The hottest ticket in town is for the Bayeux Tapestry, which goes on display to the public today at the British Museum. It's so hot that the rest of 2026 is fully sold out and January-March 2027 is expected to go the same way when bookings reopen next month.
But if you can't wait, or if you baulk at paying £33 for a once-in-a-lifetime blockbuster, an alternative opportunity to view the tapestry exists. It's a full-size full-colour fully-embroidered copy of the original and entirely free to view. To view it all you need to do is go to Reading, make your way to Reading Museum and head upstairs.
Most local museums feature local stuff like clay pots, agricultural tools and something that used to hang outside a pub. Reading Museum has all of this just inside the entrance, also a painting normally held in storage and a table where a nice lady will invite you to handle a fossil. But take the back stairs (or alternatively the lift, assuming they've got it working again) and the most famous Anglo-French strip cartoon awaits your perusal.
It's 70 metres long and stretches all around the first floor mezzanine as part of a specially-designed Bayeux Gallery opened in 1992. It's been divided into three sections, the first of which curls around a square landing above the museum entrance. This follows the story as far as Edward the Confessor's funeral, then restarts across the landing above the Story of Reading Gallery. Take your time, there's no queue of paid visitors shuffling behind you here, you're free to enjoy this at your own pace.
The reason why Reading has a replica Bayeux Tapestry is all thanks to Elizabeth Wardle, a Staffordshire sewer who in 1885 travelled to see the original in Normandy. On returning she cajoled 35 members of the Leek Embroidery Society into stitching a full-size copy, having got her husband to dye threads to match the original eight colours. The replica was complete by Whitsun 1886, after which it was toured round England and also shown in Germany and the USA. It happened to be in Reading in 1895 when the Society decided to sell it, thus an alderman bought it for £300 and gave it to the town. It's still here.
Just as you'd currently see in Bloomsbury, the first panel depicts Edward the Confessor despatching Earl Harold to France. The colours are rather brighter in Reading and the background fabric isn't stained, but this particular copy hasn't been stashed in a cathedral storeroom, transported on a cattle truck or hidden from the Nazis. What you also get at both places is a simple explanation of the story unfolding scene by scene - here it's text on a green panel below, at the British Museum it's silent video narration on a screen behind.
In an early example of apposite marketing the green panel is sponsored by Norman Insurance, a local company who in 1992 were headquartered by the river. Alas their sponsorship has lasted far longer than the company as they were soon absorbed into a larger company who have themselves been rebranded. Meanwhile the display cases are courtesy of pharmaceutical giant Bayer who are still a significant player in the town, and excellently all the glass is slightly slanted which means every photo comes out with no annoying reflections.
The tapestry takes its time to tell the early part of the story. Harold sets off on a lengthy trek to Bosham and thence across the Channel to land near Beauvais. In lengthy shenanigans he gets captured, gains William's favour by assisting with a battle in Brittany and everyone carries a lot of hawks. Only after Harold has sworn an oath to William is he allowed back across the Channel, and I'm sorry if any of this is spoilers for those of you with British Museum tickets but you should have paid more attention in history lessons.
The narrative plays out impressively clearly, such was the skill of those who originally composed it. The central strip has key tableaux which often merge at the edges, say with soldiers marching from one event to the next. Only a few words are used, and you don't always have to have learned Latin to get the gist. Separate borders top and bottom feature supporting characters, often animals in the early stages but piled high with bloodied corpses by the finale.
One of the strangest scenes depicts a sexual scandal seemingly with no connection to the main plot, well known in the 11th century but which historians can no longer identify. One man in the lower border appears full frontal, contributing to a total of almost 100 willies (human and equine) depicted in the original tapestry. The ladies who stitched this Victorian facsimile chose to give him a pair of shorts to avoid scandalising their audience, but rest assured the explanatory panel underneath shows the original design with everything hanging out.
A nice touch in the Reading tapestry is that each of the embroiderers has sewn their name underneath the panels they were responsible for. Thus the opening scene is "Elizabeth Wardle's work", right up to the point where it says "ends here", whereas Harold being seized in Normandy is by "Mabel Challoner, her work" and William riding into battle is "the work of Anne Smith". By contrast we know nothing of the original embroiderers from Canterbury, nor how many of them there were nor how long they took.
Part two kicks off with Harold taking the English throne, the none too subtle subtext being that he should instead have kowtowed to William. History is told by the victors so everything here is attempting to validate William's claims, indeed the entire 70 metres is essentially a massive piece of Norman propaganda. This is also famously where Halley's Comet appears in the sky, a blazing portent of doom and also quite possibly the best known example of 11th century graphic representation.
On we walk round the balcony as William slowly gathers an army and builds the boats to sail them in. The final scene before the battle includes the only child depicted in the tapestry, also one of just three women, both of whom are fleeing a burning building. And then it's all swords and arrows and shields and lances and knights on horseback, both sides charging towards each other and falling in great numbers, right up to the famous scene where someone gets an arrow in the eye. Hic Harold Rex Interfectus Est.
The final scene in the existing Bayeux Tapestry is of the remaining English troops fleeing the battlefield. We know there used to be a follow-up panel but it was lost centuries back and nobody knows for sure what it contained. The Reading version thus has one-up on the British Museum because it displays a potential finale in a separate frame at the top of the stairs. This was sewn by embroiderer Joy Messent in 2019 and depicts the surrender of the English nobles at Berkhamsted followed by William's coronation in Westminster Abbey. It's not a happy ending, not viewed from this side of the Channel, but it helped create the country that patriots now defend with pride.
If what you want is top needlework and a rollicking story, Reading's Bayeux Tapestry certainly delivers. Admittedly it's not got the 950-year-old frisson of the original which was sewn by ladies for whom this was recent blockbuster news rather than a mere reproductive exercise. But it was here in Reading on free display long before the genuine article arrived on these shores and will still be here long after it's gone. Authenticity aside, it really is almost as good as viewing the real thing.
» Reading Museum is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm, admission free (but do check for gallery closures before you visit because they get a lot of school groups)
» Ian reviews the Reading version:"It may lack the miasma of history that comes from an authentic relic, but it’s so well made that you can almost forget it’s a replica and still bask in the monumental day that changed England forever."
» Ian reviews the genuine version:"If you have tickets, this once-in-a-lifetime moment will be a pure experience that hits in a way that I don’t think any exhibition I have ever been to could come close to."
If you fancy a meal at a Beefeater you've got two days left because they all close after tomorrow, every last one of them, because not enough people fancy a meal at a Beefeater any more.
