And it's certainly busy, so much so that they don't take walk-ups at the front any more, that's prebooked free ticketholders only. I joined the slalom round the back instead and waited 15 minutes before being waved past because I didn't have a bag. It is a proper treasure trove inside though, with urns and coins and gilt scabbards and mummies and hulking great chunks of temples and masks and manuscripts and clocks and busts and tapestries and carved wooden gods and jewellery and where exactly was Levant anyway and more urns and helmets and inscriptions and the remains of civilisations we're still bombing and chess pieces and jade and torcs and stone panels and marbles and Marbles and screenprints and sculptures with tusks and ceramics and friezes and the real Rosetta Stone and a fake Rosetta Stone to draw the crowds away and mosaics and vases and cups and more urns, not all of which were looted from their place of origin. Also a cloakroom, pizzeria, £6 cakes and £3 cans of Coke because once people have waited that long to get in they're not going anywhere else. Always a joy.
That's the NHM in South Kensington, not the Tring outpost because that only had 151,000 visitors last year. Again it took me 15 minutes to get in, which wasn't great but could have been worse. It's a proper maze this place, especially once you step away from the central hall with the blue whale skeleton, and I don't know why people pay £2 for a map because it's always disorienting whatever. I did a circuit round the dinosaurs before it got too busy, including the skippable T-rex. I walked to the back of the minerals to see the gemstones and meteorites in the Vault. I noted that the escalator into the heart of the Earth's core is working again. I found an empty exhibition you had to pay to get into at the end of a silent corridor. I passed the stuffed zebras I remember as a child, also several shops and cafes I don't. I appreciated the Fixing Our Broken Planet gallery where ways of avoiding extinction are explored. I wandered out into the new back garden with its pond full of toads, and noted that if you ever want to jump the queues just enter the building this way through the tumbleweed West Entrance. But mostly I mused that the finest display of animal behaviour onsite was the visitors themselves, from the throng of global tourists to the swarm of excitable schoolchildren, because Natural History is all around us and we are a key part.
A huge hall that's empty most of the year. Four thematic collections that don't refresh as often as they could. Odd stuff, obtuse stuff, overwrought stuff. Two exhibitions it would cost £40 to see both of. Echoing tanks with not much in. Ridiculous descriptions of thematic nonsense. Escalators that take you past where you want to be. A top floor terrace they've had to retreat from. But also Dali's lobster, Duchamp's urinal, Matisse's snail, Warhol's diptych, Rothko's maroon, inspiration, expertise, goosebumps and lots to make you think, which is why we all keep coming back.
Twenty years ago in a Singapore hotel, 54 IOC delegates voted to award the 2012 Olympic Games to London. Few saw it coming, the expectation was that the Games would go to Paris and that Seb Coe and friends had valiantly wasted years of effort. Instead the world came to Stratford to win medals and the Lower Lea Valley was duly transformed from a post-industrial backwater to a recreational and residential hub, and all in seven years flat.
I had the day off work on 6th July 2005, just in case, and over breakfast watched Seb and Becks give their 'Inspire A Generation' presentation to assorted suits. By the time I got to Trafalgar Square only London and Paris were still in the race, and a large expectant crowd had gathered to witness the opening of an envelope. When 'London' was revealed there was surprise, jubilation and a lot of ticker tape, then Heather Small stood up and sang Proud and the Red Arrows flew over. Lunchtimes have rarely been so consequential.
In the afternoon I went for a walk up the Olympic-Park-to-be, trying to get my head round what might be going where. I bumped into film crews, BMX bikers and oblivious drunkards swigging from cans. I looked down from the Greenway across a swathe of instantly doomed businesses. I got as far as the bus garages, cash and carrys and nature reserves off Waterden Road, taking on the enormity of the transformation ahead. And on the way back I walked to the end of a cul-de-sac to find a German car company and a skip hire depot in the middle of what would eventually be the Olympic Stadium, and soon was. It was quite the day.
20 years later I've walked up the Olympic Park again to muse and reflect on the transformation wrought and the legacy delivered. I did this after 10 years too, as you'd expect, but I'll keep it briefer this time. Also there have been several significant changes since 2015, starting here.
This is the Abba Arena, erected silently during the pandemic and now playing to full houses in sequins and lace seven times a week. Technically it's a 'meanwhile' use, originally intended to be removed by 31st March 2025 and replaced by flats. Instead it's still standing because nobody kills a goose that lays golden eggs, and the owners of the Snoozebox Hotel nextdoor hope the day it finally ups sticks is as far in the future as possible. Back in 2005 all this was industrial estate with an emphasis on muck and auto parts, alongside the DLR's least significant halt. Since then the station has been massively upgraded, also relocated to dodge Crossrail, and all but one of the former warehouses has been knocked down. But even though the Games were over a decade ago not a single flat has been built within the Olympic footprint, only on land immediately outside, and a heck of a lot of empty hardstanding remains. It wouldn't surprise me if I returned in 2035 and found Pudding Mill neighbourhood still substantially incomplete.
This is the Olympic Stadium, now the London Stadium because West Ham United still haven't found anyone willing to sponsor it. On the bright side it does have a proper legacy use because that was never a given, eventually reopening in 2016, and still packs them in for rock gigs and American football takeovers as and when. If you'd walked this riverside in 2005 it would have been a lonely experience, passing silos and the backs of warehouses while a guard dog barked across the water from a lengthy tumbledown shed. It was plain luck that the braids of the Bow Back Rivers spread wide enough here to accommodate the footprint of a world class arena, also pitch perfect for security, also always going to be an annoying walk from the nearest station. Today it's a joy to see the surface of the river still as alive with damselflies as it was 20 years ago, also a damned shame that the banks of wildflowers that peaked so memorably for the Games have been allowed to almost entirely fade away.
