Tue 1: I still had no broadband at the start of the month, so my original plan for an April Fool's Day post had to go unimagined. Thankfully I'd already knocked up my monthly FoI round-up before the connection died on Saturday, so a fictional tweak to that did the business. Wed 2: Liberation Day? More like Destabilise Global Trade And Destroy America's Economic Reputation With A Single Sheet Of Cardboard Day. Thu 3: I mentioned that I fell over outside Oval station and it really hurt, but I didn't mention that I also buggered my right knee. Walking was fine but walking up or down steps met with some resistance, awkwardly so, in a way I've never experienced before. "This had better not be permanent," I thought, and thankfully it wasn't, easing over the course of a week to no adverse sensation whatsoever. But I now have a better insight into mobility problems and how irreversibly restrictive they could be, plus a much greater respect for the ground. Fri 4: Worcester sauce crisps are back in the supermarket and this made me very happy. Hoping one day for a revival of lamb and mint sauce. Sat 5: In good news I wasn't charged £2.59 extra for receiving a text message via France while I was walking the Kent coast. I also wasn't charged extra while tethering my laptop to my mobile during my 11 day broadband outage, so I suspect I must be on an excellent data package.
Sun 6: The Silvertown Tunnel opens tomorrow and the SL4's southern terminus is ready and waiting at Grove Park. Ridiculously it has no bus stop so if you want to catch the bus you have to walk 200m up the road. From the station it's worse, it's 300m, which is hardly Super. Mon 7: I tried tapping in at Grove Park station with my 60+ card at 9.20am, forgetting I can't use it on rail lines until 9.27am, and it just beeped red and refused. 60+ cards don't store PAYG, thankfully, otherwise I'd have been charged £3.60 for a one stop journey. Tue 8: Once a year I like to ride the 389, London's shortest bus route, to re-enjoy the jolly communal feel as the driver greets their regulars. The ride is invariably shorter than the wait. Wed 9: I blogged about being on Flickr for 20 years, and apparently my photos got 31581 views in 24 hours as a result. Thanks! Just 243 views for my Dover to Deal album, though, which I'd posted several days late after my broadband returned. Thu 10: The tiny newsagent kiosk outside Bow Road station has just had a security screen installed across the front of the counter. I guess it's to protect the seller and/or to limit petty theft, but it's a shame it's been deemed necessary after all these years.
Fri 11: I spotted this delightful knitted figure in a bag on a fence at Ewell Court. Attached was a sticker that said "I hope I make you smile, Bring a chuckle to your day, If that is the case take me right away". I didn't have the heart to remove it. Sat 12: I watched the return of Doctor Who at 8am rather than 7pm thanks to streaming. It's still entertaining, meaningful and clever, and Ncuti remains utterly excellent, but I worry the show's also expensive, underwatched and going to be hibernated at the end of the series. Sun 13: It's the warmest day of the year so far. See also March 9th, March 21st, April 4th, April 28th, April 29th and April 30th. Mon 14: I have a family wedding to go to next month, and today I was asked what my collar size was so a white shirt can be obtained. It turns out I need a larger size, not because I've fattened up but because at work I never did my top button up but on this occasion I have to, apparently. Tue 15: My dad's BT phone is being converted to internet only, despite him having no mobile reception at his end of the village. We rang up to say this was potentially very risky but all they could advise was "sorry, but if you ever need to ring 999 during a power cut your mobile call would probably go through". We can't test this, alas.
Wed 16: "We counsel against reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups over another" said the Supreme Court spokesjudge, prior to one or more groups doing exactly that. Thu 17: I am perfectly capable of making a claim by myself, thanks, so if you're the exuberant employee who intervened on my behalf thinking you were being helpful, please never ever do that again because it's desperately unprofessional. Fri 18:kagi.com/smallweb is an intriguing accumulator. Every time you refresh the page you get a different post on a different blog, seemingly at random, helping you discover new voices. I discovered it because someone discovered this blog on there. Sat 19: I'd been reticent to return to the easternmost point in Greater London because on my last visit in 2008 one of the last houses had a particularly unpleasant loose dog. On today's visit I was thus pleased to discover that not only was there no sign of a dog but the entire house had been demolished. I might now also risk a return to the northernmost point in Greater London, given that the evil hound who spooked me in 2004 must be dead by now.
Sun 20: This Range Rover with the numberplate NOT 2B is parked round the back of a house on Cheyne Walk in Chelsea. Better still it's normally parked to the right of an Aston Martin with the numberplate 2 BE. They've been parked this way round for years and belong to property developer Robert Bourne and his wife Sally Greene, a theatre impresario. Mon 21: Awwww, the Pope's died after an overactive Easter. He was the only Pope I've ever seen in real life, a tiny figure on his balcony overlooking St Peter's Square doing his Sunday thing. I got the gist of his sermon (love everyone, you are loved) without understanding a word. Tue 22: Stratford High Street has a new convenience store called The Market, technically on Sugar House Lane - another underflat warren where the underprepared can buy snacks, sauce and shrinkwrapped meat to drop into stirfrys. Wed 23: If you enjoyed my St George's Day crossword, you should know it didn't exist at 7am and I published it at 8am. If you didn't enjoy my St George's Day crossword, or picked pedantic holes in it, its brief genesis may explain why. Thu 24: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood is excellent, a dystopian doomsday novel that's all the more prescient for having been written in 2003. I see now why it's been on my local library's Recommendations shelf for months. Fri 25: Egg custard tarts were reduced in the supermarket this morning, and I'd forgotten how large they are and how much I like them.
Sat 26: This very old roadsign namechecking handcarts, perambulators, invalid carriages and pedal cycles can be found at the foot of an alleyway in the Surrey village of Hooley. Sun 27: The Observer is now under the ownership of Tortoise Media, not the Guardian, and also has a bespoke website for the first time, but I'm not sure "less news, more artfully written" is a long-term winner. Mon 28: One reason Canada shouldn't be the 51st state of the USA because it has a larger population than the other 50, even California, so it should be multiple additional states. Another reason is that it'd be batshit expansionism. Tue 29: TfL have just confirmed they're shortening the cablecar's opening hours, as threatened in a consultation last year, because hardly anyone uses it early in the morning. From next week dangling will begin at 8am Mon-Thu and 9am Fri-Sat, so if you want to "take to the cloud" before 8am your very last chance is this Friday. Wed 30: I bought a new flip case for my mobile phone... and oh, it flips on the opposite side to what I'm used to. I now keep trying to open my phone upsidedown, and it feels weird, and I get in a total flap trying to take a photo in a hurry. I'm sure I'll get used to it, I did last time this happened.
Finally, let's see how my annual counts are going...
• Number of London boroughs visited: all 33 (at least seven times each)
• Number of London bus routes ridden: 530 (97%)
• Number of Z1-3 stations used: all
• Number of Z4-6 stations used: 71 (28%)
If you've arrived here from Time Out, I did not say Flibco is "officially the cheapest way to get from the centre of the capital to Stansted", Time Out is prone to exaggeration, and I would never use Flibco myself.