Beefeater was founded by Whitbread in 1974, their first restaurant being The Halfway House in Enfield, followed in 1981 by the more-family-friendly Brewers Fayre. Prawn cocktail, steak and Black Forest gateau proliferated. Courage Breweries fought back in 1983 with their Harvester brand, their first restaurant being The George in Morden, as the salad bar became an integral part of a classy night out. In 1995 Beefeater absorbed the remnants of pioneering steakhouse Berni Inn, founded 40 years earlier, as the chain reached a peak of 256 outlets nationwide. In the same year Bass Charrington bought all 78 Harvesters and added them to a growing portfolio including Toby Carvery (debuting in Brentwood) and All Bar One (debuting in Sutton). In 2006 Bass-offshoot Mitchells & Butlers acquired 130 Harvester restaurants, also the 239 Beefeaters and Brewers Fayres that weren't part of a Premier Inn. What's closing this week are the remaining restaurants that are part of a Premier Inn, the Brewers Fayres on Monday and the Beefeaters after lunch tomorrow, as Whitbread sacrifices a 52 year-old brand to save its financial skin.
When I was younger we thought a Beefeater was an excellent venue for a special family meal. We were thus very excited when one opened in Croxley Green at Scotsbridge Mill, hence I celebrated my 25th birthday with soup, steak and profiteroles while the vicar watched on from a neighbouring table. We went back for my 26th where I enjoyed exactly the same meal and cunningly doubled up the whole thing as a Mothers Day treat. Two years later we celebrated my brother's 26th at a Beefeater in Norwich and my 28th a month later at the Priory Marina in Bedford, on both occasions upping my main course to a gluttonous mixed grill. We were back at Priory Marina for my 29th (pate, mixed grill, chocolate fudge dream), but after that we migrated to proper pubs and independent restaurants instead. Our Beefeater heyday was thus 1990-1994, which feels about right, and I think I've only been back once since.
Brewers Fayre in Greater London (closed 7th September)
• Winsor House, Beckton E6
• Chequers Corner, Dagenham RM9
But diners' tastes change, and a suburban roadhouse serving traditionalfavourites no longer cuts the mustard in these spicier times. This week's shutdown comes as the UK's hospitality sector faces tough financial headwinds, what with rising energy prices, higher employment costs and less frequent eating out because of the rising cost of living. With operating costs outpacing revenue Whitbread can no longer afford to maintain so many physical sites so have pulled the plug on the lot, instantly dooming the Chargrilled 5oz Gammon Steak, Smothered Chicken Melt and Caramel Apple Betty to history.
The unfussy end of the market still has Wetherspoons, Sizzling Pubs, Ember Inns and Hungry Horse, even Harvesters, should you fancy an unchallenging meal not far from home with onion rings. And rest assured that the very first Beefeater in Enfield will remain open, even after this week's restaurant Armageddon, because following all the machinations in paragraph two it's somehow ended up as a Toby Carvery.
Knitting The Air (4-20 September 2026) Nunnery Gallery, 181 Bow Road, E3 2SJ
The latest exhibition at the Nunnery Gallery is a striking display of data, visualising something you can't see but might kill you. It's a calendar of knitted squares representing a year of air quality in east London, hardly the Bayeux Tapestry but an important historical record all the same.
It covers three walls of the gallery, almost like it was designed to be exhibited here, and was knitted by a team of 132 volunteers over a two year period. It's amazing what you can get a community group to do if you inspire them.
The top two rows represent data taken from a sensor by the A12 in Poplar and the bottom two data from a nearby street outside Culloden Primary School. The pinks are the PM2.5 count while the blues underneath represent nitrogen dioxide. In each case there are three shades, the lightest for 'below WHO guidelines', the darkest for 'over UK legal target' and the medium for the fuzzy zone inbetween. The panel below shows that NO₂ exceeded legal levels on 1st, 6th, 7th, 8th and 16th September 2023 (coinciding with a particular hot spell) and only properly fell below WHO guidelines on 18th September (a cooler day with high winds).
n.b. ULEZ expanded to cover all of London a couple of days before September 2023 started, but this won't have had much impact here because Poplar was well inside the previous zone.
What you want to see if you live round here is a lot of light pink and a lot of light blue, and whilst maybe half the pink stripes are indeed good, light blue stripes are worryingly thin on the ground. I do indeed live around here so it's chastening to be presented with a knitted record of how much air pollution my lungs are inhaling. The Aberfeldy estate has it particularly bad, being cut off by urban dual carriageways on two sides, and maybe that's why so many people were willing to give up their time to contribute to this project.
Fran: I've lived here along the A12 for forty years, and I've just noticed the air getting worse and worse. I was on inhalers for a long time for asthma. Gul: I'd heard of air quality but I didn't pay it much attention until I started knitting and then understood what the lines and colours meant. Sadia: The knitting was therapeutic in itself, but the community around knitting and what the project created, I think I enjoyed that the most. Freddie: As an educational tool it's been amazing. I was at an event at a GP surgery on the Aberfeldy Estate and there was a small display of knitting panels there and some kids from the local school came in and the questions they were asking were just amazing.
As well as the knitted panels (and explanatory detail out back), associated events include a photographic walk this afternoon, a curator's tour on Saturday and the chance to knit your own panels next Thursday. But the exhibition's only open until 20th September so you don't have long to get here (head to Bus Stop M, you can't miss it). In good news the London Transport Museum has agreed to take the artwork afterwards, rather than it clogging up the organiser's house, but given its size I expect it'll end up in storage rather than on occasional display. I hope the Mayor finds time to pop in before it goes and perhaps takes the opportunity for a photoshoot, the three walls of the gallery making clear the invisible fight he's made a cornerstone of his administration, and which those of us who live round here face daily.
September 2002 feels like a very long time ago, so long that Joan Littlewood was still alive, Atomic Kitten were top of the charts and London Weekend Television was still broadcasting. I don't know what you were doing 24 years ago but I was sat at my computer starting a blog, partly as procrastination to avoid ironing eleven shirts. I no longer iron shirts but I do still blog, so that worked out well.
The end of another four-year period means it's time to renew the oversight bodies that help keep diamond geezer ticking over. If you think you've got what it takes to contribute to one of these important voluntary groups, please submit your credentials before 6:59am tomorrow.
