V&A East opened on the East Bank in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on Saturday. It's the latest outpost of the V&A empire after South Kensington, Bethnal Green, Dundee and the big Storehouse on the other side of the Park. It's also very good, also architecturally startling, also mostly empty. I visited midweek when it's quieter and took over 160 photos, which I've since managed to whittle down to 40, of which here you're seeing eight. To see the whole lot head to Flickr where you can experience the whole building as a walkthrough, also there's only so much I can say in words and you really need to see the place, ideally in real life. [40 photos]
Location: 107 Carpenters Rd, E20 2AR [map] Open: 10am - 6pm (until 10pm on Thursdays and Saturdays) Admission: free Three word summary: eclectic creative stack Website:vam.ac.uk/east Time to set aside: at least an hour
If you enter from the waterfront, past the enormous black bronze statue, you arrive on a floor that's mostly occupied by operational backrooms so there's not much to see. The remaining public space is occupied by Cafe Jikoni, its menu inspired by rich flavours from immigrant cuisine. It seems a well-chosen cornerstone for the museum, not the fanciest but not cheap either, and spills out onto an external terrace. If not seeking refreshment expect a V&A greeter to point you towards the lifts or stairs... and blimey these staircases are quite something.
They weave in a distinctly angular manner all up the front and side of the building, the handrails sometimes protruding at an odd angle to negotiate an architectural contortion. Occasionally you might spot an artwork stuffed in an alcove, and at one point you find yourself behind the giant V&A on the outside of the building looking down on people entering. The stairs remind me of the Blavatnik building at Tate Modern, not quite as broad but creating a similarly irregular ascent. As such they're exceptionallyphotogenic, especially those connecting the lower floors, so watch out for lingering folk with cameras frustratedly hoping that everyone else gets out of the way.
Upper Ground
This is the hub of the museum and has its own entrance connecting directly to the rest of the East Bank. It also houses one of the two free galleries, a large space entitled 'Why We Make', the name emblazoned in white neon above two swing doors. What greets you beyond is an extremely eclectic collection of objects from puffy pink dresses to magazine covers and postwar tapestries to William Morris football shirts. Spangly tights make a central showing, also conical purple headgear, 17th century German marquetry and portrait-oriented videos. It wouldn't be the V&A without a row of peculiar chairs, and yes there they are on top of a set of extraordinary furniture designed by a bloke from Hackney called Ron.
I think there are underlying themes like 'Our Place in the World' and 'Breaking Boundaries' but unless you bother to read the text on the wall you'd never know. All eras are included but with a definite nod towards more recent creations. They're also more diverse than a stuffy west London museum might display, so as well as making you think "ooh that's nice" they should also make you think. Arguably it's a tad sparse because they could have fitted a lot more in but on a busy weekend afternoon you'll be glad of the extra circulation space. Rather more squashed is the inevitable shop, its contents exceptionally tasteful all round and with some items under a pound to balance out the inevitable coffee table fodder.
First Floor
Up again to Why We Make room two. This is more of the same, again with an emphasis on the power of creativity to evoke transformation, packed out with the utterly different. One corner's all about protest so has Solidarność posters, another focuses on the power of recycling including a replacement handle for broken teacups invented 100 years ago in Balsall Heath. I think the theme in the far corner is "even poor people can have nice stuff" although this wasn't the terminology used. Reassuringly everything has explanatory text, while some objects come with tetchy touchscreens or liftable loudspeakers you're supposed to listen to, even if I never do. I also didn't last more than a few minutes in the mini-cinema out back, but if you perch and watch the entire programme this could extend your visit considerably.
Keep going past the toilets and there's what looks like an emergency exit but is in fact the access to a first floor terrace. If you don't spot it you're not really missing much, it's a peculiar hemmed-in space where the best view is to the rear towards Stratford's newest wall of office blocks. It also offers minor trainspotting opportunities as the DLR and Overground swoosh by in an artificial cutting, but it's really not worth coming for that. And back to the stairs...
Second Floor
This is where the paid-for exhibitions go. For the opening months that's The Music Is Black, a celebration of British influence on music and culture - a pitch perfect start. It skips from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor to Stormzy via Winifred Atwell and Joan Armatrading and promises iconic objects, evocative sound experiences and multimedia installations. It's also £22.50 to get in, rising to £24.50 at weekends, unless you're fortunate enough to be under 26 in which case the fee is a much more reasonable £11. I think what put me off more than the price was the realisation that the exhibition space must be the same size as the two galleries underneath, thus not exactly enormous nor necessarily time consuming. I must however applaud whoever stocked the shop alongside, the museum's second purchasing opportunity, because the exhibition-themed goodies were spot on.
