Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, bit of heritage, proper healthy, municipal-focused, hilltop views, football-related, flying balls, disused railway bridge, a bit of a stroll, won't take long. So here's a Healthy Heritage Walk from Barnet borough council, nowhere near enough to make a day of it but a nice walk all the same.
Having recommended that you might like to try walking a London borough walk I though it was only right to pick one myself and give it a go. I plumped for four-star borough Barnet and one of their seven Healthy Heritage Walks, conceived as a joint project with the Ramblers and the Institute of Tourist Guiding. Each features a map, a multi-page script with full directions, a Spotify playlist featuring the aforementioned script and a Google map of the appointed route, which is a pretty good going for a council resource. I picked a part of Barnet I was relatively unfamiliar with because it's always good to explore. And what I discovered was that the first kilometre was great, the second, third and fourth a bit of a slog, and the fifth didn't go as planned.
The Hendon to Mill Hill walk starts at Hendon Town Hall, which is both an obvious and a self-centred location for a borough-produced walk. The building's typically Edwardian, having been built in the era when local government was proudly emerging, and is also flying the Progress Pride flag because Barnet finally has a Labour council and it's June. The walk notes remind us that Margaret Thatcher was at the count here when she became Prime Minister in 1979, also that the adjacent fire station is from 1914 and the library from 1929. The peculiar statue outside resembling a giant drill bit is called Family Man, was unveiled by Mrs T in 1981 and celebrates the twinning of Barnet with the municipality of Ramat Gan in Israel. The other imposing municipal edifice is Hendon Technical Institute, later a founding part of Middlesex University, now the main campus of Middlesex University so potentially abuzz with students. If pre-walk reassurance is what you need, Hendon Library has toilets and the Costcutter across the road has water and snacks.
Once upon a time this was a quiet hamlet called The Burroughs and just up the lane was the village hub of Church End. That'll be why there's still a bank of 300-year-old almshouses along here, still providing accommodation for 16 needy persons over 50 years age, with one of those lovely old plaques above the door whose verbose wording kicks off with the phraſe "Theſe Alms Houſes were erected Purſuant to the laſt will of Robert Daniel". Turn the corner, very much avoiding the Barnet Wellbeing Centre, and lo the whitewashed walls of a medieval church. This is St Mary's whose tower is topped by a dazzling lofty weathercock, or more precisely weatherlamb. The walknotes recommend going inside if possible to see the 12th century font and the grave of Sir Stamford Raffles, but I'd turned up as Sung Eucharist was turfing out so it didn't seem appropriate. Instead I headed round the back as directed to see the grave of Herbert Chapman, Arsenal's pioneeringly excellent manager in the 1920s and 1930s, whose career was sadly cut short when he died of pneumonia aged 55.
The pub outside is The Greyhound but was built as Church House, a place for parish meetings. A blue plaque confirms they've been held on this site since 1351 while a blackboard confirms they now sell Double Salami pizza. Nextdoor is the oldestdwelling in Hendon, a 17th century farmhouse, which from 1955 to 2011 housed Church Farmhouse Museum. Alas the council flogged it off at the first sign of austerity, much to the fury of many, so to see it still has a Barnet Property Services To Let sign out front suggests that wasn't a great decision. And beyond that is a footpath entrance to Sunny Hill Park, formerly Church Farmhouse's farm, and it was here my antennae really picked up because I'd never been before. It's big too, a 55 acre sloping tongue with uncut meadow, ridged peak and lower cafe. Pause by the tree with a bench and soak in the view, suggested the walk, and hell yes.
"From here it is possible to see across the valley to Harrow and Stanmore" says the rubric, and they are indeed the undulating woody peaks of Middlesex on the horizon. It then waxes lyrical for five paragraphs about the foreground because this used to include Hendon Aerodrome, a place of considerable aerial importance, but alas all this is now dominated by the boxy upthrust of Colindale. It's grown so much since this script was written in 2019 that you can no longer see 'the distinctive yellow roof' of Hendon Police College, not unless you shift to a completely different viewpoint, only an intrusion of semi-affordable brick vernacular.
You may be unnerved to discover that we're not yet even quarter of the way through the walk, after all my lengthy description thus far, but the good news is that the remainder's far less interesting so I can be briefer.
Kilometre 2: The walk now retreats all the way back to the park entrance, past the back of the churchyard and round the back of the Barnet Wellbeing Centre. It then follows a back alley rather than pass the multitude of takeaways on Church Lane before emerging partway up Parson Street.
Kilometre 3: Near the bottom of the hill you can't quite see Hendon Hall Hotel, a neoclassical mansion whose greatest claim to fame is that it was the hotel where the England football team stayed the night before the 1966 World Cup Final. Since the walknotes were written it's become a luxury care home, complete with '66 Bar and Lounge', so is even harder to see. The Brutalist block of flats in front with its jaggedy concrete profile is Hendon Hall Court, another 1966 triumph. Crossing the busy A1 is no fun, as if a pedestrian crossing were an afterthought, then turn left at North Hendon Synagogue into full-on suburban avenues.