Purpose: to determine the editorial focus of upcoming posts and stir the creative pot Commitment: weekly Zoom meeting (Sunday evening, 2 hrs approx) Role: to trawl through upcoming anniversaries; to pinpoint unreported unusualness within and beyond Greater London; to identify permissable transport foci; to propose quirky topics for reportage; to formalise the collective investor pitch; to assign dates to future topics; also to discourage too many posts about buses because nobody wants to read them
Typical engagement dg: So what's everyone got? Rob: I see Oxhey Grange footbridge is due to be demolished next week. Dan: You've never covered London's most equidistant pubs. Uy: How about following the London Strategic Heat Main? Sergei: Also the Florence Nightingale Museum is free to enter next Monday. Alex: Nobody's yet written about Tottenham Hale's 'new' Platform 4a. Ashley: I'd like to propose "How do I know which end of the platform is the front of the tube train?" - it always catches me out! Tania: I mean, just off the top of my head, an analysis of leaf-fall timetables, could Zak Polanski win, how do litter bins vary borough by borough, a quiz where all the clues are chemical symbols, my favourite chocolate biscuit wrappers. dg: And Tony, you've been looking into obscure London suburbs starting with S. So which is it to be? Tony: Obviously Sundridge, Selsdon and Shacklewell are top considerations, also let's not overlook Shirley, sadly you've already covered Southborough, alas I fear Sipson might be quite limiting, personally I'd quite like to see Stroud Green, perhaps you might consider Stonecot?
Purpose: to confirm the broad-brush outline of tomorrow's post Commitment: conference call every morning at 8.30am (also touch base at 5pm) Role: to agree tomorrow's topic, to research background information, to plan locations to visit; to optimise the itinerary; to complete necessary risk assessment; to react to fast-moving news stories; to provide bullet points for article composition; to veto patently tedious outcomes
Typical engagement dg: So what's everyone got? Kieran: No sign of a fresh TfL press release this morning, so it's all systems go. Louise: We reckon you can be in West Finchley by 10.15am. Kieran: I've emailed a map of the walking route you should follow. Louise: Apparently the bollard on Sydney Street used to be part of a medieval outhouse, so make sure you get a photo. Kieran: You should be wrapped up at New Southgate by noon. Louise: After the opening summary write about the history, then the connection to Winston Churchill, then the six bridges in chronological order. Kieran: Do not under any circumstances mention the local bus route. dg: I'll ping you the early drafts before the teatime catch-up.
Purpose: to pedantically check the content of tomorrow's post Commitment: receive copy by 1am, submit email feedback by 6.45am Role: to read through pre-final draft and identify a) spelling errors b) grammatical errors c) factual errors d) substandard text e) potential improvements in order to prevent embarrassment when the post goes live at 7am
Typical feedback Ian: "sup-optimal" in the second paragraph. Richard: I think that you meant to say “steps of 20 km/h” rather than “steps of 20mph”. Michael: The parade referred to is NE rather than NW of the station. Carl: You seem to have omitted the fact that Margaret Thatcher cut the ribbon near Watford. Nick: You have different numbers of bulls gored on your Flickr photo compared to your post. Frank: Is the description "just a bunch of backroom gibbons" necessary in relation to something quite so trivial? John: Surely that should be fewer than ten services a day, not less than?
Diamond Geezer Retrospective Appraisal Surgery
• Peer-to-peer
• Unpaid role, expenses not paid
• 1 hour weekly
Purpose: to critique the week's content, identifying successes and points of weakness Commitment: weekly win/loss review (Saturday, 7pm) Role: to apply 360-degree feedback techniques; to set future targets; to optimise continuous improvement; to identify individual development needs; to formalise lessons-learned; to engage in dispute resolution; to compare with AI-generated content to ensure human input is still preferential; to offer praise if merited
Typical feedback Amir: I'm not surprised the Sutton post only got three comments. Vince: Did we really need a whole fortnight focusing on your holiday to Spain? Perhaps stay in this country for a while. Sophie: I thought you were quite rude to Derek. Amir: Personally I enjoyed the analysis of museum leaflets but I may have been alone in that. Vince: Please tell me no more bus routes are changing any time soon. Sophie: Take more Saturdays off. Amir: Perhaps tone down the use of all those unnecessary commas. Vince: I don't understand why you spent eight hours crafting a post of interest to hardly anybody. Sophie: To be honest I enjoyed your posts more in 2012.
In 1985 the BBC made a documentary about the number 31 bus route called To the World's End. (It's still on iPlayer).
In 2026 TfL have just launched a bus route that really does go To the World's End, London-speaking.
It's a new Superloop route to the back of beyond, which in this case is two stops beyond Rainham.
Route SL12: Gants Hill - Rainham Ferry Lane South Length of journey: 13 miles, 50 minutes
London's newest bus route is really three in one. First it's a limited stop version of route 66, speeding along the A12. Then it's a much needed north-south link across Havering, speedily linking Romford, Elm Park and Rainham. And then it's a break into virgin territory to serve no houses whatsoever, just an industrial estate by the Thames estuary, which is the headscratchy bit. Let's take each part separately.
Part 1 - The Limited Stop 66
If you get your kicks on route 66, which is already a speedy radial route, you can now get them faster on the SL12. The six mile dash starts outside Gants Hill station, stopping just five times on the way to Romford compared to 18 aboard the 66. At present both run every 12 minutes, which seems generous on a corridor that's already well bussed. Gants Hill isn't the most useful of terminuses but you can easily change between the SL2 and SL12 here, adding an extra limb to London's existing Superloop network. For Central line interchange Newbury Park is your best bet.
n.b. The bus shelter at Gants Hill has an almost brand-new spider map, but because it's dated 1st August 2026 it doesn't include the SL12 and I Wouldn't Have Done That.
n.b. The bus shelter at Gants Hill doesn't have a roundel on top, whereas most of the other shelters along the route do.
n.b. The first five miles of the SL12 follow the A12, so there is some accidental logic to the numbering system here.
As usual when a Superloop route launches, some passengers haven't taken on board the 'express' concept. It even says LIMITED STOP on the front blind but not everyone notices. Thus on my journey someone dinged the bell just after leaving Padnall Road expecting to get off almost immediately, but was instead swept ahead two miles to the Romford outskirts. As the doors closed another passenger then dinged, stood up and watched four stops go by before finally escaping in the town centre. She had a long chat with the driver before alighting and seemed to be appeased.