Need to get from London to Stansted Airport? A new player has entered the market and it's very green.
The coach is operated by Flibco, a Luxembourg-based company taking its first steps in the UK. They operate to airports in Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Spain and 15 other European countries, with the long-term aim of becoming the continent's number 1 air transfer service.
Their shuttle business began 20 years ago after spotting a commercial opportunity when Ryanair started flying to Frankfurt–Hahn, an airport 75 miles from Frankfurt. The company doesn't own its own vehicles, it contracts out to local operators, focusing its energies instead on data systems and marketing. Theirwebsite reads as if an AI wrote it, or at best it's badly translated.
And at the start of the month they began regular services between Liverpool Street and Stansted via Stratford, which means I now see their green coaches passing my front door every 30 minutes. But is Flibco a competitive transport offer? Let's see.
Coaches on route FL1 run half-hourly all day, even in the middle of the night. The timetable allows 50 minutes from Stansted to Stratford and 90 minutes for the full Stansted to Liverpool Street. This just goes to show how slow pootling down the Mile End Road is.
National Express coaches operate with very similar timings, as you'd expect, because you can't magic up a faster motorway. Stansted to Stratford is again 50 minutes, with Stansted to Liverpool Street varying from 70 to 90 minutes depending on time of day. Taking the train is obviously faster with the Stansted Express taking just over 45 minutes from Stansted to Liverpool Street. In this case Stansted to Stratford takes longer, just under an hour, because it requires a change of train.
Where Flibco is really competing is on price, so how much are they charging?
Attempting to buy a ticket shows that London to Stansted on the green coach costs £13.99 one way or £18.98 return. National Express charges more, either £18.50 one way or £24.50 return, once you've added on their £1.50 booking fee. Meanwhile a Stansted Express walk-up train ticket is always £25 whether it's peak time or not, making a total return fare of £50.
So if you're travelling today...
STANSTED TO...
Liverpool St
Stratford
Stansted Express
train
£25
£25
National Express
coach
£18.50
£18.50
Flibco
coach
£13.99
£13.99
It sounds like coaches are comprehensively cheaper than the train.
But there's a catch which is that Flibco charges extra if you choose to take luggage, which if you're heading to the airport you probably are.
Just hand luggage £13.99. A suitcase in the hold £15.99. Two suitcases £16.99. The corresponding prices for a return trip are £18.98, £22.98 and £24.98.
National Express don't charge extra for one suitcase but if you want to take two they slap on a £10 surcharge. That's Easyjet levels of affrontery.
So if you're doing a return trip with luggage...
STANSTED RETURN
1 suitcase
2 suitcases
Stansted Express
train
£50
£50
National Express
coach
£24.50
£44.50
Flibco
coach
£22.98
£24.98
That puts the coach companies ahead of the train for those with one suitcase, and Flibco well ahead for anyone with two. Even if you have a railcard and can get the train fare down to £33.30 return, the coach still wins.
But there are of course cheaper fares if you choose to book ahead.
A single Stansted Express ticket can be bought for £17 a fortnight in advance, or £13, £11 or even £9.90 if you get in much earlier. The cheapest return fare is £18.60, but you need to buy your ticket about two months early for that. In good news these advance tickets only tie you to a specific day, not a specific train, and you can return any time within a month.
National Express start to reduce the price of the return leg three days in advance, but the reduction isn't considerable if you get in any earlier. And Flibco don't bother with advance fare reductions at all, you pay their lowest price whatever.
So, finally, here's a return trip leaving in a month's time...
STANSTED RETURN
0 suitcases
1 suitcase
2 suitcases
Stansted Express
train
£29
£29
£29
National Express
coach
£21.30
£21.30
£41.30
Flibco
coach
£18.98
£22.98
£24.98
If you can book one month ahead Flibco wins with 2 suitcases or just hand luggage, and National Express wins with one suitcase. But book two months ahead and the Stansted Express is suddenly cheapest (£18.60 return).
In summary blimey it's complicated, an opaque pricing structure no matter how you travel with various pre-book discounts and hidden extras. If you don't know what you're doing you could end up paying more than you need. Also you may consider time more important than money, in which case the train is both faster and more reliable, being immune to traffic jams that might critically delay your journey to the airport. Also you may want to consider company reviews - Flibco's are uniformly terrible on Tripadvisor, although it's a bit soon to tell if their UK operations will follow the European model.
Also it appears National Express are changing their Stansted coach routes next month, so if you're used to taking one route you might find it has a different number or stops elsewhere.
Currently A6: Stansted → Golders Green → Finchley Rd → Baker St → Marble Arch → Paddington A7: Stansted → Bow → Mile End → Whitechapel → Southwark → Waterloo → Victoria A8: Stansted → Tottenham Hale → Stamford Hill → Shoreditch → Liverpool St → King's Cross A9: Stansted → Stratford
From 19 May A6: Stansted → Golders Green → Finchley Rd → Baker St → Paddington A7:discontinued A8: Stansted → Tottenham Hale → Stamford Hill → Shoreditch → Liverpool St → Southwark → Waterloo → Victoria A9: Stansted → Stratford, then EITHER → Canary Wharf OR → Bow → Mile End → Whitechapel → Aldgate
I note that the service to Stratford is increasing from every 30 minutes to every 20, making National Express more frequent than the upstart Flibco. I also note that the service to Bow is currently every 30 minutes direct, but from 19th May will be only every 40 minutes and with an extra stop in Stratford. Again my conclusion is that if you're heading to Stansted Airport always pick your route carefully. Or if you don't give a damn how much it costs just carry on taking a taxi and I apologise for wasting your time.
A lost school ID card; the Dyson bus; a newly-topless litter bin; a Cake Inn van ("we are famous for our chocolate sponge"); early morning joggerfolk; scattered taxi cards; the TfL Emergency Response Unit; horse chestnut candles; spectators off to watch the London Marathon; green Flibco bus.
I should probably write a full blogpost about the green Flibco bus.
A lady dropping Gregg's pastry crumbs into her Michael Kors handbag; the same lady leaving her coffee cup on the train floor; the same lady doing her lipstick with the aid of an actual mirror, not her phone; brown corduroy trousers; a hygiene conscious tourist tying his Dunlop suitcase to the grabpole using a plastic bag; men already wearing shorts in anticipation of heatwave; a lady carrying a single red rose; brown corduroy jacket; video with Japanese subtitles; advert for new Lynx Cherry Spritz.
The new Lynx premium fragrances are Cherry Spritz, Peach Infusion, Cocoa Velvet and Watermelon Freeze. They join Black Vanilla, Blue Lavender, Aqua Bergamot, Emerald Sage and Copper Santal. Africa remains the best seller.