Kilometre 4: Ooh, an unexpected bridleway. This is Ashley Lane, an ancient roadway once used by a fleeing Cardinal Wolsey, now preserved as a half mile strip of ancient woodland across the middle of a golf course. The gentle climb is shady and pleasant, if you don't mind repeated passive aggressive signs warning that unauthorised access onto the course by pedestrians, bikes and drones is strictly prohibited. At the far end is the back entrance to Hendon Cemetery, a multi-faith site since 1899 and the burial place of Lynsey de Paul, also absolutely no dogs permitted.
If you've bothered to schlep this far the final 15 minutes through Mill Hill promises more. Sanders Lane should lead to an old arched bridge over a disused railway, just beyond Mill Hill East, except the path has been fully blocked off with a sign saying 'Footway closed'. This is bloody annoying because there's no other easy way round, hence the local petition which in effect says for God's sake please reopen Sanders Lane. The cause is a structural defect discovered in March 2023 which created "an immediate safety risk", and Barnet council have only recently confirmed that their preferred solution is to entirely demolish the 145 year-old bridge and instead add a footpath at cutting level, with work starting next month. I was thus forced to walk up the road and then return along the actual disused railway, which to be fair was vastly more atmospheric, plus I got to see the doomed bridge from below just before it vanishes forever.
The walk ends by climbing Bittacy Hill onto the site of the former Inglis Barracks, the enormous camp where every WW1 soldier who signed up for the Middlesex Regiment did their training. All that remains today is the officers mess, a long brick building at the brow of the hill, every other space having been swallowed up by swirling townhouses and other semi-upmarket housing. With crushing inevitability the mess has been subdivided into further flats and become Officers Mess House, now fronted by a private garden and numerous signs warning anyone with a vehicle of a potential £100 parking fine. It's no longer the climactic end to the walk that the originators planned, or indeed saw six years ago, and I think what I'm saying is maybe just walk the first three quarters of a mile. Or go do the Totteridge walk instead.
Tomorrow is the summer solstice (3:42am BST).
Today and tomorrow are the longest days.
But tonight is the shortest night.
Date
Sunrise
Day length
Sunset
Night length
Jun 15
04:42:13
16h37m54s
21:20:07
7h22m03s
Jun 16
04:42:10
16h38m24s
21:20:34
7h21m35s
Jun 17
04:42:09
16h38m50s
21:20:59
7h21m13s
Jun 18
04:42:12
16h39m08s
21:21:20
7h20m57s
Jun 19
04:42:17
16h39m21s
21:21:38
7h20m48s
Jun 20
04:42:26
16h39m28s
21:21:54
7h20m42s
Jun 21
04:42:38
16h39m28s
21:22:06
7h20m47s
Jun 22
04:42:53
16h39m22s
21:22:15
7h20m55s
Jun 23
04:43:10
16h39m11s
21:22:21
7h21m10s
Jun 24
04:43:31
16h38m53s
21:22:24
7h21m30s
Jun 25
04:43:54
16h38m30s
21:22:24
7h21m57s
Jun 26
04:44:21
16h38m00s
21:22:21
7h22m29s
data is for London, specifically the Houses of Parliament (51.5°N, 0.125W°)
Days are longer than 16h39m from June 18th to June 23rd.
Nights are shorter than 7h21m from June 18th to June 22nd.
We've already had the earliest sunrise (4:42am and 9 seconds) three days ago.
But the latest sunset (9.22pm and 24 seconds) isn't until next week.
Sunsets are still getting fractionally later for the next four days.
This is for previously-explained reasons.
All this balances out, marginally, to give a longest day of 16h39m28s.
This year June 20th and June 21st both have the same maximum day length.
This is because the solstice occurs overnight, inbetween.
It also means the night of the solstice is the shortest night.
Which is tonight.
But it's only 5 seconds shorter than tomorrow night, so nobody will notice.
WALK LONDON London borough walks (on London borough websites)
Walking is one of the easiest ways to make a journey - it costs nothing, it's good for your health and it's availably locally. So you might hope that London's borough websites would feature collateral encouraging their residents to head outside and enjoy all their area has offer on foot. Some nice walks for people to follow, perhaps, past sites of interest or across scenic landscapes. If the boroughs don't do it, who else will?
So I've been scouring the websites of all 33 London boroughs to see what walks they have to recommend. I've hunted for trails to follow, leaflets to download, circuits to trace, all specific to the borough, all for free. Some borough websites have the lot whereas others make little or no effort to encourage walkers to explore their leafy acres. I've awarded stars according to online route provision and knocked up a league table of walk-friendly boroughs.