Third Floor
One final stepped ascent leads to the finest freebie of all, the top floor terrace. This large irregular space faces the heart of the Olympic Park, bang opposite the stadium, offering a stunning 180° view across the treetops. Look down the ribbon of the City Mill River and you can see all the way to Shooters Hill. Rotate to tick off the Orbit, Abba Arena and Docklands, then the aforementioned West Ham ground, then the skyscrapers of the City. Keep turning to see the hutches they're building in Hackney Wick, the Copper Box and the mast at Ally Pally... and make the most of the last two because when they eventually start building flats in the gap beside V&A East all that will disappear. It's just a treat to come up here to be honest, although if you bring toddlers be aware they won't see a thing above the wall so will need to make their own entertainment.
Hurrah there's one final bonus gallery and its inaugural exhibition made me cheer. This is Dispersal by Marion Davies and Debra Rapp who spent 2005-2007 documenting the businesses and landscapes about to be wiped away to create the Olympic Park. Their photographs show girders being coated at Parkes Galvanising, salmon being deboned at H Forman & Son and some fairly unpleasant things happening to meat, all at locations I remember viscerally up and down this slice of the Lower Lea Valley. What's galling though is how few photographs are on display in an absolutely enormous space, a couple of wallsworth of small annotated frames, almost like a presentational afterthought. I suspect the main use for this top floor hideaway will be as an events venue after hours, the hospitality pièce de résistance being the opportunity to clink glasses on the terrace outside, hence daytimes are a bit blank.
and back down again
V&A East is simultaneously a triumph and a wasted opportunity. It brings a world class museum to the East Bank, indeed a second if you count their Storehouse that opened last year - finally a building worth travelling to see inside. Its cultural offer is suitably targeted for the location and well pitched for the younger audience it hopes to attract. It's fun to explore, predominantly free to access and a memorable lump of architecture to boot. But I was struck by how much of the interior was empty space, not just the stairwell cavities and capacious landings but also across the walls and within the galleries themselves. It doesn't pay to be too cluttered but they could have scattered plenty more culture throughout V&A East, be that more exhibits, extra artworks or just additional stuff. It's a heck of a lot but it could be a lot more.
There are five times as many photos over at Flickr.
Hopefully the next best thing to taking a look for yourself.
• My main source is the book London's Disasters by John Withington (from Tower Hamlets libraries)
• Links also to Wikipedia and other relevant websites
• Death tolls are for London only (UK figures here)
• Large numbers of deaths are approximate
• Only death tolls of 20 or more are included (with a few exceptions)
• Omissions likely, errors assured (do not base your essay or dissertation on my data)
👨🧔👩👴 Where are this blog's most devoted readers?
When a reader drops by, my stats package briefly records how many times they've visited the blog and roughly where they're from. I could thus attempt to use this ongoing data to discover who's visited diamond geezer the most. I've visited 2914 times, apparently, starting from some unknown date because this is all very opaque. 2914 visits would be the equivalent of once a day for eight years, or alternatively 8 times a day for year, either of which is a heck of a lot of visits. So who can beat that?
My stickiest reader has visited over 5000 times, which is ridiculous. They're from somewhere in the UK, probably in Wembley. A regular checker of the comments I believe.
Also beating my total are readers from Croydon (4800+), Luton (4500+), Aldershot (4000+), Sydenham (3600+), Welwyn Garden City (3500+), South Croydon (3300+) and London (3100+). Hello you.
Below that in the 2000s we have Kettering, Wolverhampton, Barnet, Massachusetts, Wembley, Woolwich, Dunstable, Bromley, Reading, Tower Hamlets, Redhill, Twickenham, Bury St Edmunds, Brentford, Harrow, Mauritius, Oxford, Hornchurch and Thamesmead. Hello you too.
And in the high 1000s Lambeth, Birmingham, Hovedstaden, Rotherham, Crowborough, Slough, Tadley, Harrow, Bristol, Feltham, Orpington, Gourock, Rayleigh, Hendon, Barking, Milton Keynes, Amersham, Berlin, Pontefract and Rotterdam.
I have no idea who you are, nor should you assume that if your place of residence appears then that reader is you.
Also not everyone leaves a consistent cookie trail so you might not be here at all.
But thanks everyone for coming back so incredibly frequently, whoever and wherever you are.
When trains are running, you hear this on the tube a lot.
This train is being held at a red signal and should be moving shortly.
If you think you've heard it more often recently, that's because it's being played more often.
This train is being held at a red signal and should be moving shortly.
But only on certain trains.
This train is being held at a red signal and should be moving shortly.
And here's why.
There are, unsurprisingly, rules about how often tube drivers must play delay messages. Some drivers might otherwise make them too often and some might never make them, and that would never do.
One reason for making delay announcements is to provide information about the ongoing journey but the chief reason is customer reassurance. Some passengers get nervous when a train stops in a tunnel, especially those who travel infrequently and aren't used to the fact this often happens. They won't be thinking "ah yes, there's probably another train ahead", they might instead be conjuring up all kinds of worst case scenarios, so it makes sense to put them at their ease.
Up until the start of this month, the rule was this.
The driver must have made a verbal announcement...
...if a delay between stations reaches 30 seconds.
...if a delay at the platform reaches 90 seconds.
Train operators know this as the 30:90 rule.