This is the East Bank, or Olympicopolis as Boris tried to dub it, which is currently midway through its opening sequence. We've had fashion since 2023 and ballet since February, with culture from the V&A and BBC due next year. This used to be a stripe of industries nowhere else wanted, from scrapyards and repair shops to battery stores and tyre mountains, before being repurposed for swimming and water polo during the Games. It's impressively busy along here now, partly due to office workers and students but mainly thanks to the arrival of Westfield just beyond. A massive mall on former railway lands was planned on this site before Jacques Rogge opened his envelope so the IOC merely turbocharged things and the UK's busiest shopping centre is the result. The Olympic Park itself is also reassuringly abuzz, even midweek, confirming that the speakers in that Singapore hotel room weren't being entirely over-optimistic. The fountains by the bridge squirt far less often than they used to, alas.
This is the blue bridge, a single point of reference for those of us who remember how this area used to look. If I really concentrate I can remember a graffitiedcrossing beneath two tall pylons surrounded by secure fencing, just past Parkes Galvanizing Ltd, and now just look at it! I also remember Carpenters Lock as a derelictruin I wasn't supposed to clamber on, and never would have guessed it would be fully restored to full navigational use. The fact barely any boats ever use it is alas irrelevant, although when I did my 2025 walk I was thrilled to see one of the lock gates raised while two official-looking gentlemen in Canal & River Trust polo shirts checked it out. Meanwhile nobody's yet found a good reason for the Orbit to exist, not since it was a useful viewing platform above a world-class sporting event for four weeks in the summer of 2012. If the world's longest tunnel slide failed to rake them in then a recent switch to the custody of Zip World is unlikely to cut it, especially with a greedy £5 booking fee on top.
These are the northern parklands, arguably the greatest triumph of the post-Olympic legacy. Not only were they glorious to lounge in during the Games but they've matured since to become a wetland landscape of some beauty, complete with multiple kingfishers if you manage to get lucky. I wasn't thinking 'pandemic' when all this was created but my word it made my lockdown hugely more tolerable. That said the parkland has started to be nibbled away for housing on the west side, as was always in the long-term plan, as the neighbourhood of East Wick inexorably expands. There will still be a lot of grass left but it won't be as much as many people anticipated. Also the top of the mound beneath the Olympic rings used to have a much better view than this but the trees they planted 15 years ago are maturing now and the canopy is obscuring the horizon, with some way still to go. It is a shame the Manor House allotments had to move, split off to two less great locations, but what the wider public's gained here is immense.
This is the Lea Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre with its dazzling blue outdoor pitch. I never walked this far in 2005, the A12 was too much of a barrier, so QEOP has also helped knit the community together. This Waltham Forest End does however feel somewhat underdeveloped, only coming to life when some massive hockey event descends and seals the place off. Also it was announced last week that the indoor tennis courts are to be converted to padel instead, which has caused a lot of angry players to make a racket, but the Park's recreational overlords have always appeared more interested in income than participation. Beyond that is the Velodrome, a timber beauty that far exceeds the cycle track that used to be here, and also the only Olympic residential neighbourhoods to have been completed so far. Never did I imagine when I wandered up here in the sunshine 20 years ago quite how amazingly it was all going to turn out, almost entirely for the better, and all because three more IOC delegates were persuaded to vote for London instead of Paris.
...by which I mean the southernmost point in the borough of Haringey. Which is this pub on the Seven Sisters Road. Finsbury Park station is 50 metres away.
The southern tip of Haringey is a properly busy spot, a staggered crossroads between a mainline station and a massive park gate. It's also the meeting point of three boroughs, so the bus station's in Islington, the Happening Bagel Bakery is in Hackney and Rowans Tenpin Bowling is in Haringey. I had wondered if being called The Twelve Pins was a nod to the adjacent bowling mecca but it turns out to be the name of a mountain range in County Galway. The pub used to be called the Finsbury Park Tavern, which is appropriate because it is only a few steps from the entrance to park of that name, but the name changed when it went full-on Irish several years back. These day it's a pack'em-in multi-screen sports venue, the main attractions being every Arsenal match and all the Gaelic football, with a jealously-guarded patch of pavement screened off outside. I arrived before it opened which saved debating whether or not to peer inside and I just admired the hanging baskets instead.
This southern fringe of Haringey also used to include the main entrance to Pyke's Cinematograph, an Edwardian electric theatre, but that ornate portal was sadly demolished in 1999 and a vapid Lidl now squats on the site. So marginal is this spot that a lamppost in front of the pub supports notices by two different councils, Islington warning not to loiter on the pavement (which is theirs) and Haringey detailing rubbish collection times for adjacent properties (which are theirs). Also if you do choose to come down here tonight be warned that Fontaines DC are playing in Finsbury Park and one of their support acts is Kneecap, because this blog's psychogeographical travels are nothing if not totally in tune with the cultural zeitgeist.
Haringey East
...by which I mean the easternmost point in the borough of Haringey. Which is this footbridge over the River Lea. Meridian Water station is half a mile away.
The eastern edge of Haringey follows the River Lea, the reservoir-hugging section between Walthamstow Marshes and the North Circular. It bulges farthest on the Tottenham Marshes, not far from the big blue shed that used to be IKEA, conveniently adjacent to the sole footbridge that crosses the Navigation. This is the Chalk Bridge, a narrow crossing between parched grassland and the canal towpath, whose curving descent is the farthest east you can walk within the borough. Were it possible to leap the fence you could enter a more borderline structure which is the High Maynard Eel Transfer, or so it says on Thames Water's heavily fortified gate, behind which the real borough tip lurks in the middle of a flood relief channel.
From the top of the footbridge you can look south towards sylvan waterside in Haringey where a long chain of narrowboats is moored up - somewhat messily if you wander down and take a closer look. For total contrast the northerly panorama is of pylons, bus depots and post-industrial estate, this all in Enfield who are busy developing the hell out of it. I walk this fairly regularly and even I was surprised to now see diggers landscaping earthworks along the water's edge and a cluster of lift towers beyond as Meridian Water begins to truly erupt. For now more people live on the Haringey side, afloat and bobbing, but it won't be long before Enfield totally dominates.
Haringey North
...by which I mean the northernmost point in the borough of Haringey. Which is this traffic island on the North Circular. New Southgate station is 600 metres away.