Pushy mum with pushchair, wheedling me to get out of the way a split second after I'd stepped onto the train; hemp bag from yoga class in E14; fuzzy tattoo sleeve featuring poorly-drawn buxom girls and various gambling motifs; Mother's Day promotional email; Pringle sweater in lime, black and white; Cool Carrot; the Red Hedgehog; a man being violently sick onto a street tree, twice; the same man hurriedly lighting up a cigarette; the same man finishing off his cigarette and walking straight into church.
This is by far the most interesting thing I saw yesterday. "Vomitman's not seriously going to walk into church is he?" I thought, and blimey he did.
The artistes' rooms from a filmshoot being transported on the back of a trailer, one door labelled 'Crowd Make-Up', the other 'News Reporter'; the Shard in distant haze; Egg McMuffin mid-bite; inflatable bunny in pride of place alongside church's Easter Garden; twins kissing; man reading the Mail On Sunday in public; bawling toddler in West Ham top being comforted by father; bright green smoothie; parish boundary marker 1859; Dick Whittington's cat with attached planning notice.
The planning notice refers to "works to undertake cleaning, repairs and sharpening of letters to the entirety of the Whittington Stone monument, which is comprised of a 19th century commemorative stone, mid-20th century railings and a 1960s stone cat'.
Locals sunning themselves on benches outside Gail's while enjoying a pastry brunch; a billboard above the shops advertising Pears Soap; the Mona Lisa but on a t-shirt with funny eyes; yellow caravan; scummy pond; several police questioning the driver of a Bentley; consecutive temporary traffic lights; leaky exhaust pipe; terrier on a rope; a sausage roll stall (with red and yellow sauce in squeezy bottles).
Only certain parts of London can support an artisan sausage roll stall. They looked plump, thick, hot and (from a distance) unpriced.
A mum grinning into her phone, sticking out her tongue and making a noise like "bubububububa"; a man trying to take three buses home to Cheshunt; large silver roasting tray seemingly purchased from pound shop; grumpy bus driver honking at jaywalker; boy wearing a Watford top stuffing his face with a cookie; medlars £9.99 per kg; sign advertising chocolate brownie as 'Luxury Dence Decadent'; 12 Notts Forest fans in red tops and bucket hats (prior to onset of abject disappointment); tumbling wisteria; two lads off for a kickabout carrying two large bottles in a plastic bag.
I can do you a photo of the last two.
Small grey butterfly in olive tree; beggar outside station tucking into a bag of Percy Pigs; Singhsbury's; queue outside farmers' market; Jehovah's Witnesses emerging in their Sunday best; Carolina Chicken; jumper which seemed sensible this morning now draped over shoulder; half-sunk canal boat; grubby man sat at a table outside Costa but drinking canned cider; bus drivers' mess room where the two tea options are PG Tips from the machine or Tesco value teabags and a kettle.
It says a lot for the awfulness of vending machine tea that bus drivers are happier to drink Tesco's very cheapest teabags in preference.
The Quiet Night Inn; 8-year-old princess wearing tiara and sparkly dress; pressure gauge permanently reading zero; advert for stadium gig in November; as-yet untanned knees; 'World Famous Atherley Reds' sticker; beggar bursting through train carriage door to deliver his 'please help me' speech, suddenly remembering he should start it "good afternoon" rather than "good morning"; N1 Inflatable Fun; three ladies failing to give away mission leaflets while blaring out evangelical songs on a small CD player; ad campaign for Penguin classics.
To celebrate Penguin's 90th birthday 90 classic paperbacks have been republished with a minimalist red and white cover, the design of each chiming with the year each author was first published.
Stepping onto the travelator just too late to notice it isn't moving; three girls on a pink scooter outing; Liverpool fan in kit assuming this afternoon's victory is a foregone conclusion; young woman wearing a Tamagotchi round her neck like jewellery; father and son using communal ping pong table; a brief grin of delight from a carried child; homeless man asleep under a Berkeley hotel umbrella; Meatlove; Happy Van ice cream; graffiti by Silent Monkey above the railway tracks.
Silent Monkey is a regular wall-sprayer across London and also Bedford and Milton Keynes, suggesting he's not a London local. Helch had tagged the brickwork alongside, and he's thought to be from Harrow.
Teenage bike posse in session; "A One-Of-A-Kind Destination"; leopardprint blouse; London Marathon finisher looking whacked; canoodlers; seagull; sections of new bridge on the back of a boat; ladies fresh out of Abba Voyage entering the carriage singing Summer Night City; a dozen hopeful taxis; empty can of M&S Cosmo cocktail.
The costume I see most often on late middle-aged women disgorging from the Abba Arena is mid-1970s Agnetha in a blue hat and floaty white blouse.
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 Chipstead, one stop beyond Wooodmansterne on the Tattenham Corner line. For positioning purposes it lies southwest of Coulsdon, a tad into Surrey, and spreads across a large area of dippy chalk downland. As suburbia goes it's top notch, a lot of rustic detacheds on hillsides and way out of your price bracket. Do come.
Chipstead station opened in 1897, a fortunate byproduct of the race to bring trains to the edge of Epsom racecourse. The stations hereabouts are nominally perverse, with Kingswood in the parish of Chipstead, Chipstead in the parish of Woodmansterne and Woodmansterne just across the border in Greater London. As ever the arrival of the railway nudged the residential centre of gravity much closer to the station, its platforms perched on a contour above the valley bottom. Living nearby must get irritating because a public footpath crosses the tracks just to the west so drivers have to whistle every time they approach, which is four times an hour in total. The station building was sold off as a private residence 30 years ago so its owners may need the best earplugs of all.
Chipstead's shops fill a long gabled parade which steps down from the station to the main road. It's fronted with herringbone brickwork, topped by flats with diamond-latticed windows and occupied by none of your usual rubbish. Expect to find a vintner, a vintage butcher, a private surgery, two cafes and a salon with such retro signage you could imagine Margo from the Good Life emerging with a new do. The newsagent sells a top class range of magazines and displays 'The Times' on its awning, which feels about right. The biggest disappointment is that the sole takeaway option is a Tandoori restaurant because you'd hope Chipstead would have a chippie but it doesn't. Fans of fried fish instead need to drive to Mr Chips on Chipstead Valley Road in Coulsdon near Woodmansterne station, because I told you local names were complicated.
The main road along the valley is Outwood Lane, which I see is the B2032 so expect me to come back in seven years time. It starts near The Midday Sun, a disappointingly feast-focused pub, and winds on past Tesco and the water treatment works. The 166 bus almost makes it to the foot of Station Parade before bearing off for the hills and the lavender fields. The fingerpost at the mini roundabout is pristine white so hints at a strong communal presence behind the scenes. In fact there are two, the Chipstead Residents' Association and the Chipstead Village Preservation Society, and I can't work out if they compete or complement each other in the never-ending battle to keep things exactly as they are. The CVPS knocks up a very proper noticeboard whatever.
