it if you come.
A ditchy rampart called Double Dykes crosses the headland here, a defensive fortification dug in the Iron Age to protect Hengistbury's far end. It's fenced off so you now have to walk around it, additionally because the field contains a 4000 year-old barrow cemetery from the Bronze Age, but that seclusion has done wonders for the wild flowers within. This is also the last point before the headland rears up to a chunky wedge, this part officially called Warren Hill. I could have followed the beach and walked below the cliffs but instead the allure of the rising track was too great, all the better for gaining an overview of the surrounding landscape.
Near the top of the ascent is a skew pillar of yellowish rock strata, this an artwork called Layers of Bournemouth built in situ for a fringe festival in 2018. It's perhaps there to distract from the actual cliff face immediately ahead where encroachment is strictly forbidden. A few steps and a twisty climb later you're at the summit trig point, admittedly only 36m up but with a view the Ordnance Survey would have revelled in. That's Bournemouth in the distance round the curl of Poole Bay, also the sweep of the estuary with Christchurch Priory at its head, barely a mile away but I'd walked much further to get here. Also visible for the first time is the lineof huts on the sand bar at the end of the harbour, still tiny, and yes across the sea that's The Needles on the Isle of Wight. I grinned, but then I always was a sucker for geomorphology and height.
The National Coastwatch have taken advantage too with a small hut, a dishy mast and a telescope trained on the start of the Solent. According to the whiteboard out front there had already been 20 'incidents' this year, the last of these the day before. The path weaves down past a gouged lake that in Victorian times was a quarry for ironstone shipped off to the Welsh collieries, that is until unbridled erosion to the headland (and public opinion) caused works to cease. Poole Bay ends at a final groyne pointing seaward, beach occupancy now minimal, and the path pauses by two overelaborate wooden benches where you can stare out towards the next coastline twiddle at Hurst Point. Turn left for Mudeford Spit.
This is again not the only way in. The walk round the base of the cliffs must be dramatic because, as usual, you don't really get a sense of their fragility and majesty from on top. But there's also a much simpler path on the harbourside of the hill, this time nigh flat and passing through properly ancient woodland. This is where those with pushchairs and picnic baskets go, also the famous Land Train that first shuttled along in April 1968. Locals initially detested the intrusion, even scattering nails across its path to deter the owners, but a six month trial swiftly became a long-term summertime connection and today it's run by the council (single ticket £4.95, card and contactless only).
I can't tell you what Mudeford Spit is normally like because I arrived at what might just have been its annual peak - half past two, bank holiday afternoon, mid-heatwave. The sand bar is a kilometre long and barely 100m wide with a chain of 400-or-so brightly paintedbeach huts all along one side. They're a decent size too, many equipped with solar-powered electricity and an upper mezzanine for potentially sleeping overnight, and I was dead impressed that almost half appeared to be in use despite the relative inaccessibility of the location. Out of these spilled reddened retirees, watersporty types and full family groups, all seemingly normal enough so I was shocked later to discover that these beach huts sell for up to half a million pounds, such is the allure of the barely-attainable seaside.
At the farthest tip are the Black House, a fenced-off enclosure for plovers and a thin bar of sand that tapers to a point. A deep but narrow channel is all that separates Mudeford Spit from Mudeford Quay, this the ultimate outflow from the harbour. To cross would only be a 50m swim, were this not strongly discouraged due to strong tides, whereas on foot it's a six mile walk. Thankfully the Mudeford Ferry exists to shuttle spitgoers and headtrippers back and forth, but departing from a jetty halfway down the spit so crossing feels more like you're getting your £3.50-worth. Two catamarans operate the peak schedule, each with a maximum capacity of 32 but less if someone's carrying a bike, sailboard or trolley. This time it's strictly cash only but cats, dogs and parrots ride for free.
This is again not the only way in. Bournemouth Boating Services run a river cruise from Christchurch Quay to Mudeford Spit, essentially a scenic jaunt through the harbour but also the simplest way to reach the sandy beach hut bonanza from where people actually live. But this time the single fare is £11, a hefty amount that must soon add up if you're out here regularly. Also all the ferries cease ferrying at 5pm precisely, this bad news if you're enjoying a gorgeous sunny afternoon on a farflung coastal feature and plan any kind of evening revelry. Such are the downsides of an expensive tiny property it's impossible to drive to.
The ferry delivers you to Mudeford Quay beside a stack of lobster pots I don't think were only there for tourist purposes. Alongside are a few fishermen's cottages and a heaving pub, also the local lifeboat station, also a quayside rammed with small children lowering lines into the water to catch crabs. This was smuggling central back in the day, as a self-guided Smuggler's Run Trail explains should you choose to follow the multiplicity of boards towards the town. I merely hiked back to Christchurch the easy way along suburban streets, completing my circuit of the harbour and all somehow without overheating. Things may not be precisely the same if you visit as the spit has a long history of breaching, reshaping and regrowth, but this time I was really pleased I'd chosen Christchurch over over-familiar Poole and Bournemouth.