It's shorter between stations because that's where any delay stands out as unusual. And it's longer at platforms because dwell times can sometimes be longer than 30 seconds, also anyone nervous or inconvenienced can obviously get off.
Note that the announcement had to be verbal, so any driver merely pressing the button for an automated announcement had technically misperformed.
However hearing-impaired passengers would have been disadvantaged by a verbal announcement, potentially missing it completely, and that's not treating people equally. The introduction of in-carriage displays thus presents a way to mitigate this, additionally presenting a scrolling message, hence the change in the rules.
As of the start of this month, the new rule is more complicated.
If a delay between stations reaches 30 seconds, the driver must have made an automated announcement.
If a delay between stations reaches 90 seconds, the driver must also have made a verbal announcement.
If a delay at the platform reaches 90 seconds, the driver must have made an automated announcement followed by verbal announcement.
That's two announcements every time a delay reaches 90 seconds, and that's why you might be hearing these announcements more often.
An automated announcement followed a verbal announcement ticks all boxes equalities-wise, specifically for those who either cannot see or cannot hear. Technically an automated announcement would be sufficient but TfL know that passengers find the driver's voice more reassuring hence this is included too.
It can all get a bit silly when the driver presses the button just as the red signal changes, hence you hear 'This train is being held at a red signal and should be moving shortly' just as the train moves off. It can also get a bit annoying if you're the kind of person niggled by excessive messaging, in which case best remember you are not the target audience and perhaps calm down a bit.
Also the new rule only applies on trains where the rolling stock includes a visual display. Bakerloo line trains are too old, for example, also those on the Piccadilly, Northern and Jubilee. In these cases a verbal message is still deemed more reassuring, also there's no point in playing an automated message because nothing scrolls past when you do. Trains on these four lines thus continue to follow the old rule while trains on the other seven lines follow the new.
In summary...
Between stations
At platforms
Central Circle District H & City Metropolitan Victoria W & City (new rule)
30 seconds
an automated announcement
90 seconds
a verbal announcement
90 seconds
an automated announcement followed by a verbal announcement
Bakerloo Jubilee Northern Piccadilly (old rule)
30 seconds
a verbal announcement
90 seconds
a verbal announcement
Arguably this is all a bit late because many tube lines have had visual display screens for years. In particular the government introduced a set of Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations in 2010 to set legal standards for disabled passengers and TfL have been relying on a legal opt-out ever since. But better late than never, hence the change on 1st April, hence the increased number of announcements where these can be made.
Intriguingly TfL employ market research company Ipsos to check that drivers are making the correct announcements. They act as 'mystery shoppers', awarding green letters (and special badges) to drivers who meet the standard and red letters to those who don't. Imagine getting paid to ride the tube, listening out for messages and keeping your fingers crossed that at some point the train gets delayed.
It's also worth saying that many lines don't actually have red signals any more, they've been done away with thanks to upgrades to electronic signalling. But TfL still like to tell us that trains are being held at red signals even though they're not because it helps to keep the announcements simple. When you might now be hearing them twice, that's increasingly important.
This train is being held at a red signal and should be moving shortly.
If you're hearing impaired hopefully these changes will benefit you. If you're visually impaired this now gives you two chances to listen. If you're hearing impaired and visually impaired sorry, you remain outside the loop. And if unnecessary announcements annoy you just keep your headphones in, keep your eyes on your phone and you won't notice anything has changed.
Queen Elizabeth II was born 100 years ago today, not in a palace but above a Chinese restaurant in Mayfair. Obviously it wasn't a Chinese restaurant at the time. The following year the family moved to a new home in a luxury international hotel on Piccadilly. Obviously it wasn't a luxury international hotel at the time. And when it suddenly became clear that her father was about to be king, the whole family moved into a tourist attraction at the foot of The Mall. At least that's still there, even if our centenarian monarch has sadly passed away.
The Queen was born at 17 Bruton Street W1, a Georgian townhouse with pillared stucco frontage. The house in Mayfair belonged to the Earl and Countess of Strathmore, better known as the Queen Mother's parents, who'd moved here from St James's Square five years earlier. The family was suddenly thrust into the limelight when their youngest daughter accepted the hand in marriage of the King's son, the marriage of Prince Albert and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon taking place at Westminster Abbey in 1923. Financially the couple were perfectly capable of buying their own home, but it was being redecorated as the pregnancy drew to a close hence the temporary Bruton Street stay. Our former Queen was delivered by Caesarean section at 2.40am on Wednesday 21st April 1926, with the Home Secretary present in the house as tradition demanded to ensure that no baby-swapping took place.
The house in Bruton Street alas no longer stands and it all started with the Canadians. In 1930 the Canadian Pacific Railway Company purchased fifteen houses on the south side of the street with the intention of replacing them by a hotel, then changed their minds and used number 17 as their London office instead. In 1937 the new owner demolished the entire flank with plans for a 44m-tall office block which would have been outstanding at the time. A Daily Telegraph journalist bore witness to the destruction, observing the collapse of the rear wall and watching "the Palladian columns falling before the pickaxes". The eventual reconstruction had just seven storeys and was one of London's first major reinforced concrete buildings. It's since been drably reclad but still goes by the name Berkeley Square House, and remains in stark contrast to the characterfully Georgian style across the street.