But the real treasure here is across the valley on the chalk escarpment and that's Banstead Woods. They've been here a while, Anne Boleyn used to own them, as the curve of information boards by the car park explains. And they conceal all sorts of delights, some temporary and some plain unexpected like the sculpted form of a wooden lion at the first fork in the path on the way up. Next is a wooden lamppost with a girl standing underneath, and it turns out this is because the woods host a Narnia-themed nature trail based on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and she's meant to be Lucy. I nearly missed the White Witch because she was tucked behind a tree but I gasped audibly when I saw someone had carved a wardrobe you can actually walk through, brushing through four hanging jackets on the way.
Much better signed, and considerably longer, is the Banstead Woods Nature Trail. It leads deeper into the woods for a more satisfying stroll, and is much augmented at present by multiple patches of proper bluebells. These grow alongside much of the main path, and if you step off along some minor track you have every chance of finding yourself in a dappled glade of bobbing blue. I loved how quiet it all was, the weekly Parkrun having just evacuated, and like them I was almost tempted to go round twice. On the edge of the woods the land falls away to flatter meadows on the valley floor where the locals prefer to exercise their dogs, and where no river runs because that's chalk bedrock for you and whatever created all this has long since drained away.
On the far hillside Chipstead's finer houses spread out along quiet lanes and various private cul-de-sacs. Density was never a concern when these were built and road access never a priority, so householders enjoy whopping plots and pedestrians are very much an afterthought. I had to dodge several vehicles after the pavement ran out and was nearly reversed into at a minor passing place. Many of the front hedges are thick, high and impeccably shaped so I suspect the local topiarists do a roaring trade. But if you keep walking eventually a cluster of older smaller houses appears, this the heart of the original village where the pond still is and the post office used to be. The White Hart is Georgian and looks much more like the kind of pub a proper Chipsteader would frequent.
Up here is where the sport hides out, including the bowls club, a private tennis hideaway, football, cricket and a better-than-usual rugby club. The village hall has a prominent spot by the crossroads but is outdone for capacity by an unlikely entertainment venue up a back lane. This is the Courtyard Theatre, home to the Chipstead Players whose am-dram triumphs merited converting a former stable into a 97-seater back in 1995. Their next production is Terrance Rattigan's Separate Tables at the end of next month, then Brief Encounter in July and Dracula in the autumn, and you can count me impressed. I was also impressed by the bluebells in the orchard, but less so by the jobsworth CVPS sign on the gatepost.
You are very welcome to enter but you do so at your own risk.
Keep your eyes open for trip hazards.
Take extra care in high winds.
Protect the natural environment.
Leave no trace of your visit.
Keep dogs under close control.
ENJOY YOUR VISIT.
The parish church is nowhere near what most people think of as Chipstead, being over a mile from the shops and the station down lanes you wouldn't want to risk after winter Evensong. It's called St Margaret's and claims a history dating back to 675 AD, although the earliest part of the current stone church was built in 1150, the tower is more 1200 and the supposed 1000 year-old yew outside the entrance toppled in the Great Storm. I would have liked to go inside and see the memorial to Sir Edward Banks, the 18th century builder of Waterloo, Southwark and London Bridges, but the door was sensibly locked. I don't think June Brown is commemorated here, inside or out, but the real life Dot Cotton was a regular churchgoer and lived in Chipstead too.
You don't have to step far from Church Green to find yourself in another village altogether, this being Hooley, a linear outpost despoiled by the passage of the A23. They have a separate Residents Association and less exciting noticeboards, many of the posters on which are actually about Chipstead. For a sprawling non-nucleated village Chipstead displays a remarkable cohesion rarely seen elsewhere, but unless you live near the station you'll be relying on your car a lot.
In late April the seasons move on from pink to blue, from blossom to bells. These then are the weekends for a bluebell stroll, a rare treat before the flowers fade and summer greens overwhelm all.
But where best to enjoy a full-on floral display? One of the places that always puts on a fine show is Myddelton House Gardens in Enfield, so when I found myself nearby yesterday I dropped in for a wander.
Not Myddelton House again? I think this must be the fifth time you've written about it, do you have no better inspiration these days?
Michael | 26.04.25 - 1:14 a.m. |
I think you'll find it should be Myddleton House? DG you get this wrong every time, although I admit it is a very common misspelling.
Greg | 26.04.25 - 1:38 a.m. |
No it is Myddelton House. He actually got it right this year! I confess this surprised me enormously.
Annie | 26.04.25 - 3:07 a.m. |
Why were you nearby? Were you walking the New River Walk again? Did you take the Weaver line or catch the 327 bus?
Andrew | 26.04.25 - 4:43 a.m. |
Myddelton House used to be served by routes 135 and 144B although the 144B became the 231 in May 1954 and the 135 became the 191 in September 1982.
Steve | 26.04.25 - 5:22 a.m. |
Please shut up about bloody BUS ROUTES.
Peter | 26.04.25 - 6:58 a.m. |
Myddelton House's gardens are amazing thanks to Edward Bowles, a self-taught Victorian horticulturist who grew up here and went on to spend most of his waking hours planting and grafting. He rose high in the RHS, had numerous plants named after him, wrote several books about bulbed flowers and even became known as The Crocus King.
The current owners of the garden are the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, who used a half million pound Heritage lottery grant to restore the site and who continue to employ a crack team of gardeners who do absolutely sterling work. Entrance is free, although £2 donations are encouraged in a box by the entrance.
The Queen used to be married to Edward's great-great-nephew, i.e. Andrew Parker Bowles, and she turned up for the grand reopening in 2011 and planted a peach tree.
I still can't get used to the Queen not being Elizabeth but that Camilla woman...
Paul | 26.04.25 - 1:25 a.m. |
Crocuses do not grow from bulbs they grow from corms (also known as bulbotubers).
Nic | 26.04.25 - 2:10 a.m. |
Dunderhead. The plural of crocus is croci.
Tom | 26.04.25 - 5:36 a.m. |
Both plurals are acceptable but 'crocuses' is generally preferred.
Mel | 26.04.25 - 5:58 a.m. |
Why are we discussing crocuses?! It is late April they are all dead.
Harry | 26.04.25 - 6:21 a.m. |
One of the finest current displays can be found alongside the long crescent lawn, which in Edward's day was the path of the New River. It's known as the Tulip Terrace and in Edward's day it's where Edward's Tulip Tea was hosted on his birthday in May. This year the tulips are at their peak right now in April, and beautifully augmented by the pink blossom of the Judas tree in the background.
Below the Tulip Terrace are the nursery beds, the kitchen garden and several glasshouses you can walk through. There are also a lot of old people because Myddelton House is very much the kind of place that attracts pensioners of a green-fingered bent. They wander the gardens, poke at the beds, say "oh how lovely" a lot and inevitably end up in the cafe.