What a contrast, from the peace of a riverside to the hurly burly of a mega-crossroads. There is a river here which is the Bounds Green Brook, a minor stream whose valley was exploited to force the A406 through towards Finchley. We're not at the really terrible junction where all the traffic on the North Circular has to turn off to go straight on, but we are just one jump away so the traffic is often really snarled. Worse still Thames Water were digging up the road when I visited, merely minor cone-age but enough to entirely hobble anyone trying to pass through quickly. Only Bounds Green Road is actually in Haringey, running as it does beside the long grassy stripe of Bounds Green which is all that remains of Bounds Green Farm, appropriately enough for the boundary of the borough.
Pedestrians feel very much of an afterthought round here, forced to wait at zigzagging crossings occasionally spanning broad swathes of tarmac, so if you're trying to get from say the Premier Inn to the M&S Food at the BP Garage it can take a long time. And for obscure heritage reasons Haringey's jurisdiction nudges no further than the centre of a small triangular traffic island, protected only by three brief sets of railings, two LOOK RIGHTs and one LOOK LEFT. Do not recommend.
Haringey West
...by which I mean the westernmost point in the borough of Haringey. Which is this playing field on Hampstead Lane. Kenwood House is 250 metres away.
We've journeyed to the top edge of Hampstead Heath, as in most highly elevated, not far from the constriction that is Spaniards Inn. The road along the Heath's perimeter is Hampstead Lane, here heavily walled with occasional gates through to Kenwood, and the other road bearing off here is The Bishop's Avenue. This is famously one of London's priciest streets lined by opulent mansions and sheikh's hideaways, also levelled plots where rich folk are planning to rebuild something even gaudier.
None of that is (quite) in Haringey, whose western protrusion hereabouts is a large sports ground called Far Field. It belongs to Highgate School and consists of a grassy rectangle with a small toilet block, the faint remnants of white stripes and several hockey goalposts pushed to one side. I wondered why it didn't look occupied and then noted that Highgate's school year ended on Thursday because the more you pay the shorter your terms are. What's more the school recently put in a planning application to replace the pitches here with astroturf, claiming they're often too waterlogged to use, and the local populace are up in arms. Synthetic turf is unsustainable, bad for wildlife, bad for biodiversity, bad for water management and made from evil fossil fuels, apparently, although peering through the railings it does feel like there ought to be far more important things to grumble about.
And while none of these four compass points is exceptionally interesting, as a quartet they showcase the sheer diversity of this outer London borough. From traffic-choked junctions to pylon-stalked marshland to highbrow suburbia, that's the full extent of Haringey.
TfL's anniversary poster series highlights several major achievements across the last 25 years, but they haven't released one for each year, not yet anyway.
So I had a go at selecting annual highlights.
2000 Tramlink 2001 Bus Saver tickets 2002 Journey Planner / Trafalgar Square 2003 Oyster / Congestion Charge 2004 Legible London 2005 Accessible buses 2006 Baby on board badge 2007 Overground 2008 Priority seating 2009 iBus / New Routemaster 2010 Pedestrian Countdown / Tube aircon / Cycle Superhighways / Cycle Hire 2011 DLR Stratford International 2012 Olympics / Dangleway 2013 150th Tube anniversary 2014 Contactless 2015 Closing ticket offices / Bus Stop M 2016 Night Tube / Hopper 2017 Night Overground 2018 - 2019 Woolwich Ferry / Cycleways 2020 Essential Travel / TfL Go 2021 Northern line extension 2022 Crossrail / Barking Riverside 2023 ULEZ extension 2024 Superloop 2025 Silvertown Tunnel
Some years are full-on project pile-ups and some are achievement deserts. 2010 had multiple riches, for example, whereas I've struggled to find any exciting initiatives in 2018.
But which TfL thing is best of all? Let's take five years at a time and see if we can narrow it down.
2000 Tramlink 2001 Bus Saver tickets 2002 Journey Planner / Trafalgar Square 2003Oyster / Congestion Charge 2004 Legible London
We can discount Tramlink because that opened two months before TfL was formed. Pedestrianising one side of Trafalgar Square was radical by 2002 standards but feels tame now. 2003 is clearly where it's at, not least for introducing road charging, but I'm going with the introduction of Oyster as a revolution that made travel so much simpler and still does to this day.
2005 Accessible buses 2006 Baby on board badge 2007Overground 2008 Priority seating 2009 iBus / New Routemaster
People cursed when Mayor Ken killed off Routemasters but a fully-accessible bus service was truly advanced for 2005. The emergence of iBus made it possible to check when your bus was coming and led eventually to the plethora of travel apps we have today. But my vote for the best here is 2007's creation of the Overground, the upgrade and joining-together of something once overlooked, now a hugely successful and much used brand.
This is a tough selection from which to pick a favourite. Air-cooled trains were a revelation in 2010, as we've learned again this week. Cycle hire arguably kickstarted an active travel revolution that continues to grow. I reckon 2012 pips them both though, not the eternal irrelevance of the Dangleway but the fear that transportation would be the Achilles heel of London's Olympics whereas instead it greased the wheels nigh perfectly.
2015 Closing ticket offices / Bus Stop M 2016 Night Tube / Hopper 2017 Night Overground 2019 Woolwich Ferry / Cycleways 2020Essential Travel / TfL Go
By rights Bus Stop M should be the highlight here, certainly given the paucity of some of the opposition. The new Woolwich Ferries were a floating disaster and rebranded Cycleways remain a confusing tangled web. I nearly picked 2016's Night Tube for the way it fired up the weekends, but I really have to go with TfL continuing to run a comprehensive transport network for not many passengers despite minimal fare income during a two year-long pandemic.
This is a really strong list, as if Sadiq's TfL was finally getting into its stride and opening everything. And there can only be one winner here, 2022's utterly transformative Elizabeth line, which despite being ridiculously late Londoners can no longer live without.
And finally let's crown a winner from the victors of the five previous shortlists.
I confess Crossrail nearly won out, a transport project on a different scale to anything London's seen in generations. But in the end I went with Oyster, an impressively early gamechanger permitting frictionless travel and the bedrock of so many other innovations that followed.
Oyster is the best thing TfL ever did. (unless of course you know better)
Happy Birthday to TfL, who are 25 years old today.