That's Christchurch in Dorset, not the city in New Zealand. Until 1974 it was marginally in Hampshire and since 2019 has been part of a unitary authority uninspiringly called Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. Geographically it's the easternmost of the three, nudging the New Forest, and also by far the oldest thanks to the allure of its natural harbour. I last visited on holiday in the late 1960s when my chief memory is of leaving a teddy bear behind in a seafront cafe, then forcing my parents to go back and search and being disconsolate when nobody could find it. It still wasn't there this time but thankfully there was plenty to see, also my advance rail sale ticket accidentally delivered me to a glorious coastal town on the hottest bank holiday ever. [Visit Christchurch][40 photos]
10 things to see in Christchurch
1) Christchurch Castle
From the Stone Age onwards settlers have been drawn to the strategic point where the River Stour meets the River Avon. Here the Normans upgraded the site of an Anglo-Saxon wooden fort to a proper motte and bailey, later adding a chunky stone tower on top, some of which survives in ruins. English Heritage don't charge because there's not enough here, it's more a town centre sideshow, also all that remains of the adjacent Constable's House is a few walls. I yomped up some wiggly steps between two family groups, hoping for a better view than I got because a lot of town centre rooftops get in the way, but you do get a good idea of how long the parish church is. Blimey it'senormous.
2) Christchurch Priory
About 20 English cathedrals are smaller, that's how massive Christchurch Priory is. It used to be part of an Augustinian monastery but it was huge even before that, founded by one of William II's chief ministers. It's said he wanted to build it on a hilltop two miles away but one morning the workers found all the construction materials had mysteriously relocated here. It's also said that one particular beam was accidentally cut too short and would have gone to waste, except a mysterious carpenter somehow lengthened it and raised it into place while nobody was looking. Could it have been Him? So pervasive was the legend of the 'Miraculous Beam' that the building became known as Christ Church, eventually edging out the town's original name which used to be Twynham.
There's no charge for entry and from what I heard every first time visitor says "oh blimey it really is big", or words to that effect. Staring down the arched nave through the choir to the lofty altarpiece it does indeed feel much more like a cathedral, whereas in fact it's merely the longest parish church in England. One sightseeing bonus is St Michael's Loft Museum, an unexpectedly large room located above the Lady Chapel and accessed via a one-way system of 72 narrow spiral steps - yours for an additional donation of £1. The church was recently in the news for updating its gargoyles, one of which I spotted high on the exterior at the eastern end - a Covid-era NHS nurse complete with facemask, lest we forget. For a similar medieval take check out the 39 beastly carvings (or misericordia) on the stalls in the choir, some thematically based on Aesop's fables. On the sign outside it says the 8am service is Holy Communion (BCP), and it took me a while to realise this wasn't a reference to the local council but to the Book of Common Prayer.
3) Red House Museum
The town's museum is based in an old workhouse, a long redbrick building hence the Red House Museum. It's not normally open on Mondays but thankfully they make an exception for bank holidays otherwise I'd never have seen all the treats inside. Downstairs is mostly bygones, much local but some merely evocative of a past era. Upstairs is full-on archaeology, the area being extremely rich in pre-Roman settlements and consequent finds. Another wing focuses on the workhouse itself while a modern annexe does a fine job of bring the surrounding suburbs to life with a series of historic aerial photos. I confess I hadn't known that the WW2 concept of a Bailey Bridge was originally tested here in Christchurch at the Experimental Bridging Establishment.
The gardens are splendid with umpteen specimens carefully labelled, the rosebushes just coming into their own and also a surprising number of dinosaurs lurking in the shrubbery. The lady on the front desk said 10 green-fingered volunteers come in twice a week and yes it shows, also another 40 keep the museum ticking over which is a benefit of Christchurch being a town a heck of a lot of people retire to. So it saddened me somewhat that I was the sole visitor, this despite the town being rammed with bank holiday footfall passing within sight of the building while shuttling between two one-off retail attractions. It seems people prefer fudge stalls and charcuterie to a free dose of heritage, lovingly curated, or perhaps they all visited years ago and history just can't keep up.
not 4) Museum of Electricity
Sorry you're too late for this, it closed in 2012 and the remaining contents were auctioned off last year.
4) High Street
The High Street was bypassed in 1958, removing a historic pinchpoint and returning a little civility to the town centre. It also allows the street to close each Monday for a market, and I don't know if it's bigger on a bank holiday but I was impressed by the extent, the variety and the patronage. I'd never seen a stall populated by multicoloured 3D-printed dragons before. It did however make it harder to see the old buildings behind, like the classical Midland Bank, ye olde coaching inn and the pristine Art Deco Regent cinema. All that remains of the old town hall is the Victorian frontispiece, the remainder now a 1980s shopping precinct called Saxon Square because they found a 7th century cemetery on site during reconstruction. The Celtic Cross outside the discount book shop is thus entirely fake.