I first did this back in 2008, then again in 2012, then again in 2016, then again at the start of 2021. Four years on, the majority of these borough websites have upgraded. A few have merely reorganised, breaking previous links. Others have substantially restructured, adding or pruning former pages and making themselves a lot more mobile-friendly. And a depressing number have dumbed down, deleting all the interesting stuff and concentrating solely on council services.
So I thought I'd update my previous list, for those of you who fancy spending some time exploring your part of the city on foot. To name and shame (or praise and cheer), I've included any changes since 2021 in brackets.
Here's my borough by borough London guide to free downloadable walks. Who'll spur you outdoors for a bit of healthy leisure and heritage, and whose website teams still need a bit of a kick?
Nothing about walks or walking, because these websites are repositories of information about council services (no star boroughs) Bexley(↓4), Kensington & Chelsea(↓3), Lambeth
It's the first time I've awarded five stars to four boroughs, so congratulations to Bromley, Hillingdon, Southwark and Waltham Forest.
Bromley has some of London's best countryside on its doorstep and has created some top-notch rambling resources to help explore it. These come highly recommended. Southwark scores highly for devising a themed walk beginning at each of its libraries, and Hillingdon and Waltham Forest have reached the upper echelons by adding to their previous four-star selections. If you're ever at a loss for something to do locally, dig deep.
The City of London used to be firmly five star but I've downgraded them for concealment reasons. Most of their excellent walking resources remain on the City website but only if you already know where to look, because the official walking page now redirects punters to the jazzier City of London website where everything's more commercial. Of the remaining four star boroughs, Barnet's six Healthy Heritage Walks are the most recent and come with a choice of accompanying podcast or transcript. Lewisham's unusual approach is to encourage everyone to walk to Blackheath from wherever they live.
Once you drop below four stars the offerings get less exciting. But well done to Brent for noticing that routes without maps aren't much use, hence by restoring these they go back up a place. Kingston have managed to put together three colourful walks by partnering with their local university, hence they spring up from zero stars to three. Hammersmith & Fulham's audience is people who hardly walk at all, so don't head there for anything meaty.
At the two star level councils are essentially abdicating responsibility for walking resources to external sources. Enfield and Haringey have dropped a star since 2021 by doing just that. I'm particularly ashamed that the Tower Hamlets web team have somehow retained the summary highlights of their walks while deleting the associated pdfs, making a long-standing collection of excellent leisure downloads utterly useless overnight.
Similar torching of resources has occurred in Kensington & Chelsea, and especially Bexley which has somehow managed to plummet from four stars to none at all. A third of London boroughs fall into my one- and zero-star categories because their websites are too keen on being functional instead of inspiring. The dilution and impoverishment of council websites has been a regular theme on this blog, and is one of the reasons why I revisit these lists every few years.
If you're fortunate to live in (or next to) one of the four- or five-star boroughs, maybe bookmark a few of these local walks and walking pages for later use. Even if this weekend's looking much too hot, getting out and about is always an excellent way to explore London and keep active at the same time.
An extraordinary thing has happened at the cablecar.
Some of the cabins now have a glass floor.
The bottom of the cabin has been removed and replaced with what I assume is an impressively chunky sheet of glass. It's not a small window, it's pretty much the entire floor, allowing a completely new perspective on a flight above the Thames. Are you brave enough?
It wholly surprised me when I first saw it. A typical cabin bottom is white and emblazoned with the name of the sponsor, so it was unexpected to see a pale blue rectangle approaching over the wires instead. As it drew nearer it became evident that I could see the sky through the bottom of the cabin, which very much isn't normal. And as it passed overhead I could see fully inside through what was plainly a transparent floor, confirming that TfL's engineers have been very busy. That's quite some gimmick, I thought.
Imagine setting off from the terminal with an additional view beneath your feet. The dock, the dockside, the roof of the Silvertown Tunnel and several building sites, all from an unusual angle. Then blimey the choppy waters of the River Thames from maybe 80m up, all grey and merciless, including that unnerving jiggle as you rumble over the mast. And all with the additional frisson that the glass might crack and you could tumble to your doom, even though you know that would never happen but your subconscious is more easily spooked. The TikTokkers will come storming in.
I should confirm it's not all the cabins, only a couple. The vast majority of cabin floors are still opaque and the experience is thus exactly the same as it was before. But if you happen to be ushered into one of the two glass-floored cabins you're in for additional thrills, quite possibly a shock, and maybe a little fistbump too as realise you got lucky.
All I can tell you is what I saw, which is two glass-floored cabins circulating across the river. One is cabin number 11 and the other is cabin number 29, in case you want to time your swipe through the gates to maximise your chances of boarding one or the other. They were also both empty, so I stayed to watch further passes to see whether either was in public service yet. At one point a very large group of international students boarded and staff spread them out across six separate cabins, but all sequentially behind the glass-floored one, so maybe not yet. But on a later pass suddenly two feet appeared above the glass, so yes it is already operational.
Just as those on board can look down so those below can look up, so be careful what you put on the floor. Also I hope that TfL's lawyers have grappled with the upskirting thing, because plonking a glass floor underneath someone without their consent and then hoisting them into the air does have potential repercussions.