The cafe is in the visitor centre and offers very reasonably priced hot drinks, jacket potatoes, pasties and cream teas. If the cafe is busy you may find yourself in the tiny carriage shed which doubles up as overspill and a small museum. Perhaps you could enjoy a ham and tomato panini while admiring Edward's spade and ice skates.
You forgot to mention Enfield's old Market Cross in the pergola garden.
David | 26.04.25 - 1:04 a.m. |
You forgot to mention that in the 1960s the New River here was filled in using spoil from the newly-dug Victoria line.
Ewan | 26.04.25 - 2:52 a.m. |
You forgot to mention the ostriches. Both of them.
Victoria | 26.04.25 - 4:01 a.m. |
I can't believe how much you forgot to mention! Are you having a Senior Moment DG or are you merely exercising your editorial prerogative?
Martin | 26.04.25 - 5:39 a.m. |
But for bluebells you need to walk down to the far end, past the pond and the alpine meadow. The blue flowers here aren't bluebells, don't be fooled, they're scillas and camassias. Only when you reach the rock garden, which was Edward's favourite and which is where he was buried, do the bluebells truly kick off.
A non-ostentatious summerhouse provides shelter from spring sun or April showers. A few dainty paths thread around the site. The humpy ground surrounds three clay pools, most of which are empty at present. At the foot is a stream that feeds the Turkey Brook, across which is a gate which ought to lead to the local public footpath but is always locked.
To be fair it's not London's finest display of bluebells, more a fine sprinkling, so don't let me get your hopes up. I'd hate you to schlep all this way and then be disappointed not to see a perfect bobbing carpet. If you want proper bluebells I'd direct you to Lesnes Abbey Wood in Abbey Wood, Chalet Wood in Wanstead, Emmetts Garden in Kent or the Ashridge Estate in Herts. You probably have your own favourites.
Dockey Wood is absolutely spectacular.
Mike | 08.05.18 - 11:37 a.m. |
Perivale Wood is fabulous, but having a year off this year.
Pat | 27.10.20 - 9:09 a.m. |
Plenty of bluebells in Highgate Woods.
Johnny | 03.05.21 - 5:34 p.m. |
The woodlands around Kemnal Manor have loads of bluebells in spring.
K | 16.06.22 - 5:24 p.m. |
Heartwood Forest near St Albans is worth revisiting.
Andrew | 14.01.24 - 6:26 p.m. |
But Myddelton House Gardens are worth a visit any time, varying splendidly with the seasons, and all thanks to Edward Bowles the Crocus King.
25 years ago today I bought a filing cabinet. It might be useful, I thought, plus I do have a lot of paper and official documents so it'd be much better to file them away. To be more accurate my parents bought the filing cabinet for me, which was very kind of them, and I treated them to lunch at The Beagle afterwards. I wouldn't have been able to haul the cabinet up to the first floor by myself because it was heavy even when it was empty. Also we had to take it straight back to Staples for a replacement because the drawers didn't open, so in fact they helped me haul the cabinet upstairs twice.
I filled it later that evening while I was watching Castaway 2000 on the TV. I'd also bought lots of drop folders, just like we had in the office, so my phone bills went in one, my car mileage receipts went in another and my bank statements went in another. Actually my bank statements went in several, one for each account, then mortgage documentation, cashpoint receipts and everything. I labelled all the folders by writing on little folded slips of paper in very neat handwriting (Insurance, Electricity, Tax). I even wrote the label for my mobile phone bills in orange pen. It was a three drawer filing cabinet so the top drawer was generally financial, the second drawer was for all my work stuff and the third drawer was initially empty. It didn't stay empty for long.
The filing cabinet has only been shifted once since - once is enough - and now sits in a convenient recess in my bedroom. I've juggled the contents several times, adding a lifetime of utility bills and throwing out a lot of work-related bumf I once believed would always be important. Paperwork that arrives in the post, such as it does these days, still gets squeezed into the files when I get round to it. But a substantial proportion of what's in that filing cabinet still comes from a millennial era, a time before everything got digitised and paper was still important, so rifling through the drawers can be like flicking back in time.
electric
Date of bill 20 Jun 00 - Please pay £34.93 (412 units at 6.53p per unit)
Bill date 16 Mar 10 - Please pay £64.10 (414 units at 17.86p/10.89 per unit)
Bill date 9 Mar 2020 - Please pay £106.60 (438 units at 18.24p/17.51p per unit)
purchases
5.3.89 Sony Compact Disc Player - £249.95 (from Galaxy Audio Visual, Tottenham Ct Rd)
26.2.00 Nokia 3210e - £49.99
7.5.00 You've earned £7 in Clubcard Vouchers (voucher - 25p off cooking sauces)
28.5.00 Butlers Wharf Chop House - £127.01 (dinner for 3, with Sauvignon Blanc)
9.3.02 BA London Eye - £10 (your flight time is 15.00)
7.2.02 The Streets, Brixton Academy - 2×£15.60 (Stalls Standing)
22.8.03 The Britannia Hotel, Manchester - £98 (2 nights)
5.8.06 Century Falls DVD - £9.97
20.9.09 Annual Travelcard Zones 1 to 3 - £1208
27.4.15 Essential Khaki Straight FF ×2 - £130
TV
13.9.99 TV licence - £101
14.1.02 "Welcome to ITV Digital..."
28.3.02 "As you may already be aware ITV Digital has been placed into administration..."
20.3.03 "You will not be receiving a full refund of what you are owed..." (claim £111.09, likely dividend £2.23)
Time was when you really did need to keep this stuff. Everything arrived by post, on paper - no e-invoices or online accounts. If you ever wanted a refund you needed the receipt, if you wanted to pay your electricity bill you filled in the tear-off slip, and if you ever wanted to tell the gas board they were charging you for the wrong meter you needed years of backdated bills as evidence. They paid up eventually. Completing an expenses claim relied on collecting printouts, seeing how many text messages you'd sent meant scrutinising multiple pages and filing a tax return meant stashing a year of statements safely away. Even now there are still some ID applications which are facilitated by presenting a printed utility bill, which must make life a tad harder for those who've gone resolutely paper-free.
water
31.3.05 water bill - £178.48
10.3.10 water bill - £77.01 (following installation of water meter)
13.3.15 water bill - £99.74
manuals
Radio Controlled Projection Clock
Ferguson 14M2 Portable Colour Television (as seen in photo)
Sony Portable CD Player
Staple Wizard
car
3.3.99 VW Polo (purchase) - £12231.87
9.4.99 Car park fee paid, Basildon Council - 30p
22.5.99 Unleaded petrol - £27 (38.62 litres)
24.9.99 10000 mile service - £99.48 (screenwash £1.60)
14.1.00 Ipswich Body Repair Centre - £150
29.9.01 VW Polo (sale) - £6000
will
"This will dated 9th June 2005 is made by me..."