Celebrations started in January with a panoply of posters highlighting past successes, also scattered silver roundels reminding Londoners that Every Journey Matters. But the actual birthday is today, a founding date shared with the Greater London Authority because they're 25 too.
Ken Livingstone was elected Mayor of London at the start of May 2000 but only on 3rd July did statutory powers from the Greater London Authority Act finally kick in. Ken's levers at this time were few and his budget small, but all the powers and public scrutiny we now take for granted started here.
To mark the first day a Board Meeting was held, not at City Hall because that was nowhere near ready but instead at Romney House on Marsham Street. With some inevitability that building's since been sold off as housing - to be more precise 169 flats and a health club - and I wonder if the current occupant of Room AG16 realises how historic their apartment is.
Best of all the deeper recesses of the TfL website remain firmly intact so we still have access to the Agenda and the Minutes for that inaugural meeting, and indeed of every Board meeting since.
London's transport had been centrally controlled since 1933 when the London Passenger Transport Board was formed, followed sequentially by the London Transport Executive, London Transport Board, London Transport Executive (GLC) and London Regional Transport. To the general public they were long known simply as London Transport. 25 years ago saw a switch to the more user-friendly Transport for London, a name recognising that the Mayor and Board were working on behalf of Londoners. What's interesting here is the italicisation of 'for' in the name Transport for London, this on every mention in the minutes and even in the three-letter acronym. It's always TfL, never TfL, a really powerful branding statement which at some point in the subsequent years was summarily ditched. TfL is no longer quite so for London as on the day it was born.
According to the minutes Ken Livingstone chose to become a member of the Board, his presence wasn't assumed. A striking feature of the attendance list is the inclusion of two defeated Mayoral candidates as founding Board Members. Steven Norris had been the Conservative candidate (he came 2nd) and Susan Kramer the Liberal Democrat candidate (she came 4th). It'd be unthinkable to have political opponents on the Board these days but things were a little more collegiate in those earliest days as TfL established itself. There was no place on the Board for Frank Dobson, the defeated Labour candidate.
It's clear that those present recognised this was a new dawn for London's transport, both in terms of public accountability and the potential for improving the lives of Londoners. That said there were in fact two meetings on that first day, a public one and a private one, because there will always be sensitive topics better not shared.
A lot of the first meeting was about structures and appointments, this because several formerly separate organisations had just been brought together under the TfL umbrella.
Traffic Director for London
Traffic Control Systems Unit
Public Carriage Office
Docklands Light Railway
Victoria Coach Station Ltd
Croydon Tramlink
Dial-a-Ride
Transport Trading Ltd
London Buses Ltd
London Bus Services Ltd
London River Services Ltd
London Regional Transport
The biggest omission from that list, if you look carefully, was London Underground Limited. It would be 2003 before this was finally transferred across to TfL control. The tube was held back to allow the government time to set up a public–private partnership model separating out trains and infrastructure, a PPP model they knew Ken Livingstone would vehemently oppose. This he did but it went through anyway, at least until infracos failed to deliver and by 2010 everything would be back in house.
One dull but necessary discussion point at the first Board meeting was the need for a common Health and Safety policy, another the introduction of supervisory roles within the new structure. There would be seven senior positions within Transport for London - the Chief Executive and six director posts - all appointed via a standard competitive selection process. By the end of the meeting the position of Chief Executive had been retitled 'Commissioner of Transport for London' because it sounded better, and in October New Yorker transit boss Bob Kiley was appointed in the top role.
Money was also a necessary topic, not that the new body had a lot of it. The TfL Budget for 2000/01 was based on adding up plans for predecessor bodies and totalled just £400.7m of grant funding, with zero in the reserves. By contrast TfL's budget for 2025/26 is more like £9½bn, and follows on from the organisation's first operating surplus, which just shows how much things have moved on in the last 25 years.
Fares would be a focus of the second Board meeting on July 27th. Ken took issue with the government's assumption that fares should increase 1% in real terms in January 2001, instead sticking to inflation-based rises on the tube and a fares freeze on the buses. He also expressed an aspiration to introduce a flat fare for all buses across London, rather than £1 for journeys in Zone 1 and 70p elsewhere. Meanwhile a decision was made to end the right of senior TfL staff to a company car, "with appropriate compensation in negotiation with the individuals affected".
The initial expectation was that TfL would hold ten Board meetings a year. By the second meeting that had been nudged down to a more manageable eight and these days it's just six. In the 2020s Board meetings are more a rubber-stamping opportunity than a decision-making forum, accompanied by glossy 250-page reports, but still held in public, still covering the breadth of London's transport and still with the Mayor at the helm.
From a lowly start in a Westminster meeting room to today's back-slapping celebrations, the last 25 years have seen TfL grow from a fledgling organisation still finding its feet to a world-class brand-obsessed innovator delivering better transport to millions.
It's been quite the journey, but then Every Journey Matters.
45 Squared 23) GOLDEN SQUARE, W1
Borough of Westminster, 60m×60m
On the middle day of the year we reach the middle square in my year-long series. I thought we'd do a central well-ish-known one for a change.
Golden Square is one of Soho's largest public spaces, mainly due to a lack of public spaces rather than being particularly large. It lies east of Regent Street and south of Carnaby Street but is visible from neither, and as with most of Greater London it was once all fields. That field was called Geldings Close, presumably for its horsey occupants, and was first licenced for housing in 1673. Two landowners claimed the freehold and disagreed majorly on how to proceed, with a compromise plan eventually emerging from the office of Christopher Wren. The resulting square was eventually split between them, not quite symmetrically, and the connecting roads named James Street and John Street in their memory.
» a very full history here (and on the six subsequent pages)
Initially the aspiration was for "such houses as might accommodate Gentry", indeed there were still six peers living in Golden Square in 1720, but the subsequent growth of Mayfair lured these away and numbers dropped to two in 1730 and one in 1740. Next came the diplomatic envoys, hence a blue plaque at Number 23 recalls this being the Portuguese Embassy in the early 18th century, then a kind of reverse gentrification took place... first artists, then craftsmen, then boarding houses. By the time Dickens described it in the second chapter of Nicholas Nickleby it was a place of swarthy moustached men and itinerant glee-singers based round a mournful statue.