What I can't tell you is what it's like up there because I didn't venture on board. I could have climbed the steps and tried my luck, basing today's post on a first-hand account rather than observation and presumption. How thrilling it would have been to be the first social media channel with factual glass floor reportage. But the main reason I didn't is because I'd done the maths and decided the odds very much weren't in my favour.
There are 34 cabins in circulation at any one time on the Dangleway, of which only two had a glass floor. That's a 1 in 17 chance of success which isn't great odds, especially now every single trip costs £7. There is thus a 94% chance that you won't be successful on your first attempt, and another 94% chance of failure on every subsequent occasion, and that's a lot of £7s to fork out in the hope of enjoying a glass bottom. A bit of maths suggests you'd probably end up spending over £70 before you finally got lucky and even then there are no guarantees so it's potentially a bottomless money pit.
What I don't know is whether it'll be first come first served or whether it'll need pre-booking. Will cabins 11 and 29 be meted out to whoever's at the front of the queue at the time or will you have to stake a claim, potentially by paying more. It's possible staff in each terminal may be helpful ("You want the glass floor? Sure, stand over here"), especially if you pick a really quiet time like a Thursday morning, but it's also possible this is a full-on money-spinner charging extra for giving you the willies.
As yet there's no official information about what's going on here. The Dangleway website has nothing, no additional signage has appeared at either terminal and the price list is unchanged. At present it's not clear whether this is a paid-for extra or an simply part of the usual package that a select few will enjoy. But I expect the TfL Press Office will fire off the loudest of press releases when the appointed time comes round because there's no point investing dosh in a tourist attraction without making a splash.
I wonder what they'll call it. My money's on The Glass Floor Experience because cablecar marketing has been obsessed with the word 'experience' over the years.
But yes you read it right, two Dangleway cabins now have glassfloors.
As gimmicks go, it's right up there.
4pm update: Opens to the public on Monday 23rd June. Tickets are now available to purchase. They cost £25 for a round trip! It is indeed called The Glass Floor Experience ;)
In this series I'm taking the train one stop beyond the Greater London boundary, getting off and seeing what's there. Today that means Thames Ditton, one stop beyond Surbiton on the Hampton Court line. Obviously it's beside the Thames, in this case on the south bank (in Surrey) opposite the broad sweep of Hampton Court Park (which is in London). Thames Ditton is historic, well-off and quaint, but also post-industrial, over-private and lacking in river. If you live here, well done.
There have long been two Dittons, Thames Ditton to the west and Long Ditton to the east, but the two have inexorably coalesced over the years. Thames Ditton got the station which is why you're more likely to have heard of it. That's where I arrived yesterday morning to complete my challenge of visiting every station in London and its outer zones, this being zone 6 which keeps local commuters' fares down. A white-haired lady from Thames Ditton In Bloom was watering the flowerboxes and flowerwheelbarrows on the up platform, whipping open her portable stepladder as necessary, and also being thanked by passing passengers for all the work she was doing. She has horticultural competition from Thames Ditton Men In Sheds who've knocked up three wooden habitats called Bug Halt, Bug Central and Bug Junction in an elevated garden above the ramp opposite. Even before nipping into the cosy waiting room with its small mornings-only cafe and stack of local leaflets, I could tell this was a community that looks after itself with pride.
The heart of Thames Ditton is its snaking high street, a cottage-lined thoroughfare that wiggles down to where the ferry used to be. A lot of weatherboarded frontage is still evident, also a couple of old pubs of which Ye Olde Swan is the real deal with a waterfront terrace and a backstory as the site of a Tudor hunting lodge, what with Henry VIII's palace being just across the water. The Red Lion, by contrast, is merely a fine free house with an obsession for hanging baskets. For groceries there's a smart Budgens, the bank has inevitably become an estate agent and for plump pastries it's got to be the Nice Buns Cafe. The top row of the newspaper rack goes 'Telegraph Mail Times Mirror', for what its worth. As for the very long building with the cupola that's a Georgian mansion built for riverside status, later sold for £5000 to an Anglican hospice fleeing from Deptford. For over a century it's been known as the Home of Compassion, even after being sold off as a luxury care home, until last year the owners decided to tone down the mortality angle and glibly rebranded it Thames View instead.
It's hard to spot the river hereabouts because so much of the waterfront has been privately nabbed. Chief amongst this landgrab is the Ferry Works, a former boat-building yard that diversified into marine engines in the 1880s. You can track the site's subsequent history through three plaques and a To Let sign... manufactured the revolutionary central valve steam engine, moved to Rugby, the amazing Auto-Carrier car made here, Character Riverside Offices To Let. AC Cars arrived in 1911 to build open 2-seaters, coupés and chuggy saloons, also the first British car ever to win the Monte-Carlo rally. The company spent 75 years in Thames Ditton with its motor works just off the high street, in its later years churning out the pale blue three-wheeledinvalid cars that used to crawl the nation's streets. All of that's since become flats, as has the site of the foundry that forged the Quadriga that bestrides Hyde Park Corner - also suitably blue-plaqued.