Thus any tourist visiting number 17 for its regal connections faces a sharp disappointment. Whichever room it was wherein the Queen breathed her first has long been replaced by a box in the sky, and all that indicates the site's historical significance is a pair of plaques, one from Silver Jubilee year and another from the Diamond. The original plaque is more ornate, chiselled into what looks like gilded slate, while the latter is a more mundane green roundel forelock-tuggingly placed by the local council. By contrast immediately beneath are a dry riser and a row of heaters, this the designated outdoor smoking area for the Chinese restaurant that now claims number seventeen.
It's quite a restaurant, specifically Hakkasan, a formerly-Michelin-starred Cantonese restaurant. It opened here in 2010 and the interior designer clearly had the word 'black' on his mind during its creation. It's also seriously expensive with duck and caviar heavily featured, the fish courses priced at £50 apiece and the addition of a bowl of beansprout noodles adding £20 to the bill. But then this is Mayfair, as you can tell by the car showrooms on the corner, the flogging of Bentleys and Bugattis now replacing the Queen's first neighbours. The office block recognises its place in history by hanging a prominent portrait of Her Majesty in the foyer, specifically the startling lenticular print Lightness of Being by Chris Levine. But don't expect a centenary party here this evening, nor a commemorative Elizabeth stir-fry, but if your pocket's deep enough you can always book a table and raise a glass to the famous baby born upstairs.
Not long after the birth the Duke and Duchess of York headed off on a royal tour Down Under, a massive undertaking which took them away from home for six months. By the time they returned, relieving the nanny, their house purchase had gone through and they had somewhere new to live. This was 145 Piccadilly, a spacioustownhouse located amid a terrace of similar white-fronted properties at the foot of the street near the junction with Park Lane. It wasn't quite a palace but it was certainly luxurious with 25 bedrooms, a ballroom, plenty of hanging space for tapestries and a balcony out front for occasional public appearances. Princess Elizabeth was allocated the entire fourth floor, and the back garden was communal so she occasionally got to mix with the neighbours on the extensive lawns. At the age of four she was joined by a sister, Margaret, and of course a lot of their time was spent elsewhere as the family darted from Scottish castle to royal retreat to meet a lifestyle of obligation. But for ten years 'home' for the young princess was a civilian property overlooking Hyde Park Corner, until the abdication crisis forced the family to move on.
They didn't want to leave but protocol insisted, also it was just as well that they did. In an air raid on 7th October 1940 the house was substantially destroyed, the back garden of the ruin being taken over as an allotment run by the Girls' Training Corps. It was the only house in the terrace to be lost. This did however make things easier for Westminster's road planners when it came to upgrading Park Lane to a dual carriageway in 1959. The obvious place to knock a gap through to Hyde Park Corner was right here, so 145-148 faced the wrecking ball while 144 and Apsley House were left intact. This means that the Queen's childhood home has been summarily replaced by the southbound carriageway of the A4202, specifically all four lanes of traffic just before the lights at Hyde Park Corner plus the pavement alongside. So if you've ever driven to the southern end of Park Lane or caught a bus this way or even walked it, you have in fact passed directly through the Queen's childhood home.
That's not the outcome normally stated, the general consensus being that number 145 was instead replaced by the InterContinental London Hotel. This five star hospitality behemoth opened in 1975 and was designed by Harlow architect Sir Frederick Gibberd, hence has a little more character than your average modern hotel. Alternate windows jut out in boxy ribs above an extended ground floor of thin pillars and glass, while off-white concrete gives the building an airy touch on the skyline. Only an exclusive few are allowed inside the seventh floor Club lounge, whereas everyday guests get to dine in the ground floor restaurant and they're actually getting the more historic deal. It even says so on the poster outside.
The odd thing about the Wellington Lounge is that is juts diagonally into the pavement a couple of times, these alcoves where the staff line up their breakfast juices and where a few lucky punters sit. It's these protrusions that enter the footprint of 145 Piccadilly and pretty much nothing else, almost as if they were deliberately designed so that the hotel could claim its royal heritage. Should you ever take up the InterContinental on its Afternoon Tea offer be sure to try and grab one of the tables closest to the window, otherwise your £85 is historically wasted and you might as well have brought a takeaway and eaten it on the pavement outside.
Of course after December 1936, when Elizabeth's father found himself suddenly elevated to the monarchy, the family swiftly moved into Buckingham Palace instead. It was to be her London home for the next eighty-three years, which is pretty impressive for the occupation of a single property, even if she spent the majority of her time elsewhere. But her three West End homes made Her Majesty very much a Londoner - by birth, in childhood and through a life of service - and it all started with a scream above a Chinese restaurant 100 years ago today.