Part 2 - The Much-Needed North-South Link
Many outer London boroughs have good radial transport links but nothing decent orbitally, a deficit the Superloop is designed to mitigate. Havering has always been particularly tough to cross north to south, the only railway connection being the Liberty line, runtiest of the Overground family. The SL12 thus provides an invaluable new service by connecting the Elizabeth line to the District line and c2c, previously only doable slowly and indirect. Initial loadings look good, especially on the hyperleap between Romford and Elm Park which would previously have been 10 stops on the 252.
n.b. The new buses smell new, also they have USB ports at every seat.
n.b. If you're sitting at the front on the top deck there's no STOP button in sight, only one out of reach at the top of the stairs. (In fact the nearest button is on the back of your seat, furthest from the aisle, but nobody's going to see it there.)
n.b. Elm Park remains quite flaggy, whereas most other London suburbs have taken down their threadbare red crosses.
From Elm Park to Rainham the corridor of housing is quite narrow so three routes already follow the same route south for almost two miles. The SL12 now adds a fourth which is perhaps over-frequent overkill. I suspect whoever assembled the original SL12 consultation had never been to Rainham because they failed to include a stop in the town centre, but thankfully everyone screamed and buses do now call at the key Tesco interchange. The leader of Havering Council remains unimpressed that adjacent development areas like Beam Park have been missed, thus is already lobbying for "a second Superloop to reach those parts missed by the current service", but populists do tend to want the moon on a stick.
Part 3 - To The World's End
Within Greater London there are only two places where you can draw a circle with diameter two miles and not hit a TfL bus route, or at least there were. One is the middle of Richmond Park and the other was the Ferry Lane trading estate south of Rainham, a remote industrial stripe amid the marshes by the Thames estuary. It's long been TfL's aim to fill this latter gap, saving estate employees a lengthy walk, but never previously justifiable in terms of cost. In 2019 an exceptionally detailed study of Bus Services in London Riverside East considered multiple imaginative scenarios and concluded that the only potentially feasible option was a peak hours shuttle from Rainham station, no more than six buses a day. Instead the Mayor has sent brand new double deckers running five times an hour, a decision you could describe as questionable.
n.b. The first SL12 of the day departs at 5am, the last arrives at 1.15am.
n.b. The SL12 terminates here even at the weekend when nobody's working.
n.b. The only reason this isn't absolutely bonkers is that the bus company's garage is just round the corner off Ferry Lane, so the vehicles would have to run empty anyway.
After leaving Rainham Tesco the SL12 ducks under the railway and enters the top end of the industrial estate. The first stop is called Rainham Station South Side, although it's a bit of a hike to a train so not the friendliest of interchanges. We've entered a world of big sheds and open marshes, one you probably only recognise if you've walked the last leg of the London Loop. The A13 scythes through on a concrete viaduct, chopping the estate in half, the SL12 terminating on the other side between a huge distribution warehouse and a scrap metal yard. The contrast with the Gants Hill roundabout, indeed with any other Superloop route, is extreme. Let's hope the employees who actually work here find the SL12 useful.
n.b. The south side of the estate is a long thin loop of road that's over a mile long. And yet the SL12 only stops at the very top end, exiting by doing a full anti-clockwise circuit, so anyone employed at the tip faces a ten minute walk to catch a bus that goes straight past their workplace. In the consultation 11 people requested an additional stop on Ferry Lane but this was not taken forward.
Part 4 - Beyond the SL12
Now that London's bus network has a new remote terminus, what might you discover if you come here?
A five minute walk through the estate brings you to the edge of the Thames estuary, hidden behind a thick concrete wall to help keep potential floodwater at bay. Stand atop the embankment and you can see the incinerator at Belvedere and the town of Erith, also perhaps a number of large ships and small boats sailing by. A plaque on the wall confirms this as the landing point for the Pilgrim Ferry, an estuary crossing operational between the 12th and 19th centuries, initially aimed at those making a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Should TfL ever chooses to reinstate the ferry, the SL12 is perfectly poised to make the connection.
Havering Council have recently spent money making this liminal stripe a tad more attractive for workers taking a fag break, courtesy of the Rainham Riverside Public Realm Improvement Project. They've added proper steps, garden seating, several bright yellow bins and a substantial metal pergola lookout, all with informative signage. Best not imagine the smell when this was the site of a factory manufacturing fertiliser from fish carcasses. I particularly liked The Museum of Garden Escapes, a raised bed of non-native self-seeded plants laid out on the footprint of the former Three Crowns pub. Full marks, at least compared to how it used to look.
The estate ends at a wall of silos belonging to the Tilda rice factory, this being the furthest south the SL12 gets. Follow the squished riverside path past their private jetty and you emerge onto an undefended stretch of estuary and, at least at low tide, a spread of mudflats. The chief attraction here is a fleet of concrete barges constructed during the war when building materials were scarce, and intended for use fuelling the D-Day landings. A decade later they were dumped here in the Thames as protection from the great flood of 1953 and here they remain, sunk into a beach at a variety of angles, slowly not-rusting away.
A short distance away, anchored eight metres down into the riverbed, is a twisted mass of galvanised steel in humanoid form. This is The Diver, a submersible artwork installed in the year 2000 by artist John Kaufman and dedicated to his grandfather who used to be a diver in the old London Docks. Come at low tide and the entire sculpture standsproud above water level, but as the Thames slowly rises the diver starts to vanish, until at certain spring tides each year the top of the helmet is fully submerged. Previously to get here would have been a 40 minute hike from Rainham station but now it's only 20 minutes from a Superloop bus stop far more convenient for the middle of nowhere, at The World's End.
An extraordinary thing is happening tomorrow on Stroudley Walk, a new cafe is opening! We've had fried chicken for a while and a juice bar gave it a go after lockdown, but this is the first time there's been a sitdowner with macchiatos, croissants, hash browns and lasagne. It's called Minnie's Coffee and Food and it made me double-take.
It lurks underneath Zellie Emerson House, one of four new housing blocks hereabouts, in a small unit I'd assumed would stay uneconomically empty. Instead our local social housing company have hired out the space as part of their HARCA Café Collective, "an initiative making quality food and drink accessible and affordable to residents and visitors across Bow and Poplar". It's not clear whether Minnie is the owner's name or a reference to Minnie Lansbury the East End suffragette, but given the estate's history and thematic rebrand I'd assume the latter.