Although a few members of the graver professions live about Golden Square, it is not exactly in anybody's way to or from anywhere. It is one of the squares that have been; a quarter of the town that has gone down in the world, and taken to letting lodgings. Many of its first and second floors are let, furnished, to single gentlemen; and it takes boarders besides. It is a great resort of foreigners. The dark-complexioned men who wear large rings, and heavy watch-guards, and bushy whiskers, and who congregate under the Opera Colonnade, and about the box-office in the season, between four and five in the afternoon, when they give away the orders,--all live in Golden Square, or within a street of it.
It's not like that now. What changed at the end of the nineteenth century was the arrival of the woollen and worsted trade, attracted by proximity to London's tailors, who began to replace the original domestic buildings by larger office and warehouse blocks. And when they moved on Golden Square started to fill with media and creative types, so for example the north side now hosts outdoor overlords Clear Channel and the global HQ of advertising gurus M&C Saatchi. As an example of this inexorable transition Number 22 was first owned by a colonel, later a printseller, then became the showroom for a Huddersfield woollen mill and now houses The Film and TV Charity. Meanwhile Number 1's first owner was a lord, later a harpsichord maker, then a plate glass workshop and most recently BauerMedia, purveyors of Magic, Kiss, Absolute and Greatest Hits. The subjugation of UK local radio, it turns out, was plotted from the corner of Golden Square.
But for the average punter it's not about the perimeter it's about the space in the centre, such as it is. It's never been impressive, having once been described as an "anaemic paved garden", and since they upgraded it in the 1950s it's arguably even worse. The pitted statue in the centre is of George II, never a monarch Britain particularly liked, which it's said was donated to the square after a buyer accidentally bought it at auction. The beds of Damascena roses underneath are much more recent, planted in 2018 as "a gift to London from Bulgarian Londoners", and soften the ambience somewhat. Beyond that are empty urns, empty plinths and empty pingpong tables, hardly the most inspiring collection, and around the edge a ring of bogstandard benches just the right length to sleep on.
I may not have seen the square at its best - I got the bin lorry and the minion affixing 'Parking Suspension' notices ahead of Pride - but I suspect it merely merits bronze status, not truly Golden.
20 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in June 2025
1) Between April 2021 and March 2025, a fire alarm was activated at tube stations on 1102 occasions. 2) The final cost of installing lifts at Harrow-on-the-Hill station was £18.8m. This figure includes design and construction works. 3) Tube train doors do not open automatically. Train drivers press the door open buttons once the train has come to a complete stop at a platform. If the opening sequence were to begin prior to the train coming to a complete stop it could lead to unsafe situations. 4) The cycle lights where Bow Road meets the Bow Roundabout are connected to a Kerbside Detector, a (Radar) Stop Line Detector, a Push Button Unit and an In-Road Detector SCOOT Loop. 5) North Yorkshire police do not qualify for free travel on the TfL network. 6) Bermondsey, Cockfosters, Greenford, Hendon Central, Kilburn, Mill Hill East, Nine Elms, Oakwood, Old Street, Southfields, Tottenham Hale and Wimbledon Park are the tube stations with only one lift. 7) Five tube stations do not have push-button Passenger Help Points. 8) During the Notting Hill Carnival 14 cycle hire docking stations are suspended (a total of 314 docking points). 9) Meal vouchers with a value of £6 are issued to Train Operators on the Jubilee line during large Wembley Stadium events where 60,000 or more attend. The vouchers can only be used on selected items at staff canteens. Last year's total voucher spend was £23,000. 10) The three escalators at Woolwich station broke down 67 times last year, just ahead of the three escalators at Whitechapel (65 times). 11) Since October 2024 the daily rate at Epping Car Park has increased twice from £7.50 to £10 and then to £12. Apparently the October increase "closed the gap on market pricing" while the most recent increase "sets a standard by which we can annually review and adjust the amounts." 12) The three DLR routes that don't operate at weekends are Stratford–Lewisham, Stratford International-Beckton and Canning Town–Beckton. The only 3-car route is Bank-Lewisham. 13) There are approximately 14,000 cameras in London Underground stations and 7500 cameras onboard the trains. 14) TfL have not recorded any Birkin bags being handed into their lost property department over the past five years. 15) The ticket machines at Bow Road station can sell tickets to 803 National Rail destinations (ranging alphabetically from Abbey Wood to Yalding). 16) In the last financial year, TfL's Track Network Service cast 2436 Aluminothermic welds, 2192 MMA weld repairs and 200 Head Wash welds. TfL do not own any mobile flash-butt machines, instead manufacturing flash-butt welds inhouse at Ruislip depot. 17) The next tube map release is planned for Monday 7th July 2025. 18) Someone requested a pdf copy of the final edition of the paper TfL cycle maps that were published up to 2018. TfL's FOI Case Officer replied "I can confirm that we hold the information you require", then shared a zipfile of irrelevant cycle superhighway diagrams, sigh. 19) In the last financial year TfL issued 13,118 penalty fares on the Underground and prosecuted 3691 passengers. On the Overground they issued 12,527 penalty fares and made 3044 prosecutions. 20) Remember that TfL will only answer appropriate questions. If you ask "Do you not care about the residents having to walk through Canning Town station at night? It is so unsafe and smells like piss all the time?" TfL will reply "This is not a request for recorded information under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act."
Sun 1: My Dad hasn't had any answerphone messages for three weeks since BT switched him to Digital Voice, the internet-based phone connection. We tried to work out why this might be, and were surprised/shocked to discover that as part of the package you get transferred to a free BT Voicemail service. The only way to tell you have a message is to notice you have "an interrupted dial tone", i.e. you have to keep checking your phone just in case, then you have to dial 1571. This is inherently ineffective, especially when you're used to just walking into the room and seeing a red light flash. He told BT to turn this ridiculous freebie off which they promptly did, only to discover that 7 people had left a message during the hiatus and he will never ever know what they said. Madness.