Some things do still need to be stored away carefully so you can get your hands on them easily. When my broadband vanished and BT customer services asked for my account number, it helped that I had a sheet of paper I could find in seconds on which it was printed. The inventory for my flat on the day I moved in will one day be invaluable. It remains possible that my £3 of Premium Bonds will again come up trumps. The passport photos I found attached to a 1999 driving licence application are remarkably cute.
But while writing this post it's become clear, if it wasn't already, that my filing cabinet includes rather a lot of paperwork that used to be useful but no longer is. 30 years of phone bills is overkill. Petrol receipts from 1999 are unnecessary. The follow-up letter to a dental appointment in 2006 is no longer relevant. Arguably I don't need all my old bank statements, although they do form such a good record of my life that I'd be loathed to get rid. You may have binned all yours years ago, indeed you may have chucked most of everything and never once felt it was a mistake.
What I should do is sit down and thin out my unwieldy paperwork archive, being well aware that much of it is irrelevant and unnecessary. I could probably get through all three drawers in an afternoon or two, chucking hundreds of sheets into the shredder once I'd checked them for importance and nostalgia. The receipt for my very first CD player stays, as do the files marked 'Health', 'Pension' and 'Mortgage', as does everything the taxman might one day want to see, but not all those covering letters, statements and faded printouts that mean nothing any more.
The trouble is that I have a useful place to hide everything out of sight and so I do, because my three convenient drawers mean it's not doing any harm to keep it. It turns out the filing cabinet I bought 25 years ago has enabled me to file away more and more, and that 25 years of paperwork creeps up on you if you do nothing to slim it down.
Have you ever wondered which tube station has the most escalators? In good news we can now answer that question, and more, thanks to an FoI request last week which revealed all. We learnt that 89 stations maintained by London Underground have escalators, and we learned how many there are at each. Here's the Top 10.
1) BANK/MONUMENT (35 escalators)
That is a lot of escalators.
Also a lot of them are recent, like these escalators which were added during the expansion works related to the new Cannon Street entrance. They're numbered 29, 30 and 31, which just goes to show how many escalators there are. The FoI request only gives a total but if you go round with a pen and paper, or if you know where to look online, you can work out where they all go.
1-3: Bank junction to Central line 4-5: District line to Northern line 6-7: Lombard Street entrance (1991) 8-9: Northern line, north end (1991) 10-11: DLR west end (1991) 12-13: DLR east end (1991) 14-15: District line to DLR (1991) 16-19: Walbrook entrance to W&C (2018) 20-22: Northern line to DLR (2022) 23-25: Central line to Northern line (2022) 26-31: Cannon Street entrance to Northern line (2023)
There were only 5 escalators in the good old days of the Bank/Monument 'escalator connection', as depicted on tube maps. Then the DLR came along upping the total to 15 and the most recent expansion more than doubled that to 31.
Except that's not 35, we're four short. It seems likely that whoever complied the FoI request also included Bank's four travelators even though they're not technically escalators. It just goes to show, as we've said many times before, that you can't rely on the information in a TfL FoI request because it may have been compiled in a questionably opaque way. Whatever, in this case it doesn't matter whether it's 31 or 35 because it still beats the second placed station whatever.
2) WATERLOO (26 escalators)
That is also a lot of escalators.
There were 14 before the Jubilee line arrived in 1999 and that added another 10. Except that's not 26, we're two short. Again the discrepancy can be bridged by adding in the two travelators, convincing me that the TfL FoI operative has indeed included them too. It just goes to show that no matter how carefully you phrase an FoI request it can always be misinterpreted, or data can simply be churned out of a spreadsheet without it being what you wanted. Alas in this case it does matter because the third-placed station has 24 escalators too.
3) LIVERPOOL STREET (24 escalators)
That feels like a lot of escalators. The Central line only required 9 escalators so how has the total got so high? The answer is Crossrail which added 9 more between Broadgate and the Elizabeth line platforms, but even that doesn't make the requisite total, we're six short. The full answer must be that 6 escalators on the Moorgate side have also been included. It just goes to show that FoI data often isn't telling you what you think it is, so you should always try to check it before you believe it.
4=) Canary Wharf [Jubilee] (20 escalators) 4=) Tottenham Court Road (20 escalators) 6=) Bond Street (19 escalators) 6=) King's Cross St Pancras (19 escalators) 8=) Canary Wharf [Elizabeth] (17 escalators) 8=) Westminster (17 escalators) 8=) London Bridge (17 escalators)
Canary Wharf has a double labyrinth of escalators, 20 at the Jubilee line station and 17 more for Crossrail. It would take top place with 37 escalators if these stations were linked but they're not so it doesn't. Of the seven stations in this list three stations are served by the Elizabeth line and four by the Jubilee line, because newer lines tend to have a lot more escalators than older lines. For Top 10 purposes it's a shame that so many of these are joint placings.
The other stations with more than 10 escalators are Paddington, Victoria, Oxford Circus, Farringdon, Charing Cross, Piccadilly Circus and Green Park.
No station has 9 escalators, but every other number from 1 to 10 is present.
The most common number of escalators is 2 - there are about 30 stations with two escalators.
(OK, actually the most common number of escalators is 0 - there are almost 200 of those)
And only one station has one escalator, which is Greenford.
It used to have the last remaining woodenescalator on the Underground, but in 2014 they removed that, replaced it with an incline lift and added a new non-wooden escalator. It remains London's least escalatory station.
But this escalator is no longer there.
Further escalator FoI facts The least used station with escalators: Wanstead The most used station without escalators: Finsbury Park The only zone 6 station with escalators: Heathrow Terminal 2,3 The number of escalators beyond zone 3: 12
If you're not following Time Out's newsfeed I worry that you may not be up to date with London's official best things. I am therefore delighted to bring you this list of official bests, as churned out by Time Out's social media editors with deadlines to meet and quotas to fill. This is just April's output, so far.
• Officially the nearest unspoilt village to London is Hambleden, Bucks, according to the Daily Telegraph.
• Officially Bromley-by-Bow West is London's 9th most-gentrified neighbourhood, according to consultants WPI Economics.
• Officially London is the second-greenest city in the world, according to AI company Freepik.
• Officially London's best museum café is at the V&A, according to the Guardian.
• Officially London's best Mexican restaurant is Cavita in Marylebone, according to travel journalist Daniela Toporek.
• Officially the EN5 postcode district is the most expensive outside Central London, according to property broker Jefferies James.
• Officially London is the best city in Europe for live music in 2025, according to travel booking site Omio.
• Officially London Heathrow is the world's 6th best airport, according to Skytrax.
• Officially London is the world's 6th wealthiest city, according to wealth migration firm Henley & Partners.
• Officially the world’s 5th most beautiful airport landing is into London City Airport, according to travel insurance provider AllClear.
• Officially London is the world's 4th most expensive city, according to wealth migration firm Henley & Partners.
• Officially the cheapest five-star hotel near London is The Roseate in Reading, according to Which.
• Officially London's most-pinned bar is Lyaness at the Sea Containers Hotel, according to the Pinnacle Guide.