Apart from the obvious hot drinks the menu also includes breakfast options (until 11am), snacks and a limited range of lunches. I can't remember the last time anywhere round here did a genuine cooked breakfast, and OK there's no bacon but £8 is a pretty good deal. As for lunches each day of the week brings a single meat or vegetarian choice (Mondays curried, Tuesdays stir-fried, Wednesdays filo royale, Thursdays lasagne and Fridays crispy with potato wedges), also soup, also foccacia-based sandwiches, also six quid salads. And yes I know you've probably had this round your way for ages but this is Stroudley Walk for heaven's sake, a culinary dead end since time immemorial.
Like most modern food outlets they've not bothered with a website just an Instagram account nobody would ever think to search for. Unnervingly the first post said "Almost ready to serve you!" and that was in June. Also their tagline is "More than just coffee, we’re a community" which I reckon is wilfully unproven given they haven't opened yet. But opening day is Monday at 7.30am and to celebrate they've got a special offer of 50% OFF ALL HOT DRINKS UNTIL MIDDAY. I live nearby and have a kettle so not even Builders Tea for 75p is going to tempt me in, but I wish Minnie well as gentrification finally sparks to life in Stroudley Walk. It's what the incomers who've paid half a million to live in the tower nextdoor have been waiting for, indeed long expected.
They didn't have blogs or the internet forty years ago, so here are 30 things I didn't digitally publish at the time. To help you get your bearings I was 21, teetering between university and a job, so chose to delay things by undertaking an extra year's study up north.
Mon 1: Sign on at the dole office, but am called to one side to undergo a random check. Thankfully they weren't tough checks in those days. [On TV: London Plus with John Stapleton] Tue 2: My university tutor pops up on Radio 1 Newsbeat talking about vaccinated chickens. Get a phone call inviting me to a job interview on Friday but turn them down because I've decided oil economics isn't for me. Wed 3: Have to go for a job-related medical. Worried it might be a full strip-off but it's no worse than filling a bottle and getting my blood pressure checked. [The supervising medic was called Dr Doodoo] Thu 4: Two friends from university drive over and meet the tortoise, then we go for a walk round Ruislip Lido, watch the water skiing and have cheeseburgers in Wimpy. [Ooh look, I have a photo]
Fri 5: My dad takes the morning off work but the man from Anglian Windows never turns up to do the survey and I have rarely heard him so cross. Sat 6: Wimbledon FC beat Watford 1-0 to stay top of Division 1, so I annoy my brother by putting a Womble on the doorstep when he gets home from the match. [On TV: Episode 1 of the season-long Doctor Who story, Trial of a Time Lord] Sun 7: Mum and Dad are debating where to go for a silver wedding getaway next month [it turns out to be a cottage near a radar station in Norfolk] Mon 8: University friend returns and drives us down to the Odeon Marble Arch to watch Aliens. Thoroughly enjoy. [Alas moving up north will squash this budding friendship] [A quick check online and I see he's just retired from his top job in the City] Tue 9: When our nextdoor neighbour moved out she gave us £40 to go out for a family meal, so tonight we go to the Ponderosa Steak House in Watford High Street, a legendary venue. I have sirloin steak and they forget to offer us any free refills. Wed 10: Buy a £299 Sony hi-fi from Tottenham Court Road and nearly collapse lugging it home on the tube. Thu 11: For my 'final' meal Mum cooks roast lamb (washed down with a bottle of Riesling) and lemon meringue pie. [nobody has ever made lemon meringue pie as well as my Mum did]
Fri 12: A very long drive up the A1 with the boot full of boxes. Mum refuses to drive over the Humber Bridge so we take the M18 and M62 to Hull. I'm not convinced she's impressed by my new student digs (and neither am I). One of my new flatmates takes me out for beers along the Cottingham Road. [this never happens again] Sat 13: Explore Hull, mainly to find food, a barber and a photobooth because I need 4 mugshots for registration on Monday. Start to suspect the girl in the room nextdoor might be overwrought and clingy.
Sun 14: Struggle to cook in the communal kitchen because it's shared by six of us. No toaster so we have to use a ropey gas grill. My Smash instant mash proves far too watery. Mon 15: Successfully register for the course in a very analogue manner, i.e. laminated cards, pigeonhole numbers and pins in maps. [On TV: Calendar with Richard Whiteley] Tue 16: Introductory lecture and seminar. Try to discover who amongst my new coursemates is worth making friends with. [should have stayed for lunch rather than going down the chippy] Wed 17: Use one of my photos to get myself a student railcard [aww, cute], then dash back to college for a video narrated by Annie Nightingale. Thu 18: A first visit to the work experience location. Mr Kipling gives us a tour of the building. Fri 19: A quiet evening in implodes somewhat when my clingy neighbour pours out her troubles and tells me she has weight issues, nervous issues, panic attack issues, agoraphobia and claustrophobia, also fear of travelling, also she hasn't told her parents any of this but she has told me. I fear this is going to be tough. Sat 20: Up early to whizz across country to a friend's 21st birthday party in Cheshire (via Doncaster and Liverpool). Help cut the cucumbers. Her boyfriend sends a bouquet from Crewe hospital where he's recuperating. It never gets wild because three generations are present. Sun 21: Sleep on the sofa, then return the cutlery to the sailing club and start my 5-hour journey back. Thank goodness for the emergency pack of Garibaldis.
Mon 22: First day of work experience. They've nicknamed me Lofty after Michelle's fiancé on Eastenders. Tue 23: Second day of work experience. They didn't tell me to wear trainers so I have to stay in the viewing area. Wed 24: Third day of work experience. Remembered my trainers this time so I get to participate. Thu 25: Fourth day of work experience. Rachel says she's thinking of quitting already. Fri 26: My paranoid neighbour knocks on my door and asks if I'd look after her tub of 40 Valium for her. [I should never have agreed - see October 10th]. Sat 27: Go exploring down Whitefriargate and The Land of Green Ginger. My neighbour has started banging on our adjoining wall. I've started pretending I'm out. Sun 28: I'm discovering what it's like to be the chosen confidante of someone who's chronically depressed. Please stop fiddling with my frog. Mon 29: The Hull Daily Mail celebrates its 101st birthday by going tabloid. [On TV: On Brookside, Heather walks in on Nick overdosing on heroin] Tue 30: Potentially suicidal are you? This was not how I was expecting my first month in Hull to turn out... (it gets a lot better on October 16th)
It's September again but never fear, London's putting on a last flurry of events, activities and happenings before the nights draw in and we're all invited. Here's my weekend-by-weekend guide to free September delights.
All month
» Totally Thames (Sep 1-30): Once again a whole month of river-focused events, many ticketed, ranging from art to walks to virtual talks to a folksong singalong. Thankfully the website's events section is easier to scroll through these days, but it's still hard to spot the highlights.