Bishop's Stortford is the largest town in East Hertfordshire and immensely commutable, be you a City financier or Ryanair cabin crew. It lies three miles west of Stansted Airport, immediately adjacent to the M11 and is blessed with a fast connection to Liverpool Street. The town started out as a riverside settlement by a ford and soon after 1066 was purchased by a bishop, hence the name. As well as its bishop it also has a castle, has been visited by kings and queens and was home to several knights of the realm, so that's all the major chess pieces covered ♗♜♔♛♘. Additionally it has two pawn shops ♟♙ but that's probably pushing the allusion too far. [Discover Bishop's Stortford][history][10 photos]
If planning a day out it's always a good sign when a town has both a museumand a Tourist Information Office. I'm not quite sure how many tourists are genuinely expected to turn up in Bishop's Stortford - maybe air travellers who've got off the train one stop early - but there is indeed a decent amount to see. But do make tracks to the little shop because amongst the jars of honey and I❤️BS mugs are a decent collection of leaflets including the glossy town guide and four freely-grabbable town trails. The latter put most towns of a similar size to shame, indeed if you follow all four you'll have seen pretty much everything with a good idea of its history, suggesting the council very much wants you to linger here. I did just that.
To picture the layout of Bishop's Stortford think of a large circle with the southeastern quarter removed. All the oldest stuff is in the centre with successive hoops of development added since, now all the way out to the ring road that defines the town's perimeter. Straight down the middle go the railway and the river, which of course is the River Stort, although unusually the river is named after the town rather than the other way round. The missing quadrant is all Green Belt and rural, this because it's in Essex rather than Hertfordshire. The M11 runs tangentially to the east and beyond that is the budget friendly hub of Stansted Airport, its runway thankfully angled away from the town. I think I only looked up twice.
The oldest structure in town is Waytemore Castle, imprecisely dated but probably from the 1080s, topped off by a rectangular keep during the reign of Henry I. The mound is 13m high and a classic Norman motte, but these days just a grassy lump with remnants of flint defences around the upper rim. The earthwork is surrounded by low railings to prevent excess access, but a set of fifty-or-so steps ascends one side so up I trooped for a view across the town. It wasn't quite as quiet as usual up top thanks to the Friends of Castle Park undertaking bagfuls of scrub clearance and a group of Stortford lowlife drinking from dubious cans. But I still enjoyed scrambling round what's left of the ramparts, admiring the many spring flowers on the slopes and spotting Waitrose in the near distance.
As usual Christianity got in early and planted a church on high ground, in this case at the top of the High Street. St Michael's has roots in Saxon times but the current building is early 15th century Perpendicular and the widely-visible spire considerably more recent. I've seen more exciting interiors but I liked the board with the list of vicars which starts with "A Priest (name unknown) 1086" and then rattles through a heck of a lot of men called John. Remember the name Francis William Rhodes from 1849 because we'll get to his famous son in four paragraphs time. Stortford's other tall buildings are the silos at the Allinson's bakery, a surprisingly central industrial site, which alas doesn't mill at weekends so I can't tell you how good it smells. It is however a great improvement on the maltings and breweries that the town used to be famous for, but also notorious for.
The most imposing of the town's other buildings is probably the Corn Exchange, typical of market towns of this era (which in this case was 1828). This swooshing classical building evolved into the town's magistrates courts, then fell into disrepair and narrowly avoided demolition in the 1960s. These days it appears to contain two restaurants and a betting shop, with an upper terrace where a trio of residents were enjoying something alcoholic in the sun. Several considerably older buildings are scattered nearby, many of them former pubs including the half-timbered Black Lion which is medieval and the George Inn where Charles I dropped by in 1629. Even the Tourist Information Centre used to be the Reindeer Inn, a lewd dive described by Samuel Pepys who we know to have partaken in the 'entertainment' provided by landlady Betty Aynsworth.
Bishops's Stortford owes a lot of its early growth to being halfway between London and Cambridge. Numerous coaching inns sprang up and were well used, at least until 1670 when the town's smelly reputation caused a fresh bypass to be built on the other side of the river. The new overnight hotspot thus became Hockerill Crossroads, each quadrant occupied by a separate beer/stabling establishment of which only The Cock Inn survives. As for The Red Lion that's now an Indian restaurant, the Crown Inn is a dental surgery and the Coach & Horses is a demolished gap beside an estate agent. Apparently Dick Turpin was a regular visitor to The Cock, which is credible given he grew up across the border in Essex, but if he turned up today I'm not sure Sky Sports and a night of ukulele music would be his thing.
The town's shops are pretty good, as you'd expect given it's a long drive to Harlow or Chelmsford. Anywhere with a population under 40,000 with a Marks & Spencer must be hitting above its weight. The main drag is Potter Street where Boots and Waterstones bump up against B&M Bargains, and which annoyingly doubles up as part of the one-way system because an ancient street pattern leaves no room for easy circulation. The town's covered mall is Jackson Square, a 70s replacement for superfluous council offices which last month extended with anchor tenant TKMaxx so must be doing well. For sit-down dining you want North Street where a lot of the town's older buildings are, while those with disposable income to burn are catered for in the twee zigzag of Florence Walk, almost like they saw you coming.