Mon 2: Supermarket update: I noticed that 9-packs of Kit-Kats were 'reduced to clear' so bought up several, having guessed what was inevitably coming next. True to form they returned to the shelves as 8-packs of Kit Kats but at the same price - i.e. a miserably cynical 12½% price rise. Shrinkflation strikes again. Tue 3: I stepped onto a train at one of London's least used stations, and I think that was my old boss sitting closest to the doorway but I wasn't sure and he didn't say anything. He didn't have his [Peach] with him otherwise I'd have been certain. We'd only have ended up discussing [Melon] anyway, so no great loss. Wed 4: At the library, Richard Osman's latest novel has finally reached the "there's always a copy on the shelf" stage rather than requiring a reservation. Only took 9 months. It's not as good as the Thursday Murder Club series either, sorry. Thu 5: BestMate'sOtherHalf now has four snakes living in a tank in the bedroom, and today I was proudly shown the skins they've just shed and how two of them aren't eating. Fri 6: While I was out today I thought "I wonder if this is one of the shortest platforms in London" but I wasn't sure how to check and I suspect that's a topic for another day. Sat 7: One of my neighbours decided to have a loud houseparty into the early hours, and I don't think it's a coincidence there was a brief power cut just before midnight.
Sun 8: A bird very nearly walked onto my train in Epping but then walked off, and on some people's social media feeds this is what counts as top content. Mon 9: I've been told that an 11-year-old mains-powered smoke alarm is officially 'beyond its expiry date', despite not having an expiry date printed on it, and I beg to differ. Tue 10: Around lunchtime this blog received its 14 millionth visitor. And just 10½ months since the 13 millionth visitor, which'll be the fastest million yet, which is lovely. Thanks a million Wed 11: Amongst the slew of absolutetosh written about the so-called Strawberry Moon, yes it may be the lowest full moon in 19 years but that doesn't make it worth going out to look at. Every full moon reaches this height in the sky, every single one, before rising a bit higher. Even the BBC joined the insane urging to view this 'rare phenomenon', which it absolutely wasn't, and please could news desks employ folk with a basic understanding of science?
Thu 12: The album from my nephew's wedding dropped today, not a luxury keepsake book but a scrollable online collection with over 1000 downloadable images. Everyone looks happy, beaming and natural, apart from the 30 shots I appear in which look entirely unlifelike... oh god, this is what getting inexorably older feels like. Fri 13: I finally finished last Christmas's chocolate-based presents which I've been eating one chunk at a time since the start of the year. I'm not sure they'd have survived the upcoming heatwaves anyway. Sat 14: I was on the Liberty line between Romford and Upminster when two inspectors boarded the train and checked everyone's tickets. So yes TfL are taking fare dodging seriously, but there must be far more productive places to check. Sun 15: One of my childhood homes is up for sale, much-extended, at a shocking price. My jaw dropped looking at the photos in the brochure (the new kitchen island is bigger than our kitchen) and wept looking at the garden (everything ripped out in favour of a tiered "low-maintenance entertainment space"). Mon 16: If you have a 60+ Oyster card I can confirm there are only two stations within the zone of validity where the card doesn't open the ticket gates. They are a) Shenfield and b) Cheshunt. Both are run by Greater Anglia, whose staff will happily wave you through the gate if you ask, but no other train company is as cynical.
Tue 17: As part of London Rivers Week they opened up the Clerks' Well in Clerkenwell to public view. It was only for three hours one Tuesday afternoon but scores of people visited the tiny vestibule to look down into history, and I hope the nice folk at IslingtonMuseum have taken the hint and will do this more often. Wed 18: The bus stop at Seething Wells in Surbiton has a roundel flag and five tiles underneath, all of them non-TfL services, and I wondered if this is unique inside London. Thu 19: The new episode of Poetry Please, in which Roger McGough interviews Antony Szmierek, is the most delightful Radio 4/Radio 6Music cultural collision. Antony's going far. Fri 20: Eighteen months ago I started my quest to spot all the numberplate letter pairs from AA to YY. I'm delighted to say I've now spotted 518 out of 519, having finally seen UE on a black Toyota passing Bromley-by-Bow station. That just leaves UV and then I'm done, although based on experimental evidence the odds aren't looking good for a swift conclusion.
Sat 21: Upminster's former pitch and putt was sold off by the council in 2021 and is now Kings Green, "a collection of exquisite detached homes set within a private community" where you can "step into a realm of opulence", and it seems that even when we do build on golf courses we waste the opportunity. Sun 22: They showed Saltburn on BBC1 this evening, the much-hyped jawdropping film previously only available on Amazon Prime. Why subscribe at £8.99 a month when all you have to do is wait 18 months and watch for nothing? Mon 23: I checked out the Dangleway's glass-floored cabins on their first morning of public operation, and ...empty. Tue 24: I think I saw Emma Thompson this afternoon, crossing City Island near the English National Ballet. You don't get many Dames in Canning Town.
Wed 25: The shanty town under the Bow Flyover has been removed. I saw three ominous trucks parked alongside yesterday and now the entire rickety shelter has vanished, even the barbecue annexe in the middle of the roundabout. I'm amazed it lasted four months. Thu 26: According to the latest ONS data the population of Tower Hamlets is projected to increase by 20.4% between 2022 and 2032, the fastest increase in England. If true it'll then be the 4th most populous borough in London, up from 10th in 2021, up from 17th in 2011, up from 23rd in 2001, up from 28th in 1991. Bottom 5 to top 5 in four decades flat. Fri 27: I said last week that the intrusive building site at Stroudley Walk might lead to the premature demise of a local business and today coffee shop Posted threw in the towel. Officially they're 'hitting the pause button' until everything's 'looking fresh and fabulous again', but that could be ages and fingers crossed they return. Sat 28: The Atlantic World Gallery in the National Maritime Museum is being upgraded to show more stories of oppression, resistance, trauma and joy, rather than just a spin round the slave trade, and now ends with a 'reflective space' with books and beanbags. Sun 29: I love Glastonbury weekend, the huge slew of artists on TV for free without having to camp in a field and pee in a plastic loo. I watched the full sets by Supergrass, The 1975, Scissor Sisters, Pulp, The Prodigy, Ezra Collective, Rod Stewart, Self Esteem, Gary Numan, Lewis Capaldi, Caribou, Franz Ferdinand, Olivia Rodrigo, Loyle Carner, English Teacher, Charlie xcx, Four Tet and Kae Tempest, and quite a lot of Wet Leg, Japanese Breakfast and Black Country New Road. Roll on 2027.