» Lambeth Heritage Festival (Sep 1-30): Dozens of free talks, guided walks and openings across the borough (plus a proper 36-page brochure to flick through, bliss). Hats off to whoever organises this every year. If you live locally you should definitely take a look.
Weekend 1: September 5/6
» Greenwich+Docklands International Festival (21 Aug - 6 Sep): This significant splurge of spectacular performances delivers artistic wonders annually. The GDIF brochure now mostly tells you what you've missed. On this final weekend there's a heck of a lot of dancing in Stratford on Saturday and a street dance finale in Woolwich on Sunday.
» Lambeth Local History Fair (Sat, from 10): A coming-together of local societies, heritage organisations, friends groups and local history publishers at Brixton Library. Includes short films and guided walks.
» Creative Mile (Sat, 11-5): Art in venues across Brentford, a full mile from the canal basin to the Steam Museum.
» Black on the Square (Sat, from noon): The Mayor's latest culturally-themed Trafalgar Square takeover, now in its fourth year. Performers include Triniboi Joocie and Tomorrow's Warriors.
» Brassworks (Sat, from noon): A Festival of Horns at Woolwich Works, also noisy parading up and down outside.
» Croxfest (Sat, from noon): OK this one's not quite in London, but where else are you going to hear The Silent Rogues, Lickin Stick, Many Bats and Our Friends Electric other than on the Green in Croxley?
» Denmark Street Sessions (Sat, 1-11): A heck of a lot of live performances down former Tin Pan Alley.
» Angel Canal Festival (Sun, 11-4): Waterside gaiety beside City Road Lock, this year celebrating its 40th anniversary. The Mayor of Islington usually arrives by narrowboat. I went in 2023.
» Brompton Cemetery Open Day (Sun, 11-5): Includes opportunities to meet bees, birds of prey and Chelsea Pensioners.
» Palmers Green Festival (Sun, 12-5): All the fun of music on the green, donkey rides and dozens of community stalls in Broomfield Park N13.
Weekend 2: September 12/13
» Open House London (this weekend and next): The grand-daddy of architectural festivals, with hundreds of weird and wonderful buildings throwing open their doors across the capital for two weekends. The online calendar currently includes 819 properties, over 500 of which are "just turn up". It's quite central-London-centric again this year (3 in Havering but 98 in Westminster), although I always think the outer boroughs have some of the genuine treasures. It's possible to search by date, borough, event type and map location and also to filter out events that are fully booked. As ever there's far too much to choose from, but if you need inspiration here are my reports from 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Be there or regret it for the subsequent 51 weeks.
» Heritage Open Days (Fri - next Sun): In an awkward overlap, the nationwide opening-up of historic buildings coincides with Open House again this year. 121 are in the capital, including sculpturetastic Dorich House, 600 year-old Harmondsworth Great Barn and the British Vintage Wireless and Television Museum (many appear in the Open House listings too).
» London Design Festival (continues next weekend): Hundreds of design-er events, many aimed at "the trade" but others more public-focused. I see TfL have an installation at The Pickle Factory all week, for example.
» St Katharine Docks Classic Boat Festival (Sat, Sun): Annual gathering of small boats near Tower Bridge, including Dunkirk Little Ships, dockside entertainment, opportunities to go on board and yachting celebrity Tom Cunliffe.
» Hampton Court Open Gardens (Sat, Sun): One of half a dozen opportunities annually to explore the palace's historic grounds for free.
» Markfield Road Festival (Sat, Sun): Art, DJs and a carnival procession, spilling out into the streets up N15 way.
» Scadbury Open Weekend (Sat, Sun, 2-5): Archaeological excavations at the moated medieval manor house near the Sidcup bypass. I went in 2022 and enjoyed.
» The Great River Race (Sat from 10.15am): 300 craft engage in a spectacular paddle up the Thames from Docklands to Richmond.
» Emerge East (Sat, 11-9): Placemaking exercise at Barking Riverside, including DJ AG, sauna sessions, nature workshops and a Luke Jerram inflatable.
» Thames Tidefest (Sun, 6-6): River-based activities scattered between Brentford and Chiswick, with a particular marquee-focus at Strand-on-the-Green, W4. (yes there is far far too much going on this weekend, they should spread it out better)
Weekend 3: September 19/20
» Open House London: Weekend two
» Heritage Open Days Weekend two
» Bermondsey Street Festival (Sat, 11-7): A designery "village fête", plus the obligatory dog show, plus curated live music, plus food and stalls. Now in its 20th year.
» Chiswick House Dog Show (Sun, 11-4.15): With a theme of 'Faithful Hound', celebrity judges give the dogs of W4 the runaround.
» Pearly Kings and Queens Harvest Festival (Sun, 1.30): Cockney royalty offers live entertainment in Guildhall Yard.
Weekend 4: September 26/27
» Woolmen’s Sheep Drive and Wool Fair (Sun, 10-4): The celeb leading this year's first tranche over Southwark Bridge will be revealed shortly, but they'll do well to beat Mary Berry or Michael Portillo. Come too for wool-related trade stalls and lamb burgers.
» Brixton Windmill Harvest Festival (Sun, 1-5): Milling, Morris dancing and making hedgehog buns, as autumn draws in.
» Something Else Probably (maybe): I'm still looking, but there must be something.
n.b. This year the Chelsea Physic Garden Open Weekend is at the start of October...
n.b. ...and the annual Thames Barrier all-day closure is on Sunday 11th October.
n.b. Peckham Festival and the Mayor's Liberty Festival are having a year off.
It's time to rest Slim Summer Saturday after eight slender weeks. Technically there are still three summer Saturdays to go but that's enough for now. I only introduced the feature to help get me through a particularly busy season of long-distance travel and I'm pleased to say it achieved its purpose.
Slim Summer Saturday posts started out particularly slim (a photo of a tree in Harringay) but ultimately ended up a few paragraphs long so became less of a throwaway. Statistics show that the most viewed SSS post was the first one, the aforementioned tree, confirming there is no correlation between 'effort expended' and 'exposure earned'. Every SSS post gained more than 10 comments, which is more than yesterday's Full Fat Friday post managed. The most-commented SSS post was a cut-and-pasted list of things someone else remembered, which just goes to prove that nostalgia is always a successful fallback. The other seriously successful post feedbackwise was a photo of a peculiar tube map I saw in a bar in Spain, because inviting transport-related engagement usually delivers.