The one scrap of riverside still accessible is a narrow slipway that now doubles up as Ye Old Swan's car park. You can tell access is limited because one workman had chosen to sit amidst the hatchbacks to eat his lunch. This is also the landing point for the footbridge that joins Thames Ditton Island to the mainland, and no you will not be visiting because it's private and the gate has a black pad. The island is 300m long and consists of a single central track faced by 48 detached properties, each of which started out as a weekend bungalow and is now a desirable hideaway with its own individual mooring. Despite being much closer to the south side of the Thames the island had always been part of Middlesex, and only in 1970 did residents manage to be officially relocated to Surrey. Alongside are two much smaller eyots, Boyle Farm Island and Swan Island, whose sum total of two properties get their mail delivered to a red lockup box at the top of the slipway.
The Church of St Nicholas has been here since the 12th century, the oldest part of its structure being its broad squat flinty tower. It also contains what may be the oldest font in Surrey, a sturdy stone bowl dating back to 1120 with a carving of the Lamb of God on one side. Above the chancel the oak panels are an even rarer survivor, these depictions of the Day of Judgement from 1520 having somehow escaped destruction during the Reformation. Today the church is very welcoming of visitors so the door will likely be unlocked, or maybe I just got lucky while the Bereavement Cafe was meeting in the church hall. A particularly attractive exterior feature is the path that wends quarter of a mile from here down to the station, known as Church Walk. It's too narrow for vehicles so of the 60 houses only two have parking spaces, which must be fun on removals day, but the Victorian semis and cutesy cottages are so desirable that residents are all too happy to suffer the inconvenience.
To the west of the station the avenues get broader and parking in ones front garden is absolutely not a problem. Here a tranche of tradesmen were hard at work fitting conservatories, adding loft extensions and bricking porches, while a dutiful workie with a tape measure waited to be buzzed through an electronic gate to submit a fresh quote. I passed the Vera Fletcher Hall where the local amdrams occasionally put on shows, wove through occasional leftover shards of woodland and eventually found my progress halted by a 90 acre sports ground. This is Imber Court, purchased by the Metropolitan Police Service in 1919 with recreation in mind. Not only is it the home of Metropolitan Police FC, a team who've reached the first round of the FA Cup five times, but also the training centre for the Met's mounted police. Looking across a sea of tennis courts I could see floodlights and the Des Flanders Stand in the far distance... and I presume someone was also watching me.
To the southeast of the station is Giggs Hill Green, a triangular village green with no perceptible contours whatsoever. One edge follows the Portsmouth Road, once the main road to the south coast ports with a terrible reputation for highwaymen, now with a fine view of the village cricket. The local library is here, called Dittons Library so it can serve both Thames Ditton and Long Ditton equally. The land between here and the railway previously spent 60 years as the headquarters of the Milk Marketing Board, they of "drinka pinta milka day", until watered down by William Waldegrave in 1994. It's now a housing estate and the MMB's sole local legacy appears to be that they helped pay for Thames Ditton Cricket Club's snazzy pavilion. I should also mention the Thames Ditton Miniature Railway, a teeny straddled treat, but their next open day isn't until 6th July.
And to the east of the station I tried to work out where Thames Ditton merged into neighbouring Long Ditton. A sensible dividing line might be The Rythe, a minor stream that wriggles down from Esher Common, but that was barely visible even near its mouth with the Thames. This comes at the end of Ferry Road, another street recalling river crossings past, but when I reached its tip the river was again fenced off and the slipway hidden within a modern boatyard. Instead the local populace are left to make do with City Wharf Open Space, a scrap of waterfront mostly shielded by trees with a brief opening where the full sweep of the main river is finally revealed. The main problem with living round here, it turns out, is rather too much Ditton and nowhere near enough Thames.
I have been to all the stations in London.
All of them.
It's a lot of stations.
It's hard to be certain precisely how many stations but let's say 'just over 600'.
And I have been to all just over 600 of them.
As of yesterday.
I'm including tube, DLR, Overground, Crossrail and all National Rail services, even trams, and that's why it's quite so many stations. Also when I say 'been to' I mean properly used, not just passed through on a train. At each station I either touched in or touched out, sometimes both.
» What precisely counts as a station is a moot point. Is Canary Wharf one station or three? Is Marylebone one station or a rail terminus plus the tube? I got round this pedantry by going to both of them, just to be sure, also both halves of Shepherd's Bush, both sides of Mitcham Junction and the two Heathrow Terminal 5s. Don't nitpick, just do the lot.
» Also I'm only counting TfL and National Rail stations here, not Eurostar or independent ventures like the Ruislip Lido Railway. If my 60+ Oyster doesn't let me in it doesn't count.