Mon 30: Yesterday's post, 'A Nice Walk', was actually about the Western Loop of the Jubilee Walkway. Paragraph 1 was Leicester Square, P2 was Trafalgar Square, P3 was St James's Park, P4 was Parliament Square, P5-7 were the South Bank from Lambeth Bridge to the Tate Modern, P8 was St Paul's/Fleet Street, P9 was Lincoln's Inn Fields and P10 was Covent Garden. It is a very nice walk.
Finally, let's see how my annual counts are going...
• Number of London boroughs visited: all (at least fifteen times each)
• Number of London bus routes ridden: all (100%)
• Number of London stations used: all (100%)
Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, leafy shade, river valleys, wildlife-adjacent, pretty views, a bit of heritage, a bit of a stroll, won't take all day. So here's a scenic loop some distance from the centre of London, not excessively arduous but a nice walk all the same.
The start of the walk should be marked by an information panel but it's gone missing, typically, even though I search all over. I cross the grass in case they've moved it and even check the other side of the flowerbed, dodging the bloke asleep on a bench, but all trace is alas gone. There is still time to top up on refreshments before setting off should you have come unprepared, although I don't recommend getting sweets from the corner shop. Start your watch, we should be back here within three hours.
The walk starts in a southwesterly direction down a narrower track between two buildings, noticeably downhill, past a gentleman wielding a leaky hose. I spy the first official waymarker confirming I'm on the right track, although a number of those ahead have been stolen so I'll need to keep my wits about me. Just as I enter the first large open space the bells of the local parish church ring out, just as they have for centuries, it being Sunday morning. Those two ponds look a funny colour although at least they still have water in. The tree-lined descent continues to a brief road crossing where I pass a man in a Linkin Park t-shirt with an illegible 6-letter word tattooed down his leg. The section through a temporary building site is somewhat awkward for its lack of pavement but beyond is a traffic-free bridleway (with no current evidence of horses) and a high ivy-covered wall watched over by CCTV.
Ahead is one of the finest green spaces on the walk, several acres with a full right to roam, although our designated path sticks to one side. I spy ducks, geese and swans, also five birds with larger bills, and take care to dodge occasional fallen branches. Someone's put a lot of effort into their cottage garden with hollyhocks and sunflowers all ablaze, also pristine vegetable beds boasting runner beans, rhubarb and marrows. Mind the nettles beside the path. Now that's unfortunate - an old red phonebox with a jammed door and a broken glass pane through which has been posted an ugly pile of bottles and other litter. A waymarker atop a pole confirms I'm on the right track but also exudes an air of local irrelevance, also the map at its foot has faded since Neville installed it.
Another parish church intrudes, easily overlooked, as the clock on the tower ticks round to ten past ten. In its churchyard all the horse chestnut blossom has fallen, the dandelions easily outnumber the gravestones and the poppies shine. I make progress beside a privet hedge towards the green where cones of purple buddleia boldly announce the arrival of summer. In a nigh-empty playground a small child is discovering the eternal joy of a roundabout to spin on. And eventually we reach a narrowed bridge, still with Covid 'keep your distance' stickers on the tarmac, for a teetering crossing over a local stream. Upstream a small brown dog is splashing in the water while its owners look on, hoping to stay dry in the inevitable fur-shake. We'll be following these banks for a while, more or less, because nothing beats a good river walk.
Full steam ahead past plants with spiky fronds, also a squat conifer where bees hunt nectar deep in its bright pink flowers. I wouldn't have known that tree was a Mediterranean oak if it didn't have a plaque underneath. A family cycles by with what looks like a picnic scattered across their collective baskets. Occasionally there are raised benches to sit on, generally empty, but also an abandoned pushchair and what looks like a septic tank so best walk on. Someone's written "Big Dave Foxcroft - LEGEND" on the wall, also "Wilma is one of a kind" - she gets two mentions. For wildlife watchers a lone seagull sits on a post, a crow swoops off with a beakful of something, a butterfly emerges fom the undergrowth and the lamps have a patina of spider's web. Across the stream is a large house with a long terrace, and what sounds like an alarm blaring non-stop.
It's a hot day to be out walking and one ginger lad has brought two bottles just in case, one flavoured and fizzy, one still. We're approaching a potential refreshment stop where the chief draw appears to be how much sugar they can squirt in your coffee. Keep your eye open and you may spot a dozen horses, also a donkey. This section of the walk is blessed with fine gardens flowering with some kind of large daisy, also something purple and heatherish, also deep holly but no barbecues please. The water's edge is littered with half-bricks and half-pipes, meanwhile the water ripples with occasional twigs and bottles. A phone mast is visible in a gap between the rooftops on the horizon. My favourite passing t-shirt is 'Made In The North, Forged In Gravy', just ahead of 'Catzilla Ate My Hamster'.
A dog scampers by, thankfully dry. Someone's left a Linda Robson novel on a table, also some Danielle Steeles and a Dandy Annual. The graffiti on the concrete uprights mentions KEOS, SLATT, TAR and various other names the taggers clearly didn't want anyone else to read. It's been a while since I saw a waymarker, maybe a couple of miles, but now thankfully they reappear. Someone's painted their shed pink, someone else blue. I spy pawprints in the sand, also a young woman on her knees digging with a trowel. Ahead the tree cover finally breaks and opens out into oppressive sunshine, a shock to the system but also offering views of spires and towers well over a mile away. A sign warns 'Wild Flowers - Do Not Strim'. Ahead is a yellowing field with silver birches along three sides, then it's time to cross back across the water with a fine panorama downstream towards distant hills and three ducks bobbing briefly beneath the bridge.