I have learned that less is sometimes more. And normal Saturday service is now restored.
London's next dead bus 349: Ponders End to Stamford Hill Location: north London, outer Length of journey: 6 miles, 50 minutes Dies: tonight
Normally when I do one of these write-ups I go for a last ride and then weave all the themes into a seamless travelogue. This time I've split it into separate bits so you can pick and choose.
Past, Present and Future
The 349 was introduced in 2004 to strengthen bus capacity down the old A10, aka the High Road, as Ken Livingstone expanded the network. It's now being removed because that capacity isn't needed and times are tight, along with other cuts and tweaks as TfL take a small axe to services in the upper Lea Valley. If you're heading south currently the 279 starts at Waltham Cross, the 349 joins in at Ponders End, the 149 and 259 are added at Edmonton Green, then the 476, 243 and 76 feed in through Tottenham. The plan is for the 259 to nudge back to Ponders End to fill in the gap left by the 349 and also for the 279 to switch to Stamford Hill at the southern end, all starting tomorrow. In separate plans the 149 will be whisked away later. No journeys become impossible as a result of any of this, you might just have to wait longer for a fuller bus.
Bus Geekery
The 349 is currently one of the contenders for London's straightest bus route. It has a right turn just after the first stop and a left turn just before the last stop, but everything else is straight up (or down) the High Road. That's 94% of the route on the same road (even if that road's not perfectly straight). Other contenders for the title include the 32 (93% along Watling Street with a short bend at either end) and the 116 (91%, wrecked only by the pedestrianisation of Hounslow High Street). From this weekend the 279 will also be 93%, the Waltham Cross bypass accounting for most of the unstraight 7%.
The Withdrawal Poster
It's better than some and less good than others. The map is very complicated because it includes every single bus stop on two routes. It's trying to show that one route is being withdrawn while two other routes are both curtailed and diverted, all on the same map. However the text is about withdrawing just one route and how to cope afterwards. It offers this advice correctly but sub-optimally. Effectively it says "when the 349 disappears use the 279, unless your journey includes Enfield Bus Garage in which case use the 259". What it omits to say is "for any journey inbetween Ponders End and Seven Sisters you can catch either the 259 OR the 279". This is most journeys, but this broad advice has been skipped to focus on edge cases. Basically you can't win when writing bus change posters, they're either too complicated or too simplistic, and this is simultaneously both.
80 things I saw on my southbound journey
» Enfield Bus Garage. A man waiting by the bus stop asking if I have £1 to spare (I do not). Hassidic teenage day out. Long wait to turn right. The QUBE. Sign welcoming us to Ponders End Shopping Centre. The White Hart (former pub, its name falling off). The Kürecikliler Centre. Desserts End. Cycle lanes and copious traffic calming.
» Ponders End Park. Balkan Brew. Shaggy-haired postman scanning a code inside an opened pillar box. Caravan in front garden. Van delivering charcoal to a kebab shop (if you think about it, it must happen). Memzy Barbers. NIW Furniture. Man on mobility scooter following the cycle lane by cutting through a bus stop. ICC House Of Prayer. Jet garage [petrol 155.9p, diesel 178.9p].
» Bounces Road. Nursery based in former pub. Wonky spire atop Edmonton Baptist Church. Woman weaving through traffic wearing pink crocs. Temporary traffic lights with five minute queue. Digger full of soil. Bus station (edge of). Edmonton Green Shopping Centre. Speedy Spud. Overground station.
» Hut called Cafe Nadia. Man yelling outside police station. Hugs & Mags. Tiny front garden at number 341 brimming with tall colourful flowers (hollyhocks included). Edmonton Glory House Revival Centre. Kingdom Life Chapel. Old school launderette. Hot Nuts. Edmonton Labour Party HQ (with postwar signage). North Circular Road at Angel Corner.
» Superloop bus. Big Ben Fisheries. Brazilian flag outside The White Horse. The Gilpin's Bell freehouse. Arch across road marking change of borough. Wire horse outside Florence Hayes Recreation Ground. 'This Is Tottenham' banners. London Beard Co. White Hart Lane. 3 Points Cafe (which is more than Tottenham have got at the moment).
» Shopping parade dated 1829. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Pubs and cafes that Spurs supporters go to. Sign pointing to Skywalk. King Ledley mural. Car with N17 numberplate (naturally). Whitbread-topped clock. Winglab. Job Centre Plus. Trampery Tottenham ("a focal point for entrepreneurship").
» Jenny Greetings. A very closed Poundland. Pub called The Elbow Room. Ghost sign for former undertakers. High Cross micropub. College with lots of cars out front because term's just restarted. Very long Tesco. Seven Sisters Market reborn. Flashing sign saying OVERHEIGHT VEHICLE TURN BACK. German container aboard freight train.
» Advert for tuition to get into grammar school. Brazbq (rarely has a six-letter name conveyed a restaurant brand so well). Texaco garage [petrol 161.9p, diesel 186.9p]. Hosiery World. Row of cement mixers for sale outside shop. Megaphone City. Very ropey-looking lone fruit stall. Gitty Pinter Campus. Stamford Hill Bus Garage. Georgian Orthodox church.
The family who sat alongside
Mum and Dad and two boys. Dad with the loud and chatty eight year-old in the front seat. Mum and quieter six year-old behind (inwardly cursing the old man hogging the other front seat). Riding from Edmonton (where they live now) to Tottenham (where they used to live) to visit the school shop to buy uniform before term starts. "I liked our old house more" says eldest son. "But you have your own room now," says Dad. "I'm the psycho one!" says eldest son. "I can't believe the patty shop has closed," says Dad. "If we lived in those flats I would drop apples off the balcony," says eldest son. Good luck to the teacher who has him in their class this week.
Implementation of the changes
As usual the TfL Tile Switching Team have been out early, switching tiles before the date of the actual change. This is great for future journeys and arguably a useful nudge pointing out imminent changes. However it never helps if you're unfamiliar with the area and turn up during the interregnum. In particular there are pairs of southbound stops in Tottenham where one stop is for buses heading towards Stamford Hill and the other for buses towards Manor House. This week the 279 stops at one of them but from tomorrow it'll stop at the other, so swapping the tiles early means you might wait in the wrong place. It's only a small lie but it needn't have happened so prematurely.
Summary
The 349 dies tonight. TfL can take a dozen vehicles off the road as a result.