• Officially London's best rooftop bar is Forza Wine at the National Theatre, according to Time Out.
• Officially Bond Street is Europe's most expensive retail destination, according to Savills.
• Officially the City of London's best pubs are Goldwood, Lamb Tavern and The Wren Tavern, according to the National Pub & Bar Awards.
• Officially London's least posh borough is Barking and Dagenham, according to property brokerage Jefferies James.
• Officially London's best new hotels are The Emory and the Mandarin Oriental, according to Travel + Leisure.
• Officially London's best station pubs are The Parcel Yard and the Pelt Trader, according to the Telegraph.
• Officially the fastest place in England and Wales to sell a house right now is Waltham Forest, according to Zoopla.
• Officially the world’s 10th best low-cost airline terminal is London Luton, according to Skytrax.
• Officially the best private prep school near London is Cottesmore School near Crawley, according to Carfax Education.
• Officially London is the world's 18th most walkable city, according to Time Out.
• Officially the London airport with the worst delays is Gatwick, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.
• Officially the three best London commuter towns are Roydon, Watford and Epsom, according to the Daily Telegraph.
• Officially London's best fish and chip shop is Brockley’s Rock in Brockley, according to the National Fish and Chip Awards.
• Officially London's journalists with the greatest inability to do their own research write for Time Out, according to Time Out.
1) Patron saint of England
3) First US President
5) Careless Whisperer
6) 2nd in line to the throne
8) Name meaning 'farmer'
9) Beatles guitarist
10) Patron saint of Ukraine
11) Dragon slayer
13) Peppa Pig's brother
14) Composer Händel
15) Four consecutive kings
16) Fame singer
17) Patron saint of Ethiopia
DOWN
1) His day is April 23rd
2) Asda clothes line
3) By ________ (wow!)
4) 41st US President
5) 43rd US President
6) Bernard Shaw
7) Oscar winner Clooney
9) Author Mary Ann
10) Father in The Jetsons
11) 1984 author
12) Arsenal footballer
13) Mathematician Cantor
14) Old abbreviation for 15
45 Squared 14) WALLINGTON SQUARE, SM6
Borough of Sutton, 130m
We're off to Wallington, a town halfway between Sutton and Croydon which once had its own town hall. Today's square lies just across the road, bang opposite David Weir's gold postbox, and has changed a fair bit over the years. As streets go it isn't square and you can't ride anything down it but you can buy brogues, blinds, binbags and beard trimmers so that's a bonus. The owners insist on calling it The Square for branding reasons, but officially it's Wallington Square and it's the town's chief shopping precinct.
Go back 150 years and all this was lavender fields, the only buildings to the south of the station being a row of eight houses called Rose Mount on this very site. These survived into the 1970s as the town centre grew around them, at which point Sutton Council decided a shopping mall needed to be squeezed in somewhere and knocked them all down. A typical linearprecinct emerged, at its heart a few trees and some benches plus a set of stairs up to an elevated car park for the convenience of local residents. The name Rosemount lives on only as the name of a tower block bolted on at the rear.
But my word it's changed. Sainsbury's built a very large store at the rear, the kind where you take an escalator up to the retail floor. Some of the shops on the north side were knocked together in the hope of livening things up. Three storeys of dilapidated offices above the entrance were transformed into 33 flats with swanky balconies. And perhaps most noticeably a stretched fabric roof was added, all white and billowy, to create an all-weather space along the entire length of the precinct. I'd say it looks gloomier now but it does also allow patrons of the Cox Pippin Cafe to spill onto outside tables and gossip over a cuppa, and they do.
The presence of Sainsbury's keeps footfall high but the intermediate shops are less of a draw, certainly once you get past the gateway Nationwide and Boots at the main entrance.
Clarks have been here for ages whereas Nadri only started boxing up bulgogi beef and other Korean food in 2023. Little Street is a themed play centre, like a low-key version of Westfield's Kidzania except much cheaper and they haven't gone bust yet. Bargain Buys and Peacocks fill the larger units in a very non-aspirational way.
Fresco is a gelato-friendly cafe, much frothier than the lowlier Cox Pippin. Wallington Academy offers tution for parents who take a dim view of their kids' teachers. The hardware store is packed with boxed electricals and tat which may one day end up on Sue Ryder's shelves. Alvina is targeting the pound-plus audience, its door shielded behind a wall of plastic containers.
Only one unit on Wallington Square is currently empty, but there's certainly turnover here and all in a downward economic direction. Go back just a few years and the precinct boasted two outfitters - Dinah May for ladies and Richard Mark for men - but their shops are now occupied by the DIY store and the massage parlour respectively. Two opposing travel agents have disappeared, but haven't they everywhere, and the electrical goods store is long gone in favour of mops, pots and plastic flowers.
Definition: Budget Quotient
The proportion of shops targeting shoppers with little money
With Peacocks, Bargain Buys and Card Factory propping up the retail offer I'd give Wallington Square a Budget Quotient of about 40%, suggesting it still has some way to fall but is definitely heading that way. Meanwhile Wallington's main street has a BQ of only about 10-20%, so walking into Wallington Square does feel like lowering one's expectations somewhat. But Sutton council did once describe it as "an unexceptional 1970s shopping precinct with poor quality public realm and limited street furniture and landscaping", and despite subsequent tweaks it's still hard to disagree.
Alternative Sutton Squares I almost wrote about
45
45 Squared 14a) STANLEY SQUARE, SM5
Borough of Sutton, 90m×30m
This suburban interlude is tucked away in Carshalton-on-the-Hill and forms a bridge between the interwar semis to the west and the rustic avenues to the east. Its footprint resembles a buckle on a belt, with houses packed around the outside and a lush rectangle of grass in the centre. Its trees appear to have been selected for their blossom potential and are in the process of covering the carpet of dandelions and daisies with a torrent of pink and white petals. The central tree was planted by the square's residents for the Platinum Jubilee so doesn't yet contribute to the drop.
Behind the square's northern flank is an enclave of allotments where lavender is still a main crop, and if you want a date for your diary you can drop in and pick it on the last weekend in July. The S4 bus passes through, hugely incongruously, amid one of its Hail and Ride sections. Stanley Square feels charming but also very odd so I was convinced it would have a fascinating backstory but it didn't, and that's why you're not reading any more about it.
45
45 Squared 14b) MOLLISON SQUARE, SM6
Borough of Sutton, 90m×30m
The Roundshaw estate is inherently fascinating, having originally been the airfield for London's first international airport at Croydon. Its streets are named after planes and pilots of which Mollison is one of the latter, an aviation record setter in the 1930s. Jim's probably best known for being the husband of aviation record setter Amy, although she reverted to her maiden name of Johnson after they divorced in 1938 so everyone now knows her name. Mollison Square is the estate's notional heart and curls round the estate's focal place of worship, St Paul's, which may be the only UK church whose cross was made from an aircraft propeller.