It's not easy to visit all the stations in London, and also not easy to know you have. You need a list and you need excellent record keeping, also patience, drive and time. Are you absolutely certain you've been to Albany Park, Eden Park and Grange Park? Have you really been to West Drayton, Drayton Park and Drayton Green? I'm certain because I made a spreadsheet and ticked everywhere off. I wonder how many others can say the same.
What's more I've been to all the stations in London this year.
And it's only June.
I've been a busy boy.
I broke down the challenge into two halves.
First I visited all the stations in zones 1-3, then all the stations in zones 4-6. At the start of the year I had a z1-3 Travelcard so I used that, then in mid-March I got my 60+ Oyster card so I used that. I have visited all the z1-3 stations in a calendar year before, at least three times, but never gone on to tackle z4-6 because of the cost. The zone 1-6 daily cap is £16.30 which'd be a lot of money to waste just to visit, say, all the stations on the Chessington South branch.
All the stations in London
z1-3
trams
z4-6
about 350 stations
39 tram stops
about 230 stations
January
February
mid-March-mid-June
My very last London station was Sudbury & Harrow Road, the hardest station of all. It only gets eight trains a day, four into London in the morning and four out in the evening, weekdays only, which helps explain why it's London's least used station. Nobody else alighted from the same train as me, unsurprisingly. Nevertheless some workmen had been round giving the metalwork a touch-up, hence there are Wet Paint stickers everywhere to warn hardly any passengers not to brush against long-dried railings. That's London done, I thought, less than three months since my 60+ Oyster arrived.
It turns out visiting all the z4-6 stations is harder than visiting all the z1-3 stations, even though there are fewer of them. That's because they're spread across a much wider area, usually further apart and because train frequencies in outer London aren't so good. There are a lot of half hourly services in zones 4-6 so you can end up waiting for a while, also the next station may be too far to walk, also there may not be a decent bus service connecting the two. The optimum solution is often to bounce back and forth, first two stations forward then one back, but sometimes the timetable conspires not to make that work. Ticking off the ten stations in Bexley took over three hours, for example. Yes I do have a lot of time on my hands.
But I have now visited all the stations in London, including at least 50 I'd never used before. There was Birkbeck with its silly single platform not stolen by a tram, and Brentford which was always one stop beyond the validity of my Travelcard so I never went, and Clock House which has the most appalling non-existent signage in the ticket hall, and Malden Manor which is more monumental than the locality deserves, and Mill Hill Broadway which is proper grim, and Motspur Park with its brand new snazzy lifts, and Mottingham which several weeks later I can barely remember, and Plumstead which is the backwater Crossrail skips, and Selhurst which I was expecting to be Palace-ier, and South Merton which is basically outclassed by Morden on all levels, and St Margarets which is a whole new middle-class magnet I'd previously missed, and Sundridge Park where the lady in the ticket office was so underused she gave me a wave, and Welling which was pretty lacklustre, and that was just zone 4.
I was impressed by the community heritage on the Enfield Chase line where posters and artworks give the place a lift. I was surprised by the masses of nigh empty carriages rattling through the suburbs of Bexley and Bromley. I was amazed by the number of staffed ticket offices in backwaters with even fewer annual passengers than the lowliest tube station. I was mighty glad I don't live on the Hounslow Loop because that is one miserably infrequent service. I discovered that catching a bus is usually quicker than waiting for a train down some of the south Croydon valleys. I checked out the crumbling platforms at Berrylands, the nexus that is Bickley and the massive gap in the middle of Cheam. Basically I caught up on all the outer station knowledge I should have gained over the last quarter century but didn't because I had the wrong ticket.
And I've visited more than that.
I've visited every tube station since the start of the year including the 16 that are outside London. I finished off the tube by exiting Rickmansworth last week.
I've visited every Overground station since the start of the year including the 6 that are outside London. I finished off the Overground by entering Watford High Street last week.
I have in fact been visiting every station in zones 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, even the 41 that are outside London, because my 60+ Oyster card permits that too. Even Swanley and Dartford in Kent, even Elstree & Borehamwood in Herts, also the two Ewells in Surrey, I've done the lot. I didn't just whizz round the Banstead Loop for a laugh, I was station-ticking all the way.
I do in fact have just one zone 6 station left and I intend to put that right this morning. It's one stop beyond the Greater London boundary so I've been leaving it until I do the appropriate One Stop Beyond post and that day has come. I'll put a tick in this box once I've been (some time after ten o'clock) which will also mark the final completion of my Visit Every Station challenge.
All the stations accessible with a 60+ Oyster card
z1-3
trams
z4-6
beyond z6
350 stations
39 stops
230 stations
41 stations
January
February
mid-March-mid-June
I've been to all the stations in London and the numbered zones beyond, basically for nothing, in 24 weeks flat.
Observation: The music played on Sounds of the 70s on Radio 2 isn't what it was when Johnnie Walker was in the chair.