Famous residents of Bishop's Stortford include actress Lynda Baron, DJ Greg James and singer Sam Smith. But by far the most consequential was the seventh child of the aforementioned vicar at St Michael's, namely CecilRhodes the diamond merchant, politician and apartheid-enabler. The family lived at Netteswell House on South Street, a building since sanctified as a tribute to his greatness in the days of Empire - come see the birthplace of the founder of Rhodesia! It's since been absorbed into a considerably more modern arts centre, a weird hybrid where touring comics play to packed houses in one part and the older wing houses two floors of the town's museum. It's a collection that bats above the average.
Cecil's story is told in considerable detail in the very room where he was born, which adds an extra frisson. The displays are commendably free of jingoism but also unexpectedly light on criticism, suggesting they've not been updated for some time. I kept reading ("founded De Beers") ("ruled the country") ("restricted voting rights") expecting to see some recognition of a tarnished reputation, or indeed any focus on the native population, but none was forthcoming. They have at least removed his name from the building, originally the Rhodes Memorial Hall, then the Rhodes Memorial Museum and Commonwealth Centre, later the Rhodes Centre and now the entirely anodyne South Mill Arts Centre.
Elsewhere I was fascinated by the tale of the Gilbey family who lived on Windhill and were big names in the stagecoach industry before that went bust. But Sir Walter Gilbey created an even greater fortune in the 1880s by importing inexpensive wines which tempted the middle classes away from ale, and also upsold Gilbey'sGin to create the global brand we know today. On the upper balcony I admired the Bishop's Stortford Mural, an 8-metre-long embroidery sewn locally in the 1980s, also the ancient stocks rescued from a local village, also a 'contemporary reminiscence box' created by local teenagers. The latter contains nothing you would have picked in your youth, instead showcasing objects including a liquid eyeliner brush, a PlayStation game, an empty Amazon package and a can of carbonated lemon drink.
But the town's finest attraction, for residents and visitors alike, has to be the River Stort itself. It's special because it's navigable, this because the town's malt trade was suffering in the 1760s so an entrepreneur called George Jackson funded a transformation from river to pseudo-canal. It didn't make him exceptionally rich but it did turbo-charge business locally and earn him a knighthood. The towpath means it's extremely easy to walk alongside and can be tracked a lot further than your average river, potentially all the way to Hoddesdon. In the town centre it feels a bit hemmed in, and by the station is now overlooked by 740 newbuild flats on the site of the old goods yard. This stretch is quite joggy, doggy and cycly, so do keep going.
Beyond the railway line is a rumbling weir to cross and reedy woodland to walk through, then the first of the Stort Navigation's locks at South Mill. The Canal & River Trust have done a fine job of installing information boards all the way down, so you'll discover where best to look for pike, what's left of the millwheel and why the Minister of Transport turned up in 1924. I merely walked as far as Rushy Mead Nature Reserve, a tranquil scrape of sedge beds and flooded alder, but it's only an hour further to Sawbridgeworth if you're not too tired from exploring Bishop's Stortford instead. Which as I hope I've proved above is clearly worth doing. Just because it's the commuter belt doesn't mean it isn't innately fascinating.
Stroudley Walk has reopened! It's been four miserable years.
Memo to non-Bow residents Stroudley Walk is a pedestrianised street in Bromley-by-Bow near Bow Church, the church. It was redeveloped in the 1980s, exceptionally unattractively, wiping away all but three of the original Victorian buildings. Formerly it was the top end of Devons Road but they renamed it Stroudley Walk when adding the hideous brick colonnades. It's just been redeveloped again.
I went to the pharmacy on Friday afternoon and noticed most of the hoardings had been removed, with just a feeble plastic tape to keep people out. When I came back out a few minutes later a man was rolling up the aforementioned tape, and I asked "have you actually finished?" and he said yes. I'm not sure we had much of a language in common but he must have picked up on my enthusiasm because he grinned, and when I said "you must be proud" he nodded and continued to roll. By collecting a prescription I had accidentally borne witness to the precise moment of regeneration.
It's hard to overstate how horrible StroudleyWalk used to be, despite the good efforts of the businesses and residents based there. Four rows of shops mostlyconcealed behind brick arches. A tall block of flats surrounded by scrappy grass. A large central zone optimistically left empty for market stalls but where only pigeons ever gathered. A dingy Post Office that shifted somewhere nicer in 2014. A Victorian pub that called last orders in 2006 and morphed into a cash and carry, then a chicken shop. A broad windswept cut-through devoid of charm. The architects should have been forced to live in one of the flats above the betting shop as some kind of punishment.