The view from Roxeth is very fine. The playing fields of Harrow School, the spire of St Mary's Church and various villas on the slopes below.
However Roxeth isn't the cultured enclave at the top of Harrow Hill it's a suburb at the bottom, originally a villageto the southwest, hence arguably Harrow-Under-The Hill. It's another example of somewhere that does have a station, indeed it has two, but ever since the bigger one was called South Harrow in 1903 the original name's been ebbing away. It lingers in streetnames, also the local library, park and two schools, whereas the local authority ward of the same name is a modern invention and doesn't quite match the original Roxeth at all. Let's start on the opposite side of the road to my first photo where we find Roxeth's oldest building, a 17th century weatherboarded farmhouse called Roxeth Farm.
Alas the owners have sought to shield their property behind a very high hedge so all you can see is a hipped roof from the side and a sash-windowed slot at the front, but it does look to be delightfully wonky. I had wondered if the barn out back was another rural survivor but no, it's one of three pavilions for Harrow School's extensive cricket fields, the Philathletic Ground. According to the whiteboard on West Street the last matches played here were against Merchant Taylors' on 20th June, over ten weeks ago, because one thing that termly fees of £21,990 deliver is a very long summer break.
The centre of the village was a four-way junction on the Northolt Road, now a five-way maelstrom called Roxeth Corner. The only building a Victorian would remember is The Half Moon pub, a half-timbered beauty originally named after the shape of the village pond. Its place in history relates to Britain's first fatal car accident in 1899 which, as a plaqueelsewhere attests, took place below Harrow School during a descent of Grove Hill. The Half Moon was merely the site of the subsequent public enquiry, hearing how a rear wheel collapsed and two passengers were hurled from their seats, one dying instantly and the other from his injuries three days later. Perhaps unsurprisingly the pub is now an Indian Grill and Shisha Lounge called the Salt Bar, but if you still want a more traditional local try The White Horse a short walk up Middle Hill.
The road rising eastwards here is Roxeth Hill, this the route the 258 bus takes to climb from South Harrow to the upper heights of Harrow School. Full marks to the TfL employee who designated the bus stop halfway up with the letters RH. Roxeth Hill is lined by some of the finer buildings erected as the suburb expanded, from small-scale workers' cottages to Arts and Crafts semis, also rustic Christ Church built to cater to a growing population and set back from the main road. Roxeth Primary still educates pupils in an angular hall built for that very purpose in 1851, indeed it's Harrow's oldest surviving state school. I suspect the triple-bend footbridge shoehorned outside is pupil-related, self-evidently over-engineered when a lollipop lady would do, but the upper span does offer excellent views across the rooftops of Roxeth and the plains of Ruislip.
By contrast the main road south from Roxeth Corner is architecturally grim. Here former pubs and cottages have been replaced by dubious postwar and postmillennial flats, while the former petrol station has become a drab stacked hotel. The largest presence is Harrow Police Station (alas not Roxeth Police Station), an outdated flag-flying office block whose front desk remains at risk of closure. Arguably the big Waitrose is a big improvement on what was on the site before, namely a mighty tall gasholder with the letters 'NO' painted on the side, this because it was a key navigational landmark on the approach to Northolt airfield. The sole attractive building on this stretch is the clubhouse of the Royal British Legion's Harrow branch which was built in 1927 in Dutch style, its bar and function room even busier visually than the twiddly exterior.
Which brings us to the tube station, namely South Harrow, which was opened in 1903 by the District Railway and transferred to the Piccadilly line in 1932. Charles Holden designed the new station building which outside looks to be less of a stunner than usual, but inside has a whoppingly broad ticket hall and a pair of delightful recessed benches halfway up the stairs in case an ascent of 40 steps proves too much. To the north of the station the railway crosses Roxeth Marsh on a low viaduct, hard though it is today to imagine the adjacent avenues as mushy fields. But just down to the left is the source of the River Roxbourne, a minor brook so named because it rises outside Roxeth, and I've previously blogged that in depth so won't dive in again.
More relevant is what's been crammed under the arches immediately opposite the station. This is South Harrow Market, one of London's quirkier retail hideaways, essentially two long alleyways serving a warren of tiny bazaars. Most serve up food, so you may need to push past a delivery driver or two, while others will print you a banner, buy your gold or stab needles in your feet. The curse of AI graphics has struck several of the menus, hence I found the Nepalese and Gujarati pictures less convincing than the proper photos at Syria Food. Again it's a shame it's not called Roxeth Market, given it's right on the edge of the original village, but the nominative pull of the adjacent tube station has proved too strong.
Continue down the Northolt Road and barely any businesses mention the old place, with only Roxeth Library flying the flag. Even the Chiltern Railways station at the foot of the hill was only called 'South Harrow and Roxeth' for the first three years after opening, after which it was renamed Northolt Park thanks to the creation of a neighbouring housing estate, thus Roxeth's chances of long-term renown were scuppered. For a proper commemoration best see the information boards at the entrance to Roxeth Recreation Ground, these a step up from Harrow's normal design. The text confirms that the name "Hroecs Seath" was first mentioned in monastic documents in 845AD, even if nobody's 100% sure what Hroecs Seath meant, also that several trees in the park are leftovers from ancient field boundaries. You have alas missed this year's Roxeth Show, the revival of a 1970s tradition, because that was in July.
Across the railway line from the rec is South Hill Drive, a lengthy avenue whose streetsign has the unusual combination of a 'No Through Road' symbol and underneath "Except by Toll Road". Follow along and all looks normal at first until suddenly the road forks at two white gates, both closed to vehicles unless you have the correct gizmo to open them. The low road enters land owned by the South Hill Estate while the high road enters the Mount Park Estate, another private residential enclave. Both declare that there is NO THOROUGHFARE FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC but fail to clarify whether pedestrians are included so I strode through a side gate, greeted a resident walking down the hill with a Waitrose bag and chanced my arm.
It feels more Surrey than Middlesex, a sylvan climb where villas and minor mansions still feel the need to hide behind high fences and hedges despite supposedly being private anyway. Some have odd names like The Hut (which definitely isn't) or The Site, while others go for supreme Metro-land bland and call themselves Northmount, Southview, Hillcrest or The Oaks. A dozen have been here since the 19th century, a few are totally-out of character modern flats, and I have no idea how residents successfully held suburbia at bay but it's an extraordinary and privileged residential backwater nonetheless. I exited unscathed through a gate near the top of Sudbury Hill, still historically in ye olde Roxeth, another patch of secret London unlocked.