But the square itself is really drab, a set of parking spaces serving a row of shops which peaks with a Co-Op supermarket at one end. Nextdoor are a pharmacy and two takeaways, one focusing on fried and one focusing on grilled... and unexpectedly another gold postbox because David Weir earned one every time he won a 2012 top medal. But that's it for Mollison Square, even after heavy Googling, whereas Wallington Square delivered a ridiculous amount of backstory which is why I focused on that.
45
45 Squared 14c) THE SQUARE, SM5
Borough of Sutton, 150m
This is the only other Square in Sutton, the borough's official tally being just four. It's just round the back of Carshalton High Street, doesn't look square and didn't seem to have a history, only some nice houses and a car park, so I didn't even bother going. Such are the editorial choices that led me to select one Square over another.
And about time too,
because it's been 34 weeks since the last Bank Holiday Monday,
and that's the longest possible gap.
n.b. I'm now going to explore whether this is true,
and prove that it isn't,
and then prove that it is.
Bank Holiday Mondays are the touchpoints of the English spring and summer, a key time to get out and explore, to hit the beach or the DIY store, a stately home or a garden centre, deep countryside or a festival, perhaps even fire up the BBQ. It's just a shame that the weather doesn't always deliver and that they're not better spaced.
These are the big four.
March/April
May
June
July
August
Easter Monday
Early May Late Spring
-
-
Late Summer
That's the day after Easter Sunday, the first and last Mondays in May and the last Monday in August.
That's a gap of 2 weeks, a gap of 3 weeks and a gap of 13 weeks.
Which is appalling spacing - a springtime glut and a summer drought.
Easter Monday
2 weeks
Early May
3 weeks
Late Spring
13 weeks
Late Summer
It's not always this bad but it often is, and it can be worse.
The gap between the two May bank holidays is always either 3 or 4 weeks.
If May has four Mondays the gap is 3 weeks and if it has five the gap is 4 weeks.
The gap between the Late Spring and Late Summer bank holidays is almost always 13 weeks, i.e. 3 months.
But one year out of seven the gap is 14 weeks.
This happens when the Late Spring bank holiday is 25 May, the earliest possible date.
The Late Summer bank holiday is then 31 August, the latest possible date.
The gap between Easter Monday and the Early May bank holiday is the true variable.
Easter Monday can be as early as 23 March and as late as 26 April.
If it's 23, 24, 25 or 26 March then the gap is six weeks, the greatest possible.
If it's 24, 25 or 26 April then the gap is one week, the shortest possible.
The last time we had a six week gap was in 2008 when Easter was 23 March.
The last time we had a one week gap was in 2011 when Easter was 24 April.
One week and six week gaps are rare.
They'll each happen only three times in the next 100 years.
A quick summary of Bank Holiday Monday gaps...
Easter Monday
1-6 weeks
Early May
3-4 weeks
Late Spring
13-14 weeks
Late Summer
There's never a gap of more than 14 weeks in the spring and summer.
But through autumn and winter the gap can get very long indeed.
As long as 34 weeks, you may remember, which is the gap that ends today.
You might think we don't have Bank Holiday Mondays in the winter but we absolutely do.
When Christmas falls on a Monday that's technically a Bank Holiday Monday.
When Christmas falls on a Monday so does New Year's Day, so that's technically a Bank Holiday Monday too.
We also get a winter Bank Holiday Monday if Boxing Day falls on a Monday.
Or if Christmas falls on a Friday and Boxing Day gets shifted to Monday.
Or if Christmas falls on a Saturday and the holiday gets shifted to Monday.
Thanks to substitution we get a winter Bank Holiday Monday four years out of seven.
Christmas Day
Christmas holiday
Boxing Day holiday
New Year holiday
Monday
Monday
Tuesday
Monday
Tuesday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Wednesday
Thursday
Thursday
Friday
Thursday
Friday
Friday
Monday
Friday
Saturday
Monday
Tuesday
Monday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Monday
So if we're looking for the longest gap between Bank Holiday Mondays,
we need Christmas to fall on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
That's what happened last year.
Christmas was on a Wednesday, so no winter Bank Holiday Monday occurred.
Instead we skipped all the way from Monday 26 August to today, Monday 21 April.
And that's 34 weeks, the longest possible gap.
Late Summer
34 weeks
Easter Monday
To get the longest possible gap we need...
a) the Late Summer bank holiday to be as early as possible
b) Christmas to be on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday
c) Easter Monday to be as late as possible
If Christmas is on a Tuesday then the previous bank holiday is always 27 August.
If Christmas is on a Wednesday then it's 26 August.
If Christmas is on a Thursday then it's 25 August.
And these match up with late Easters of 22 April, 21 April and 20 April respectively.
Late Summer bank holiday
Christmas Day
Easter Monday
gap between BH Mondays
27 August
Tuesday
22 April
34 weeks
26 August
Wednesday
21 April
34 weeks
25 August
Thursday
20 April
34 weeks
It turns out you only get a 34 week gap when Easter Monday is 20, 21 or 22 April.
i.e. when Easter is 19 April, 20 April or 21 April.
If Easter is any later, Christmas kicks in and breaks the gap.
Years with Easter on 19, 20 or 21 April include 1981, 1987, 1992, 2003, 2014, 2019 and 2025.
These all have 34 week gaps between Bank Holiday Mondays.
So far so good.
Except leap years sometimes mess this up.
In a leap year things nudge one day forward.
In a leap year the Bank Holiday Monday gap table actually looks like this.
Late Summer bank holiday
Christmas Day
Easter Monday
gap between BH Mondays
27 August
Tuesday
21 April
34 weeks
26 August
Wednesday
20 April
34 weeks
25 August
Thursday
26 April
35 weeks
And oh look, a 35 week gap has suddenly appeared.
This pairs the very earliest day for the August Bank Holiday with the very latest Easter Monday.
This gap is unbeatable and can only occur in a leap year.
It turns out 34 weeks is not the longest possible gap so I have misled you.
I did say I'd prove it wasn't true,
and then prove that it is,
so here goes with that.
A 35 week gap requires the latest possible Easter Monday.
The very latest Easter Monday only occurs when Easter Day is 25 April.
And this, it turns out, is exceptionally rare.
Here are all the years with Easter on 25 April,
from the start of the Gregorian Calendar to the end of the fourth millennium.
But for a 35 week gap it also has to be a leap year,
and there are vanishingly few leap years in that list.
Unbelievably there's only one - 3784.
All the other years, including all the other even numbers, don't divide exactly by four.
And by the time 3784 comes round the current system of Bank Holidays won't exist either.
(nor indeed banks, nor probably holidays, nor possibly England).
So although a 35 week gap between Bank Holiday Mondays is technically possible,
in practice it never ever happens.
So hurrah it's a Bank Holiday Monday today,
and about time too,
because it's been 34 weeks since the last Bank Holiday Monday,
and that really is the longest possible gap.