The path broadens on the far side as it approaches a quiet road with a seemingly-unnecessary pedestrian crossing. The subsequent climb looks like it's approaching another churchyard but bears left prematurely past a cluster of Christmas trees to skirt the back door of the building instead. Spring's flowers may have faded but the hanging baskets here are a persistent riot of colour as the path drops gently into a separate river valley. Don't expect to see any water this time, not in the current climate, but the contours in the dip remain unmistakeable. The pub by the crossroads offers a choice of proper roast or Vegan Wellington. The largest open space is of course pencilled in for commercial development, even out here. It is indeed a properly scenic spot but the majority of Londoners live nowhere nearby.
The final ascent passes a wall-mounted sundial and a Grade II listed building before ducking again beneath tree cover and encountering an ancient parish boundary stone. Around noon a Lancaster bomber flies over and the landlady of the local pub walks out and asks me what all that was about, which because I read the Ian Visits blog I am fortuitously able to tell her. The path weaves more contortedly now, eventually entering a large field with holly hedges, shady oaks and group of friends enjoying a summer picnic. On the far side I pass a man dressed as a monk, also two sturdy men in Iron Maiden t-shirts, before crossing the busiest road on the walk so far. The whiff of sewage is intermittently apparent, also an outburst of shrubbery, also an ambulance sadly on call. Three agricultural carts have been repurposed and topped with potted plants which I consider to be very pleasant.
Threading onwards passers-by now outnumber trees and hedgesparrows are less common. I have to hand it to the walk's creators, I don't think I've been down this alleyway before despite coming mighty close, although I don't like how it smells of wee. Initially I miss the penultimate alley because the waymarkers have failed again, or maybe I just wasn't looking carefully enough. On the final approach a lemon has made a bolt for freedom, also I swear those sunflowers are fake. And on returning to my starting point I see someone's now arranged a rows of deckchairs across the grass where I expected the information board would be so how would anyone know a walk starts here? The Queen launched this circuit with such high hopes but I bet I'm the only person to have followed it today, which is a damned shame given the inherent glories of this corner of the capital.
It opened in 2011 with a futuristicflourish and it closed in 2022 after an arson attack over Hallowe'en weekend. Two youths were arrested but nobody's ever been charged. 2½ years later everything's still behind barriers, even the convenience store and the drivers' rest room, while Slough council continues to work things through with their insurers. The two-pronged tail was most badly damaged and needs a lot of repairing and recladding. It is quite frankly a barren mess at the heart of a town which could really do with fewer barren messes.
Monday
This is Beresford Square in Woolwich.
It reopened earlier this month after a multi-million pound revamp, in Greenwich council's preferred style which is 'heavily paved walkthrough with slabby beds'. It's nicer than it was, but that's not saying much. One of the signature features is a fine old cattle trough placed here in the 19th century by the The Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association. It was elegantly unadorned when Murky Depths wrote his review of the place soon after the reopening. Alas the council have since seen fit to plonk a safety notice on it - WARNING Not Drinking Water - slap bang on top of the inscription. It's possible the population of Woolwich are idiots and started lapping at the contents or scooping their water bottles into it, but my money's on the council being joyless risk-averse penpushers.
Tuesday
This is the whiteboard at Bow Road station.
When there's important information to be shown it shows important information. But at other times it's not emblazoned with trite phrases like at some stations, it shows inspirational STEM stuff. We've had equations that solve to give Christmas greetings, we've had geometry puzzles to try to solve in the time it takes to walk past (the answer was 20°) and this week we've got potted biographies of four women in engineering. They're also always beautifully written, as if somebody who works at the station has a smart pen, calligraphy skills and plenty of spare time at five in the morning. I would much rather pass by "This girl can do engineering" than "Look through the rain to see the rainbow", so my thanks to whoever's doing this.
Wednesday
This is Abbey Lane in Stratford.
Specifically it's the point where Abbey Lane passes under the Northern Outfall Sewer, aka the Greenway. In 2020 I traversed my local area in search of Greenwich Meridian markers but never found this one. I knew there were supposed to be three meridian slabs in Newham but only ever found two, one on the High Street and one on Warren Gardens. I looked and looked, even shifted the undergrowth, even took a photo from precisely the same place which revealed nothing. It wasn't visible earlier this year either. But recently someone's been along and scrubbed the dirt, maybe even scraped away some gravel, and now it's on showplain as can be. I feel longitudinally complete.
Thursday
This is Wanstead Flats.
It's so yellow, really yellow, isn't it yellow? It's not the yellowest I've seen it, that was back in the summer of 2018 after there'd been no measurable rain for seven weeks, but it's still been pretty droughty lately. This spring was the driest for 50 years, and would have been considerably drier had it not been for one frontal week at the end of May. Most of the other rain we've had has been from hit and miss storms, which may or may not have hit here. We should see some rain midweek as our current heatwave finally breaks, but long term no substantial wet spells are forecast and it's just going to get more yellow, so yellow, futuristically yellow.
Friday
This is a car park in Uxbridge.
It's the multi-storey spiral ramp at the back of The Pavilions, previously The Cedars as it was called when it opened in 1973. I love a good multi-storey spiral ramp, although that may come down to not having a car and never having to inch very carefully down one. Also I used to live in Watford so I grew up thinking these things werenormal whereas instead only special postwar suburbs were gifted them. Romford's is better, Londonist reckons, whereas J G Ballard once decreed Watford “the mecca of car parks” for its concrete trio and he should know. It's a shame about the Jewsons van parked outside Uxbridge's but maybe that adds a bit of human interest.
Saturday
This is Ocean Court at the National Maritime Museum.
It reopened earlier this month after a year-long closure to allow for "vital refurbishment of the 25-year-old roof". The old roof let in too much sun during the summer and was prone to overheat, apparently, which was a tad careless. The revamped space now has a sprawling map of the oceans on the floor, some fresh abstract patterns round the walls and a cafe with lots of tables waiting to welcome families back. I spent a couple of minutes in the Polar/Attenborough display under The Bridge but mainly it's just a huge unexciting open space, because every museum needs an events-friendly indoor location suitable for a 750-head drinks reception or 580 seated guests.