Hunch: Bob Harris is playing older, guitarrier records.
Hypothesis: He plays more records from the first half of the 1970s than the second half.
Research: I went back to the oldest Sounds of the 70s still on BBC Sounds, listed all the records played and noted down their year of release. Songs included Metal Guru by T Rex (1972), Hotel California by The Eagles (1977) and Top Of The World by The Carpenters (1973).
Method: I looked up all the records in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles to see when they first charted. If they weren't hit singles I checked their release date using Google and Wikipedia.
Analysis: 20 records were played. 11 were from the first half of the 1970s. That's 55%, a slight majority.
Interpretation: Actually that's a lot of mid-70s. 16 of the 20 records were from 1972-1977, i.e. 80%. The start and finish of the decade barely got a look in.
Supposition: Bob Harris was the host of the Old Grey Whistle Test from 1972 to 1978. Maybe he's biased towards that period.
Further research: Obviously it makes sense to gather more data. Five shows are available on BBC Sounds. Best get data from all of them.
Overview: That might be more balanced. I should tally up all the years and draw a graph.
Insight: OK that's really quite well spread out. 102 songs were played so you'd expect ten songs from every year, and in fact every year falls within the range 10±2.
Verdict: There is no significant disparity in the years represented. It seems the producers of the show are trying to be pretty balanced.
BUT: What I did notice while compiling the data is that 41 of the songs played weren't in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles. That's 40% of the total. That's a very high proportion not to have been UK hit singles.
Conclusion: Bob Harris is playing a lot of album tracks (and US hit singles). That'll be be why I'm enjoying the music less.
Only 29% of the records are from the first half of the 1960s.
71% of the records are from the second half of the 1960s.
Perhaps they should rename it Sounds Of The Late 60s.
Further observations:
» Half the records are from 1965, 1966 or 1967.
» 1962 barely gets a look in. On average you'd expect 16 records from that year but there were only three.
» They say English pop music only really sprang to life with the Beatles at the end of 1962. Five-sixths of the records played are from 1963 onwards. That's probably a good thing.
» Tony Blackburn played 164 records in a month compared to Bob Harris's 102. That's 16 records an hour rather than ten. It helps that 60s songs were shorter. It also suggests Tony talks less.
» About one in six of the records are soul/Motown because Tony loves that.
» These are properly old records. 1965 is now sixty years ago (tell me about it). They're still great records though.
» Obviously the records played included Flowers In The Rain and It's Not Unusual because they get played more regularly than anything else.
» In the last month Tony played more 1961 records than Bob played 1979 records.
» I wonder if Greg James will be hosting Sounds of the 10s in forty years time.
Datasets for future consideration
• The chronological spread of Radio 3's Composer of the Week
• The geographical spread of locations for a) Any Questions b) Gardener's Question Time
• The work schedules of the Radio 4 Today Programme presenters
• The balance of history to science and culture on In Our Time
• How often the same adverts come round on Greatest Hits Radio
• How long since Smooth Radio last played True by Spandau Ballet
• Locations for Radio 3's Choral Evensong
• The most played games on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
• The proportion of successful challenges that are hesitation, repetition and deviation.
• The average score on The Easiest Quiz On The Radio
• Frequency of Radcliffe & Maconie interstitials
Route 241: Royal Wharf to Hackney Wick (Here East) Location: London east, cross-Newham Length of bus journey: 8 miles, 50 minutes
Yesterday route 241 was extended from Stratford City into the Olympic Park. No fuss was made, no hordes descended. Buses which would normally have terminated outside Westfield instead continued via a wilfully tortuous route to the multi-storey at Here East, inevitably rammed with empty seats. The extension is designed to deliver a bus service to the East Bank, the cultural waterfront whose landmark buildings are currently half open. It also delivers a bus service to Sweetwater, one of the five post-Olympic neighbourhoods where currently nobody lives because not a single flat has been built. Arguably it's still too early for the extension to be useful and yet the change has been in the offing for well over a decade waiting for the right moment to launch.
I first blogged that route 241 might be extended across the Olympic Park way back in July 2010 when the idea appeared in planning documents for the Orbit. Instead when Westfield opened in 2011 the 241 was merely extended across the railway to Stratford City bus station, leaving the 388 to take responsibility for travel to the top of the park. A specific extension to Here East first appeared in a consultation in December 2012, at this stage an aspirational change waiting for the Olympic Media Centre to be reopened. A firmer proposition appeared in July 2017 as part of a wide-ranging review of routes connecting to Crossrail, but bosses ultimately decided not to proceed. The emergence of a free shuttle bus for Here East employees in May 2017 likely delayed things somewhat, and a proper 241 extension consultation only emerged in May 2024 when Carpenters Road reopened. And now finally here we are, 15 years on, mostly needlessly.