There thus weren't many dissenting voices when it was proposed to knock most of it down and building something better. The block of flats would be replaced by something twice the size. Two lower blocks would be shoehorned into excess space elsewhere. The southern parades would be replaced by a street of actual houses, not flats. All in all there'd be 274 new homes where previously there'd been 52, also a pocket park, also a community hub, also 33 new trees, also half the original shops would be retained in a cluster around the three listed buildings. But they'd been promising this would happen for years.
The crunch came in June 2022 when construction finally began, or rather demolition started. Down came Warren House floor by floor, and a team of builders moved in to undertake everything the redevelopment demanded. Annoyingly they set up camp in Stroudley Walk's central space, entirely blocking it off, which quite wrecked connectivity hereabouts. A gap of just 50m forced a quarter mile detour from one side to the other, this particularly annoying for those living to the south who couldn't easily get to the shops any more.
Those shops could also only be accessed via a thin strip of shielded walkway, necessitating squeezing past the takeaway and several trays of vegetables laid atop upturned crates. The hit to custom proved too much for Ahmed's Bakers Delight which ceased trading, also the coffee shop called Posted which opened with high hopes in 2024 and admitted defeat a year later. This cafe was about the only thing which might have appealed to incomers moving into the replacement 25-storey apartment block, a private tower branded Upper East, but instead its construction snuffed the business out.
But hurrah, after 46 blockaded months the hoardings are finally down and we can all walk through again. I thought I noticed a broader smile on the face of the minimart cashier yesterday morning. And yes haven't they been busy.
We have herringbone paving all the way down. We have imported shrubbery. We have rising bollards so only very selective vehicles can get in. We have angular patches dotted with rocks and logs, these filled with gravel suggesting they might be for drainage. We have mature trees and saplings that came in on the back of a lorry. We have additional brick colonnades, these thinner and taller in an attempt to better conceal the ugliness behind. We have a part-finished play area, larger than expected but nowhere near ready for children to clamber over it. We have doors to at least four blocks of flats. And we have a rather nice artwork reflecting the most significant event that ever happened here.
On 17th February 1913 Sylvia Pankhurst climbed onto a cart outside the LCC school, which was located where Upper East now stands, and delivered a campaigning speech in support of Votes for Women. She pleaded for the women of Bow to join her in making a sacrifice to secure enfranchisement, then walked a few steps up the road and hurled a large flint through the window of the local undertakers. Two policemen duly seized her and dragged her along Bow Road to the newly-opened police station, which led to a sentence of two months hard labour and a famous hunger strike in Holloway prison. The new artwork is thus a big disc in suffragette colours featuring the dates 1903-1928 and a swirl of related positive phrases. It's great to finally see recognition here, but I doubt Sylvia would have been pleased to see the roundel attached to railings which bar entry to a private garden.
Some of the new blocks were opened in October by the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, his visit commemorated by a really cheap-looking plaque. But at least two blocks are still being fitted out ("Blue Overshoes Must Be Worn Throughout Block E") which'll be why there's still a small corral of diggers and portakabins outside the Halal Meat & Fish Bazar. The blocks all have locally relevant names, appropriately enough four pioneering women but seemingly skipping Sylvia Pankhurst. Let's see if we can work out who they were.
Zellie Emerson House:Zelie was an American activist who stood alongside Sylvia Pankhurst on her cart, spoke to the assembled crowd and ended up in prison for smashing the window of Bow Liberal Club. All the documentation I can find says her name has a single 'l' so I'm not sure why it's Zellie rather than Zelie here. Muriel Lester House: Along with her sister Doris, Muriel was responsible for two great social projects to support the downtrodden of Bromley-by-Bow. One was Children's House, a nursery school which opened just round the corner in 1923 and the other was Kingsley Hall, best known as the place where Mahatma Gandhi stayed when he spent three months in Britain in 1931. Muriel explains all in this Pathé News report, and she is brilliant. Rosaline McCheyne House:Rosaline was another member of the East London Federation of Suffragettes, more in an administrative role but none the less important for it was her who gathered the subscriptions that helped pay bail to get offenders out of prison. She also set up a pioneering Baby Clinic in St Leonards Street offering health advice and free milk to the mothers of newborns, this long before Call The Midwife. Estelle House: Estelle who? Aha, Sylvia Pankhurst's full name was Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst, so she is commemorated after all, appropriately enough by the tallest of the new buildings.
It's lovely to have Stroudley Walk back and open again, even if not all the workmen have cleared off yet. Four years of severance are finally over, I have hundreds of new neighbours and I suspect a few new businesses will be moving into the units under some of the newbuilds. Stroudley Walk's gentrification journey isn't over yet and could still arguably go too far, but it's impossible to look back on the previous grim brown incarnation and say this isn't a huge improvement.
During lockdown I watched the shell of V&A East creep up floor by floor. In 2022 I watched cranes swinging panels of angular cladding into place. Since 2023 I've been taking photos of the alien bugexterior while work continued fitting out the interior. In 2024 I got to walk round the exterior for the first time with the remodelling of Carpenters Road substantially complete. Last week I stood beneath the huge statue out front and peered in through the glass door where the cleaners were doing some last-minute tidying up in the shop. And today's it's all systems go.