5) The Ducking Stool
Most medieval towns had a ducking stool for the punishment of mouthy women, with Christchurch's first recorded in 1350. What's unusual is that a full-size replica has been built and placed by the millstream at the end of Ducking Stool Lane. It looks much too pristine but is also evocative of disturbingly unenlightened times, that is until you spot it couldn't physically lower anyone into the trickle of water except at times of major flood. The Ducking Stool is also stop number 3 on the Christchurch Cultural Trail, a pleasingly short loop designed to help visitors not miss anything important.
6) Christchurch Harbour
The Avon and the Stour are significant rivers with over-used names, one flowing down from Salisbury Plain and the other from Stourhead, obviously. They meet off Christchurch Quay, merging to form a substantial estuary/harbour combo that meanders for almost two miles towards the sea at Mudeford. It's perfect for messing aroundin boats, awash with yachts and motorcraft and also local youth on stand-up surfboards, or perhaps I just caught things on a perfect bank holiday afternoon. The building that best catches the vibe is The Captain's Club which looks like it ought to supervise regattas but is actually just a luxury hotel and spa. The cheapest way to take to the water is the Wick Ferry, just £1.50 to briefly cross the Stour to Tuckton Tea Gardens rather than endure a mile's walk to the lowest bridging point and back.
not 7) Tucktonia
Sorry you're too late for this too. Inspired by Bekonscot, a local racing driver built a 3 acre model village on a former golf course near Tuckton Bridge. Everything was to 1:24 scale including a substantial number of London landmarks and a runway from which Concorde would take off hourly. Tucktonia was opened on 23rd May 1976 by Arthur Askey, but only because Bernie Ecclestone wasn't available. Visitor numbers were initially strong, fuelled by considerable celebrity endorsement, and even more models were squeezed onto the site. Alas maintenance costs proved excessive, a takeover by Grand Metropolitan stunted investment and nobody had quite anticipated the furious nimbyism of the Fairway Drive Residents' Association, thus the entire project wound up at the end of 1986. Some exhibits transferred elsewhere but most were lost (or burnt in a fire), and the entire site was subsequently redeveloped as a residential development called The Meridians. What a sad waste. 11-part history here, 32 photos here, 10 minute documentary here.
7) The Quomps
The prize for the best name locally goes to the Quomps, the greensward where town meets river. Until the 1920s it was an unenclosed common, then the land was raised and levelled to create a pleasure park. I saw it under entirely atypical conditions as the venue for the weekend-long Christchurch Food Festival, thus covered with stalls, tents and vans selling everything from loaded fries to truffle-infused streetfood. And it was packed, a genteel pilgrimage to calorific consumption which confirmed the utter Middle-Englandness of this southwest conurbation. Also I was well chuffed to find a Chucklehead cider stall, now £6 a pint but a chilled bargain given it won't be coming anywhere near Brockwell Park this year, dammit. Come back on 1st August for Christchurch's annual outdoor jazz festival, Stompin' on the Quomps.
8) Stanpit Marsh
Downriver from the town centre, just past the boarded-up former council offices, the estuary's edge opens out to a considerable swathe of saltmarsh. Largest of these is Stanpit Marsh, 160 acres of creeky flatness, salt pans, reed beds and sandy scrub. The Visitor Centre is a raised viewing platform with a specimen-packed fieldwork room, a great step up from the original caravan, where the ranger was pointing out highlights to a handful of spotters. I walked out onto the cracked expanse and had the long track all to myself, bar the birdsong and a small newt who scuttled silently across my path. Always read beyond the usual list of tourist attractions if you want a special experience on your gadabout.
9) Another brilliant place 10) The other brilliant place
Of which more tomorrow.
Last week I went to Chipstead station.
Mmmmm, chips, I thought.
Alas there isn't a chippy in Chipstead, the nearest is Mr Chips on Chipstead Valley Road in Coulsdon, and that's much nearer Woodmansterne station.
But it made me wonder how many other UK stations have food in their names.
I've created four lists, from 100% to dubious.
PREMIER LEAGUE One word is food
Berry Brow
Bournville
Bramley
Caerphilly
Cherry Tree
Ham Street
Liverpool Lime Street
Pineapple Road
Pudding Mill Lane
Rice Lane
Peckham Rye/Rye/Rye House
Sandwich
Sole Street
Strawberry Hill
Sugar Loaf
Turkey Street
CHAMPIONSHIP The name is part food
Appleby/Appledore/Appleford
Appley Bridge
Battersby/Battersea Park
Berrylands
Chipstead/Chippenham
Codsall
Cressing/Cressington
Dumfries
Eggesford
Fishbourne/Fishersgate/Fishguard
Hathersage
Honeybourne
Musselburgh
Nutbourne/Nutfield
Peartree
Plumley/Plumpton/Plumstead
Saltash/Saltaire/Lelant Saltings
Shippea Hill
DIVISION 1 The name makes you think food
Banbury, Bath, Dundee, Eccles, Gloucester, Leicester, Lincoln, Melton Mowbray
DIVISION 2 Arguably there is food
Ambergate, Aylesham (and everywhere else called -ham), Bangor, Bayford, Caterham, Cookham, Egham, Fareham, Headcorn, Hungerford, Market Rasen, Mouldsworth, Nuneaton, Pye Corner, Rock Ferry
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