I rode the entire route, not just the extension, all the way from flat-stacked Royal Wharf. It wasn't terribly busy at that end either, this being another extension circa 2022 on a much-tweaked route. If the Thames-side incomers want to go to Stratford they take the DLR rather than slum it through Custom House and Plaistow, and only on reaching these parts do passenger numbers really start ramping up. I'm pleased to report that timetables at bus stops all appear to have been updated, or at least I never spotted one that hadn't. A yellow poster has also been added explaining the extension into the Olympic Park, not that I can imagine anyone in south Newham ever wanting to make use of it. Our accumulated load started disembarking at Stratford Broadway, poured off at the station and fully emptied out at Westfield, this being where the 241 formerly stopped. The twisty-turny extension starts here.
And it is ridiculously twisty, this the fault of the post-Olympic road network which never quite links up in an optimal way. Crossing from one side of the station to the other has already taken 7 minutes and now we face another loop to get from 'up here' to 'down there'. The first stop on the new extension is outside the Aquatics Centre, a stop in use since 2013 and now served by three different routes. It might feel like overkill to serve a swimming pool and a skatepark, but the opening of a whopping university campus alongside in 2022 means that 16 buses an hour is sometimes justified. OK, now the new bit.
Carpenters Road was once a grimy backroad lined by mucky businesses nowhere else wanted. Originally the 276 ran along it, mainly as a quick route to Hackney Wick, but was diverted through Bow instead in 2007 when all this was sealed off to build the Olympic Park. After the Games Carpenters Road reopened as little more than a service road, this time with the 339 wending its way through, this until December 2018 when the road closed again to enable the construction of the East Bank. Neither the 276 nor the 339 have ever returned and the backroad is now the province of the 241, whisking students and punters to all things cultural. A pair of brand new bus stops await.
The problem is that the bus has arrived at the tradesman's entrance and all the proper access is upstairs round the front. At Sadlers Wells all you see is the 'Stage Door' and a long steep outdoor staircase rising to piazza level. The BBC's new studios aren't open yet, indeed theirs is the building hard-hatted folk are still wandering out of. The London College of Fashion thankfully does have a lower-level entrance, even if it is very much the back way. The V&A proper also isn't opening until next year, so essentially the only people benefiting from all this at present are students. And because the Olympic Park is really busy up top I can imagine hundreds of parkgoers now opening their apps and being delivered a route involving the 241 back to Stratford whereas they'd be much better off not schlepping down dozens of steps for an occasional bus when it would in fact be quicker to walk. Onwards.
The second set of bus stops used exclusively by the 241 are further up the East Bank, way past the building site where 700 new homes haven't yet been started. The only buildings nearby are the Park's HQ where gardeners and security staff clock on and an electricity substation, so not much call for public transport. These stops have been mothballed since the last 339 passed through in 2018 and are finally seeing potential use again. What's more the northbound stop is still displaying a 2014 spider map, now even more horribly out of date than before, even though someone at TfL has been round recently and removed the out-of-date spider in the southbound shelter. Intriguingly neither of these stops appeared on the map in the recent consultation, only two more round the corner that don't yet exist.
This is the northeast corner of Sweetwater, or will be in maybe five years time, and the good news is that if anyone finally gets round to building a single block of flats then residents will at least have a bus service. The 241 nevertheless goes on a looping tour of the empty neighbourhood because that's the only way to get from down here to the flyover. Along the way it briefly overlaps route 339 but not anywhere with a bus stop, so the 339 remains the better option if you're heading canalside. And when the bus finally climbs up to Marshgate Lane the really stupid thing is that construction teams painted BUS STOP on the road back in 2021 in readiness for this weekend, but no bus stop has been added. They even added an annoying kink in the adjacent cycle lane in readiness for a shelter, squishing the pedestrian gap to a bare minimum, but it turns out they needn't have bothered.
The next stop is a longstanding one, immediately outside the Copper Box on the main drag of Westfield Avenue. This time there are flats nearby, also flats under construction, also regular sporting events, a large food court and a shortcut across the river to Hackney Wick station. The 388 stops here and what's more it takes the direct 4 minute route to and from Stratford, not the circuitous 8 minute safari we've just endured. There's then no further stop until the terminus at Here East, even though it might be useful to fill the 600m gap to serve for example the new V&A Storehouse and adjacent facilities. Instead it's all the way or nothing, turfed out kerbside between yet another university and a multi-storey car park. Was it really worth it?
It will be worth it one day, when the East Bank is finished and 1500 unstarted flats along the extension are complete. This is just TfL getting in early, while simultaneously getting in 13 years later than they first suggested. A fine balance needs to be struck, and somebody has judged that now is the time to push things further with three extra vehicles on the route, even if initially they carry mostly empty seats. In the meantime the 241 extension is a round-the houses route that doesn't yet go round any houses, thus generally unnecessary, and you're unlikely to be riding it any time soon.
WALK LONDON
Observation: The music played on Sounds of the 70s on Radio 2 isn't what it was when Johnnie Walker was in the chair.