You'll find V&A East easily enough, there are big circular signs plastered on the ground across the Olympic Park pointing in the right direction. The easiest walk is out of Westfield, head for the Aquatics Centre and turn right at Sadler's Wells. If you're really stumped you can ask a security guard, there are loads of security guards, even first thing on Friday morning there were half a dozen security guards each patrolling their little bit of untrodden waterside. But that's surveillance paranoia for you, even though it's acknowledged "levels of crime on the Park are very low" I guess better safe than sorry. Alternatively you can come by bus, the 241 now stops round the back.
The statue out front is by Thomas J Price, a mixed race artist who grew up on a south London council estate. He specialises in oversized likenesses of young folk in casual get-up, usually black, often clutching a smartphone as is indeed the case here. We've had plenty of TJP's work in East London before, the first in 2013 near ThreeMills and recently two anonymous gentlemen outside Hackney Town Hall. They always look good and they're always making a point, that point often being "you don't normally see statues of ordinary people like me". A Place Beyond is his tallest yet at 18 feet, and according to V&A East's director "it symbolises those historically excluded from public monuments, challenging our preconceptions about representation, perception and identity".
There's more art if you look down, a chain of circles atop the paving representing the south Indian decorative tradition of Kolam. These are by Lubna Chowdhary, a Tanzanian-born Pakistani artist, who deliberately spaced out the blobs at a stride's length. They call this piazza Waterfront Square, this because all the imagination was put into the art and definitely not into the naming process. The most overlooked artwork, I'd be willing to bet, is a series of oral histories called Voices of East Bank. It's only mentioned in the corner of a small information board and expects you to surf to the website eastbankvoices.co.uk to listen to 120 themed stories told by local residents. It's a wonderful idea but I reckon the museum would have closed before you got to the end, so it's just as well they've also provided transcripts... and maybe better to peruse a few at home instead.
The waterfront is overlooked by a massive terrace with stepped seating. It looks ridiculously unnecessary out of season but is very well used by all the students at the fashion college nipping out for a chat, vape or bite of food. They must also be the target audience for the row of eateries hidden down below at the riverside, only three of which are as yet occupied, because I doubt most visitors will ever notice them. They all do drinks but only one does ceremonial-grade matcha, only one does detox zinger juices and only one accompanies theirs with a suite of board games. The art down here is a series of fluorescent starburst phrases representing modern Cockney rhyming slang with "modern diasporic influences", so Jollof Rice means nice, S Club 7 means heaven and Clock 'em 'n' Pree means see. My eyes rolled too.
If you've not yet got the hint, East Bank is targeting a younger diverse audience rather than typical culturegoers. That's especially obvious from the theme of the first paid-for exhibition at V&A East which is called The Music is Black: A British Story. It's had excellentreviews, mostly from trusted media who didn't have to fork out £22.50 on a ticket, all augmented by an interactive soundscape on dished-out headphones as you wander round. It's also fully sold out this weekend so don't come specially for that yet. You could instead sample the collection of words and music the BBC's put together on BBC Sounds, because even if their Music Studios aren't opening until next year they can always join in with the collective theme.
Be aware that you don't have to be a student to pop inside UAL and admire the architecture, especially the central staircase, and can also explore whatever exhibition they might have on. Currently it's called Resonant Matter and explores the symbiosis between underground culture, music and fashion, so expect pirate radio and immersive installations, not a neatly arranged collection of dresses. Likewise Sadler's Wells East are getting in on the theme with a black-focused dance programme, most of it ticketed performances but tomorrow as a special treat there's a free and joyful showcase of collective jiggling called the Get Into Dance Festival. When there's no event on, however, Sadler's Wells East is basically just a smart cafe in a foyer with a lot of students upstairs.
The latest addition to East Bank's hospitality offering is V&A East's ground floor cafe, Jikoni, which occupies a prime corner and a strip of outside terrace. Its menu is inspired by rich flavours from immigrant cuisine, as those who've dined in its Marylebone restaurant will be aware, so although they do sausage rolls theirs are filled with spicy Baharat lamb. Meanwhile their toasties contain Goan aubergine achaar with Monty's Cheddar, all yours for 11.5, and if it's soup you want then the sole option is a mug of chicken, turmeric and lemongrass bone broth. It's not what Stratford folk were used to before the Olympic Park sparked mass gentrification, but I expect it'll be packed out.
Indeed I reckon the entire East Bank complex will be brimming over today with inquisitive culture seekers, making this the very worst possible day to look round V&A East's sole two free galleries. I'll probably give it a miss until midweek when all the rubberneckers have thinned out and there's a hope of admiring the architecture and the exhibits rather than weaving through a throng of people. Ian Visits has an excellent and honest review from before the place opened, hence his sightlines were clear and his staircase photos are immaculate. But how amazing to have all this on my doorstep, not just V&A East but the whole of the East Bank, now waiting for just one more building to open.
